Charizard

I love how OP mentions the SimCity 4 metacritic score being lower than the SimCity 5 reviews when only a few SimCity 5 reviews have been made. And when the posters here do present negative reviews of the new SimCity (which he curiously did not), he tries to invalidate them. He must really hate SimCity 4. I'm willing to bet anything that once all of this settles down the metacritic for SimCity 5 will be lower than SimCity 4's.

If I may be so bold, look at the issue from our perspective for a bit. Maxis has hosted beta events. The game launches in just a few days. It's highly unlikely that Maxis is holding on to some totally awesome nugget of information about the game that will radically alter everyone's opinion. As such, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to spend time trying to get the Maxis developers to cough up the goods, so to speak. Despite that, you will notice that we split time between asking about gameplay experience and technical questions about the simulation. So despite the fact that there isn't a whole lot of room for major new pieces of news, we did try to get the Maxis folks talking about the technical details (which could be useful food for thought with the modding community). Additionally, I would like to point out that we invite members to tweet their question throughout the day, and we answered as many as we could, so it is not like we completely ignored the community's pressing questions. The major unknown about the game at this point is the multiplayer experience and whether, on the whole of it, the game was worth the purchase. This is the first SimCity game to feature a real multiplayer component, and I would venture a guess that most of us don't really fully understand how multiplayer in a game like SimCity could/would work out. Understanding this part of the game was a major goal of this trip, and on that front, I think we came back with a lot of potentially informative data for the community. Maxis gave us the opportunity to play a basically final version of the game and we wanted to know if, at the end of the day, was it fun to play? Would we do it again if given the chance? In my case, the answer is yes. Maybe it's just me, but at this point, I think the most important question for the community is which side of the "to buy or not to buy?" fence you are going to come down on. Many people have already made up their minds and aren't going to change them, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to write a review for those people (no offense to anyone in either of those camps). The people who are really going to benefit from hearing my honest impressions of the almost final game are the ones who are still up in the air and need a push one way or another, so if I can reasonably offer some information that will help those people make up their minds, I am going for it. IMO, asking about city tile size for the umpteenth time and getting the same answer again isn't going to add much value for these people. I understand that these are pressing issues for you, and that is totally your prerogative. I'm sorry that you think our questions were lame. I do hope, however, that I have been able to offer some sort of satisfactory explanation for why we asked the types of questions we did. If you don't agree, that's cool. It will be a difference of opinion between us on what are valuable questions to ask at this point. Regardless, thanks for watching the video and taking the time to offer your feedback. Thanks for your response. I guess the reason I was so adamant about these issues being pushed forward is because there have been a lot of complaints about them (as you can see on this forum and elsewhere) and I thought that you interviewing them would be a great opportunity to have Maxis address them directly instead of tweets or just plainly ignoring them. It seems that even when fans complain EA rarely budges and only gives faint assurances such as the response to the city tile sizes. I understand why you asked the questions you did because at this point the game can't really be changed that much but I still think it would have been great if you could have been the voice of the community here. Anyways I think the only way we can change EA/Maxis's mind now is to vote with our pockets which is why I'm definitely not buying the game until it's on par with SC4. But thank you for taking your time and showing us the current state of the game.

I CAN wait until Tuesday It'll just be another normal day for me. I'll just pick this up when it gets down to the $20-30 mark (because that's how much it's worth to me).

No, they haven't. they've been deflected and ignored. the vague technobabble about a server being required for the game because of leaderboards and resource trading? absurd. No, you're just unhappy with their answers. There is a distinct difference. Personally I've found most of their answers acceptable, and having not worked on the game personally I am in no position to judge if they are not being truthful (and I do believe them for the record). They have not given clear and honest answers to many of the questions raised by the users here and elsewhere (including most of the ones I have listed). The only issues that I recall they have "addressed" are the city tile sizes and the modding capabilities. But instead of giving a clear and cutthroat answer, they skirted around the issues saying that they "might" be implemented sometime down the road instead of giving a straight and direct answer. Skirting around the issue does not count as a serious answer to a question. That's like accepting most politicians' "answers" to serious questions as legitimate and without fallacy when we all know that is seldom the case.

Why didn't you guys ask the devs about the many issues brought up by members of this community and other SC communities? Namely: - Lack of terraforming - Lack of modding (A faint assurance that modding will be implemented sometime down the line isn't that much of an assurance since EA has promised things in the past and not delivered when the time came. I won't buy a game where things are missing at launch and all I have is the devs word for it. Even in this interview the dev tried to dodge the question and gave a broad and indirect answer. Unfortunately this is the most likely type of response you're going to get when you ask the devs about serious issues relating to the game). - Outdated graphics (My computer was easily able to handle the game at the highest settings. This game could have been done 3-4 years ago imo). - Still no definite answer on the small city sizes. - Cities are located in small square plots surrounded by uninhabited grassland. Forget about being able to make seamless megalopolises or even real-life metropolises where one "city" flowed into another. You could then surround the big city with suburbs/farms. Instead, your region is now a landscape that you cannot for the most part touch except for the 16 designated small square tiles that aren't even next to eachother anymore. - No farms - No control over highways.... - No subways - Airports look terribly awkward (probably because they have to fit it all in one small city square) - I can live with always being online and the Origin component, but what happens when EA decides to shut down their servers (this has happened to other games)? These issues are brought up again and again and the devs refuse to address them. No offense but this "interview" and playtest session just felt like an op-ed praising the game. Real interviewers ask to-the-point and often curveball questions that represent all of the concerns of the intended audience. 90% of the issues I mentioned were not addressed either by you guys or Maxis. If they want to ignore an entire demographic then they should expect us to "ignore" their game as well. The game is aimed at an entirely different demographic this time (hint: it's not the SimCity vets). If they expect the game to do well because of casual gamers, the "social" component, and microtransactions they are terribly mistaken. Many "casual" gamers have never heard of SimCity and most will get tired of it after 3 months, if not sooner. Sure they might pump money into the game via microtransactions for the first month or two but once they stop playing the game they won't even remember it anymore. Just look at SimCity social, the Sims online or even Age of Empires online. In contrast if the game was aimed at the core fan base, loyal fans would almost certainly buy expansions/DLC (as long as they are good and fairly priced) for as long as the devs support the game. If they wanted to appease both sides then they could have left the multiplayer mode just the way it is and have had things like modding, cities next to eachother, terraforming, etc. in the singleplayer mode. Instead they slapped the long-time fans in the face and the singleplayer mode is an exact replica of the multiplayer mode (except you're not playing with human players obviously). I just can't believe with the failures of other franchises going the casual, social and online-only route the devs still won't address the core fan base. This is not SimCity. This should be called SimTown 2 (since there was already a SimTown believe it or not) or SimCity Social 2. I played the beta and I can safely say that I do not intend to buy this game the day it is released. Don't get me wrong, there are some very nice simulation elements but the aesthetic and customizable touch is lacking. At best I'll get it when it's in the bargain bin for $25.

Hi there. Now that the beta is over I would like to uninstall it from my computer to free up some space. I know that the main folder is in the Origin Games folder but what do I need to do to completely uninstall the beta from my computer? What are all the different folders I need to delete? Thanks.

that criticize the game in the name of preventing things from being repeated? Yet when I see people constantly praising the game by pointing out the same things, their posts aren't remove. I notice that I make several posts in one day and the next day I come back to see that half of them are removed/edited because I criticized the game or somehow got off topic by critcizing the game. If posts are removed to prevent things from being repeated then that's very silly since when you're discussing one particular game things will of course be repeated. It's frustrating to spend time posting on this forum and then have most of them deleted/edited the next day. It's a waste of time honestly.

Yeah but the point is they remove the posts in the name of preventing things from being repeated. Yet when I see people praising the game by pointing out the same things (i.e. building modules, graphics, etc.) their posts are never removed. Isn't that a bit hypocritical? If the mods want to be more honest they should just say that they can remove any critcism of the game if they want to.

Does this include everything from Cities XL 2011 and 2012? I already own XL 2011 but never bothered getting 2012 cause of the price.

Oh wow I didn't know that. Did they show survey data saying most people liked it?

No. Not that I'm buying the game anyway. If I did somehow get the game (probably when it's in the bargin bin) then I would only buy the DLC if it was all compiled together as part of a GOTY Edition or if it was an expansion a la Rush Hour that offerred a decent amount of changes to the gameplay. But knowing EA the former two things will never happen.

hilarious! Hilarious, but completely accurate. The foundation beneath this kind of marketing and sales ventures is a concept known as "I want to believe". It's a combination of variable specific triggers and patterns of user profiles underneath a set of models & inventory of methods for utilising these. At least within this industry, it's not like people do not use this elsewhere Let's be honest, most of our politics and modern economics rest on that syndrome. One of the more interesting parts of that on a psychological level is how easy it is to generate user trends of "X versus Y" where the concept of criticism is very easily translated in to a state of "anti" which gets equated with disfunctional membership of group dynamics or guidance towards exclusion of those. On a slightly larger level this can also be used very efficiently to enable customers to mobilise themselves based on what is known as unreasonable participation. Maybe some people remember how years ago the drama was between communities and users of Nvidia versus ATI. That history is actually a textbook case of research for this type of marketing today Very handy when it is required to engage in competition between titles / products of same genre and same potential markets. Macvirt you should seriously get a Ph.D in social psychology or something.

Wow I'm surprised they actually listened and fixed that. At least it won't be as hard now to make grid-style cities without large gaps in the middle of city blocks. I just want them to fix the city sizes, allow terraforming, and allow cities to be next to eachother in the region and I'll be satisfied. This can easily be implemented in the single-player mode. There is hope since they did fix this zoning problem.

They only have barely more than a month to do so. I think the game has probably gone gold by now and they are most likely going to start manufacturing the physical copies soon. Which sucks cause that means 99% of everyone's complaints won't be addressed by the time the game is released. Oh well. I won't buy it unless they address the various criticisms fans have repeatedly raised and/or the game gets down to $20.

They took out the Thanksgiving Parade, the very cool-looking advisor animations, the main menu, the awesome scenarios, and the warm graphics ... Not sure if that was the kicker Maybe they didn't do enough advertising for SC4, or maybe you have this flipped upside down and the people who bought 3000 were disillusioned by it and swore never to buy another SimCity. Who knows, but you're right though, those numbers are a bit freaky. But the source on the wikipedia article for the SC4 number is no longer valid, so that number might actually be a lot higher than just 2. Who knows... What do you think the reason was? (I asked you in another thread, but I'll ask you hear anyways) Simcity 3000/3000U: simple to play and hard to master (much like the new Simcity) ----> So is SimCity 4 since it builds upon 3000. Simple/intuitive UI -----> So was SimCity 4's. At least I haven't had a problem with it since I've played the game for so long. Solid simulator ----> Very generic. Inviting graphics (it looks fun) ---> I think the general consensus is SimCity 4's realistic graphics are much more appreciated than the bland graphics of SimCity 3000. Lack of game breaking bugs ---> Again very generic. Every game has bugs. Simcity 4: Hard to play and hard to master ----> Very generic. How exactly? Because it's more complex? And shouldn't that be a good thing so people who want a challenge (most gamers) can have one? Hard to use UI ---> Very generic again and opinion rather than fact. Problematic simulator ----> How? It was using a similar formula from 3000 that Maxis built upon. Too heavy of a focus on city building ----> Hmm I wonder why they call it SimCity. Darker graphics ----> You mean more realistic? If so that's a good thing in my book. Bug ridden game (which modders had to patch) ----> Most of the bugs (i.e. night lights not working on BATs) were patched by Maxis and the only bugs I can think of that weren't dealt with was the Industrial high tech/High wealth residential abandonment bug as well as the endless commuter bug. But like I said most games have bugs and most of the time all of them aren't patched. Game runs awful on most PCs ----> Not really. I have a GTX 670, 8 GB RAM, and i7 3770 and the game runs smoothly even with dozens of custom BATs. Maybe it's your PC? Fractured the fanbase ----> How so? By making it more complex? There is probably more to add here. I wouldn't be surprised if Simcity 3000 sold another million or two over the past 6 years. Simcity 4 probably sold another million or so because those who still played wanted a digital copy and/or bought the game because it was on sale for a few dollars on Steam. Those are some very generic criticisms XenoCity. Those are actually more like opinions rather than fact, no offense. I've responded in red. A lot of the things that SimCity 3000 supposedly did better (i.e. such as UI in your opinion) are minor things and shouldn't be deal/gamebreakers. The major changes from 3000 to 4 such as the simulation engine, graphics, god mode, region play, modding, etc. were improved upon. Again this might be my opinion but if you look around people like SC4 more than SC3000. I don't know why you hate SimCity 4 so much. I think the general consensus here (even from people that like the new SC2013) is that the SimCity franchise improved with each release and thus 4 was better than 3000. This is the first time I've seen someone claim SimCity 3000 is better than SimCity 4. That is just.. wow.. just mindboggling. But each to his own.

I didn't realise you could do that. I think I'll do that too. It is only available thru the Origin Store. @Charizard Development costs have been double and tripling the past 6 years. Development costs are expected to double again within the next 5 years, due to the demand for better graphics. Thus you either need to sell more copies and/or raise prices to breakeven. $70 and $80 dollar games could become the new norms. I understand that and inflation plays a role too. But the game isn't worth that much money to me. Like I said if the game was like its predecessors then I would gladly pay $80 to help support the devs. But EA has refused to listen to the fans in order to appease the casual/multiplayer crowd and as a result they won't be getting my money. I beg to differ. Seriously this game is more "hardcore" than the previous Simcity titles, due to the DLC, multiplayer, acheivements etc... You really need to learn what a "casual" gamer is. No I beg to differ.. And what DLC? I see no DLC for this game? How is it Hardcore? and do you know what that word means? from the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcore Hardcore (or hard core or hard-core, for many terms) may refer to: hard core, the members of a group or movement who form an intransigent nucleus resistant to change. Pretty sure 2013 is FAR different from any other SC title... So thanks for playing.. but you are completely wrong, on all accounts. Thank you Dewm you took the words right out of my mouth. XenoCity I don't think you understand what hardcore exactly means. Hardcore gamers are niche gamers that like one particular genre (or even game) above all else and spend the vast majority of their time playing games of that genre. Sure some MMORPG gamers (The ones that play it for hours at a time) are hardcore gamers. But the reason why WoW became so popular is because of casual gamers that never even played an MMORPG before. The average Call of Duty gamer is anything but a hardcore gamer. Usually (and I'm generalizing here) the average CoD gamer is a 13 year old kid or a 20-30 something adult that wants to take part in the craze. That is casual and not hardcore. The casual gamers are what made MMORPGs and FPSes a craze. The fact that SimCity 4 didn't do as well as people wanted to yet even 10 years after its release we have a community here playing it shows you how hardcore the SimCity 4 (and SimCity in general) fanbase is. And I don't know where you're getting your numbers from but SC4 is on Steam now and it's often on sale so people must be buying it to this day. This new SimCity game is clearly marketed at the casual gamer that gains a quick-fix by playing in an online social interactive world with their friends. If you fail to see that then I can't help you. Just think about how they made the game less complex by taking out things like terraforming, large cities, seamless regions, etc. This game is most certainly less complex than SC4. The actual engine (glassbox) may be more advanced than SimCity 4's (obviously since this is 10 years later) but the grand scope of the game is less complex than SimCity 4. Heck they even made the cities smaller and are using an outdated graphics system so that casual gamers and their low-end computers can run the game. The multiple DLCs they will release will clearly be marketed towards casual gamers as is the case of Sims 3. Yet instead of purchasing a bedroom set for $10 now they will be able to purchase a new building for $10 to get their quick-fix. I wouldn't have minded if they marketed the game towards casual gamers with things like multiplayer or even DLC. However they've crossed the line by taking out fundamental features from the series such as terraforming, modding, large cities, seamless regions, etc. There has to be a compromise between attracting new casuals to the series as well as appeasing the hardcore fans which EA is not good at doing apparently. The hardcore fans are the ones that will consistently buy games from the series, purchase quality expansion packs (as long as its not crappy micro-DLC), and stay with the game for years on end like they have with SimCity 4. This is not a hardcore game. I can't put it in simpler terms.

I don't know about you guys but my beta didn't look anything like the pictures posted. Then again I didn't use any filters but that shouldn't make that much of a difference. I have a very powerful system (8 gb ram, gtx 670, intel i7 3770) and the in-game graphics looked plain ugly. Even with all the graphical settings set to max the edges of buildings were choppy, the buildings didn't have any props in the lots and some of them appeared blurry when zoomed in. Maybe they took out high-res textures from the beta so that it would take up less space? Who knows. But if the beta is how the game really looks and these screen shots are just for show, that is highly disappointing because the beta graphics could have been done in 2008.

I didn't realise you could do that. I think I'll do that too. It is only available thru the Origin Store. @Charizard Development costs have been double and tripling the past 6 years. Development costs are expected to double again within the next 5 years, due to the demand for better graphics. Thus you either need to sell more copies and/or raise prices to breakeven. $70 and $80 dollar games could become the new norms. I understand that and inflation plays a role too. But the game isn't worth that much money to me. Like I said if the game was like its predecessors then I would gladly pay $80 to help support the devs. But EA has refused to listen to the fans in order to appease the casual/multiplayer crowd and as a result they won't be getting my money. I beg to differ. Seriously this game is more "hardcore" than the previous Simcity titles, due to the DLC, multiplayer, acheivements etc... You really need to learn what a "casual" gamer is. Are you serious? How does DLC, multiplayer, or achievements make this game more hardcore? If anything, that makes this game meant for more casual gamers since EA is trying to market this game towards a different demographic and trying to milk as much money out of the game as they can. The previous games didn't have any of these things (except Rush Hour) and did well among casual and hardcore gamers alike. DLC or multiplayer does not mean that this game will have replayability or a long lifespan with dedicated hardcore gamers. Besides the fact that they can shut down the multiplayer servers anytime they want to, they will release multiple packets of overpriced DLC that provide minor additions to the game because EA knows that there are casual gamers out there with itchy trigger fingers who will buy the DLC the day it comes out. The DLC would probably be something like the Sims 3 DLC which is highly priced and doesn't make changes to the underlying game mechanics to provide it with a longer lifespan. We hardcore gamers want a SimCity like the previous ones that can be played for months or even years on end. Instead this game is marketed towards the group that is satisfied with playing the game for a quick rush (think CoD fans, not to bash them of course) and will probably abandon the game 1-3 months after release. If EA really wanted to make money on the long term they could have released a game that had a long lifespan and will be bought for years. Heck SimCity 4 is more than 10 years old yet they decided to sell it on Steam where it is still selling a respectable amount of copies and has spawned the large community over here. If that's not hardcore I don't know what is. I'm pretty sure SC2013 won't have this sort of fanbase still playing it 10 years after release (assuming no one else takes over the city building genre). EA went for the quick-fix to make some fast money and besides the fact that the game doesn't have any replayabiltiy whatsoever because of the small cities, deadspace between cities, no modding support, no terraforming, etc., it won't be replayable at all once the servers are shut down eventually. What kind of business model is that? Certainly not a very good one and certainly not one that keeps the customer base loyal. SimCity 4 didn't have DLC nor multiplayer. It had one expansion which was Rush Hour that just added a few transportation options and provided more mod support. Even without DLC, multiplayer and achievements loads of "hardcore gamers" have stuck with it to this day. Sure casual gamers first played it when it came out. But the "hardcore" gamers and fans who really love SimCity have stuck with it to this day. SC2013 does not appeal to long-time SimCity fans who are anything but casual gamers. Just look around this board and I'm sure you'll get the idea. PS: For anyone that watches the video in the first post look at the comments section if you want a good laugh.

I didn't realise you could do that. I think I'll do that too. It is only available thru the Origin Store. @Charizard Development costs have been double and tripling the past 6 years. Development costs are expected to double again within the next 5 years, due to the demand for better graphics. Thus you either need to sell more copies and/or raise prices to breakeven. $70 and $80 dollar games could become the new norms. I understand that and inflation plays a role too. But the game isn't worth that much money to me. Like I said if the game was like its predecessors then I would gladly pay $80 to help support the devs. But EA has refused to listen to the fans in order to appease the casual/multiplayer crowd and as a result they won't be getting my money.

$80 is still a lot when all you get is three sets of buildings and 3 additional landmarks. The base game alone costs $60 which is ridiculous since it isn't worth that much imo. In this economy every dollar matters. What happened to games being $50? It seems someone started selling games at $60 and now it's a trend. Anyways I won't buy the game until it's down to the $20-$30 mark and all the DLC comes with it. To me the restrictions in the game far outweigh the new features they put in. This game is a direct downgrade from SimCity 4 and thus I won't pay that exorbitant amount of money for it. It's nice that they decided to put in the Empire State Building or Big Ben but how are you supposed to recreate New York or London if the cities are abysmally small, there is no terraforming, cities are surrounded by uninhabited landscape, and there is no modding support? For me I price a game based on how much I'll get out of it and how long I'll keep playing it. SimCity 4 is easily worth $80 because of the true sandbox mode of the game that allows you to test the limits of your creativity. I and many others are still playing it to this day so I would definitely pay $80 for it because of all the replayability it has offered me. However SC2013 is not worth more than $30 to me because the numerous restrictions that I stated above really limits its replayability. I tried the beta and by the end of the hour of gameplay I was bored and frustrated by the game because of all of the restrictions and the step backwards in comparison to the previous games. I don't see myself playing this game for years on end like I did with SimCity 4 (that's assuming they won't pull the plugs on the servers someday which I assure you they will). So yes I do think EA is trying to rip people off by charging $60-80 for this game and I guarantee you they will do quarterly releases of $20-40 DLCs a la The Sims 3 if this game is successful. If EA decides to fix these problems so that the game will have an unlimited lifespan like SimCity 4 and it will be less restrictive than the current game then I wouldn't mind paying the full price for the game. However knowing EA I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The sandbox mode is just a single player mode (even though you have to be connected to the Internet) with everything unlocked such as all the city specializations, buildings, modules, transit options, etc. and cheats enabled. The problems present in the rest of the game such as lack of terraforming, small cities, dead space between cities, lack of moddable features, etc. are still present in this mode as well. It's not that different from the multiplayer mode really except you're obviously playing by yourself and everything is unlocked from the start.

Well if the servers do get shut down we can only hope that the rights to the franchise are picked up by another developer which actually listens to the fans. Then again we are dealing with EA here and they protect their properties like a pack of hounds.

True but I'm afraid of Origin leaving some residual DRM crap from the game on my PC. :3

If you look through the threads on this board you'll see that a good portion of the community here agrees with everything you've said. Unfortunately even though these problems were brought up a year ago when the game was announced Maxis has tried to avoid addressing them. The most we've gotten is a tweet from Ocean Quigley stating that these problems will be addressed somewhere down the road after the game is released, which isn't reassuring. Instead of delaying the game after the huge uproar and fixing it, they've decided to stay on schedule and release an unpolished game. The game was from the outset meant to be a multiplayer/casual game which is why there were no things such as large cities, continuous cities, terraforming, etc. If they release these things as an expansion or DLC that'll be a huge slap in the face of the fans since these features were already in SimCity 4.