4.0 Patch Notes Are Here!

[TruthinessHurts 2]

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9437292.page

 

Currently In Development 

Hi Mayors – below you'll find the notes that will appear in Update 4.0 tomorrow. 

Update 4.0 Notes 

• New: SimCity Launch Park, an exclusive new park just for our dedicated fans who were early adopters. 
• New: Region: Edgewater Bay. Seven city sites in one cluster around a beautiful bay with one great work site. 
• New: Your current server will now be shown in the options menu. 
• New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic. 
• Re-Enabled Feature: Global Market prices now dynamically change during gameplay. 
• Re-Enabled Feature: Leaderboards are will be active on EU West 3, Pacific 1 and Pacific 2 at the release. We will enable them on additional servers throughout the day. 
• Re-Enabled Feature: Region filters are now enabled on all SimCity servers. Players will be able to search for open games by Map Name, Sandbox Mode, and Abandoned Cities. 
• Rain Clouds: Fixed an issue where some cities would not have rain clouds to replenish their water table. If you had a city with this issue, you will start seeing clouds again within a game day. 
• Fire: Improved response time of fire trucks to fires. Improved the time it takes for a fire signal to reach a fire station. 
• Mission updates: Tuned Metals HQ and Community College missions. These were appearing too early, making them difficult to complete. They now appear later in a city’s development. 
• Solar Farm Great Work: Reduced fire risk at the Solar Farm Great work. Local fire engines were spending too much time at the Solar Farm. 
• Messaging: Improved pre-requisite messaging for Trade Port, Casinos, Smelting Factory and Oil Refinery. It should be clearer on how to unlock these buildings. 
• Graphics: Fix for flickering low wealth buildings on NVIDIA graphics cards. 
• Education: Fix for an issue some cities experienced where commuting students did not return from a neighbor’s city. This was causing a problem where students would disappear from a city in some cases. 
• Tuning: Sims will lose a small amount of happiness if they don’t have a place to shop. Cities without places to shop will see complaints and feel the effect of unhappy Sims. This will emphasize the importance of commercial zones.

 

[ForensicCRAFT 9]

Awesome!!

[CosmicSpeed 28]

This is fantastic news. I wonder how they will determine the "early adopters"? I had mine since launch but I am unsure how they will track that.

 

• Tuning: Sims will lose a small amount of happiness if they don’t have a place to shop. Cities without places to shop will see complaints and feel the effect of unhappy Sims. This will emphasize the importance of commercial zones.

 

I do worry about this though. I have cities in 3.0 that sometimes still have trouble finding shoppers even with well-distributed R and C. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

[killer_bake! 14]

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

[ForensicCRAFT 9]

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

How does this update not make you feel better? Who cares what the number value is...

[killer_bake! 14]

 

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

How does this update not make you feel better? Who cares what the number value is...

 

Just from building my own apps it bothers me. lol (im a nerd like that)

It makes me feel slightly better, but I'm just waiting on that ol' mod discussion. Maybe E3, they will have some plans for our lovely game.

[szieker 9]

 

• New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic. 

• Fire: Improved response time of fire trucks to fires. Improved the time it takes for a fire signal to reach a fire station. 

 

Love those 2.  Hopefully they work, and don't cause my sewage outflow pipes to clog (because that could very well happen knowing the history!  lol

[infoman96 27]

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

Agreed. This should be like a 3.5 update, 4.0 should be something larger including something like larger maps or more transportation options.

[MINIggy03 227]

Sweet, a new region and it's free!  I prefer the smaller one's(5-7) over the large one's with the 4 clusters. 

[SockoJr53 51]

Oh thank God they are fixing the flickering buildings with Nvidia cards. My cities look like freaking raves with all these strobe light buildings.

[tnobles 38]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that had that.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

Now that looks like a patch.

[tnobles 38]

Yeah, but they seemed to have forgotten this, post number 87;

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/quot-Out-of-money-moving-out-soon-quot/td-p/779840/page/9

or hopefully just didn't list it.

[macscfan 117]

Just from building my own apps it bothers me. lol (im a nerd like that)

It makes me feel slightly better, but I'm just waiting on that ol' mod discussion. Maybe E3, they will have some plans for our lovely game.

 

 

I understand where you are coming from on the version numbering, and I'm still not sure why they do it, unless it's a PR/marketing gimmick (could very well be).

 

Lot of nice things in it, like the sound of the new region, but I'm holding off anything major until modding and city sizes are addressed. I hope they will address both of those at E3, it would be a good place to do so.

[Xr3iracer 5]

Have I read it right? The global market will b on?

[tnobles 38]

The global market has always been on. The prices have been fixed for each product. The way I read it is, prices will now fluctuate. Dynamically could mean a random price increase or decrease by percentage or randomly chosen from a table of prices. At any rate they won't remain the same as they are now.

 

 

.

[FourWinds 29]

I'm glad I stopped by for a look; seems I did so just on the right day. I will have a go on this new map later tonight, and see if all the improvements mean I'm not so rabid about the dichotomy of neighbour city activity/'simulation' every time I play.

[killer_bake! 14]

 

Just from building my own apps it bothers me. lol (im a nerd like that)

It makes me feel slightly better, but I'm just waiting on that ol' mod discussion. Maybe E3, they will have some plans for our lovely game.

 

 

I understand where you are coming from on the version numbering, and I'm still not sure why they do it, unless it's a PR/marketing gimmick (could very well be).

 

Lot of nice things in it, like the sound of the new region, but I'm holding off anything major until modding and city sizes are addressed. I hope they will address both of those at E3, it would be a good place to do so.

 

E3 would be the perfect place to tell all of the fans that they were wrong and simply release bigger cities and official mod support. But I have a weird feeling that this will be a uphill battle for quite awhile.

[MINIggy03 227]

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

 

It appears that the way they are doing it is anytime they have to shut down the servers, they give it a 3,4,etc.  Anytime we just have to update our game through a patch it's .1 .2 .3 .4 etc.  

[killer_bake! 14]

 

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

 

It appears that the way they are doing it is anytime they have to shut down the servers, they give it a 3,4,etc.  Anytime we just have to update our game through a patch it's .1 .2 .3 .4 etc.  

 

that makes more sense. thanks for clearing that up mate. sadly in real life if i was to say, update my iphone app from v2-3 and i just had bug fixes and maybe a new logo, my customers/listeners would probably want my head on a stake.

[mayor_w 0]

Am I allowed to mention that city tile size is not a bug?

[tnobles 38]

Someone said it was a bug?

[Districtopia 23]

"• New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic.
"

 

I am not seeing anything different here. Maybe I just didn't pay that much attention to it before....?

[macscfan 117]

E3 would be the perfect place to tell all of the fans that they were wrong and simply release bigger cities and official mod support. But I have a weird feeling that this will be a uphill battle for quite awhile.

 

It would be the perfect place to discuss bigger cities and mod support. I have heard that bigger cities are coming, it's just a matter of working out some issues.

 

As for mods, there is a lot at stake. EA sees SimCity as a service, and in fact they see most of their games becoming a "service", and it's nothing new, they've been talking about software as a service for a few years.  Whatever modding is made available (and I believe there will be modding), they are probably going to try and protect their own DLC, so they are walking a fine line. I don't think they would charge us for something they promised either, so I think modding capabilities will be free.

 

I did hear earlier last year from somebody at EA, that they had looked at a system like Team Fortress 2 for another game, where the players could create items (mods/DLC in our case) and have them sold through Origin.com.  The players would share the proceeds with EA.  For EA, it means a constant stream of revenue without having to add or keep additional EA personnel (or contractors) around to generate DLC, and it also means that the game stays "fresh".

 

At the time, I assumed they were talking about the Sims, but they could have been talking about SimCity or Sims 4.  I'd like to see a system like that, as it would encourage more people to mod, and it would reward them for their skills, but I don't want a system where much of the modding has to be purchased.

[perafilozof 143]

"• New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic.

"

 

I am not seeing anything different here. Maybe I just didn't pay that much attention to it before....?

 

 

Same here. Maybe it's just that they yell more specifically now. I have noticed messages about needing both shops and parks, just shops and just parks.

[szieker 9]

 

"• New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic.

"

 

I am not seeing anything different here. Maybe I just didn't pay that much attention to it before....?

 

 

Same here. Maybe it's just that they yell more specifically now. I have noticed messages about needing both shops and parks, just shops and just parks.

 

I've seen nothing different either.  Which really annoys me, because that's one of the few notes that got me excited.

[killer_bake! 14]

yea but having to but

 

 

E3 would be the perfect place to tell all of the fans that they were wrong and simply release bigger cities and official mod support. But I have a weird feeling that this will be a uphill battle for quite awhile.

 

It would be the perfect place to discuss bigger cities and mod support. I have heard that bigger cities are coming, it's just a matter of working out some issues.

 

As for mods, there is a lot at stake. EA sees SimCity as a service, and in fact they see most of their games becoming a "service", and it's nothing new, they've been talking about software as a service for a few years.  Whatever modding is made available (and I believe there will be modding), they are probably going to try and protect their own DLC, so they are walking a fine line. I don't think they would charge us for something they promised either, so I think modding capabilities will be free.

 

I did hear earlier last year from somebody at EA, that they had looked at a system like Team Fortress 2 for another game, where the players could create items (mods/DLC in our case) and have them sold through Origin.com.  The players would share the proceeds with EA.  For EA, it means a constant stream of revenue without having to add or keep additional EA personnel (or contractors) around to generate DLC, and it also means that the game stays "fresh".

 

At the time, I assumed they were talking about the Sims, but they could have been talking about SimCity or Sims 4.  I'd like to see a system like that, as it would encourage more people to mod, and it would reward them for their skills, but I don't want a system where much of the modding has to be purchased.

 

i wouldn't support this. I'm not going to continuously pay to plop a building down and wait for it to close due to unskilled workers/no money.

[12thDoctor 14]

i don't see how this deserves a jump from 3.1 to 4.0. Nothing too major I see that constitutes a major revision number. Maybe just to make us feel better?

 

Agreed. This should be like a 3.5 update, 4.0 should be something larger including something like larger maps or more transportation options.

 

 

 

It appears that the way they are doing it is anytime they have to shut down the servers, they give it a 3,4,etc.  Anytime we just have to update our game through a patch it's .1 .2 .3 .4 etc.  

 

I saw one of the Maxis devs on Reddit explain their versioning system in the comments awhile back over on /r/SimCity. Basically, it increased by +1.0 whenever there are patches or changes which affect the core mechanics and functions of the simulation (e.g., agent behavior) and +0.1 for updates to the launcher/program/engine or server (e.g., addressing stability/program crashes, rendering changes/fixes, etc.) but ultimately do not alter how the simulation functions. 

 

So even though they've chosen an unconventional system for version numbering, in this context their numbering at least makes a bit more sense. it's really always up to the developers in how they decide to do their version numbers, anyways, but I've always just been imagining a "1." in front of the numbers to make it v1.3.1 or v1.4.0, etc. which is probably closer to the more conventional version numbering methods. 

 

Why they went with this numbering system is unclear, but I don't believe it was to be maliciously deceitful... it has been widely known that there were/are a lot of problems and issues--especially at launch--and a +1.0 version increase helps signify that underlying simulation mechanics have changed, whereas that wouldn't come across quite as clearly with a +0.1 increase. 

 

So, if it still really bothers you, just do what I do and mentally prepend a "1." to the version numbers.

[perafilozof 143]

I just wonder what will happen after 9.0

[tnobles 38]

There are no rules or laws for version numbers and every company chooses their own way to go. However, MS (IMO) uses it the right way. By 9.0 the game should be playable without strenuous workarounds.