anyone played citiesxl2012 yet?

[gflk81 0]

Just wondering if anyone has played the newest version yet? mostly curious about the night lighting

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Just wondering if anyone has played the newest version yet? mostly curious about the night lighting

I've only been in it for an hour, but it feels exactly like 2011 w/ unlocker mod, though less buggy.

I'm really underwhelmed atm, though modding should make things more interesting.

I haven't played long enough yet, but if the game still has the many little issues that annoyed the crud out of me in XL/2011, such as sections of highway not quite lining up, etc., I will have to declare this a waste of $40, at least until the modders get going.

Biggest disappointment: still no trains! I really wanted to see some effing freight trains.

  Edited October 20, 2011 by littlesquare.dot  

[Canthus 0]

I have been waiting for trains and other transit options. Currently I'm still downloading the install for 2012. 97% at the time of this post.

[eburress 267]

I have. The game play is smoother, but my question is where are the freeway interchanges? I would have expected there to be new, cool freeway interchanges, but now there are fewer than before - WTH?!?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I'm at 65% and I certainly hope this $13.45 DLC turned my waste of $50 dollars into something useful.

[DCMetro34 577]

I have been waiting for trains and other transit options. Currently I'm still downloading the install for 2012. 97% at the time of this post.

As for trains, are you guys aware of the NEXL mod? (Linky!) It is bringing trams, bike paths, pedestrian paths, and many other options. It's kinda like NAM for CXL, in a way.

As for the game, I'd say it's pretty similar to 2011, like the other said. I haven't played it yet, but it was an upgrade for 2011 users, so there's really not much facelift stuff being implemented.

[im1knight 0]

so does 2012 support multi core now? That's the most important thing for me....

[Ocram's Razr 964]

It seems to have 2 threads.

[RenneCR 2]

multicore? what?

[littlesquare.dot 0]

I just played for a few hours... they really didn't change much for the better, nor add anything new that we haven't already seen, but they did manage to get rid of the most useful of the highway off-ramps.

It runs a little smoother than 2011, but I would definitely not recommend 2012 at this point.

  Edited October 21, 2011 by littlesquare.dot  

[eburress 267]

I just played for a few hours... they really didn't change much for the better, nor add anything new that we haven't already seen, but they did manage to get rid of the most useful of the highway off-ramps.

It runs a little smoother than 2011, but I would definitely not recommend 2012 at this point.

Yeah, what the hell was that? Rather than add interchanges, they removed them. WTF!?!

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Yeah, what the hell was that? Rather than add interchanges, they removed them. WTF!?!

I don't know what they were thinking with this release.. well, yes I do.. charge as much as they can while offering as little as they can.

I'm starting to think that the menu, shortcut icon, and splash screen are the only things that have changed, and even they haven't changed much.. and I take back my comment about the game running smoother, as it began chugging pretty badly after a few hours of play last night. At present, XL 2011 w/ unlocker mod offers more IMHO.

Thus far I've spent $100 on the series, and I have yet to see much in the way of a return. Methinks wishful thinking is all that keeps me coming back.

*edit: did they even fix they memory leak, because it still freezes up on me when I leave it open over night.

  Edited October 21, 2011 by littlesquare.dot  

[boogiesbc 0]

If it doesn't have multi-core support I think this will be the last Cities XL that we'll see. A lot of people are waiting for CXL 2012 because they are expecting that multi-core support. If it doesn't have it, the obvious thing is that a lot of people won't buy it and it will be a failure on the market. At this point it is clear that they won't make another version.

  Edited October 21, 2011 by boogiesbc  

[Ocram's Razr 964]

1. It runs on two threads. I checked that with Task Manager. One thread is larger than the other, I assume it does the majority of the simulation work. The other thread takes up more space if I change some spaces but it is very difficult to get the first thread to use up less.

2. I have noticed duplicate buildings (same model, same statistics), sometimes with the same names but always different textures. The game treats them differently because their overlap space has higher satisfaction, which is fortunate.

3. I have noticed more regular buildings and occasionally GEM buildings growing from the normal zones. My industrial city in the rocky desert (the one with fuel covering 90% of the map and 110% of the easily accessible map) looks fine, unless I zoom into the low density shopping area, where I see that 2 of the shop buildings have snow.

4. The game plays smoother for the first hour compared to 2011 version, 2011 mods apply to 2012 (which gave me odd errors, which I fixed by removing all .PATCH files and deleting cities).

5. I spent approximately $80 on the franchise, by preordering CXL:LE, CXL:2011, and CXL:2012.

6. I appreciate the fact that they now have modding support.

7. I plan on playing Minecraft far more than Cities XL.

[Superbacon 380]

Played it last night and this morning, and going to play it again tonight. Feels a lot like 2011.. but that may be because barely anything's changed. Paid $14 on Steam for it so it still feels fairly worth it. Don't really think I'll be making any mountain towns though. Beach however, yes.

[paulg 0]

still no trains ?

I think it is a terrible job to add a train-system that influence the transportation, otherwise they would have done it already in the first game.

But I think every normal city has a railroad an at least one train-station. (but you can mod one now, but you cannot mod the railroad) It would be nice to make a big city with a Grand Central (or look-a-like) railroads belong in the landscape here and there.

Will it be easy to build the railroad of the trams on groundlevel this time ? You can connect a modded trainstation to it. It will not work but look good.

If there are trains in the game I defenately go for the expension ! The game looked good from the beginning.

[boogiesbc 0]

I played it too. Built a city till 250.000 people and then quit the game. Even if you say it runs on two threads it still drops the fps rate when zooming in even just a little. And I feel the need to mention that I'm not using shadows, traffic and other visual options that might drop the fps rate. Well... all in all, I have only one thing to say: Bad management leads to bankruptcy in the end. Good luck, Focus!

Now I'm hoping that EA will make a new Sim City that is totally different than Deluxe.

  Edited October 22, 2011 by boogiesbc  

[RenneCR 2]

NEXL mod will introduce trams and other stuff for CXL. The RAIL will come in a later NEXL release.

A lot more can be done to cxl12, and I think the modding Focus will move to cxl12.

[USA_Pride 49]

Just as I suspected. They did a few minor updates (that should have been free), increment the year number, and call it a brand new game!

Cities XL has been a huge disappointment from the beginning.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

This time, they were smart enough to make it a cheap little DLC for current users instead of a huge, $50 game with a 50% discount. The full game is for new buyers and the DLC adds random buildings (increases the building diversity but some of the growable buildings should be plopable or special zone only), some new maps and MegaStructures, and of course, the only way to keep the fandom going for years without a release, modding tools.

I am glad that we have such excellent modders that started work before the modding tools were available and now can be even more ambitious now that there are plenty of easier to use tools.

[City Planner 121]

Played it, it feels exactly like 2011, and indeed IS exactly like 2011, only with an additional 280~ buildings and 15 maps. According to everything I've been able to read about it, there is no other differences. Other than it's now full of more bugs than 2011 was, most having to do with the new buildings.

It is suggested that people that find it smoother, have either upgraded their computers and not taking that into account, or it's purely a placebo effect.

  Edited October 24, 2011 by City Planner  

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Played it, it feels exactly like 2011, and indeed IS exactly like 2011, only with an additional 280~ buildings and 15 maps.

Additional 280 buildings when compared to 2011 WITHOUT unlocker mod maybe, but all I've noticed is the buildings and structures that have been taken away, or that were offered with 2011 w/ the unlocker mod, but for some reason aren't included in this release.

I think my disappointment with this release rivals my disappointment with SimCity Societies. Whould'a thought that was possible?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

To be honest, this game is far better than SimCity Societies, has nothing to do with EA or Maxis, is roughly based on the engine of a game released in 2006 (last updated in 2008) that few people cared about, rose to fame and notoriety for its different set of features, and has been improving in a similar way to how City Life did, extra content, minor bug fixes, and after 2 years, modding tools.

Having played City Life, I never had high expectations. Once Monte Cristo went under, I honestly thought that was the end of the series but what content and updates that were released kept me happy. Honestly, I expected CXL2012 to be $50 with a 50% discount with less features. I was planning on sticking to Minecraft instead.

Now, if you are a hardcore SimCity 4 deluxe fan with expectations for any new city builder to be nothing less than SimCity 4 in 3D with even more features for the price of $20, you will be repeatedly let down and will never be satisfied. Maxis will absolutely never release another SimCity game.

  Edited October 26, 2011 by OcramSeattle  

[soltangris 42]

CXL 2012 is indeed only a DLC (they even call it that already on the official site), and nobody should have expected anything substantial to change.

To be honest, we have to say that this time nobody from Focus even tried to raise expectations. If anybody expected trains and multi-core support, he has only himself to blame for being disappointed, because Focus never promised that.

What they promised, they delivered- 15 new maps, many new buildings, all of them beautiful (some of them kinda weird). The Mountain and Beach buildings really look spectacular to me, who never installed the Unlocker mod - they're really unique not only visually, but also in terms of size (much smaller than everything else there is), and allow for creation of realistically-looking, albeit non-functioning resorts.

Now, what leaves me angry is that even the new stuff that was added is somewhat problematic. In some cases it's minor issues like misnamed buildings, or wrong building info, in other cases it's much more serious, such as beach and mountain residences not filling up (the same problem as the Stilted houses), and other newly added residential buildings appearing always with 'Not connected to the City Hall' icon. However, we can expect a patch to fix that reasonably soon.

But all these considerations pale when we start talking mods I don't know if you guys here at Simtropolis follow close what's going on in the rapidly expanding CXL modding community, but I can tell you that we're seeing stuff that is nothing short of AMAZING, and it seems to be multiplying by the week.

- We've got a Residential mod that allows combining several separate buildings into a single mega-building, or row of buildings, and which is soon to be applied to industries as well;

- We've got a Highway mod in the works that finally allows bifurcations and realistic custom exits

- We've got the Harbour mod almost ready, which allows construction of beautiful and functional modular harbours

- And of course all pales in comparison to the NEXL, which promises to change forever the way we see CXL.

Seriously, if I were you, I'll forget to complain and I'll start to jump up and down, eagerly awaiting a new era of city-building That's what I'm doing, at least.