What EA could have done

[Jamonbread 222]

I have been reading the development of Cities in Motion 2 and I cannot beleive how much they are building their sequel on the exact opposite values of EA.

Its bizarre that this transport game seems to be answering almost all the calls for simcity that EA has been defending as impossible to do. While Glass Box may be putting sever limits on them it seems stupid that this game with way less history and brand power is creaming EA.

I just looked at cities in motion 2 and they have been so much different than EA and although they are adding complexity they are getting 100% great reviews. Well gosh! Isn't that crazy, EA has constantly used the reply of needed to dumb the game down for main stream appeal. Time will tell on which game is more of a success but so far CIM is winning big time.

CIM announced off grid city building as it is. A long time coming, done before and as a basic improvement of gameplay. If you ask Sim City it seems like its the equivalent of sending a rover to Mars.

CIM is making their maps bigger, wayyyyy bigger. Their large size is 8x8. Talk to Sim City and they limit to at least 8 times as small and add a population limit of 100,000.

CIM is going back to the Sim City 4 style of a basic region, city connections and commuting. Sim City 4 is claiming this has become too complex and we now have stand alone bubbles.

CIM is improving terraforming and creating landscape sets so each region can be made a different style. Sim City removed this entirely, even it appears civil engineering scale changes.

CIM has kept up their graphic and realistic quality, and actively looking for more ideas to add all aspects of real transit planning to the game. While simcity is letting us build modules onto public buildings which is great, when you module is in addition to a blue brick building with a giant badge sign on it like their police stations, realism is impossible. I get the tilt shift style, not the cartoony off scale stuff.

I know I'm missing a lot but its impossible for me to not look at out requests, find them blatently ignored by EA and implemented by a game that isnt a full blown city simulator going above and beyond. They seem to understand what I think a lot of this community is dying for in Sim City 5.

Sure Glass box is great but are the restrictions that it creates worth it? Before anyone comments that CIMl only has to simulate a few transit vehicles the new game actually generates completly random off grid expansion as you play and reacts to your transit system which has got to be a decently complex simulator to run.

If Sim City and CIM combined it would be an awesome game I think. While Sim City 5 has introduced some great new ideas, all the great things about Sim City 4 have been wiped it seems.

A bit of a ramble but I hope people can understand basicly what Im musing about.

[Xenocity 343]

CIM was a relatively simple game with a small number of objects on the screen.

CIM also has less things to simulate and things to render.

In short Simcity 2013 is far more complex of a game to render and simulate than the newest CIM.

[yummysinsemilla 16]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

[Xenocity 343]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

[yummysinsemilla 16]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

That's just how life is sometimes, not fair.

When the PS3 came out, was everyone mad that Playstation releases were made for the PS3 rather than the PS2? If they wanted to play them, they had to go out and get a PS3. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan. I had to buy a PS3 to play FFXIII when it came out. When the US made television broadcast in digital rather than analog, everyone who didn't have cable had to get digital converters or HD antennas or they couldn't watch television. There's just a couple examples.

I understand EA's side. They want to sell as many units as possible, but in turn, that takes away from the game's potential. Like I said, hopefully in the future they will find a better balance and allow us to have larger maps.

[Xenocity 343]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

That's just how life is sometimes, not fair.

When the PS3 came out, was everyone mad that Playstation releases were made for the PS3 rather than the PS2? If they wanted to play them, they had to go out and get a PS3. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan. I had to buy a PS3 to play FFXIII when it came out. When the US made television broadcast in digital rather than analog, everyone who didn't have cable had to get digital converters or HD antennas or they couldn't watch television. There's just a couple examples.

I understand EA's side. They want to sell as many units as possible, but in turn, that takes away from the game's potential. Like I said, hopefully in the future they will find a better balance and allow us to have larger maps.

Actually PS3 thing is different because Sony priced it at $599 being the most expensive mainstream console (Only Neogeo was more expensive)

If Sony would have priced the system at $399 or less it would have been welcomed with cheers.

[yummysinsemilla 16]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

That's just how life is sometimes, not fair.

When the PS3 came out, was everyone mad that Playstation releases were made for the PS3 rather than the PS2? If they wanted to play them, they had to go out and get a PS3. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan. I had to buy a PS3 to play FFXIII when it came out. When the US made television broadcast in digital rather than analog, everyone who didn't have cable had to get digital converters or HD antennas or they couldn't watch television. There's just a couple examples.

I understand EA's side. They want to sell as many units as possible, but in turn, that takes away from the game's potential. Like I said, hopefully in the future they will find a better balance and allow us to have larger maps.

Actually PS3 thing is different because Sony priced it at $599 being the most expensive mainstream console (Only Neogeo was more expensive)

If Sony would have priced the system at $399 or less it would have been welcomed with cheers.

The price is really irrelevant. It's the principle I was after.

The game is how it is and I'm sure I'll like it, but it just leaves a little bitter taste in my mouth that I have a machine that could run a city much larger than what I'm limited to, with ease.

[Superbacon 380]

That's partially because it has a built-in Blu-Ray player.

[gc6164 36]

Im kinda put off Simcity now, IMO The graphics are better and not so cartoonish, Especially when I saw this picture.. http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=71769&d=1358845681.... I wasn't a fan of cities in motion but after I saw this I am more excited about this release.. Thinking of cancelling my simcity pre order..

[Xenocity 343]

Im kinda put off Simcity now, IMO The graphics are better and not so cartoonish, Especially when I saw this picture.. http://forum.paradox...69&d=1358845681.... I wasn't a fan of cities in motion but after I saw this I am more excited about this release.. Thinking of cancelling my simcity pre order..

So you are put off by colorful graphics?

I'll never understand the Western hate for colorful games.

[yummysinsemilla 16]

Im kinda put off Simcity now, IMO The graphics are better and not so cartoonish, Especially when I saw this picture.. http://forum.paradox...69&d=1358845681.... I wasn't a fan of cities in motion but after I saw this I am more excited about this release.. Thinking of cancelling my simcity pre order..

So you are put off by colorful graphics?

I'll never understand the Western hate for colorful games.

It's not localized to any region.

Some do, some don't. I personally put very little emphasis on graphics. A SimCity game is probably the most emphasis I'd put on graphics of any game and honestly, the graphics are amazing.

That being said, I'll probably buy both games. They both look fun.

[gc6164 36]

Im kinda put off Simcity now, IMO The graphics are better and not so cartoonish, Especially when I saw this picture.. http://forum.paradox...69&d=1358845681.... I wasn't a fan of cities in motion but after I saw this I am more excited about this release.. Thinking of cancelling my simcity pre order..

So you are put off by colorful graphics?

I'll never understand the Western hate for colorful games.

Im not saying im put off by colourful graphics its just I was expecting better even though they are pretty nice though ..

Everyone has a different opinion anyway, as yummy said, 'some do some don't'

I will probably get simcity anyway I had a thought about it and I said why not? I've waited 10 years for a new one I should just get it.

[pyanodon 218]

True the CIM2 seems an amazing game. All i love in citybuilding games are the traffic system. While in SC13 we have only cars, bus, trans, boat and train (limited), in CIM2 we have A LOT more. You know, what a big city needs (even under/over passes and highways). I dunno how it will come out, but im sure, i will support them. They´re a smaller company and they´re bring a game that can be as good as the "big one" SC13.

[DmainEvent 195]

My personal feeling is that Maxis or EA or Both made a bad design decision early on (again, it is my opinion, I have no inside view of the design or no knowledge of the code base). And that is affecting the final product. People keep saying the map sizes will increase, I have personally not seen that indicated any where. And if glassbox is indeed limiting the size of the maps then it is a design flaw that can't be fixed with a patch. What if the resource issue is (n^2) or worse ?!?! Even a supercomputer won't be able to simulate a massive 8x8km city (as they have implied-two cities side-by-side hogged massive resources. Imagine one city 4-8x the size). To say I am extremely disappointed by Maxis is an understatement. I have come to expect much greater from them. They need to consider leaving EA and making games that their fans want.

[snwboardn 18]

Not to go too far off topic but Paradox Interactive is a great company... This is the first I've heard of CIM2 but their Crusader Kings II is by far my favorite turn based strategy game of all time.

I am not sure in this day and age why publishers exist at all. I am really hoping this crowd source funding thing really takes hold and forces the middle man out. In a broad spectrum EA is nothing more than a pimp, and a pimp does nothing more than flex his muscles and make his "employees" think they need him out of fear.

[Jokurr 175]

Crusader Kings II isn't exactly a turn based game but I agree it is awesome.

And you are aware that Paradox is publishing CIM2, right? They are not actually developing the game.

[Trioxis 32]

CiM isn't even a city-building game, so why compare it to a game that is?

Also, EU3 (and soon EU4) or bust.

[pyanodon 218]

CiM isn't even a city-building game, so why compare it to a game that is?

Also, EU3 (and soon EU4) or bust.

Anno 2070 and Tropico 4 too for example, but they still great games which similar "touches" of citybuilding. Simcity may be a crown, but there´s other jewels around that could make the crown more valuable.

[magicrobbie 77]

Remember the guys who re-created huge metropolitan areas in Sim City 4 and posted them on Simtropolis? I myself spent months re-creating the Bay Area on huge maps that I modeled based on Simtropolis maps, screenshots, mods and building downloads. It is such a shame that this will no longer be possible as maps have become really small and cities are no longer adjacent. I also think it is rather silly that the new maps are interconnected by just a very limited number of transportation links rather than merging into each other as it used to be. From the screenshots - Sim City 2013 looks great but also somewhat like Sim FarmVille. Maxis, please bring back large and fully-interconnected maps. Some of us players do have very powerful computers at home. Heck, I bought a new computer to play Sim City 4 and it was so worth it!

[gc6164 36]

CiM isn't even a city-building game, so why compare it to a game that is?

Also, EU3 (and soon EU4) or bust.

Because it is turning a bit into a city builder..

[Zukunftstraume 220]

It's part of CIM's elaborate plan. They probably have people hired whom have infiltrated the ranks of these forums and have been obsessively seeking out what SC2013 lacks for years now. Hell, they probably even infiltrated Maxis itself... Well, either way:

Let the best game win!

If CIM turns out to be the demise of Maxis, then so be it... It'll probably teach EA a lesson to stop conforming to their own twisted Wal-Mart style agenda

[Erthel 6]

Something Paradox does well is letting their developers, most of them independent studios who they "produce", to do whatever they think is best for their game. I know Paradox is not making craploads of money, but it's making the games they want, that also are awesome and give them enough to live comfortably.

[Decius 360]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

But this is 2013, everyone has a good computer according to EA's logic, because everyone has a constant Inet connection =D

Also its not glasbox thats requires your PC to be good, its the 3D rendering. The simulation goes fluently. And if you zoom out you cant even see the sims so I'm not buying that excuse. Its EA's doing to just simplyfy the game and making it fast paced to get more players atracted to it, period.

[croxis 150]

It's not really GlassBox that's creating the restrictions. It's EA telling Maxis that people with older computers should be allowed to play and have everyone on an even field.

I guess that's the corporate monster coming through.

I think in time though, the city sizes will increase. Even some Maxis developers think that the cities are too small.

Not really a good chunk of the Simcity fanbase would be very unhappy if they were forced to buy a new PC to play the new game.

It just makes it fair to everyone.

But this is 2013, everyone has a good computer according to EA's logic, because everyone has a constant Inet connection =D

Also its not glasbox thats requires your PC to be good, its the 3D rendering. The simulation goes fluently. And if you zoom out you cant even see the sims so I'm not buying that excuse. Its EA's doing to just simplyfy the game and making it fast paced to get more players atracted to it, period.

Incorrect. The developers have said that the limitation is ram. Moving back to sprite graphics would not fix that (see: Dwarf Fortress)

[Zukunftstraume 220]

But this is 2013, everyone has a good computer according to EA's logic, because everyone has a constant Inet connection =D

Also its not glasbox thats requires your PC to be good, its the 3D rendering. The simulation goes fluently. And if you zoom out you cant even see the sims so I'm not buying that excuse. Its EA's doing to just simplyfy the game and making it fast paced to get more players atracted to it, period.

The sad part is that they're trying to target this to a bigger audience... Possibly the Spore and Sims 3 audience. The problem is that most of those people don't care too much about building big cities or anything of the sort (don't take this the wrong way, I've known plenty of Sims fans that were obsessive with building their own neighborhoods from scratch the build mode). EA simply doesn't realize that city-building isn't something these people highly admire, and they won't be able to pull in that many people from that target audience. So, by dumbing down the game, they've also isolated HALF of their devout SimCity fans from the past, many of them being the quite hardcore fans.

They'll overall getting a pretty good launch, but if the issues that we query about aren't fixed soon, they'll have a massive fall-out like Diablo 3 and the game will turn into a bust. All the fans from the previous SC games will quit and there won't be too many people except a few simpletons who have a slight appetite for city-building but nothing more.

  Edited January 26, 2013 by CaptCity  

[macvirt 361]

Heh, why do you think so many of them spent so much time stating how much experience they had built up with Spore and Sims Both for gameplay orientation and technicalities and even online play and DRM.

Look, the fans of the previous SC games are NOT the market target here. They are potentially handy for marketing purposes. Enablers of word of mouth. But they are not necessary, if it comes to it.

Today it is just cheaper, easier and more financially worthwhile to cater to leisure and casual gameplay targets, delivering a shell game where the supplementation by means of DLC is rapidly becoming the actual revenue stream. "Core" users are not interesting. Making a deep / complete / immersive game is not interesting for EA. It is not necessary, and rewards less.

[Decius 360]

Incorrect. The developers have said that the limitation is ram. Moving back to sprite graphics would not fix that (see: Dwarf Fortress)

And you know how cheap RAM is nowdays right? and how much you stuff in your PC. 8g les 50 euro;s its totally not a plausible excuse

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Heh, why do you think so many of them spent so much time stating how much experience they had built up with Spore and Sims Both for gameplay orientation and technicalities and even online play and DRM.

Look, the fans of the previous SC games are NOT the market target here. They are potentially handy for marketing purposes. Enablers of word of mouth. But they are not necessary, if it comes to it.

Today it is just cheaper, easier and more financially worthwhile to cater to leisure and casual gameplay targets, delivering a shell game where the supplementation by means of DLC is rapidly becoming the actual revenue stream. "Core" users are not interesting. Making a deep / complete / immersive game is not interesting for EA. It is not necessary, and rewards less.

That's what depresses me... They're making it easy, too easy for people... Getting rid of some of the greater aspects of the game. Region-creating and God-Mode.... GONE! Realism is also starting to be shoved out the door a bit.

[City Planner 121]

"The limitation is ram"...

I've got 16GB of RAM in my laptop, and 24GB in my desktop computer and I've yet to see any game that I own (and I've got over 200 on steam, and another 150 boxed games in my home office) ever utilize more than 3GB. Even those games that I manually set with a program to make them 4GB aware so they can use it if needed still never come even remotely close to even using 1/4 of the RAM that is available in my computer.

We need to remember that some publishers and developers still think that the audience is not intelligent enough to see through their spiel and so continue to spout it. Ultimately I do not believe that the limitation is RAM, I believe the glass box engine they're working on is the true limiting factor here that they will not overcome. This game will never feel as fufilling as SC4 (with mods) has felt for the past many years. IMHO

[SirChick 184]

CIM was a relatively simple game with a small number of objects on the screen.

CIM also has less things to simulate and things to render.

In short Simcity 2013 is far more complex of a game to render and simulate than the newest CIM.

Simcity was a simple game gone too simple now in SC2013 lol... based on how CIM is going i think they could build a nice city game with their engine - maybe one day.