Has Focus finally changed course of CXL - to platinum?

[ReneXL 16]

I have played Cities XL for many years and also modded it for quite some time. I loved SC3 and SC4 in the days of they're time. So far SC5 has been a huge disappointment for those who waited for Maxis/EA to pick up where they left with SC4deluxxe/rushhour.But sure Maxis/EA has a lot more to offer for SC5 - only for 9.99

 

In SC4 release time people were complaining that SC4 is hard, for example because they didnät knew that sims must be educated inorder to get high-tech. C'mon who hires a janitor to design high-tech? How does society works? So Maxis wanted some of that hardness away from the new SC. But still simulation is there, and despite CXL is more of city builder than simulator, in CXL there is simulation too.

 

OK I started to blabber.. I think I have have noticed that Focus has changed course with Cities XL - perhaps platinum outreach?

 

At first I was thinking nah I have CXL12 I'm not gonna bother with Platinum, and many of the new buildings miss stuff like trees. But some of the buildings are down right fancy. Despite popular belief, it's not just the new building that is new:

 

Cities XL Platinum:

* 52 new buildings

* 26 bug fixes to buildings (inc. offices, industries, homes, roads etc.)

* 14 bug fixes to maps 

* 6 lua-code files bug fixed

* 1 tree bug fixed

* An updated .exe (executable (game engine))

 

Not forgetting to mention that above this, Focus has already released not 1 but 2 patches for Cities XL Platinum since Platinum launch.

 

Now this is interesting. What can we assume from this? For long it seemed that FHI had ditched the game. Is Platinum just another attempt, now riding the wave of new SC, to milk crowd again? Or will they this time keep continue to release patches, and hopefully new features and game versions? Thanks for reading this far

 

After seeing the magnitude of new/updated/fixed from cxl12 to platinum, recalls for many mods to be updated, or people's cities will be messed.

[lew1984 231]

I said a similar thing in another thread I think there is a big opportunity here for focus in light of Simcity's issues, but what simcity's  launch has proved is that there is demand for these type of games. Maybe focus can pull out a winner in time.

[uebs 11]

The problem with Focus is they aren't as friendly as Maxis...

 

Their forums are dead, they don't really communicate with the community or interact with the community like Maxis.

 

But yeah, it is a great opportunity for Focus to grab this opportunity and go with it...

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

oh i didnt know that platinium was actually some bug fixes, i thought it was just 2011 + 2012 mix or smth.

[zorkman 25]

The problem with Focus is they aren't as friendly as Maxis...

 

Their forums are dead, they don't really communicate with the community or interact with the community like Maxis.

 

But yeah, it is a great opportunity for Focus to grab this opportunity and go with it...

You mean like lying Lucy Bradshaw. Very friendly and accomodating I'm sure. I do agree though that Focus are awful with public relations as well. Great opportunity, but will they take it.

[cirugo 1,889]

The problem with Focus is they aren't as friendly as Maxis...

 

Their forums are dead, they don't really communicate with the community or interact with the community like Maxis.

 

But yeah, it is a great opportunity for Focus to grab this opportunity and go with it...

If you call communicating ignoring all feedback then, yeah, Maxis is great at that.

[uebs 11]

Since John isn't CEO anymore I think Lucy should throw her hat into the ring

 

In anycase, I was thinking more in the lines of Guillaume Pierre...

 

He's on simtropolis, takes feedback from other posters, and is active on twitter...(I still think his traffic AI is flawed, and his tram logic explanation was nonsense...)

 

I think he implemented some poster's idea of instead of all garbage trucks following each other single file, they would leap frog each other.  This is better than the original follow the leader crap, but it's seriously inefficient for the player and is still seriously flawed.

 

Not sure what he was doing with bus/tram routes, but SC should do buses like they do in CitiesXL and if SC wants to take it up a level, they should be taking ideas from Cities In Motion 2...with not only bus routes, but schedules...

 

If Focus is still working on the game and not merely releasing bug fixes, they should take this opportunity to do community outreach, get ideas and feedback to improve.

 

SC most wanted feature is offline mode and mod tools...

 

CXL most wanted feature is multicore

 

neither of the franchises have delivered on the most wanted features.

 

Cities In motion seems to do good community relations, they're apparently implementing a lot of highly requested stuff...

 

It's not like CXL didn't mess up either, there online thing killed MC, but even though they quickly removed it it was too little, too late.

[ReneXL 16]

Let's not turn this into EA/MAXIS/SC discussion shall we.

 

But yes, the new SC is getting very bad press, and not just gaming magazines, but big mainstream medias like for example Forbes.

 

Focus should take this opportunity. But not only because of progress of SC. But because CXL is a great game even with it's defects. The modding community is great, they make huge improvements to the game, and new features.

 

Focus have in the past said very little about the future of CXL, but they have said something like this "we sure have ideas for future it's a dear game to us. in version 2012 they Focus getting the modding tool done", hinting that there is focus on something else on future versions.

 

Platinum came out of blue, total surprise for many. They could of done better. But at least they brought new buildings and bug fixes and code improvements. Nothing big, nothing major, but still something.

 

About Focus not being friendly.. Well Focus is a French company ~ go figure.

But they're technical heldesk is very active and quick to respond with solutions. So they do care.

Freki who takes care of all Focus games community forums, doesn't have time to clean all the $%&^! from focus cxl forum. There used to be voluntary mods but they kind of left at the same time xlnation.net was founded.

 

To the most wanted feature of CXL I would say of course multicore, but also RAIL. Metro simply isn't enough.

 

I know that Focus want's to improve CXL, but they have a major problem, the game was originally coded for online playing. And then later modded into soloplay. That and the one-core issue means, that Focus should start rebuilding from the very scratch. And it's not like a new completely new code Sim City comes out every year. 

 

But getting back to the original question, it does seem that Focus is more interested of CXL these days.

They could of course work the multicore, but also finish features such as GEMSKI and GEMBEACH. And maybe new: GEMTHEMEPARK. Really, much of the features could be these minitycoons inside CXL. It's not like for example Airports in the real world doesn't make money from they're operations and services.

[uebs 11]

Thanks for the heads up on CXL...

 

I gave up on SC2013 for now, too many in game bugs absolutely ruined it...

 

I really liked some aspects of CXL, big maps bus routes, more realistic looking than SC2013...

 

but it wasn't as (addictive) or fun as SimCity

 

CXL 34 hours played.

 

SC2013 210 hours played...

 

I'll definitely keep a eye out for any upcoming CXL releases, Cities in motion 2 looks interesting too, though it seems to be purely about managing traffic

 

It'd be interesting if CIM2 gets into the City Building space...