What EA could have done

[iowahawkeyedave 8]

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

That assumes that your motherboard is capable of handling more RAM. If not, then it's much more than simply buying more RAM.

[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.

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.

I beg to differ!

I played the beta and the new simcity is heavily focused on the simulation side more so than any Simcity to date.

The city building part could use an expansion pack!

The point is the new Simcity is quite complicated, it just doesn't look it when you are starring at the city in building mode.

[iowahawkeyedave 8]

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.

I beg to differ!

I played the beta and the new simcity is heavily focused on the simulation side more so than any Simcity to date.

The city building part could use an expansion pack!

The point is the new Simcity is quite complicated, it just doesn't look it when you are starring at the city in building mode.

I agree, just taking a look at some of the graphs and info, it's actually more in depth than Simcity 4 was. For instance the building density graph, that has different heights for bars based on whether they were ready to upgrade to a higher density, or downgrade to a lower one.

You can open and close public buildings, etc, instead of demolishing them. Couldn't do that in SC4.

You can also add extensions to buildings such as adding classrooms to schools. Couldn't do that in SC4 outside of increasing the slider, which had no visible effect on the building.

Along with clicking on each house and seeing what they liked most about the city, what they disliked most about the city.

[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.

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.

I beg to differ!

I played the beta and the new simcity is heavily focused on the simulation side more so than any Simcity to date.

The city building part could use an expansion pack!

The point is the new Simcity is quite complicated, it just doesn't look it when you are starring at the city in building mode.

I agree, just taking a look at some of the graphs and info, it's actually more in depth than Simcity 4 was. For instance the building density graph, that has different heights for bars based on whether they were ready to upgrade to a higher density, or downgrade to a lower one.

You can open and close public buildings, etc, instead of demolishing them. Couldn't do that in SC4.

You can also add extensions to buildings such as adding classrooms to schools. Couldn't do that in SC4 outside of increasing the slider, which had no visible effect on the building.

Along with clicking on each house and seeing what they liked most about the city, what they disliked most about the city.

As I said in the beta thread, I was finally able to please all my sims for once due to all the data.

Also I had no frame rate or loading issues in this game

I still have issues running simcity 4 on my i7 laptop with 4GBs of ram and a 512MBs graphics card.

Maxis did me right!

[iowahawkeyedave 8]

I agree, I come away with the same feeling.

The beta ran well on medium settings on my 3 year old i5 laptop. On Simcity 4 I had issues running larger cities. The new Simcity may not allow you to build huge cities (yet)...but you can build better cities.

[Xenocity 343]

Exactly.

At the very least we get a stable game with good frame rates and no glitches.

[~Dee~ 215]

No glitches?

You haven't been to the Sim City Forum where some people ignored the NDA and gave their opinion about the beta and it wasn't favorable.

Now some people can't even play the beta because the server is down, hate to see what happens when millions of people want to connect to the server all on the same day on release.

[Decius 360]

I'd take a littee lag over beeing bored within an city in an hour any day.

And stating your laptop is 3 years old just how much RAM does that have? The medium setting suggest its limit is its graphics card, not the simulation or the RAM and I susspect you have about 4g tops.

If you dont have 4g or cant upgrade, maybe its time for a new computer since its been 3 years?

Honestly Simcity classic had a larger map to fill. No complex simulation but tbh the gameplay comes down to plop powerplant, zone R, zone I and zone C your set with the occasional demand for a service.

The simulation is fine, good job. Its just a waste due to the smal maps and i'm simpkly not buying the PC limits excuse. I bet Crysis gets played more than SimCity and those system specs are still rediculous.

EA MArketing limitation to get more players, that is the only reason

[ETK 14]

The simulation simply doesn't have enough layers. As Decius said it's all too automatic: you plop the zones and make sure you have enough power, then plop services as people demand them and you're good. Everything is so $%&^! automatic that you hardly have to think when you play.

No terraforming

No underground layer

No mass transit planning

Cheap service maintenance costs

No cost for zoning

No airport, harbor or other special zoning

Automatic utilities infrastructure

Most notably:

No traffic light / custom intersection planning, which could alone make the game very interesting, since it has put so much emphasis on road simulation

[macvirt 361]

I found it funny how emergency services have to abide by traffic lights.

[Hoipus 292]

I found it funny how emergency services have to abide by traffic lights.

I didn't learn about traffic lights until it was too late and my firefighters got stuck in a traffic jam that was right next to the building they were supposed to be putting out. They seriously could have walked out and just started putting it out from where they were stuck. For some reason everyone in the city was gravitating to this jam so my city was crippled (no buildings could be built etc) until I demolished and rebuilt the intersection.

[Xenocity 343]

The simulation simply doesn't have enough layers. As Decius said it's all too automatic: you plop the zones and make sure you have enough power, then plop services as people demand them and you're good. Everything is so $%&^! automatic that you hardly have to think when you play.

No terraforming

No underground layer

No mass transit planning

Cheap service maintenance costs

No cost for zoning

No airport, harbor or other special zoning

Automatic utilities infrastructure

Most notably:

No traffic light / custom intersection planning, which could alone make the game very interesting, since it has put so much emphasis on road simulation

Actually the simulation allows you to see underground when building water/sewage buidings and mining (yes you can have mines in your city)

There is mass transit, just no available in the beta.

There is currently, Street Cars, buses, Trams, Ferries, Trains (actually buses were the only ones available in the beta)

You also have municipal Airports and Sea ports you can put in your town (both were blocked in the beta)

For one I love the fact that I no longer have to place power and water lines.

You can also view the minerals, water tables, ground pollution among other via the tables/maps in the data section.

I for find the game more challenging to build your city to the map you are given instead of terraforming the map to your liking.

[SirChick 184]

No terraforming

No underground layer

No mass transit planning

Cheap service maintenance costs

No cost for zoning

No airport, harbor or other special zoning

Automatic utilities infrastructure

There is airports under the great works category. Also tunnels are quite difficult with the 3D terrain they have gone for which could be why. As for no terraform i am dissapointed about that too i do agree.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

"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

The game won't even be as fulfilling as the SC4 minus the mods!

[BeanBoy 10]

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.

True... But it's not their engine; it's Untiy3D, and it's most undoubtedly one of the best there is. More so, it's free!

If Collosal Order made a city simulation game (which I could probably predict with where they're going with Cities in Motion) they will unwittingly beat EA if they had the publicity.

[CaptCity 4,903]

Not even sure what the main topic here is any more. All of the issues raised have dedicated topics in the forum. Closing this...