Hanno

I highly recommend watching these videos. After watching them, I was suddenly disillusioned by the fact that I wasn't really playing the game, I was just watching a video My experience of Simcity can be summed up as follows: Simcity Classic: Awesome! Simcity 2000: Awesomer! Simcity 3000: Why didn't I ever buy this game?!? Simcity 4: Rocky disappointing start, but eventually, the awesomest of them all (except for those annoying streets that are automatically placed) Then came the decline: Simcity Societies: WTF ?!? Cities XL: Terribly excited about the free camera angle and curved roads. It was a nice try, but in the end, a disappointment. Buildings shouldn't pop up simply because you zoned for them, but because there is demand for them. Wealthy areas should not be zoned, but earned. Providing enough gas and food is the business of private companies, not the mayor. Restrictive zone sizes, and snapping that was more often a hindrance than an advantage. Expansion packs are all cosmetic. No real improvements on gameplay. Simcity 2013: O BOY! This looks great! I love the game concepts, graphics looks nice, and it's the real simcity. .... What? Always on DRM? Small city sizes? That's like making sushi, and then covering it with sewage! Forget it EA, I'm not buying this rubbish! Yes, they fixed the DRM afterwards, and I get to tell them "I told you so!!!", but the excitement is already gone, and EA already alienated me. (And after watching "Nerd³ 101 - SimCity" on Youtube, I'm glad I didn't waste my money!) 3 disappointments in a row. I guess the golden age of city builders is over. Modern gaming companies are more concerned about sucking as much money out of consumers as possible, than to make quality, enjoyable games. That's ok, I'm over it. THEN! Skyline Cities: Hubba hubba hubba. I'm not a big gamer, but for this game, I'll splash out on a new gaming machine!! How great is it? Take everything that I liked about cities xl, and everything I liked about Simcity 2013, remove everything from these games that spoiled them, and then put them together into one game. THEN exponentially multiply its awesomeness by adding even more new and unexpected features that drools with awesomeness! (Like actual flowing water that can be dammed!!!) That is Skyline Cities!!! The Alpha version has already smashed through all my expectations to a level I didn't think is possible!!! Watching the video's I kept being struck by the fact that.... they just don't get anything wrong. I kept waiting for that one thing that will spoil the game for me - like with Cities XL and Simcity, and it just never came. These people did something unheard of nowadays: They.....they....they actually *LISTENED* to the fans!!! Seriously, though, this is the first city builder, which I can confidently say is worthy of the title "True successor of Simcity 4". And, like simcity 4, this game is DESIGNED for modding, so whatever is missing after the first launch, it will be fixed eventually. Thank you Paradox and Colossus, for restoring my faith in the gaming industry!

You mean to say the board of EA is a bunch of greedy pigs, and that's why I hate their guts! They only care for short term profits, they couldn't give a damn for the gaming experience of the people who actually BUY their games. Heck, when they're no longer profiting from a game, they remove it from their servers just like that, leaving the people who did buy it out in the cold with nothing but scrapware. How long do they think they can abuse their customers like this before it starts affecting their bottom line? As much as I'm craving this game, I'm not buying it on release day. I'll follow a wait and see policy.

Hi all. When I started the poll on Maxis's forum, I would never have thought it would do this well. Currently the situation is as follows: How do you prefer to play SimCity? Permanently Online5%[ 11 ] Permanently Offline28%[ 66 ] A mix between the two67%[ 158 ] Total Votes : 235 The percentage breakdown has been pretty much consistent throughout the lifetime of this poll, which I take to mean that 95% of the simcity fans would prefer to have some kind of stand alone offline mode to be included in the game. If you haven't done so yet, please register on their forum and vote, and get your friends to vote as well. Let's see if we can reach the goal of having a 1000 votes before the release date. I think a 4 digit number will be hard for them to ignore, especially if the sales are weaker than expected. http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/135/8576040.page#23886277

Hi guys! If you haven't voted on this issue yet, please do so now at http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8576040.page Currently, the results look like this: How do you prefer to play SimCity? Permanently Online5%[ 10 ] Permanently Offline29%[ 55 ] A mix between the two66%[ 126 ] Total Votes : 191 We're almost at 200 votes. There's still lots of time before Feb 2013, and to create a "world simulator" for an offline sandbox shouldn't be too hard to do. The more votes we can get here, the better the chances that they listen to us.

SC5 seems to have everything it needs to supercede CXL....if only they did not insist to make it an online only game. I'm not buying a game which is dependent on external servers, and which might be switched off when the game is no longer profitable.

SimCity 2013 has all the ingredients to make it the next ultimate city builder game. Unfortunately, going for an online-only model is a serious flaw that could cancel out all the positive aspects of this game. Personally, I'm not buying it until an offline mode is available.... even if I have to wait for it to become a R99 classic. Personally, I feel overall, CitiesXL beat Simcity 4. I agree there are many problems with CXL, but the positives outweighs the negatives.

http://www.arabicgam...iew-brett-barry Well, 2 months after EA announced the game and got people everywhere up in arms about their stupid "online-only" requirement, it seems that they've learned .... absolutely nothing. Not only do they not get that people seriously do not like this requirement, they pretend as if it is a MAJOR SELLING POINT of the game. For those of you who haven't voted yet on the EA forum, please go to http://forum.ea.com/...0.page#23068772 There is already 90+ votes, of whom only 4 are interested in an online only game. Shall we make that minority even smaller?

I've read this on wikipedia: If this is true, then this is a whole let better than I thought it was. Having to be online everytime you start the game is highly annoying, but at least it's not half as bad as needing to be online THE WHOLE TIME - which is what I thought it is.

Some of my thoughts: 1) I will buy expansion packs. In fact, I PREFER expansion packs above mods. Expansion packs, at least in theory, should be well conceived and properly tested, and it will include all the necessary core changes to make the integration of additional functionality seamless. Mods, on the other hand, comes with no guarantees, could be unstable or clumsy, and often feels more like a hack than an improvement. Of cause, there are some good mods out there, but they're the exception rather than the rule. Normally, you get what you pay for. I need to be very​ disparate before I'll consider using a mod. 2) I got Cities XL, only because it had features I always desired in Simcity: The ability to experience your city on street level, and total - well almost - freedom to place the roads as you want them. But Cities XL just isn't Simcity. For one thing, it becomes unstable when your city grows large. Then the tools aren't very user friendly: You are very limited on editing the terrain, the incorrect snapping of roads and zones are often more of a hindrance than a help. Also, we are back to fixed zone sizes. I find it annoying that when you zone high density, then you'll get a high density building regardless whether there is demand for it or not. The residential zoning according to wealth is great if you want to create an Apartheid style city, but it in most cases, I prefer to let the conditions in the city determine the wealth of the citizens, as it is in Simcity. And don't even get me started on highways! CitiesXL is a good - but not great - attempt to fill the void left by Simcity, but it will always be just that: an imitation. 3) If the big whoo-ha about on-line play is the effects of the region on your city, then I still don't get it: that was there in SC4 as well. Why can't I just have my region all on my local machine and work with that? 4) I really don't understand why some people think offline games have no future. Almost everybody here has expressed a desire for an offline mode. Cities XL only became a success after the failure of Planet Offer. I have Civilization V, and I am terribly annoyed with having to switch on my internet, log into some crappy "Steam" application in order to get to my game. Whether offline games will ever become a thing of the past, only the future will tell, but as for now, the requirement of some games that you have to go online adds nothing to the experience except for annoyance and irritation.The offline market is still very strong, and game developers will be stupid to ignore this fact.

Yeah, and just think about it: how cool would it be if you DON'T want to be in a "community" with total strangers, messing up the markets that ultimately ruin your city, to have an offline mode where you can do what you want? Or if you just want to play without having to worry about your slow/unreliable internet connection interrupting your game, or not having to worry when you buy the game that they might switch off the server in 5 years - rendering the game unplayable. Just think how cool all of that would be. I don't care if the price tag is high. I'll buy it if the game is worth it. That means to actually LISTEN TO THEIR FAN BASE!!!

I hope you're right, but from their very own words, it seems pretty unambiguous: "When you see the connection between your city and the larger world, your city is more real than it's ever been before. That's why it's an online game. We'll be showing you more of this at this year’s E3 Expo in June. " ~ http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8374852.page Best to voice our opinion in the strongest possible way now, while there's still time for them to change their mind.

Hi All I see that most people here are already aware that they're intending SimCity 2013 to be an online-only game. I have created a poll on the Sim City forum itself where you can state your own preferences. The question is: How do you prefer to play SimCity 1) Offline only 2) Online only 3) A mix between the two Hopefully, if we can get enough votes, we might get them to see common sense and not ruin this game. Please make the effort to register and vote. The more votes we get, the better our chances of succeeding! You can get to the pole here http://forum.ea.com/...0.page#22617864 Thank you for your support

I feel kinda silly. The reason my roundabout did not work, was because it was going in the wrong direction! When I made it go the other direction, it worked just fine. In South Africa we drive on the left, so I'll have to watch it. I know there's a mod for traffic to drive on the left, but that's not such a big deal for me.

Thanks for the link.

I've installed the NAM (PC version) with all the plug ins. I created the one way round about (the one that is 3x3), but noticed that traffic is avoiding it. Only pedestrians are moving through it. I remember the original Rush Hour had the same bug for certain kinds of junctions, but fortunatly the patch resolved those issues. I'm wondering if anyone else found this bug, or whether I'm missing something Thanks