Game Informer preview of SimCity

I found the highlighted passages interesting. I like that they decided to include Sandbox Mode. I dislike Mr. Quigley's comments about people wanting a 1990's era game. IMO, this attitude, and not the game itself is the reason many long time fans feel slapped, abandoned, and not listened to.

That being said, I'm starting to be convinced that this will be a good game, but not a good city simulator. It has potential to turn into a good simulator, but a change in attitude will have to take place at Maxis & EA for that to come to fruition.

If they can't convince folks to their way of thinking, then it seems they insist on bullying and intimidation tactics. As suggested before the attitude at EA/Maxis stinks in my opinion and their game can rot on the server, I'm not interested.

What a wretched looking game.

"The Internet is the thing now". -- Ocean Quigley.

Really? It's been the thing since 1980 or so. Where has he been? This is starting to look like a phone app. It is really very light, and if they didn't have the leader board stuff, I think it would do no better than "Space Invaders".

Sorry, too much money for so little. Keep it.

I hate it when developers insist online is so important - it's not, it just ruins the gaming experience. Not in all cases but certainly in single player orientated games (which simcity is suppose to be).

What if I wanted to make a backup of my city and then play around with the original in-game? if I didn't like what I did I could always go back to the backup...oh no wait I can't because it's stored online.

Or what if my internet is down? or the servers are down, or are overloaded?

If Maxis isn't prepared to make the game long-time fans want then Maxis isn't going to make much money.

You guys already have SimCity Social for casual gamers so why did you need to make another? It seems like a really poor marketing strategy to me.

It doesn't make sense that they explain how increasing population is not important in the new Sim City, yet further on it says that one city can't sustain itself in a growing population. It kinda seems to me that increasing your city size is still a priority, and it cannot be accomplished without playing in a very specific way, i.e. creting "themed" cities.

I don't like the idea of forcing the player into creating a specific city. Real cities are divided into districts, maybe with the exception of Las Vegas, but even Vegas has areas other than the main strip. I don't want to have to build an industrial city, and a suberb, a comercial city, and so on. Cities trasition into diferent areas. Thats what has been so great about the Sim City series.

Again, 111222333444 is not impressed.

I love how the developers say "Oh, it acts as a form of copy protection". I can relate to this "form of copy protection" with the Riddles of the Sphinx that terrorized Thebes... Until Oedipus comes along. What I am saying is, no matter how hard they tried they promote this online thing as a protective layer against illegal hackers, the riddle will always be solved because naturally, people will find a way. It's a lose-lose situation for the fans and the company. The company is forcing legal gamers to suffer and it results to the loss of revenue.

Many people out there do not have a High Speed Internet. How could they save on the cloud if it takes forever to do it? What if the EA servers shuts down? So what would thrifty people do? They won't buy this really expensive game, and they would spend it somewhere else.

What I see right now is an "internetified" version of SimCity Societies. Have fun selling your game in Asia, where speeds are 3/4 slower than its North American Counterparts.

"There are a lot of people who want us to be making a 1990s-era game. A lot people who want us to make SimCity4++. It's not the '90s anymore. The world has moved on," says Quigley.

No, Mr. Quigley. We just want MAXIS to stop CUTTING features and stop trying to fix things that aren't broken.

“Sandbox mode is where you’re saying ‘I’m not interested in leaderboards. I just want to have access to a whole bunch of cheats. I want to play with the simulation as a toy,’” says Quigley. “So, we give you a bunch of money cheats, and a whole bunch of other cheats for you to do stuff with. Everything is unlocked.”

Am I supposed to be grateful now? A tasteless bone I can take into my corner to play with my little anti-social self, is that it? This statement is so condescending, arrogant... :-(

"There are a lot of people who want us to be making a 1990s-era game."

Nope. You really didn't get it, did you?

You just now managed to really turn me off.

Quigley, you are using something from the 90s yourself there...

Push product method is also 90 if not PRE 90s era

Today revolves around the Pull method, tailoring to what the costumer wants.

I filled the map within the given hour!!!

"There are a lot of people who want us to be making a 1990s-era game. A lot people who want us to make SimCity4++. It's not the '90s anymore. The world has moved on,"

let me translate:

*giving the fans the finger*

"There are a lot of people who want us to be making a 1990s-era game. A lot people who want us to make SimCity4++. It's not the '90s anymore. The world has moved on," says Quigley.

you know whats funny, is that he actually admits and he knows what most of the people want, but for some reason does the opposite?

i meen, wheres the logic?

No one asked for a game from the 1990s. First they spite us with a terrible game, now they're putting words in our mouths. It's funny how the Maxis people only show up to positive things said. I bet they're reading this right now.

Listen, I'm not going to be hating on Maxis, because there is no earthly way they're ALL excited about SimCity 2013: there must be some sort of gag order EA has to make them only say positive things.

Listen, I'm not going to be hating on Maxis, because there is no earthly way they're ALL excited about SimCity 2013: there must be some sort of gag order EA has to make them only say positive things.

Even the Maxis devs are not 100% satisfied with the game so far. I have a feeling EA is making them say otherwise.

I will fully support them if they released in December 2013 instead of rushing now. The costs of making the game will rise. But an extra 50% effort might save them in the long term.

I think Quigley & Co. are suffering from foot-in-mouth disease, but the foot was probably attached to EA executives. I can't believe a responsible developer would go for this guff.

Claiming to know what we want, or the marketplace in general, is an old, old mistake of "casting pearls before swine". Unfortunately the pearls don't exist.

Sorry, but "Methinks the lady doeth protest too much" as the Bard put it.

I think Nonny Moose needs to draft a thoughtfully worded petition and shove it in EA/Maxis's face...I'm ready to sign. I've been waiting so long for a Sequal to SimCity 4 and all we got was SimCity Societies 2.0...bleh

and wait...did I read this right..."It will get better with every installment" ? So not only do I have to buy it once, I will have to buy more addons just to have fun??? What is going on over at Maxis??

Just played an Hour and a bit of Beta - obviously not a finished product. I was disappointed to say the least. Ca;t say I'll be purchasing this new version. The only good thing - I keep getting booted out of Simcity 4 and with the new one that doesn't happen. The ability to add to buildings was not as intriguing as I had hoped.

Pushing the online thing again it never ends :-(...

I have news for you EA/Maxis, you might consider the internet a thing now sat in your small world that is your office in calfornia, but not every one in the world lives in the city or has reliable/fast internet. On top of that I have a data limit as I have already said I can't... and don't want to buy this game!

Why are EA/Maxis hell bent on turning away customers trying to tell them what they want? its crazy most businesses would colapse with this marketing strategy.

I'll buy the game once someone develops a server emulator akin to the one used by many Diablo III fans for the single-player aspect of the game: http://tinyurl.com/serverEmulator