William Gates

Hard. Also, the only user-made addon I use is the NAM, with only the traffic simulator enabled with capacity on 'medium' (I don't use any of the pieces). Unfortunately, I can't seem to let myself use other user-made addons because it feels too much like cheating. It took me forever to get myself to even use the NAM, but the game is a whole lot funner with it enabled to be honest.

Interesting. I am a bit surprised. I was pretty certain they were not going to increase city sizes in any meaningful way, but I thought they would at least make a token effort given all the fan rage and increase them by 50% - 100% (the result would still be pitfully small). But it turns out they didn't do even that. A tiny part of me was wishfully hoping that maybe they would institute an actual solution and say, increase city sizes AND give us the option to place cities directly next to each other so that we could build SC4-style regions. Anyways, since they have confirmed that city sizes will not increase, I guess that confirms the fact that I will never buy this game. What a shame. I really, really, really wanted to like this game.

I couldn't agree more. Plays well to a point and then the simulation seems to fall over. Still plenty of fun to be had though while it is going though... SimCity 4 is analogous to this. The gameplay starts out very smooth, but once you build your city up and out and your population soars you start encountering the bugs and oversights in the game design: traffic congestion becomes overwhelming because sims take the shortest and not the fastest route, buildings are abandoned or degraded either due to commute time or due to no discernible reason at all, you have to build 3 hospitals on every block because the individual capacity is too low, etc. Basically, the Maxis testers only play out the game to a certain point, and they don't bother with the problems that appear past that point.

I think you guys are thinking a bit too wishfully. Remember that 1.) this game has already made the vast, vast majority of the money its going to make and 2.) this is EA. In other words, there is basically no incentive to make huge changes such as adding a proper God mode or instituting 'cities without boundaries' where you set your own city border. Your only hope is in a expansion. But even then, given that this is EA, I don't really see anything beyond very limited and half-assed versions of these features being added (e.g. maybe a token 50% increase to current city size). EA has already proved they can make huge amounts of money by releasing half-finished games, so why would their releasing of expansions be any different?

Even if they do increase city size, to what extent do you think it will be? The majority of the money this game is going to make - through the selling of its copies - has already been made. There is no incentive to make a large change. I don't expect anything outside of a small size increase - say 50%, tops - as a token effort to satisfy the ragers. The playable area would still be pitifully small.

They won't 'tell' us, since Simtropolis has no obligation to obey EA. I guess they could request it, although I imagine the chances of that happening are very close to nil.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ROFL LOL LMAO ETC. There is one sour point, though. I feel as though many of the reviews are negative not due to the limiting factors of the game (such as small city tiles, mandatory gaps between tiles, no terraforming, etc. etc. etc.) but simply due to the online requirement. While I understand the online requirements are not desirable for many people, I feel as though this is not the fundamental wrong with this game. Online requirements I can live with. Crappy gameplay I cannot. The game would not suddenly be significantly better if we could play offline. Unfortunately, I have to partially agree with dysonraf. People who install SC2013, see servers are down or whatever and immediately go into rage mode and head straight for the review sites with a 1-star rating do not consitute my idea of accurate feedback. By the way, OP, please add Metacritic user scores as well to your original post. Same pattern. 1160/1460 are negative, average user score 1.9/10.

Maxis originally told us that SC2013's tile size would be 2 km by 2 km, or about the same size as the 'medium' tile from SC4. I originally found this to be mildly acceptable, as SC4's medium tile is respectable in size. However, I now realize that while the tile may indeed be 4 km^2 in area according to whatever standards of measuring they use, the implications of this are highly misleading. This is because the scale of plopables in SC2013 are FAR bigger than those in SC4. Really, the amount of space you have to play with is closer to the 1 km by 1 km or 'small' tile from SC4. I noticed this while watching a few Let's Play videos of the game. For example, check out this shot of one of the recent videos I watched (from Haljackey - thank you to him). Those roads are equivalent to SC4's avenues. They are spaced apart in a standard way; not at all too widely. SC4 medium tile size: SC4 small tile: Shame. Thoughts?

Avenue grids are appropriate for high-density building districts (e.g. downtown cores). In SC4, if you built your downtown core with roads you would get horrendous congestion. In the first shot, the avenues are placed in a way which allows for maximum utilization of space. They are far enough apart that you get full zone utilization of the space inside. If you place the avenues any further apart, you get unused space. If you place the avenues any closer together, than you get overlapping zones. Even if the avenues are replaced with roads, or streets, they would have to be laid out in exactly the same manner as these avenues in order to maximize efficiency. Haljackey pointed this out himself in this thread, and it is clear if you watch his video. Anyways, the point is to show relative spacing. I could have made the same point with highways, even though nobody builds a city of highway grids. The point is to show that what you get in SC2013 is less than what you get with equivalent plopping in SC4.

I keep going back and forth on whether I'm going to buy. On the one hand, I loved SimCity 4. That makes me want to buy SimCity 2013. But then, on the other hand... I'll probably end up not buying and see if they improve the core problems everyone is complaining about via a future patch or expansion or something.

I'm pretty sure the problem is the profit incentive, unfortuantely. A dumbed down game may sell much better to a mass audience than one with deeper mechanics which appeal to a certain niche. Or at least that's what their marketing research must have told them. The GlassBox was a great initivate, and IMO one of the only things they did right about this game. Using the GlassBox to justify many of the problems with the game is really weak justification to me.

Ugh, the mods on here are Nazis. I hate forum policy here (at least on this particular subforum, which is the only one I post on). Administration seems to champion the condensing of threads, but this is incredibly inefficient for all. Threads where the original post is months old (e.g. the stickies at the top of this forum) are filled with outdated information, which might mislead viewers who don't check posting dates. Because the topics of these threads are so broad (e.g. roading and transit networks can include so many things), there are often multiple conversations between different people about different subtopics happening in the same thread. It can get very messy, and in order to have some semblance of organization excessive quoting must be used. Moreover, these threads are dozens of pages long. Wading through dozens of pages about a general subject is both exhausting and intimidating, and is not something people will do in order to find a discussion about the specific subtopic they are concerned about. However, with multiple short threads about different subtopics, each with its own title, people can quickly use the site's search engine (or even better, Google) to comb through thread titles to find a relevant thread. Yet, right now we are forced to search individual posts for keywords, which is not very fruitful since individual posts tend to be part of a larger conversation (something which the title of a thread would capture). As for "MandelSoft" and his post... 2.) and 4.) are justified. 3.) may be acceptable if the topic has veered tremendously off course, or the original poster has expressed dissatisfaction with the direction the thread is heading. Otherwise, slight veerings off course are acceptable as conversations take their natural path. I only agree with 1.) if a discussion about the same subject was brought up recently (i.e. the thread is still on the first page). Otherwise, the new thread is absolutely justified in bringing up the same topic and discussion as before. Discussion must be kept as current as possible, to maximize accuracy and to minimize overall messiness. For those who wish to discuss a subject, mods should stop referring them to an original discussion that is many months old. What the mods need to do is immediately delete all stickies and advocate a policy of not necroing threads more than two weeks or so old. This is the general policy on most normal forums. It seems like the mods here are pursuing the opposite course, though. Perhaps they are aiming for a vision where, in the near future, the entire Simtropolis forum will consist of only one stickied thread, titled 'EVERYTHING.'

There are two common problems most people encounter once their city reaches a respectable population: 1.) The residential buildings devolve by one or two wealth levels (e.g. high-wealth buildings become medium-wealth buildings). They turn dirty in the process. This is without any obvious problems (low education, health, too much crime, etc.). 2.) The residential buildings become abandoned due to commute time. They turn black in the process. To be honest, I don't know if anyone has ever solved these problems outside of drastic mod changes. They are closer to game bugs than solveable game obstacles. You may be able to solve 2.) via some mod which drastically lowers commute times (like the NAM). Solving 1.) seems more difficult. Back in the day when I used to play SC4, I remember one leading hypothesis was that 1.) resulted because the game created high-wealth buildings when there weren't enough high-wealth jobs (and hence high-wealth sims) to support them. And so the buildings would become medium-wealth or low-wealth. The solution was to significantly increase tax rates on high-wealth sims to prevent the game from building too many high-wealth buildings. I don't remember how successful this was. Basically, I wouldn't bother trying to attack it. Get a mod which prevents the run-down graphic effect from appearing (or prevents the running-down from happening altogether), and forget about it.

I'd say the two-part Q&A was what confirmed all the bad news and really fueled the anger. Since then, in every single outlet where feedback about the game can be expressed, the feedback has been 95% negative (and I am not exaggerating). - On the official Maxis SimCity forums, practically all comments about SC2013 have been negative. - On the official Maxis SimCity Facebook page, practically all comments relating to posts that announce news about the game have been negative. - On Simtropolis (and I will assume other SimCity and city simulation builder fansites), practically all comments about SC2013 have been negative. There has been virtually no positive feedback anywhere. Do you think Maxis will even acknowledge this negative feedback (nevermind make changes to the game due to it)?

I do not understand why you are sticking the word 'probable' in the title. At this time, none of the points you have listed are probable. They have all been 100% confirmed by Maxis to appear in the final game. (And we should not be listing points that have not been confirmed by Maxis). It's pretty misleading to call something probable when it's pretty damn close to certain. It's not like Maxis has said "there's a chance these will appear in the final game." Do you also go around telling people it's "probable" the sun will rise tomorrow? Unless of course by "probable" you mean that it is "probable" that people will find these points to be negative. But I do not think this thread should be about people listing things that other people will 'probably' find negative. They should be listing things that they themselves certainly find negative.

I just realized you can build your city completely normally without ever zoning for any dirty industry, manufacturing industry, or low-wealth commercial service. I always thought low-wealth jobs were necessary to get high-end demand (like high-wealth commercial office or high-tech industry), but they aren't. Basically, you only get demand for these low-wealth jobs when your Sims have low intelligence. Set taxes on dirty, manufacturing and low-wealth commercial service to 20%. Plop down education buildings immediately after you build your first residences, and go to cheetah speed and wait until education is above 160 (out of 200) for them. Your sims can subsist on the jobs from civic buildings during this period, although your population won't be growing at all. Once there, you'll get demand for the medium and high-wealth commercial service and office jobs, and high-tech industry. You can now build your city normally... these medium and high-wealth jobs will fuel city population expansion instead of the low-wealth jobs.

OP, your points are really weak. - It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a basic idea of what gameplay will be like based on the information they've announced. - I don't understand why the intentions of Maxis have any bearing whatsoever on whether the final product is fun or not fun to play in the opinion of people who consider themselves hardcore city builders. Bluejay addresses this point pretty well.

100% disappointed. I was actually going to buy the parts to build my first desktop computer in order to run this game, since I'm not usually a gamer and all I currently have is a netbook. But since the latest news, the game is NOWHERE near worth it to spend the 1k to do that. All this game sounds like is some 'meh' game that you play for a couple weeks, get some lukewarm enjoyment out of and then stash away in your closet, never to play or think about again. To me, that's not really even worth the $60 to buy the game itself. So I guess my plan is out the window... shame, really, because it's really fun and interesting learning how to build your own computer.

If they did label this game Sim City 5 I would be more upset than I already am. From what we've seen so far this game is not deserving of that title. Agreed. It's a mockery to even call this game SimCity, nevermind stick a 5 on the end.

Actually, I think the Facebook page proves we're fighting a losing battle here. As of now: The # of Facebook responses for the Q&A part 2 article, posted 1 day ago, number 40. The # of Facebook responses for the Q&A part 1 article, posted 7 days ago, number 26. Yet, tons of people are apparently following the SimCity Facebook feed. The # of Facebook responses to the 'which is better: Simcity 2000 or Simcity Societies?' question, posted 1 day ago? 774. The # of Facebook responses to the 'what is the first SimCity game you played?' question, posted merely 7 hours ago? 456. Why did the article posts receive so few comments when so many people are obviously following the feed? An intuitive answer is that it's because most people following the feed simply don't care enough to respond. They aren't going to put decent time and effort into reading an article and understanding its implications, and then writing up a response of a few sentences. Only people who cared would do that. In other words, most of the Facebook feed consists of what we like to call casuals. (By the way, the comments to each article post are about 95% negative, showing practically everyone who actually does care enough to read an article and post a comment dislikes what is happening). Why did the two question posts receive so many comments? Because it takes no effort to respond to those kind of posts. It's extremely easy and quick to understand the post itself. The answer requires just one word! Barely any thought is required. Do any of these qualities remind you of the direction the new SimCity game is taking?

And the REASON we can't do those things is to serve the online and multiplayer game model...do you see now why everyone was in such an uproar? Except this isn't true. Just because online requirements and bad news like no terraforming appeared together, doesn't mean the former caused the latter. Rather, I'd say they are both caused by something completely external: the drive to make the game appeal to more casual players. --- I also thought the anti-online uproar wasn't all that justified. While it does come with some disadvantages, none of them are even close to gamebreaking (the way that no intercity connections or no terraforming is). And while I do feel for those truly affected by it, such as those who don't have stable internet connections, these people are in the minority.

People knew about the small maps (and no true region play) for some time before this. But no terraforming... if Simcity 2013 wasn't dead before, it sure as hell is now.

NO TERRAFORMING CONFIRMED. It's over.

For now I'm keeping an open mind about 1. (along with many other things they've announced about the game). There's only really one thing (so far) ruining the game for me, and that's 2. When you combine it with maps that are only 2 km by 2 km, it's a catastrophe.

To me, the only thing wrong with SimCity 2013 right now is the no control over intercity connections thing (this is a HUGE HUGE wrong, mind you). While I feel for those who don't have stable internet connections, the online requirement thing isn't really something that affects me, or I'd imagine most people (most games are going in this direction anyways). I don't like the idea about no density zoning and having road size control it, but I'm keeping an open mind until I get more information about this. And I'm also assuming at this stage we'll have terraforming... if there isn't any that will be another HUGE HUGE wrong. What I require from SimCity 2013 is to stop simply removing core features from SC4. Just add or improve. Don't simply remove.