Why a former BAT architect hates this game

[Cobb32118 239]

Hey folks! I know that perhaps the last thing you want is another rant about this game, but I haven’t seen a lot of discussion from the perspective of the SC4 BAT community.

Anyway, I’m Darren Cobb. You might remember me from such buildings as the Cobb Altura Tower and Cobb Central Park West. :-)

I am so disappointed in this terrible game. Here’s why:

Even if I could BAT something, the epic buildings many people created for SC4 would look ridiculous in this game. Have you plopped the Empire State Building? It looks pretty silly in a town the size of Spokane, Washington, which is all this game offers. The limited city size is my primary deal-breaker. And if you must limit the city size, then why must all the horrendously ugly utility and mining/trade structures have to take up such gigantic footprints?

The second thing I hate about this game is the depressing late 20th Century sanitized suburban soulless society it simulates, where everyone needs a car, public transportation is nothing but an expensive, clumsy drain on the town, and the sole focus is on making money. Some may have wanted to simulate that occasionally in SC4, but I’d never want it to be my only option. Whenever I’ve made any kind of progress in this game before the whole crummy, confusing, buggy economy collapses, I’ve never been very proud of my creation. My real life city (Seattle), and many others on the planet, are grander, more imaginative, more fantastic, and feel 25 years ahead of the towns simulated in this mess, so why would I waste time to create a fantasy about a place that pales in comparison to reality? The creative and forward-thinking element from this series is dead and buried. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone who used to BAT for this series would feel anything but frustration and sadness when they try to play this.

Ironically, as much as I hate this game, I’ve had very few server issues or problems saving. I lost one city, but… why would I care? I started playing this a few days after release, and stuck with it for quite a few hours/days. It’s just not fun. I haven’t played it since mid March and probably won’t ever pull it up again. I even started researching chargebacks. I find it amusing that if you start typing “chargeback for” in Google, the third suggested hit based on the entire universe of Google users is “chargeback for Simcity.” I really wish I’d bought it from Amazon. Live and learn.

This game is like an old Jaguar sports car: from some perspectives it’s beautiful, but it causes far more expense and headache than it’s worth. It will strand you and disappoint you, because it’s a disaster underneath its pretty surface. Pretty soon you’ll want to get rid of it and never think about it again.

So in summary, I’m sad to say that this series is dead to me. I’ve been quiet on here for years, just dying to get back into it, but what a colossal letdown. I might possibly return for a SimCity VI, but I can’t see giving EA any of my money again, EVER.

Thank you for the opportunity to vent.

--Cobb

[Jahnri 21]

Yet it still stands with the right tools and a increased map size we could effectively put most of the issues at rest.

The game isn't limited by anything but lack of access to tools. I imagine the mod community could work out the issues of the AI even with time. Since after all our needs and desires aren't necessarily those of the developers. 

Thats the beauty of community development. Put a game in its community hands and it cant help but be what they wanted. 

Minecraft really pushed that as did so many other games.

 

Only time will tell if Simcity can achieve that.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Cobb32118!   Of course I remember you! Holy crud, isn't it nice to see an old hand come out from below the rock under which he's been hiding... wish the circumstances were different, though.

 

I can understand what you're saying about the game - you're not the only one.

 

As far as the hopes for modding are concerned, I'm skeptical. It is one thing to overcome the immediate limitations, but that may not even be the biggest obstacle. For example, let's be super optimistic and imagine the max city size could be modded... now the question is: would the game engine scale with that, even if the rig it's running on could theoretically handle very high workloads? And even if it all went well, how to get it into game with Maxis enforcing always-online and controlling content?

 

Bleh, I'd better shut up, I suppose. We have been through all this, and it doesn't really matter.

 

Back to topic: How about SC4? Do you feel that you have done and seen it all in that game? And especially as a BATter, don't the shiny new tools like BAT4Max look tempting? Or have you closed this chapter forever? I confess that your BATs in my plugins folder have been replaced by more recent buildings, but they sure held up well and are still used by many players. I remember when the first Oceanic (featured in your avatar pic) grew in one of my cities... ah, the memories.

[Cobb32118 239]

Jahnri, I agree it's not without potential. It has a certain draw, and even addictiveness at first. But after playing a lot of games and all of them ending in disappointment, the addiction is cooled fast. I could even live without the modding ability if they'd just make the cities a lot bigger, add some visionary transportation and power options, or some modern ones even. If they're holding these things back in order to charge for them later, well f*** them. I'm happy to pay for more if the game is at least passable to begin with. It's not. I was happy to buy the Rush Hour expansion to SC4 because the game was already amazing. I will admit that SC4 had a lot of problems too. I played it modded all to Hell :-) So perhaps this goes to T Wrecks' point that it's a slim chance that mods are going to save SC2013.

 

And speaking of T Wrecks, hello again! :-) I think SC4 has run its course for me, as great as the gameplay is. After I quit SC2013, I shopped around for something I might like, and I'm really happy to have found Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, the 2012 standalone expansion. Those people really know how to make a flawless game.

[Archangel9 28]

=( I'm so sad. All your buildings were in my cities. 

If EA expects to continue to make money off this game in a year's time, they need to do some serious butt kissing to their hardcores, especially the ones with talent like you and the rest of the amazing modders on this site. Because you all kept SC4 alive for the rest of the die hards like me for a decade, and the way SC2013 is going, it wont last till summer.

 

Anyways, it is interesting to me to read a "Professional"'s opinion on the game. I hope EA manages to not only fix the damn game, but to do something to regain your trust and bring you back. SC2013 needs more good player-made content

[snwboardn 18]

Good review and you are spot on. Why are we forced to create these communities of the 1980's? I don't think the small city size has anything to do with PC power, or operating systems I think it has to do with the fact that they know their engine is total garbage... imagine if you could build a city 4 - 8 times bigger than what you can now... With 2 - 3 million people... What do you think your traffic would look like then? Every worker in your whole city all trying to commute to the same job... It makes me sick that someone over there actually came up with this idea and other people signed off on it.