General problems and thoughts.

[Samuelsan1986 0]

Hi all.

 

I bought the game 1 or 2 days after release and have (or have at least tried to) played it since.

 

A number of different problems comes to mind, and now it have irritated me so much, that I hope to god that some administrator of some kind reads my post and does something about it. Okay... here it goes:

 

In Game:

 

 - When a emergency breaks out, I think that only the closest 3 or 5 units should respond (never mind if it is police, firefighters or ambulances). What i have experienced is that every single unit is dispatched to the same crime, fire etc. which does not only create traffic jams in larger cities, but this is also a problem if 5 or 10 crimes is committed at the same time.

 

 - The traffic management has to be better. It is simply not good enough when all people seem to take the same roads, even though there may be free roads which may take a bit longer than the jammed ones.

 

 - Higher tourist rates overall. I find this to be a problem especially from trains and airports. If i build a local airport there is like 30 people (and this is with 3 lanes for airplanes).

 

 - Higher rate of freight trains and increase the freight train capacity. When building the small trade depot for trucks only, a truck taking goods away can contain 1000 boxes/10 tons. When building a considerable more expensive freight harbor and a very expensive extra train module, it should be expected to take more than 2000 boxes/20 tons of goods. I imagine maybe 5000 tons/ 50 tons.

 

 - Train station road not eligible for cargo trucks. I had a problem where I one the one side had my main road and one the other side I had a road with 3 consumer electronic factories. In between the the 2 roads there was a train station connected to each side. However the cargo trucks was not delivering any goods/cargo to my consumer electronic factories for processing. I then built a secondary road which solved my problem, but it is still an annoying one. I don't know if anyone has experienced the same thing ?

 

 - Electronic and metal income should figure at the bottom income number. I have a big city with a large manufacturing ability, but still my hourly income is -70000. Could it not be possible to take a days sales income for these categories and divide by 24 to give a more precise number at the bottom. It is a bit annoying to be told you have a deficit problem, when in fact, you hold 25 M simoleons.

 

 - Time stops and other fails appear. When time stops, it seems that the games ability to set limits for extra modules for different buildings disappear. This is expressed through the speech bubbles where I am urged to upgrade my industrial facilities with extra modules. Once placed, the extra modules disappears but there is no limit displayed which makes it a bit weird. (smaller issue)

 

 - The nuclear reactor produces WAY to much radiation. I know that a nuclear reactor meltdown is not a good thing. I know. But still, it seems that just by running a plant, there is radiation which covers like 50-60 % of a city map. This is a bit excessive, don't you think ?

 

 - Maxis-man. All right, so you decided to make a superhero. Nice. But could you make him more independent ? Sure, I would like to follow him, but to activate him all the time is a bit tiresome. He should be more self sufficient, but still you should receive updates whenever you could upgrade his maxis tower. Think of it as combining the automated police response with the automated upgrade notice for the city hall upgrades.

 

 - Ground cleaning ability. I miss an option for cleaning the polluted earth. I imagine a building for this sort of business, but if you can think of another way, thats nice too. I know that the polluted earth heals itself over time, but it would be nice to speed up the process.

 

 - University research times. It is a bit slow, don't you think ? Maybe speed it up a little.

 

All other problems:

 

 - Money transactions between cities. You have got to be kidding me... Age of Empires 1 had the ability to transfer resources between players in real time. How come this does not work properly ? It does not matter whether I try to transfer 5,0 or 10 M simoleons it just seems to go to a big black hole. Come on EA. This seems like basic stuff.

 

 - "Cannot access city" problem. Why does this occur ? this is very annoying.

 

 - "Rollback" problem. It is a nice feature that the game can rollback if the alternative is a crashed game, but does it really have to show so often ? this is annoying as well.

 

 - Overall city interaction. When I give/share 15 fire trucks to a neighboring city, I certain hope that they show to make the day at that very city. However it seems, that the buttons you press to share your vehicles have very little effect. In fact, the whole regional menu seems to be a bit out of order.

 

 - Public games problem. When I try to join a public game, all I can see is already filled up games. This give me little pleasure. A search option should be introduced to filter full games from available games. Also, when I make a game and would like people to join me, no one joins. I suspect that if almost everybody only can see full games, then that's where the problem lies.

 

 - City size problem. I would very much like a bigger city, since I feel that the building space is a bit compressed. Sims have an ability to reside many on a small space which is nice, but many of the other buildings take up lots of space. so all I am left with is a feeling of "more... More... MORE!!!!"

 

 

All right, this was quite a bit, but I hope EA, Maxis and whoever is responsible is listening.

[perafilozof 143]

Trees will clear up ground pollution quite nicely. You just have to replant them a few times, they tend to die on filthy ground.

 

When your city clock disappears just go to main menu then back again.

 

All the problems with cities not saving, rollback and so on are already because the servers can't handle the simulation. I have NEVER seen a rollback on low-medium density with only 50% of the map used. And on maps that don't even have enough room to make buildings I have never had rollbacks even with 150 k pop and high density and traffic.

 

Traffic, tourists / gambling needs a total overall, fire trucks seem to be working better they go for other fires at the same time, not just one.(or at least they do if they come from another city). 

 

Building a great work seems to be especially hit by server registering problems. They way they receive required items and keep track of the quantity is totally bugged to high heaven. 

 

The thing that you must remember is that the game is a) filled with post launch bugs b) having terrible problems with server-user interaction and most importantly c) the game isn't even fully activated atm, lots of features have been disabled and those are just the ones they told us about. God only knows how many more they disabled by they are "under the hood" so we can't even see what's missing. 

[Horza3003 1]

I used to have all of my cities rolling back all the time, but I have since worked out how to stop.  When in game, DO NOT go "quit sim city" directly from the game; for some reason this doesn't seem to sync the game. Instead, go the main menu first.  Then once there, click on the quit button and say quit.  You'll then get a message saying that some of your city has not been synced, now syncing...once that comes up just leave it alone until it closes of its own accord.  There is a quit button on that screen BUT DO NOT use it otherwise the sync doesnt happen correctly

[shaamaa 2]

I was gonna create a list like this. This is a nice list, Samuel, but most of these issues seem like the kind you can bear with for the time being, so I'm gonna create another topic with stuff that if it doesn't get fixed, this game is going bye bye.