Simcity 2013 at one year.

[USA_Pride 49]

MandelSoft,

[CapTon 592]

Great post, Mandelsoft five stars. Can't argue with your logic, you being a long-time SC4 player and all.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Everyone has different opinions but I might as well state my opinions then some facts.

1. I started playing SimCity Classic on Windows 98 on the SimMania pack (it also kept working on Windows XP though I eventually lost or broke every CD). At the time, I had only played educational games on my parents' Windows 95 then 98 PCs. I also played SimCity 2000 for a little while but I was interested in the Sims by the time SimCity 3000 was released. I absolutely loved SimCity 4 from 2004 until 2007~ but never played SimCity 4 without Rush Hour until recently just to know what it was like (it is literally impossible to buy SimCity 4 or Rush Hour separate) and I must say that I absolutely despised it (though by the time I played SimCity 4 base game, I had already played the expansion pack, Cities XL, and Anno 2070). SimCity 4 with Rush Hour is OK to this day, as long as I have a few pieces of custom content. On my "super computer" gaming rig, Cities XL runs fine for an hour or two but I take breaks often enough that it has never slowed down on me.

2. I am bored with SimCity 4. I am bored with City Life. City Life never had as many mods as SimCity 4 or even the newer Cities XL but Generation City had a head start on modding Cities XL thanks to City Life.

4. My current favorite City Simulator is SimCity 2013 and my current favorite City Builder is Cities XL, though I prefer Anno 2070 over both of them (but it is more of an RTS).

5. If Cities XL had all of its most visible bugs removed, it would hands-down be the best. If SimCity 2013 had slots for agriculture, low-polygon suburbs, landfills, regional parks, et cetera occupying at least 1/2 the currently empty area, had offline mode, had mods, and Cities XL does not get any fixes (beyond what can be done with mods) [and this is the most likely scenario] it would be far better.

6. SimCity 2013 has had more sales than SimCity 4 and Cities XL combined (which is sad for both of those two games). Maxis and EA don't really need the die-hard SimCity 4 fans to pick up the new SimCity there are a ton of more fish in the sea.

7. Personally, I would love to see regions with 25 city tiles, 5 regular Great Works, 1-2 central Great Works (that have region-wide bonuses), and 25-100 minor works that only benefit one city and use very low-polygons (but act sort of like miniature cities that conform to the terrain and produce resources that are either scarce or impossible to be generated in normal cities (such as with agriculture and open pit mines). If EA/Maxis made an Expansion Pack with just these features, I would pay up to $40 for that (but if it left off any of those, I would not be willing to pay that much).

--Ocram

[Ohadi195 30]

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

 

First and for most you must remember that SC 2013 is just one year old.. one can not judge such a huge scale game by one year perspective. Besides, where was SC4 after one year of launching? It was a pretty bad game full with bugs and without any mods. same goes with Cities XL which has amazing graphics that's true, but without its XL nation community and their thousands of mods would be dead by now...

 

When Minecraft was launched many people were spectical weather it will be successfull, some critisized its simple graphics, some said it's borring and will die in a few months. well look at it now, look where it got as one of the popular games of all times. Just give SC 2013 a chance, wait patiently for new additions and packs. Remember that SC4 have had its time and becomes irrelevant as the new one takes it place. one to two years from now it will be dead so we all should support SC 2013 and other alternatives.

 

I think that it's a shame people don't give it a chance. IMO it has a great potential to become the BEST city builder. we all need three things: offline mod, bigger maps with no dead zones and the ability to modify the game. all of those will propbabely be available, the sooner the better.

[MandelSoft 2,775]

First and for most you must remember that SC 2013 is just one year old.. one can not judge such a huge scale game by one year perspective.

True, hence why I mentioned a ten-year head start. But if you like it or not, this is what's available at the market, including all the mods that are available. Here's an analogy: why would you switch to a Prius if you invested a lot of time in tuning your Good Ol' Caddie? No matter how new the Prius is, you can't help to compare it with the Caddie in the current state and not at the state when you bought it. And frankly, quite some people do that...

 

Besides, where was SC4 after one year of launching? It was a pretty bad game full with bugs and without any mods.

For the record: I've played SimCity 4 WITHOUT Rush Hour or any mods for like one and a half year! No crashes, no bugs or any of that during that time. Heck, I didn't know about the mods or patches until 2007! I still don't know why people bring this issue up, because in NO WAY I have experienced these problems.

True, it's not the most stable program I know; that prize goes to FL Studio, where I had just one crash in the five years that I use the program. And I use it intensively...

 

same goes with Cities XL which has amazing graphics that's true, but without its XL nation community and their thousands of mods would be dead by now...

True, that game only survived through its mods. But would SimCity 2013 survive without mods? Or even the online mode where it's so dependent on? I have my doubts here...

 

Just give SC 2013 a chance, wait patiently for new additions and packs. Remember that SC4 have had its time and becomes irrelevant as the new one takes it place. one to two years from now it will be dead so we all should support SC 2013 and other alternatives.

Fine, see me in two years. You'd be surprised that we are still here, running this game on NAM 34 or 35 by that time. We survived for eleven years, sure one or two years should work out. Heck, there are more old games that stand the time. Look at Transport Tycoon Deluxe: that game has been released in 1994 (I played the original DOS version), but it's still going strong today under the Open Source version OpenTTD. It has a ton of mods available. Do the graphics look dated? Certainly! Have there been successors to this game? Sure, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion was the one from the very same producer as the original. Have people been moved away to the newer game? Not massively and even now more and more people join the fun at OpenTTD. SimCity 4 looks like it's heading in the same path, and it probably has to do with the type of gaming crowd it pleases...

At the current price of €45 (as it was when I saw it in the stores lately), SimCity 2013 is still not worth my money; I can buy Civ V Gold of that money instead or save it for something else...

And I GAVE it a chance during the Betas to see how the actual game behaved compared to my views at the time. I have actually played the game, but it didn't hook up. It left me bored in less than an hour and it felt all I was doing was filling up the city tile. And that's not the feeling of excitement that you actually want...

 

I think that it's a shame people don't give it a chance. IMO it has a great potential to become the BEST city builder. we all need three things: offline mod, bigger maps with no dead zones and the ability to modify the game. all of those will propbabely be available, the sooner the better.

I don't bet my money on this, especially Bigger Maps. Knowing what is hard-coded in SimCity 4, it's quite likely that some of these things will remain hard-coded in the game and therefore un-moddable. Furthermore, EA and Maxis have never been clear about the modding policy, even contradicting each other. I don't know what to believe anymore...

I saw quite some potential in CitiesXL. And although modders have shown their greatest effort to improve this game, they still don't have proper heavy rail trains publicly available (only subway/light rail). Need I say more? Potential says nothing about the actual realisation...

The bottom line is that SimCity 2013 is not the game for me and that its predecessor still holds up fine.

Best,

Maarten

[CapTon 592]

I do believe there is some high tension here, so let's just calm it down a bit

 

SC4 is great. No question. I've played it for years like so many others, with mods and all. But let me say this: SC2013 has great potential. Great potential. People may not see it, but I do. And a lot of the people that trash the game; they see the potential too (but I don't trash the game ).

 

With modding going to open up with the release of offline mode, and with more DLCs and EPs coming, this game will grow. It may soon even be like SimCity 4. Ten years from now, people could be talking about how great SC2013 is .

 

Many people, as I stated, trash this game because they didn't get what they wanted out of it. Huge maps and whatever else they wanted. But if you don't like how the game was made, or it doesn't have what you want, then don't play it! It's so simple and yet people still think that if they scream their heads off at some Maxis devs that they'll eventually get what they want (this is what goes on on the SimCity forums), but that's not how it works. Maxis and EA provide and construct for their loyal players. For those that won't trash them, no matter how bad a game they release. They're good companies filled with good people, and they know what they want, and they know what we want.

 

After one year, I say that SC2013 has improved greatly. Tremendously. Whatever other adjective I could come up with . And I'm hoping that others will realize that the game HAS potential, and that the game can get to be like what people want if they don't constantly bash EA and Maxis and just show some respect. It's like what I say to my brother: show some respect for the people that provide you with your wants and necessities.

 

I did not mean to offend anyone or insult anyone with this post. Just wanted to make a simple statement

 

Thanks,

Cap

[RipRap 4,400]

I would have to agree with Maarten here, especially regarding the marketing and the potential to grow. As a future investor with business experience, there are already doubts with the game when it was released... Would it have the right market, would it have the potential to grow, and certainly SimCity had a room to grow itself as a formidable, but the company instead looked at the greatest weaknesses of SimCity 4 and grew it at the expense of what SimCity 4 is so great about.

 

(Enter the site's longest opinion post.)

 

Why SimCity is "broken" to this day

First of all, there was the promise of the online mode. The company thought it would be of a huge investment, especially with the growth of smaller scale online games that were already popular and also of the cult success of SimCity 4 and even SimCity 3000 (in which I could compare it to Terry Gilliam's Brazil). What SimCity is trying to emulate and emphasize is the global market, which is not entirely new when you take the fact that other games have tried the system, either they go on to popularity (I don't think I have seen a successful one, give me an example), or it would go down the drain as one of the biggest blunders in history (which happened here). This idea of the global market would hopefully make it more resembled to the current theories of urban geography.

 

Unfortunately, it didn't.

 

The reason that the game ultimately failed on online capabilities could be traced to the roadblocks that struck early in the game. These forums were alive (or I should say still alive) with the heated demands of offline mode (and the impact of the use of the Origin service, which is in controversy itself), bigger cities, more realistic textures, etc. The idea of the global market suddenly died on arrival when an industry so important for the economy (farms anyone?) as well as large-scale terraforming (urban planning anyone?) and even some of the simulation mechanics  (leaderboards, trade markets, etc. on the first months of the game) itself were eliminated, and the greatest strengths that the company had hoped ultimately backfired and even contributed to the game's ultimate weakness to compete in a market where completeness and reality is strictly encouraged in these types of games, hence the term simulation. 

 

The addition of several bugs and simulation unreality of the agents further declined the reputation of the game as being playable. As Maarten said, "these things are hardcoded on the game, and therefore unmoddable". Modifications itself have guidelines that could ultimately discourage people to modify the game. For example, the changing of the exemplars of the economy, which is strictly prohibited in the game on the grounds of "cheating". Take the fact that one of the most popular modification in SimCity 4 (yes, I'm talking about the Industry Quadrupler modification) involves a change of exemplars of the economy; NAM too is another extraordinary example, it modifies the path exemplars and also uses capacity overrides to well, make the game better. With that strict exception imposed by EA, we will get nothing except skin changes (which is as of now, the heart and soul of the SimCity modding community) or minor exemplar changes (see Pierre's modifications at the STEX, he even explicitly stated that the modifications he made it fit through the exemplar guidelines of SC2013. Compare it to NAM or the Industry Quadrupler if it said that it made it fit through the exemplar guidelines imposed by SC4)

 

These sparked negative feedback from the game, and a diverse group of people (no, not just SimCity 4 "die hards", it also included investors of the company itself and new people from the game) had ultimately passed the game for more sophisticated ones, like the heavily modded and yet already available to the market SimCity 4 and the alternative simulation of CitiesXL.

 

In conclusion, not only that the game is broken in mechanics, it is also broken on the marketing and promotion. To me, there is just no saving it, which leads us to the next Why.

 

Why the game will never redeem itself

The negative feedback by the clients had impact on the referrals that might buy the game (by the way, the Financial Services Industry also uses this strategy, if there is a more negative feedback on a product, the less the client would buy the product and hence, the product goes on a review by the company and eliminate it). Worst of all, negativity grew and spread over to mainstream media, to the stock market (EA had a $2 stock drop around March 19 when the CEO stepped down; he was the one that had "a big vision for online games" such as this game), and no matter how people try to say "it's a great game and you should try it", it just too late, as the negative feedback and the doubt had already impacted the customer's and the referral's opinion on the product, even though they have never played it. SimCity 4 also faced problems, but there was a smaller negative impact (less negative exposure on the web, awards, and even encouragement by the academia to use SimCity 4 as a tool for studying both urban planning and urban geography) and that the company has a much stronger economic practices. SimCity, even though it had sales much higher than SimCity 4 and CitiesXL, left a sour taste to the company, and it caused that $2 stock drop and a month of low stock prices.

 

As with this, come April 2013 and the game is dead on the water, no matter if the argument that "it is only a year old and the mods will eventually revive it": human judgement always follow the format of what is dead must be covered by a blanket and think that nothing ever happened here. SimCity 4 never had that feeling of dead, and it could be because of mods, referrals, stronger expectations, etc. and even the argument that SimCity 4 is focused on the long-term goal rather than the short term goal of filling up a small tile. To me, as an entrepreneur-in-training and a gamer, there is just no hope for the game to greatly capitalize on the market that had already gone by, and with uncompetitive prices of this game, All I can say is "yep, there she blows!"

 

Conclusion

It had the potential. It had the market. But, with such a poor planning of this game, it ultimately failed, discouraged most of the community and the market(s) and it contributed to an almost catastrophic stock crash for EA and a stagnant growth of the company last April, this game is dead. Sure, there will be an offline mode and maybe even bigger cities in later versions, but would it be too late to capitalize the game? In my opinion, you only need a week to give a good impression of the game, and the company blew it. However, let's cheer for another year!

-30-

[CaptCity 4,915]

It appears that this topic was intended as a sort of a 'then and now' discussion of SimCity. Let's not turn it in to another place to argue about it or turn it into a comparison with SC4, as has been done in numerous prior topics. We don't need another one... 

[CapTon 592]

Tonraq, I'm not sure if that post was yours, but I have to completely disagree with it it would take too long of a post to explain why.

[RipRap 4,400]

I don't think you read my post in its entirety... (because I basically reiterated Maarten's post and explicate what went wrong--only from a business POV (how would clients look at it)) I suggest you to read it a whole lot.
 

But let me say this: SC2013 has great potential. Great potential.
 
With modding going to open up with the release of offline mode, and with more DLCs and EPs coming, this game will grow. It may soon even be like SimCity 4. Ten years from now, people could be talking about how great SC2013 is.

 
Well I didn't see your response above either (long essay to be written), but I think I would have to reply to it. From a business standpoint, it's over. Sorry. If I pitch this game to let say, Dragon's Den (Shark Tank in the US), the investors would be skeptical of the game itself (where is the market, is the product suitable to compete in the market, what clients will be interested in this, what are the drawbacks etc). I would say that it is not competitive in the market that is already shrinking in size, and therefore, the whole project would be scrapped, even if the offline mode is released, or whatever big thing happens. As I said earlier, it had been dead in the water since April 2013. I just don't see the potential out there after launch, and that's the cold realities of business. The quote below sums it up:
 

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

---

I'm not bashing EA/Maxis because the game "sucked" or that I did not like it (I haven't even played the game yet) but looking at it from Wall Street, it is not worth my investment to stand ground to the game, my opinions. Reputation, reputation and reputation is the key to running a successful business. This game built a bad reputation, just look at all the mainstream gaming sites like Kotaku or even Polygon, they have created articles that would discourage clients to buy it; I mean, look at the comments at this site even and other's sites. Look at SimCity's official Facebook Page.

 

Also, If there are more DLCs and EPs that are going to appear, where is it? When will it be released (Last DLC released: November 2013)? With Pierre Guillaume and Stone Librande out of Maxis, who will be the one that would carry over the initiative? (Show me the money, it's as comparable to insurance. )
 
Some questions that needed to be answered.

[Herdervriend 46]

I've voted not really on both basically. But actually do not have a good reason why.

 

But I did like the fact I got a free Need for Speed game though thanks to the fail-launch of the game.

[CapTon 592]

I'm not good at arguing with people so I'm not going to start any argument. But let me just say that I don't believe that this game has lost it. I still believe the game has potential, I still believe the game is great in itself, and I'm hoping that it'll eventually win people over

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Well, if the SimCity 4 fanatics are correct and think that SimCity 2013 is dead now and won't recover, then depending on profits, SimCity will become like FIFA or more likely, will actually die and never be revived. The people who did the Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack were mostly newbies (I don't know of any "long-term" or "original" Maxoids who worked on it) and it turned out much better than I expected. If the vocal minority hurt the profits of the SimCity franchise (because they sure did not spend even $20 on SimCity products this past 2 years, let alone the $100 I spent between SimCity: Origin Digital Deluxe, Cities of Tomorrow, and some DLC on sale), then EA will certainly NOT try to cater to them and it would be more pragmatic just to shut them up then to give them what they want. I read somewhere that EA bans some negative posters on their forums and if they release a new game, they might just ignore Simtropolis and ban the complainers without any constructive feedback whatsoever.

 

What I really hope for is that SimCity 2013 gets expansion packs that add the features I want and that is entirely possible.

 

--Ocram

 

Some die-hard SimCity 4 fanatics are just blinded by fanboyism and merely act like they think they know SimCity 2013 will fail. From an economic point of view, SimCity 4 was a failure but for some it was the best thing since sliced bread but really it was a good product for its time that did not sell well because there was never a huge market for it.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

It will be interesting to see what they offer next for Simcity.  Will they continue to add to Cities of Tomorrow or return to normal modern cities?

[migamin 38]

Ehm....i hope the do not rely on CoT - i did not buy the addon and i did not want to buy it. Ugly towers - who needs them? Sure there is Maglev and academy. But i won't buy CoT (hopefully).

[Cubeman 0]

It is playable albeit with still some rage quit frustrations (takes a 24 hours sometimes to move money between cities) but EA hasn't redeemed themselves. I will never preorder another EA game. I will wait till its out and reviewed heavily before committing my resources to it. That will probably make some of my favorite games suffer due to a supposed lack of interest when measured by pre orders but I'm tired of buying beta software with built in DLC revenue to allow them a money stream to fix it.

[Xenocity 343]

Well, if the SimCity 4 fanatics are correct and think that SimCity 2013 is dead now and won't recover, then depending on profits, SimCity will become like FIFA or more likely, will actually die and never be revived. The people who did the Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack were mostly newbies (I don't know of any "long-term" or "original" Maxoids who worked on it) and it turned out much better than I expected. If the vocal minority hurt the profits of the SimCity franchise (because they sure did not spend even $20 on SimCity products this past 2 years, let alone the $100 I spent between SimCity: Origin Digital Deluxe, Cities of Tomorrow, and some DLC on sale), then EA will certainly NOT try to cater to them and it would be more pragmatic just to shut them up then to give them what they want. I read somewhere that EA bans some negative posters on their forums and if they release a new game, they might just ignore Simtropolis and ban the complainers without any constructive feedback whatsoever.

 

What I really hope for is that SimCity 2013 gets expansion packs that add the features I want and that is entirely possible.

 

--Ocram

 

Some die-hard SimCity 4 fanatics are just blinded by fanboyism and merely act like they think they know SimCity 2013 will fail. From an economic point of view, SimCity 4 was a failure but for some it was the best thing since sliced bread but really it was a good product for its time that did not sell well because there was never a huge market for it.

If it is indeed true that Cities of Tomorrow bombed worse than Rush Hour did, then it is safe to say no more expansion packs.

If we do get another expansion pack, I would love a transportation one with subways, highways and what not.

 

Also most companies including EA, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Sony etc... ban posters who post negative and/or critical comments on their forum.

[heat33330 26]

 

Well, if the SimCity 4 fanatics are correct and think that SimCity 2013 is dead now and won't recover, then depending on profits, SimCity will become like FIFA or more likely, will actually die and never be revived. The people who did the Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack were mostly newbies (I don't know of any "long-term" or "original" Maxoids who worked on it) and it turned out much better than I expected. If the vocal minority hurt the profits of the SimCity franchise (because they sure did not spend even $20 on SimCity products this past 2 years, let alone the $100 I spent between SimCity: Origin Digital Deluxe, Cities of Tomorrow, and some DLC on sale), then EA will certainly NOT try to cater to them and it would be more pragmatic just to shut them up then to give them what they want. I read somewhere that EA bans some negative posters on their forums and if they release a new game, they might just ignore Simtropolis and ban the complainers without any constructive feedback whatsoever.

 

What I really hope for is that SimCity 2013 gets expansion packs that add the features I want and that is entirely possible.

 

--Ocram

 

Some die-hard SimCity 4 fanatics are just blinded by fanboyism and merely act like they think they know SimCity 2013 will fail. From an economic point of view, SimCity 4 was a failure but for some it was the best thing since sliced bread but really it was a good product for its time that did not sell well because there was never a huge market for it.

If it is indeed true that Cities of Tomorrow bombed worse than Rush Hour did, then it is safe to say no more expansion packs.

If we do get another expansion pack, I would love a transportation one with subways, highways and what not.

 

Also most companies including EA, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Sony etc... ban posters who post negative and/or critical comments on their forum.

 

 

Oh I'm sure... And what about constructive criticism?

[Xenocity 343]

 

 

Well, if the SimCity 4 fanatics are correct and think that SimCity 2013 is dead now and won't recover, then depending on profits, SimCity will become like FIFA or more likely, will actually die and never be revived. The people who did the Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack were mostly newbies (I don't know of any "long-term" or "original" Maxoids who worked on it) and it turned out much better than I expected. If the vocal minority hurt the profits of the SimCity franchise (because they sure did not spend even $20 on SimCity products this past 2 years, let alone the $100 I spent between SimCity: Origin Digital Deluxe, Cities of Tomorrow, and some DLC on sale), then EA will certainly NOT try to cater to them and it would be more pragmatic just to shut them up then to give them what they want. I read somewhere that EA bans some negative posters on their forums and if they release a new game, they might just ignore Simtropolis and ban the complainers without any constructive feedback whatsoever.

 

What I really hope for is that SimCity 2013 gets expansion packs that add the features I want and that is entirely possible.

 

--Ocram

 

Some die-hard SimCity 4 fanatics are just blinded by fanboyism and merely act like they think they know SimCity 2013 will fail. From an economic point of view, SimCity 4 was a failure but for some it was the best thing since sliced bread but really it was a good product for its time that did not sell well because there was never a huge market for it.

If it is indeed true that Cities of Tomorrow bombed worse than Rush Hour did, then it is safe to say no more expansion packs.

If we do get another expansion pack, I would love a transportation one with subways, highways and what not.

 

Also most companies including EA, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Sony etc... ban posters who post negative and/or critical comments on their forum.

 

 

Oh I'm sure... And what about constructive criticism?

 

Normally bannable as well.

Some companies do allow it with in reason.

 

Microsoft and Samsung are the worst offenders when it comes to squashing all negativity and criticisms regarding their products and images.

[heat33330 26]

MS and Apple have been the best in my experience and EA the worst. Funny that.

[Xenocity 343]

MS and Apple have been the best in my experience and EA the worst. Funny that.

 

That's cool, but I was talking about response to negativity and criticisms not customer service.

 

With that said I've never had any major issues with any of the companies listed.

[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!

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

 

 

SC2013 cities are completely realistic, except for that which makes them completely unrealistic. hahaha

 

In all seriousness, I don't personally mind the cartoonish style of the buildings and such, so regarding the execution of much of the game, I think it's fine.  The small city sizes though ensure that no matter what, you will never ever be able to create a city that looks or behaves like a real world city.  

[Xenocity 343]

SC2013 cities are completely realistic, except for that which makes them completely unrealistic. hahaha

 

In all seriousness, I don't personally mind the cartoonish style of the buildings and such, so regarding the execution of much of the game, I think it's fine.  The small city sizes though ensure that no matter what, you will never ever be able to create a city that looks or behaves like a real world city.  

 

Not exactly true.

The smallest city in the world is .15 square miles (it is also the world's smallest country as well).

There is a city down the road from me that is .5 square miles and has a population of ~1,000 (it is legally a city).

 

The game lets you build a standard city, not a metropolis.

Most cities aren't metropolises, they normally have smaller populations which you can easily get in this game (that is upwards of 600k+)

 

It is also not possible to build a simulator that mimics city behavior acturately (no government has yet), due to all the variables at play.

 

Though I personally don't miss the ability of having multimillion population metropolises, in part due to the fact that those cities stress the game engines to a breaking point.

 

To each their own...

[maddogmark25 58]

 

SC2013 cities are completely realistic, except for that which makes them completely unrealistic. hahaha

 

In all seriousness, I don't personally mind the cartoonish style of the buildings and such, so regarding the execution of much of the game, I think it's fine.  The small city sizes though ensure that no matter what, you will never ever be able to create a city that looks or behaves like a real world city.  

 

Not exactly true.

The smallest city in the world is .15 square miles (it is also the world's smallest country as well).

There is a city down the road from me that is .5 square miles and has a population of ~1,000 (it is legally a city).

 

The game lets you build a standard city, not a metropolis.

Most cities aren't metropolises, they normally have smaller populations which you can easily get in this game (that is upwards of 600k+)

 

It is also not possible to build a simulator that mimics city behavior acturately (no government has yet), due to all the variables at play.

 

Though I personally don't miss the ability of having multimillion population metropolises, in part due to the fact that those cities stress the game engines to a breaking point.

 

To each their own...

 

 

But you had the ability, which is everything...I'd rather have the ability than no ability.

[CapTon 592]

Agreeing with Xenocity... if you're looking for large cities where you can build some sprawling metropolises, go to Cities XL but if you're looking for something a little more.... "standard", you go with SC2013.

[Xenocity 343]

 

 

SC2013 cities are completely realistic, except for that which makes them completely unrealistic. hahaha

 

In all seriousness, I don't personally mind the cartoonish style of the buildings and such, so regarding the execution of much of the game, I think it's fine.  The small city sizes though ensure that no matter what, you will never ever be able to create a city that looks or behaves like a real world city.  

 

Not exactly true.

The smallest city in the world is .15 square miles (it is also the world's smallest country as well).

There is a city down the road from me that is .5 square miles and has a population of ~1,000 (it is legally a city).

 

The game lets you build a standard city, not a metropolis.

Most cities aren't metropolises, they normally have smaller populations which you can easily get in this game (that is upwards of 600k+)

 

It is also not possible to build a simulator that mimics city behavior acturately (no government has yet), due to all the variables at play.

 

Though I personally don't miss the ability of having multimillion population metropolises, in part due to the fact that those cities stress the game engines to a breaking point.

 

To each their own...

 

 

But you had the ability, which is everything...I'd rather have the ability than no ability.

 

I used to think that way.

I was one of those who was hyped for Simcity 4 and Cities XL and the potential they had.

Then I made them in Simcity 4 and Cities XL....

I'm all for metropolises if the game engine can handle them without massive slowdowns, glitches and crashes.

Hell, my late 2011 Macbook Pro with 16GBs of RAM, 512MBs dedicated graphics card and 2.2Ghz icore 7 chip set, still cannot run metropolises in either game without have near game breaking issues when the population nears 1 million (yes I have mods installed). 

After all the issues I incurred on those two games due to the game engines not being optimized for those sized cities, ruined the experience for me.

Honestly I'll take a stable game with better simulation over massive cities any day of the week.

This is why I like Simcity 2013 better at the moment.

[aeon71 0]

Im new here and I am appreciative of all the comments in this thread, I too would like to see bigger map sizes as well as removing origin from the startup...

I think its quite ridiculous to require 2 running cpu processes for 1 game.... utterly ridiculous. IMO Origin is a joke.

I was a big fan of sc4 ten years ago and still have the disc... I honestly don't remember this many bugs and fixes for that game. Unfortunately with gaming, being that its gone to digital downloads, I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of this in the future as developers are in such a rush for the cash... releasing games before they are ready and fixing them on the fly.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Im new here and I am appreciative of all the comments in this thread, I too would like to see bigger map sizes as well as removing origin from the startup...

I think its quite ridiculous to require 2 running cpu processes for 1 game.... utterly ridiculous. IMO Origin is a joke.

I was a big fan of sc4 ten years ago and still have the disc... I honestly don't remember this many bugs and fixes for that game. Unfortunately with gaming, being that its gone to digital downloads, I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of this in the future as developers are in such a rush for the cash... releasing games before they are ready and fixing them on the fly.

1. I think it is ridiculous that any new game (or any major program made in the past 2 years) would run on a single thread when multi-core processors are the norm now and multiple threads can run on the same core. If one has a dual core processor, having a single thread monopolize a single core and have every single other thread on the other core is fine. If one has a quad core processor, then having 2 major threads would be better and quad core processors multi-task better (such as for running screen recording software)

2. I don't like Origin either but it is possible to limit its privacy intrusions.

3. I was a big fan of SimCity 4 (with Rush Hour) for 5 years and a fair-weather fan for 2-4 more years after that. I bought it on Steam for under $5 in December though I have yet to play it.

4. Digital Downloads are not bad. SimCity 4 (even most discs sold last year) has been sold unpatched and the patches Maxis/EA made are no longer easy to access.

5. Game companies need to make money like any other company. That is one reason why they are releasing offline mode for SimCity 2013, it frees up server space and opens up another market.

--Ocram

[CapTon 592]

Im new here and I am appreciative of all the comments in this thread, I too would like to see bigger map sizes as well as removing origin from the startup...

I think its quite ridiculous to require 2 running cpu processes for 1 game.... utterly ridiculous. IMO Origin is a joke.

I was a big fan of sc4 ten years ago and still have the disc... I honestly don't remember this many bugs and fixes for that game. Unfortunately with gaming, being that its gone to digital downloads, I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of this in the future as developers are in such a rush for the cash... releasing games before they are ready and fixing them on the fly.

I heard that SC4 had plenty of bugs and problems when it came out, and that without the modding community the game wouldn't be much of anything. And I don't believe Maxis were the ones rushing themselves. I believe it was EA rushing Maxis to produce the game so they could get some dough

[Xenocity 343]

 

Im new here and I am appreciative of all the comments in this thread, I too would like to see bigger map sizes as well as removing origin from the startup...

I think its quite ridiculous to require 2 running cpu processes for 1 game.... utterly ridiculous. IMO Origin is a joke.

I was a big fan of sc4 ten years ago and still have the disc... I honestly don't remember this many bugs and fixes for that game. Unfortunately with gaming, being that its gone to digital downloads, I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of this in the future as developers are in such a rush for the cash... releasing games before they are ready and fixing them on the fly.

I heard that SC4 had plenty of bugs and problems when it came out, and that without the modding community the game wouldn't be much of anything. And I don't believe Maxis were the ones rushing themselves. I believe it was EA rushing Maxis to produce the game so they could get some dough

 

It did and still does.

SC4 was not rushed it was in development for at least 3 years.

• The main problem the game had was performance issues due to a lack of optimization (which is quite common for newly released computer games).
• The reason why many of the major bugs made through the play testing and debugging was due to the fact they only affected large cites with huge populations (400k+), which required a lots of play time and the testers didn't or weren't interested in playing for that long(this affects many video and comptuer games).
• When your large cities neared 1M or more the cities became near unplayable until the the 3rd patch.
• The pathfinding issues also crippled many decent to large cities because Sims would easily abandon zones due to a lack of jobs or long commutes. It affected industrial and commerical zones as well.
• Lastly there was a problem where zones wouldn't employ enough Sims to keep your city and region employed.

NAM fixed the pathfinding

CAM fixed the employment issue

Sadly not even modders have been able to fully optimize the game.

 

For those who don't remember or believe how buggy SC4 was the first few years, I have posted it below with sourced material from WIKI (you can go click the links on Wikipedia).

 

Maxis and Electronic Arts have released a total of three patches that improve or fix issues discovered in the original versions of SC4 and Rush Hour (two for the original SC4 and one for Rush Hour). Among other things, the patches contain performance improvements for larger cities and a variety of minor bug fixes. The two pre-Rush Hour patches each fixed errors in the game code that, while not impeding actual gameplay, were previously preventing nearly a third of the Maxis-designed buildings from ever appearing in the game. The first patch fixed the so-called "Houston Tileset Bug" which was leaving one of the game's three tilesets, a collection of contemporary Houston-inspired buildings, completely out of the rotation, meaning that the only buildings from that tileset ever to appear were several smaller variations shared by all three of the game's original tilesets. With the introduction of that patch, it rapidly became apparent that there was another underlying bug that was preventing approximately two dozen of the game's largest buildings from appearing. This issue was fixed in the second patch.[17]

Although not necessarily a "bug", some players complained about the unrealistic pathfinding mechanism; it would often find the shortest route but not the fastest,[18] which often left mass transit and highways relatively unused. A group of third-party addon developers have made mods which have changed this traffic mechanism.

An integer overflow bug is also present in the game. Under certain conditions, the Junior Sports Program and Parks and Recreation expense items will be a negative value – thus adding to the end of month balance instead of reducing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_4#Bugs