Simcity 2013 at one year.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

Things have been quiet on the Simcity front of late - it's been a while since our last patch, too.  However this past week was the one-year anniversary of the botched and insane launch. 

 

I'm opening this thread for discussion of the events and history of this past year, the ins and outs, the ups and downs, like "Remember this?" or "When was this?".  I love keeping tabs on the history of games I play - I was the one who started the timline of events surrounding World of Warcraft on Wowpedia (I'm a bit of a history nerd in general).

 

Let's not turn this into how much the game or EA stinks - we've had plenty of threads about that; give the mods a break, folks - I included a poll so you can register your feelings simply, just keep your details and ranting to other threads.  Say what you will about the state of the game over the year we have had patches and an expansion, they have been trying.

[CapTon 592]

I do believe the game is playable, and I do believe that EA has redeemed themselves over the course of time.

 

People would disagree with me and say that EA sucks because the game was not perfect when it was released. Others would disagree with me because they believe that the game has gotten better, but EA has not earned their trust and respect. All in all; there are more non-believers than believers.

 

However; I believe that offline mode will have people changing sides (probably because of the new modding opportunities that will be presented), and I hope that this game changes for the better

[Miscguy 0]

I had to vote double no. First the game is still unplayable, mostly for the fact that I moved where I have no internet aside from my phone. Thusly there online only doesn't work, well see about patch 10 when I drag my tower to my sisters to patch everything. This is mostly my fault moving out of net, but why is the game online only anyway? Whole nother can of worms.

Secondly I don't think they've done anything to redeem themselves. Core elements still dont function properly, simulation itself is flawed and even the xpack elements came broken, I'm looking at you mega towers. A free game (god why did I waste it on ds3) isn't enough to redeem, and patches with minimal patching leave a lot to be desired.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Double no because EA/Maxis have not released the online mode PLUS the game is as bland as ever despite all the patches/updates.

[RipRap 4,400]

I would have to say no to two of those. The game is playable, that is true, but the game mechanics are a tad broken and definitely needs fixing. I don't think we would see any fixes soon, especially with the departure of many Maxis members (Stone Librande, MaxisGuillaume (sic), etc.) and also for that reason, the game has not really redeemed itself.

[CapTon 592]

Ah no one seems to agree with me. Hope offline mode and update 10 (those two might be the same thing, not sure) will change those feelings.

[Indian007 25]

The game is still not playable, it get's bouring after about 30 minutes of nothing. I am just hoping someone will make an actual City simulation game Like SimCity 4 where I can sit and enjoy day after day after day, and always had something to do or create, Like my highway interchanges and turning my two way roadways into one way roads to relieve traffic, and have them go in the direction I want them too. SimCity, to anyone that knows what a good simulation of a city is, is crap, with nothing in it. How can you call that an upgrade to SimCity 4 when you took everything out of the game that makes it an actual City Simulation game. Terraforming, one way roads, highways, and different zoning density.

[eburress 267]

This game won't be right/worthwhile/enjoyable until there are MUCH bigger maps.  That one blemish, more than anything else, makes this game a complete, boring waste of time.  

 

It still boggles the mind how anybody on the development team could have thought that creating a city building game in which it's not possible to create realistic-looking cities was in ANY way acceptable.  Ridiculous!

[migamin 38]

Personally (after 5 weeks of playing it) i like SC 2013. It is playable. I played SC and SC2K and tried SC3K - never tried SC4. This game is great as it is (tweaks needed in gameplay - i will give my best to give everybody a nice experience while playing). For sure the maps are not big. They do not need to be big!

I am not that much interested in offline mode as many others will be. But it will add lots of possibilities to everyone too.

 

The problem with offline mode: It destroys the idea of the game itself

[eburress 267]

The game is still not playable, it get's bouring after about 30 minutes of nothing. I am just hoping someone will make an actual City simulation game Like SimCity 4 where I can sit and enjoy day after day after day, and always had something to do or create, Like my highway interchanges and turning my two way roadways into one way roads to relieve traffic, and have them go in the direction I want them too. SimCity, to anyone that knows what a good simulation of a city is, is crap, with nothing in it. How can you call that an upgrade to SimCity 4 when you took everything out of the game that makes it an actual City Simulation game. Terraforming, one way roads, highways, and different zoning density.

 

It seems to me that developers ought to be thinking of city builders as more of a design tool...a Photoshop or Illustrator for metropolises.  That way the game never ends...you "draw" your interchanges, your suburbs, your business districts, and all of that with endless amounts of freedom and creativity.  

[migamin 38]

I think your are right! That may be the intention of the devs. And i like that, and bought the game only cause of that

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The game is still not playable, it get's bouring after about 30 minutes of nothing. I am just hoping someone will make an actual City simulation game Like SimCity 4 where I can sit and enjoy day after day after day, and always had something to do or create, Like my highway interchanges and turning my two way roadways into one way roads to relieve traffic, and have them go in the direction I want them too. SimCity, to anyone that knows what a good simulation of a city is, is crap, with nothing in it. How can you call that an upgrade to SimCity 4 when you took everything out of the game that makes it an actual City Simulation game. Terraforming, one way roads, highways, and different zoning density.

It seems to me that developers ought to be thinking of city builders as more of a design tool...a Photoshop or Illustrator for metropolises. That way the game never ends...you "draw" your interchanges, your suburbs, your business districts, and all of that with endless amounts of freedom and creativity. We have that. It is called Cities XL. Personally, I believe SimCity 2013 is playable but only moderately fun and that EA only partially redeemed itself. If you have an Internet connection, the game should work to the point of being playable. After 2005, I found SimCity 4 mind-numbingly boring without mods and still less enjoyable than Cities XL or Anno 2070 with a bunch of mods. Seeing as EPs, DLC, free patches, allowed modding, and upcoming offline mode are coming, I think that only the most diehard SimCity 4 fanatics will consider SimCity 4 better than offline-compatible SimCity 2013. I considered Cities XL 2009 better than SimCity 4 without mods and the latest Cities XL with mods better than SimCity 4.

--Ocram

[eburress 267]

 

 

The game is still not playable, it get's bouring after about 30 minutes of nothing. I am just hoping someone will make an actual City simulation game Like SimCity 4 where I can sit and enjoy day after day after day, and always had something to do or create, Like my highway interchanges and turning my two way roadways into one way roads to relieve traffic, and have them go in the direction I want them too. SimCity, to anyone that knows what a good simulation of a city is, is crap, with nothing in it. How can you call that an upgrade to SimCity 4 when you took everything out of the game that makes it an actual City Simulation game. Terraforming, one way roads, highways, and different zoning density.

It seems to me that developers ought to be thinking of city builders as more of a design tool...a Photoshop or Illustrator for metropolises. That way the game never ends...you "draw" your interchanges, your suburbs, your business districts, and all of that with endless amounts of freedom and creativity. We have that. It is called Cities XL. Personally, I believe SimCity 2013 is playable but only moderately fun and that EA only partially redeemed itself. If you have an Internet connection, the game should work to the point of being playable. After 2005, I found SimCity 4 mind-numbingly boring without mods and still less enjoyable than Cities XL or Anno 2070 with a bunch of mods. Seeing as EPs, DLC, free patches, allowed modding, and upcoming offline mode are coming, I think that only the most diehard SimCity 4 fanatics will consider SimCity 4 better than offline-compatible SimCity 2013. I considered Cities XL 2009 better than SimCity 4 without mods and the latest Cities XL with mods better than SimCity 4.

--Ocram

 

 

It's what all city building games should be.  Watching a simulation, especially one on as small-scaled as SC2013, can be fun for only so long.  A city builder that focuses on the building...the designing...doesn't get old nearly as quickly.

[CapTon 592]

This game won't be right/worthwhile/enjoyable until there are MUCH bigger maps.  That one blemish, more than anything else, makes this game a complete, boring waste of time.  

 

It still boggles the mind how anybody on the development team could have thought that creating a city building game in which it's not possible to create realistic-looking cities was in ANY way acceptable.  Ridiculous!

I believe that SC2013 cities are completely realistic (in terms of graphics, design, etc) except for the fact that the city sizes are small.

[migamin 38]

You say completly where that is not the case. But its ok so far. It would be completly realistic if people would actually live in their homes...travel to their work and back. I hope i find a way to do something like that.

[CapTon 592]

Well completely realistic? No. But I think it's close sure, the agents don't exactly do the right things when it comes to traveling from one place to another, but I don't think it's necessarily something that ruins the realism of any SimCity city.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

The game is still not playable, it get's bouring after about 30 minutes of nothing.

 

Lots of games are boring, it doesn't mean they're not playable.

[migamin 38]

Well completely realistic? No. But I think it's close sure, the agents don't exactly do the right things when it comes to traveling from one place to another, but I don't think it's necessarily something that ruins the realism of any SimCity city.

You are completly right. It is a great game that gives a lot of fun. Especially watching when you finsihed your road layout

I think of "Have i missed something? Oh there is a fire! Go...oh no a traffic jam (especially in the first cities)" ^^

[Xenocity 343]

Well completely realistic? No. But I think it's close sure, the agents don't exactly do the right things when it comes to traveling from one place to another, but I don't think it's necessarily something that ruins the realism of any SimCity city.

Exactly.

This game is the closest we have to a realistic simulator.

Though it still has minor issues none the less.

 

I mean Simcity 3000 Unlimited was the only Simcity game to date to be bug free.

The original Simcity 3000 went unpatched though it had very few bugs.

 

At least this game has decent pathfinding for traffic that doesn't require somone to make a NAM for it.

It also lacks the 1 billion money bug that causes you to lose all of your money when you hit 1 billion (it's in Simcity 4).

Lastly it lacks a huge memory leak that plagues all the Cities XL games rendering each game in the XL series to crash after ~1 hour (longer if you have more RAM).

[jaredh 195]

I think that only the most diehard SimCity 4 fanatics will consider SimCity 4 better than offline-compatible SimCity 2013.

 

--Ocram

 

I suspect you are wrong in this assumption, but time will tell.  The only way 2013 ever converts even half of the SC4 player base would be an offline mode and maps at least 2x as big.

 

I don't see the maps ever happening, and the mod community window is closing very, very rapidly.

[migamin 38]

I do not think you are right! The idea behind all that online stuff (or was it staff?) is great. Only thing that should be considered being changed is commuting. There is absolutly no need for a bigger map.

 

I can say - i will stay. With or without bigger maps in offline mode!

[CapTon 592]

Bottom line: bigger maps aren't needed, but would be nice. What I feel is NEEDED is some fixes to the agents and traffic (not necessarily actual traffic, but cars traveling back and forth from one place to another). Other than that, the game is good to go maybe a few more DLCs and one or two more EPs and this game is a success in my book.

[SAGGG 47]

Bottom bottom line: Bigger maps are most indeedy needed to me, no offense.  My hope in the upcoming offline mode is this will be fixed by modding, which is why I'm interested in playing SC2013 again. Everything else is secondary, and can be worked on methodically...

[migamin 38]

The problem i see coming with offline mode is the following.

 

Commuting works best if players actually play at the same time! That's already a problem and will be even worse when players decide not to play online. I would strongly recommend a huge change to commuting in common to avoid this problem. Think about commuting and offline mode. There will always be exactly one player active, and commuting has no sense at all. I know that many players will buy the game only because of offline mode, but it may also destroy the game. Since i am playing for 5-6 weeks now i would hate the devs for destroying the game i like to play as it is. I think you can imagine that, no? Players that ask for that do not even know about the problems it could cause.

[jaredh 195]

I do not think you are right! The idea behind all that online stuff (or was it staff?) is great. Only thing that should be considered being changed is commuting. There is absolutly no need for a bigger map.

 

I can say - i will stay. With or without bigger maps in offline mode!

 

Sorry man, but the idea of the online stuff was bad.  That's almost the entire reason the game is a bust....and like I said, you won't ever get the SC4 players without the bigger map.  You won't even get the old school SC players that don't play any version of the game anymore without the bigger map.

 

I personally know 7 people who have been playing SimCity since the 80s.  I'm the only one still playing.  The rest?  They were very excited about 2013 until the online crap and the small maps news came out.  Guess what?  They never touched the game.  

 

This story can (and has) been repeated by many, many SimCity players.  The older fanbase has ZERO interest in the online aspect or the small maps that make you start a new city after a few days....

[migamin 38]

 

I do not think you are right! The idea behind all that online stuff (or was it staff?) is great. Only thing that should be considered being changed is commuting. There is absolutly no need for a bigger map.

 

I can say - i will stay. With or without bigger maps in offline mode!

 

Sorry man, but the idea of the online stuff was bad.  That's almost the entire reason the game is a bust....and like I said, you won't ever get the SC4 players without the bigger map.  You won't even get the old school SC players that don't play any version of the game anymore without the bigger map.

 

[...]

 

Do not JUDGE me! I played SC and SC2K, also SC3K - never tried SC4. I am back only because these huge changes to the game.

[CapTon 592]

Bottom bottom line: Bigger maps are most indeedy needed to me, no offense.  My hope in the upcoming offline mode is this will be fixed by modding, which is why I'm interested in playing SC2013 again. Everything else is secondary, and can be worked on methodically...

Well, I don't think bigger maps are a necessity but they would definitely be nice. And the bigger maps cannot be modded (I don't believe) because they are a part of the core game files (which we are not allowed to mod)... and we need to get off this subject because we're not allowed to talk about core game files or modifying them no go.

 

 

The problem i see coming with offline mode is the following.

 

Commuting works best if players actually play at the same time! That's already a problem and will be even worse when players decide not to play online. I would strongly recommend a huge change to commuting in common to avoid this problem. Think about commuting and offline mode. There will always be exactly one player active, and commuting has no sense at all. I know that many players will buy the game only because of offline mode, but it may also destroy the game. Since i am playing for 5-6 weeks now i would hate the devs for destroying the game i like to play as it is. I think you can imagine that, no? Players that ask for that do not even know about the problems it could cause.

 

I don't understand. When you say commuting, do you mean regional play or within one city?

 

Edit: Never mind, got it

  Edited March 15, 2014 by CapTon  

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Some people say in this topic that an offline mode will attract more players from SimCity 4 to this game. I personally think I don't, and here's why... (if you don't want a little rant, please skip over this post)
 
First and foremost, there's CitiesXL, which tried this whole trick four years before SimCity 2013 did. I was one of those people, and I fell for it because of the neat looking graphics. And true, people still like this game up to this day, but there is also quite a portion who don't like the clunky interface, extremely static interchanges (even worse than SimCity 4, though modders have done their efforts to improve this greatly), and the fact that the lots were still square (though there are a few non-square lots out there). One portion of the SimCity 4 community hooked on and will probably always say that CitiesXL is still better than SimCity 2013. The other group was not convinced by CitiesXL and probably will never give up their SimCity 4 functionality for less functional graphically upgraded SimCity 2013 (heck, SimCity 4 has INCREDIBLE graphics for a eleven year old game!). The developers made their move too late; the competition did strike first (but it was fatal for the company itself).
 
Second, SimCity 4 fans don't really want to build online; only a small portion wants it. What makes SimCity 4 so great is that you can build massive cities in the way YOU want it, in whatever landscape YOU want it, in YOUR style and mods are helping greatly to customise you city. While looking at SimCity 2013 cities, I always see kind of the same kind of cities, while with SimCIty 4, I can see distinct styles and I can distinct a my own cities from a Haljackey-city or a Paeng-city; each player has developed their own strategy and style, and you can see that in the cities they produce.  For those who do want to play online, it's technically a bit more difficult, but when you're persistent enough, it's indeed perfectly possible!
 
Third, the way cities in SimCity 4 are set up in the region is completely different. SimCity 2013 offers every city in an isolated tile, only connected by pre-set links. SimCity 4 offered a contiguous region where you can make connections whenever and wherever you want them to be. City tiles can transit into each other, allowing players to create massive cities that are way larger than their individual tiles. This allows us to grow our cities virtually limitless and gives the game a truly massive feeling. Here's an example where I was talking about:
(NOTE: Each name represents a 4x4km city tile, the largest that SimCity 4 can offer)

 
I don't see this happen in the new game, where you are limited by the borders of your city tile, which is why so many people ask for bigger cities. But all they REALLY need is contiguous regions, so your city can grow beyond the limits of a city tile...
 
Fourth, some say that the simulation of SimCity 2013 is realistic. I beg to differ; there are some resource draining, inefficient and unrealistic algorithms in the game most SimCity 4 fans can't stand. One that bugs people the most is the Flex-working/flex-living "bug" in this game, which means that all sims will change homes and work every day (they actually go to the nearest available job every day and to the nearest available home when they leave work), which is completely unrealistic and it will force the game to make extra calculations on job, home and route assignment. Furthermore, the traffic simulator bugs at the start of the game (which was basically an all-or-nothing traffic assignment, not taking congestion into account in route choice) did leave an overall bad impression. And a bad first impression can hardly be redeemed.

 

Finally, people will always compare SimCity 2013 without mods with SimCity 4 with tons of mods. Some say that you need to compare the vanilla versions of both games, but the truth is that in the market, these are the ACTUAL competitors. SimCity 4 is available with TONS of mods for years now and SimCity 2013 is just beginning. A ten year head-start can make a huge difference and it's not easy to keep up with that unless the base game is good enough. And so far, it hasn't convinced the majority of the SimCity 4 fans. It's one year now since the game is out and this still looks an awfully far away to make a SimCity 2013 equivalent of it, despite the fact that you are not limited by the grid in SimCity 2013...

 

So, that's my view of why SimCity 4 fans will probably stick to SimCity 4 for now until another true successor of SimCity 4 comes along. So far, SimCity 2013 never was and probably never will be this successor, hence why the developers didn't label it as SimCity 5, but as a reboot...

 

Best,
Maarten

[migamin 38]

Best comment from a SC4 player ever, thank you a lot

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

 

Sorry man, but the idea of the online stuff was bad.  That's almost the entire reason the game is a bust....and like I said, you won't ever get the SC4 players without the bigger map.

 

The idea was good.  The intention was solid.  The execution stank and reeked of a rushed schedule and meager playtesting.