Community Interviews Maxis: Part 1

Time to get your hack tools out, because if we are to save this game, it will be done by ourselves.

Well... over the past few years I have picked up SC4DeLuxe boxes wherever they popped up for little money - so I have a couple of still sealed CDs for "Future Backup" on my shelves.

I'd advise everybody to start doing the same, just to make sure you all have a decent SC title to play in the years to come ;o)

All you people do is whine and complain. Whatever information they release, seems not good enough for you people.

Players do not have control of placing roads and rail in the region, but they have complete control over the road and rail networks within their city boundary.

For the game to be multiplayer, they have to do this to stop people from building in your city boundary. In multiplayer, there will be objectives for you and your friends to accomplish. If they let you build in the region, you could deliberately control how the connections are between your friends and give you an unfair advantage. This reminds me of how multiplayer works in Civilization 5, and that game had the best multiplayer ever.

I’ve seen the possibilities with customization. Glassbox, and the new simulation engine. This will be the best SImcity ever!

The way I see it is that they see more market potential in all the ppl playing Simcity Social as whole bigger croud, and on release whreel them in and leave us old players in the cold with the remains. This seems to be more and more a complex version of simcity social but with more freedom in comparison.

I agree with most posters here:

- I want to own my city, not EA

- I want region solo control

- I want bigger regions etc

This is a big step back as I see it so far when comparing it to the progres over SC>SC2k>SC3k>SC4... its below SC2 :S

Also when they give answers to questions, they pick lousy questions and give political answers. So they are either hiding something big, or cowering.

ha ive been saying this for wery long time, it will fail and fail big time. Its already taking away alot of freedom. Why are people soo blind just becouse that $%&^! is gona have betther grapfics and some cool new engine isnt making the game whole loth betther, you can see it now and even befor the game have gona wrong path long time ago.

Sorry but thats the truth

Exactly! me too. The last true SimCity will be SC4, from now on everything they do is going to be all dumbed-down 'online social bs'. About time everyone else has finally realised this.

Wow they actually answered my question... Or, at least one part of it.

Unfortunately, I think Maxis dodged our questions again. I know they can't reveal everything about the game, and EA is controlling what info they can give out, but it seems like they only answered the questions that were convenient for them - not "the best and hardest questions." Some new information was still released, though, like this:

"Players do not have control of placing roads and rail in the region, but they have complete control over the road and rail networks within their city boundary."

I was gung-ho to pre-order SimCity a while ago, and I'm sorry, Maxis, I still love you; but this statement alone makes me glad I waited, and didn't. I don't think I feel willing to dish out $80 (a lot for me) after this. It really irks me. How will the connections influence out choice of where we place roads and rail in our cities? I don't want to have to put a road/rail where I don't want it to be just because that is where a region connection is. This news also means that my speculation about connectivity between cities in a region was correct. One city tile represents one city, and the space between the individual cities, as well as their connections, is determined by the region and the game - not the player. This changes the scale of the size of cities we can build. Instead of using separate city tiles as districts of one city - allowing for large cities with sprawling suburbs to be created - city tiles are each their own city.

I think Maxis is putting too much focus on the regional and multiplayer aspects of the game. SC4's regional gameplay was good, but improvements can be made. However, I don't think Maxis is improving on regions; I think they are taking a large step back. Multiplayer is very restrictive on which other features that were in SC4 can be in SimCity. For instance, I am very disappointed that Terraforming has been removed. I understand that Terraforming could conflict with the resources that Maxis plans to have as a main aspect of the game, but I don't think the feature should be removed altogether, just altered.

It really sounds like a lot of the things that made SC4 so great but still needed to be expanded on are simply going to be gone. I can see why now that they didn't actually call this game SC5.

I completely agree. I think Maxis has done this with some aspects of SC4, but not with others, like regions and cities.

The only positive feature of always-online play that I see is Cloud saving. Other than that, forced always-online is a terrible idea, in my opinion. I see no other benefits to the player. I really don't give a rat's hat about online stats, connectivity, economy, etc. What I care about is being able to create my own city, how I like it, without restrictions on what I can do. I assume most players would agree, and I believe this is the main concept of city-buildings games, especially the SimCity franchise. Yet, to me, it seems like Maxis is taking a different path that contradicts this concept. I know the world is becoming more and more social, with social media sites and connectivity between gadgets, but can we please define a line between social media and games and keep each on their own side of the line? Is changing a series that so many have loved and played for years in order to appeal to a new audience a good idea? I don't think so, and I hope Maxis recognizes that most of the community, as a whole, feels the same way.

Well... over the past few years I have picked up SC4DeLuxe boxes wherever they popped up for little money - so I have a couple of still sealed CDs for "Future Backup"™ on my shelves. I'd advise everybody to start doing the same, just to make sure you all have a decent SC title to play in the years to come ;o)

I doubt SC4 will be removed from the shelves because of SimCity. And even if it is, it will still be sold online on sites like Steam.

Well-said MamaLuigi945

About two years ago I decided to get into a modern, realistic city building game. The last time I did this was in the early '90-s with SC1. I went to Wikipedia's chronology list on city building games, and started to go backwards from the most recent ones. I kept skipping them: war simulation, transport simulations, middle ages, sci-fi, etc.. This is how I got to SC4, and I'm still happy playing it. Right now with SimCity 2013 in the list, I would still choose SC4.

I wish I was wrong and SC5 will be better then it sounds now, though I'm skeptic about it.

In the beginning I was already sceptic, but now I read this, I think I don't even want it anymore...

Don't get me wrong; some parts of the game sound great. I love the GlassBox simulation engine, 3D graphics, and other imrpovements that have been made on features of SC4. But the information that was released in this article is enough to make me consider not buying the game. I can live with plastic-y graphics (which they said they are working on improving), but changing the basic concept of the SimCity franchise by limiting how we can create our cities is something I'm not okay with.

In the end, I will probably still buy the game. However, it will be difficult deciding if I want to by balancing the pros and cons of SimCity. This is a very large con.

SCS was a flop and SC5 will be a flop. You would have thought EA would have learn from SCS but obviously they havent. Dumbing down games is EA specialty because they want to cater for the casual gamer. I also say that EA are trying to aim SC5 at the Sims crowd again the thing is and this what EA dont get is the Sims crowd are not intrested in building simulations and never will be and they wont be intrested in SC5.

Very Mind Boggling, what the people not wanted.

This so disappointing. There are so many flaws that it's obvious Maxis is becoming EA's puppet. You've seen the failures of Simcity Societies. Simcity Social and Spore. Why? It's obvious that EA doesn't listen to it's fans. Once you broken the seal of the box, you can't demand for a refund, because EA's a cheap bastard.

Please cancel your pre-order, then Ea will finally listen. You're making a huge mistake pre-ordering the game at this point.

Here's why:

You will always need a constant internet connection. This might not be a problem with some people, but this gives rise to many other problems:

What if EA shuts down the servers after 10 months? You will never be able to play the game again as it is server-reliant.

There is also other problems: Terraforming Removal

Want to make a towering mountain? You can't!

Want to create a tranquil river? Nope.

Want to create a majestic Canyon? Can't do that either.

Terraforming has always been a core feature, one that's stretches back all the way to the first simcity. I want to create the cities of my dreams.

The last problem a constant connection gives us is disasters.

You probably think what's wrong with disasters, after all it's also another core feature to trash your city into ruins.

But....

The constant internet connection and cloud processing means that your city will be saved on the cloud. That means you can't revert to a previous save after destroying your city.

Want to drop a terrifying meteor? I don't think so.

Want to terrorise your city with Godzilla? Too bad.

Want to start a destructive tornado? Err... no.

But that's just the start of our problems.

"Players do not have control of placing roads and rail in the region, but they have complete control over the road and rail networks within their city boundary."

That means you cannot determine the connections to other cities, which gives a lack of customization, another core feature of Simcity.

Only one connection? Well, too bad! You can't create another one

Want to connect to another neighbouring city? Can't do that as well

Maxis is focusing too much on region play. There's a reason why it's called "Simcity" and not "Simregion".

Maxis, don't force us online, don't remove certain features and don't ruin the gameplay just to run the game properly. I don't mind if you push back the release date to improve the game upon these flaws. We are your loyal fans Maxis. We been playing every game in the franchise and kept a game alive ad kicking for ten years. Is this the reward?

Please cancel your pre-order to make this message loud and clear, and hope Maxis will finally fucking listen to their fans and not mainstream buyers. This game is going to crash and burn without your help.

I agree with your points, but please watch your language. Profanity such as that is not tolerated on Simtropolis.

There is a global obsession with multiplayer.

I really don't understand why Maxis/EA

are completely ignoring demands and ideas from biggest fans of SC around the world. I am speechless.

There is a global obsession with multiplayer.

I really don't understand why Maxis/EA

are completely ignoring demands and ideas from biggest fans of SC around the world. I am speechless.

There is a few reason why there is a obesseion fore multiplayer. People demand to have it i dont know why i have never used MP and i will nwever use MP. The other reason is if EA have MP they can control it.

And what i say to everyone is dont buy the game dont support EA. I have notice some people still intend to buy the game if you buy the game you are showing support for EA and the game even if you dont like it. Vote with your wallets and support Indie devs.

They are hiding something big I bet...

If they arnt, the game is doomed

There is a global obsession with multiplayer.

I really don't understand why Maxis/EA

are completely ignoring demands and ideas from biggest fans of SC around the world. I am speechless.

They recognize what we want from SC, but they can't create a game just to cater to what we want. Think about it; we are a large (I believe the largest) community in the SimCity world, and maybe still a large community in the gaming world. However, we are a small community out of the millions, if not billions, of people who purchase and play video and computer games.

EA owns Maxis, and wants SimCity to cater to all gamers - not just SimCity vets - because they are out to make the most profit. This is also why they are "dumbing down" many aspects of the game.

SimCity is a niche game...you can't alienate the fanbase in the hopes of attracting a new audience. The Facebook players aren't going to buy this game I guarantee you.

All you people do is whine and complain. Whatever information they release, seems not good enough for you people.

Quote

Players do not have control of placing roads and rail in the region, but they have complete control over the road and rail networks within their city boundary.

For the game to be multiplayer, they have to do this to stop people from building in your city boundary. In multiplayer, there will be objectives for you and your friends to accomplish. If they let you build in the region, you could deliberately control how the connections are between your friends and give you an unfair advantage. This reminds me of how multiplayer works in Civilization 5, and that game had the best multiplayer ever.

I’ve seen the possibilities with customization. Glassbox, and the new simulation engine. This will be the best SImcity ever!

But the issue is that there is no other game than multiplayer... no solo mode. So these crazy restrictions that being placed so people can't get the advantages while playing other players now gets incorporated in all the cities you play even if you want to play by yourself. This means no custom content, no mods, no ability to place your highway connection where it's appropriate in your own city. In the real world cities work together on where the connections are placed, they don't let a magical higher force choose for them.

If my whole game has to be dumbed down and changed completely from what sim city used to be, just so the 4 people who actually want to play multiplayer can have equal advantage... then they just stabbed themselves in the back. And you seem to support this idea. Civ 5 even has a solo mode where the rules don't apply, so while their multiplayer is awesome, the players wanting to play by themselves still have the option... and they ADDED gameplay with each release, not stripped it away and dumbed it down.