PyroMancer

I think the reason people complain so much is because space is very limited. Even though the maps might seem kind of big MC said they were suppose to represent like what 10Km by 10Km? For those of you that don't know 1 KM = 0.6 Miles. So roughly the maps are 6 Miles by 6 Miles. Now I'm not sure the size of the Large maps in SC4 but they felt larger then that. More to the point though that is actually a VERY SMALL amount of land to build on. A simple example is if you live in the suburbs and it takes you a good 20-30 min drive to reach the center of down town on a highway that let's you go about 50 MPH then you live about 17-25 Miles away (28-42 Km). And that is just one side of the city that doesn't include extending towards the other side. The other problem is cities are often surrounded by lots of counties, at least in the US. This means many of the Suburbs are not actually within the city limits. Even though most people use the city on their address and consider themselves to live in the city. The most important thing on the address is the zip code and as long as that and the street name and number are correct you can put the wrong city/state and the mail will often still get through . In fact if you include the FULL zipcode which most people don't they only use the first 5 numbers you don't have to put anything else on the letter. Except most people don't know their full zipcode address. Anyhow the point is cities in real life are often much bigger then what is allowed in CXL in terms of land space and they often are well connected to smaller counties (aka mini cities) surrounding them which funnel in workers and provide a lot of housing. As such every bit of space in the game counts so people don't like it when they think something is taking up to much of that valuable space. Since land is the only scarce resource in CXL . People always complain about stuff that uses up more then they think is fair of a scarce resource whether it's in RL or in a game.

Originally posted by: EAGCE And why do they have low satisfaction with leisure when they have a building right across the street from them? quote> Because they are just like people in RL. They have become extremely jaded by having the leisure place so close and it no longer gives them an satisfaction to go there.

Originally posted by: abcvs A little while ago we had a thread saying the game was too easy... quote> Yea and as I recall most of them people were SC4 fanboys who played CXL for all over like 10-20 mins with really small easy to manage cities and then quit cause it wasn't SC5. Followed by them coming to the forums to whine about it. I don't think I recall a single one of those guys who said it was to easy bragging they had made a city over 1M. SC4 is also extremely easy. Plot down a bunch of roads and put zones connecting them. The next thing you know you got a city with a bunch of buildings bringing in a ton of cash. That's what I do by coving the map in SC4 before i even add water pipes to go high wealth citizens, so that I got a ton of cash as a buffer. The hard part is getting a highly populated city with high wealth people and keeping it running.

Originally posted by: ddhboy Perhaps the perfect model for this type of economic gameplay is EVE Online, and its soon to be released counterpart Dust 514. Allow cities to form trade groups or nations, however the developers want to phrase it, let these groups try to sabatoge the economic growth of their rivals by out producing them, sabatoging them, depriving them of vital resources, or lowering their products prices to the point where they can't compete. Then scrap the coin system and replace it with commodities markets (again, like EVE Online) the value of these commodities will fluxuate depending on how much the world is producing, on who is selling and how much they are. quote> First off most people interesting in CB games aren't into the who undermining the competition type gameplay. Mainly because that means other people can screw with their city while they are trying to build and manage it. This is NOT an RTS game which is the kind of thing you would expect in that type of game. Second the formation of groups/nations would have to be manditory. That is pre-assigned other wise there wouldn't be much point to them. Since players can already make deals freely why would they want to join a group what would penalize them for trading with other players not in their group? People tend to do what's in their own best interest and if being part of that group means losing out on other oppertunities then I think they'll choose to be on their own. Lastly I think the game would need a fundemental change to it's core gameplay mechanics before any of those options would be viable and I don't think it would change the game for the better. Even if it is online it's still a CB game and most people don't like things messing with their city. Heck SC4 the only disaster that is even really left is the Fire. It's because people don't like the random disasters screwing up their cities. Originally posted by: ddhboy Also, we could also put back in the disasters from Sim City games but make the more realistic. Say there was a weather system imposed onto Planet Offer. You could have hurricaines, tornados, earthquakes, volcanos, blizzards, etc, which on the city building side of the game could reck parts parts or all of your city depending on how well you're prepared, or at the very least hamper travel and trade. Say there's a city in Cities XL that is a major shipping port, prefered by most major of the surrounding cities due to its low shipping tarrifs. Now a hurricaine comes and knocks out most of the ports the player had established in his city. Now trade from surrounding cities is also hurt because they no longer have this major hub that they could use to sell to the world market. Much like real weather, certain events can only happen in different parts of the world at a certain time of the year, like a far northern city could have its ships docked because the water surrounding the docks is iced up certain times in the winter. quote> From what I can tell CXL seems very static. You know I'm begining to wonder if the engine is all it's cracked up to be. I mean there are a limited number of maps meaning that even the terrain is very rigged. Even since the early days of the SC series you could reshape the terrain to however you felt like to establish the landscape you wanted to build your city on. Yet it seems CXL has to wait for PO content updates for new maps since it's listed as one of the updates. Originally posted by: ddhboy For an example, lets just say that one day I'm looking for new contracts to sell my oil to, and I notice that the oil prices are quite low. I go to my OPEC group and after some discussion we decide to limit the amount of oil that we produce for the next 30 days. Our plan works well and oil prices jump and we all prosper in the additional revenue. Other cities see this and are deeply affected by the lack of oil comming in. In retaliation these cities impose export tarrifs against me, which really hurts because I needed material to help build that transcontinental railroad that the neighboring cities and I were discussing. Additionally a new competitor arrises and undercuts my oil prices, which floods him with new contracts. quote> Most like your plan fails miserably. The economy is CXL is a completely open market which because of real time feedback and respond instantly to changes in supply and demand. As your OPEC group "Limits" production other cities will quickly take notice of the shortage and rush to fill the gaps. While cities that have shortages of their own will become more self sufficient, other cities looking to expand their income will start producing more oil. So soon your little OPEC wannabes will be stuck with a ton of oil they'll have to dump on the market real cheap just to get it to sell because of the surplus. Though that might be a good way to flood the market and cause a crash in an industry. 30 days is a VERY VERY long time in CXL. You can already look at the city ratings and several cities are already over a few million population. And several have many millions in cash on hand. And the game has only been out for 1 week. Who knows how much bigger and more developed things will become given a few more weeks let alone 30 days. The beta cities they show off on the main site mostly have around a couple million. But the one big city they show also includes a full overhead pic and it has about 16M people and takes up most of the map. So I wonder if this is towards the upper limit of what's possible given the limited space. The city in question also has what looks like mostly high density buildings already so no more verticle growth. The only reason groups like OPEC can get away with that kind of thing in RL is because of the following reasons. 1) Scarce Resources 2) Delay Production 3) Delay in Resource Gathering 4) Cost of Setting up In most video games like CXL these aren't really as much of an issue. The first one is quite obvious as it's very easy for new cities to be created that then begin producing and add to the supply so things are not scarce. The second and third are kinda similar and also tie into the first as it takes time to say pump the oil from the ground then it takes time to refine it. But what I also include in this is the delay in setting up for both as even if you have the oil like some countries do. You are still stuck under OPEC because it may take you years to get the facilities built and up and running. And of course the last one is a major issue as the cost of setting up those pumps and refinerarys might be more then the cost paying a little bit extra. Also in the case of groups like OPEC their cost are spread over a wide group of people. So sure their price hick might mean you have to pay 25% more at the pump but your not gonna go out and setup a rival oil company to counter that. Where as a very large company with a lot of money who uses a lot of oil might not like spending 25% more so they crunch the numbers and figure out it's cheaper for them in the long run to produce their own which they do. Well in the case of CXL you are that very large company(aka city) with a lot of cash at your command and building your own oil production could very well be within your grasp(depending on the map you picked).

Originally posted by: City Planner I think it odder that the city owns things like ferris wheels and bowling alleys.quote> Not in a socialist system. Which is the type of country the game was made in. So of course their more likely to model it after their own government. The thing that I find more odd though is that they cost you money. In RL most of those entertainment places are privately owned and they MAKE money they don't COST money. Unless I guess since it's a socialist setup all the people are getting free passes?

Originally posted by: SimBurger Im still a little thrown by the 14% starting tax rate. Europeans *do* know that our tax rates aren't that high in the USA don't they? Im not sure how to translate this into terms my brain can grasp. With SimCity4, they hovered around the USA standard - 7%. You can go up or down from there. The reaction of the city was logical based on that. But starting at 14% - i dont know how things work if I go up from that, or down .... quote> The game follows more of a socialist setup to running a city since it was made in a fairly socialist country. The tax rates are probably set to be on par with their tax rates. Also I think your living in a fantasy world cause income taxes are a lot higher then 7%. Heck sales taxes in some areas is higher then that. The average US citizen pays 20%-30% in income taxes. They just trick people into not being aware of how much their paying by withholding a chuck each pay check and then letting them get a "return" so that people are "happy" at tax time for getting their OWN money back. I think they might of used the sales tax amount since that hovers around 7% in most areas for the starting point of taxes in SC4. I don't know how things are over Europe but they might have close to 14% sales tax cause I have heard of some countries with high sales taxes. I know I recently hear that Denmark had the highest income tax of any country at 62%. And I know many European countries tack on several dollars worth of taxes for Gas making it well over a 100% tax. But in the end it's just a game and they had to set the values at something. You can't go comparing RL taxes rates because every country is gonna have wildly different rates and this is an international game.

Originally posted by: Androv quote> DON'T JUMP! YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!

Originally posted by: SimBurger What the heck am I even selling - office services? Does that mean I load a bunch of admin assistants into a "Freight" truck and cart them over to the city next door? quote> OMG! I'm getting sick of hearing that one from people. Every hear of OUTSOURCING!! When you call up the tech support and you get some Indian guy over in India that is becuase one company(aka city) is buying their "OFFICE SERVICES" from a company/city in India! And no it doesn't take an imaginative thinking to come up with that. It's COMMON SENSE! Although I'm reminded of this motivational picture on that subject.

Yea the import tax laws are just CRAZY for some countries. I was having a discussion about the price of books for a PnP game in another forum and the guy was talking about how it was outrageous the price the "company" was charging and he was rambling off prices that were over double what the book cost. Well turns out he lived in Australia which also has a pretty high import tax so a lot of things cost more there. So it wasn't really the "company" being greedy but rather his own government. Since we can't talk about promoting curtain "illegal" activities I'll make a better suggestion. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

Originally posted by: Apache You all ready had your Simcity 5 ....it was called Simcity Societies LOL! You want Simcity Societies 2 now? Cause EA looks at the CB genere as a HUGE pocket lose now after the SC Societies epic fail! quote> Yea I think it's sad but true. I remember when SCS was in the work seeing developer interviews with what I can only describe as this idiot lady. She was showing off far more gameplay mechanics on SCS then what I've been able to find in any of the CXL videos which seem to be all flash and no substance. But anyhow just from the very early concept explanations and then some vids of gameplay it was easy to tell it was horribly simplified SC. Listening to the developer interview with that lady as she eagerly talking about the "exciting new direction" they were taking the SC series all I could think was OMG your a bunch of idiots. You don't go completely redesigning a very successful franchise so that it doesn't retain even a trace of it's original core. I mean other then the NAME SCS has pretty much NOTHING in common with the originals. The previous SC games continued a progressively more complex build up to better gfx, more options, more detailed cities/region, and so on. But then they take so many steps back in it's design the series that it plays like a predesor to the ORIGINAL game because of it's simplicity. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if SC1 sold more copies then SCS. Though it's probably not the case as many people had high hopes for SCS so EA was able to at least cash in some on SCS because of the name alone. I know they even made an expansion but word was that was in the works prior to the original release so even poor sales of the main game probably wouldn't of stopped that since it was pretty much a content update and came out only 6 months after the original. Though who knows maybe someday many years from now EA will finally make a proir SC5. After all the Diablo2 and Starcraft crowds had to wait a very very long time for Blizzard to get around to making sequals for those games. And because of the popularity of WoW most had given up hope figuring Blizzard was putting all it's effort into it's cash cow. The same way SC fans see EA putting all of it's effort into The Sims 3.

When I first heard about this game I thought it sounded pretty interesting. Well I don't usually follow the progress of games leading up to release anymore because of to many disappoints in the past, last minute changes, cancelization, and so on. I figure when it comes out I'll judge it based on what actually makes into to release and not the high ideals mentioned in early development. So fast forward several months to a few days ago. I was looking at new releases and I happen to see the Cities XL had been release. Well as is often the case I checked for a Demo and sure enough there were plenty of sights that had the demo available for download including FilePlanet. So I eagerly download the demo which takes most of the day. Once I finally have it downloaded I try to install it and run into the error mentioned in another thread about the installer freezing up. I figured it might have something to do with me surfing the web while the 1G file installed so I tried again with nothing else running. Sure enough after it looking like no progress was being made for about 5 mins it finally finishes installing. At this point I was fairly excited to give the game a good test run. Only to find out upon starting it that I need to make an account on their website. I figure well okie no problem with that. Well the Demo sends me to a page that it appears you can't find from any link on their main site which says the Demo period ended on Sept 30. To which I was a bit pissed off as I had checked their site prior to downloading it and saw no mention of this. After having wasted all that time downloading and installing to be left with nothing. But I had heard of the bring a friend option which I assumed was what the Demo was. So I figured I'd go to the normal registration process figuring it would give me access to their community site and forums like MOST company sites. After filling out all my info and that and getting the validation email I still kinda hope the option will let me play the demo once I have register. Well I click on the link in my Email and it then ask for a CD key which I of course don't have and mentions the bring a friend option which is no longer offered due to the influx of people. So since I can't test the game out I'm now stuck surfing the web for info. I even check out the system requirements page which then gets me a little nervous. As most of them I'm only slightly over but the processor mentioned is 2.5 Ghz min. Well I only have a 2.2 Ghz processor. Even though I have gotten several new gfx intense games I can still play them though sometimes on low settings. Seeing as I couldn't register I also figured that I couldn't access their forums (Something another company does on their site. Their excuse is they don't want pirates to get "free help" with their problems). Well after checking around I've gotten even more nervous. I found out the don't have a Forum anymore on their site?!? I've heard of several people with much better setups then mine unable to get the game to run or it runs very slow even on low gfx settings. Along with reports of various bugs and simplistic gameplay. All of which make me even more wary of buying the game before trying it out. I will admit that I do have City Life and did find it a bit decent play even though not up to SimCity standards in terms of Pure Sim. And people have discribed it at being kinda like that though more complex. So it sounds like I might actually like the game even though it isn't SC5. But the technical difficulties and potential requirements really give me pause. I don't have the money to do what one poster mentioned they did by going out and buying a new graphics card to be able to play the game. Though in my case it would probably end up being a new CPU and possible MB. I really don't want to buy the game only to find out it doesn't run on my computer. I heard the reason they took down the Demo was to put up the Release servers. But that doesn't make much sense as they apprently intended to still have a trial game option so why not keep the same thing setup or simply have it move over to release as the trial peroid? I know of other games that do this very same thing. One even has a Trial Server where people get 2 weeks test play then their account is suspend unless they subscribe and can move to the normal servers. And even if server usage is an issue then WHY oh WHY have it even tied to the server? I mean a single player demo is better then NO demo. Then they don't have to worry about the server at all so it's a win win. That why people like me could at least see how the game runs on our machine as well as test it out. So until I can try the game out I'm not gonna be forking over my money to buy it.

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy There are many MMOs out there without a demo, especially the independent ones. It's been standard practice for quite some time. quote> Yea but there are also many that do offer trial periods, especially independent ones. They are often not main stream MMO and target niche audiances. But because they target such niche crowds they need to be able to show off what they are like to attract people into them. I can think of 2 MMORTS games off hand that have trial periods. One is "Mankind" the other is "Beyond Protocol". I know "Mankind" has been around for 10 years and still had a stead fan base last I checked which was earlier this year. Originally posted by: solaharius MC did a trial version as a friend gave me his trial dvd. I tried to play with it ^-^. Except connection problems with the server (wich occur around 4/5 times i want to play....), it works. That trial dvd gives you access to more features than the "demo" released in september did (for instance, you can have more than 20k people). Psycho_Teddy is right, you can't blame them if they stopped accepting people if they already have problems with their servers. People who bought the game must be the priority. quote> Um yea it's nice the new trial offer was gonna be an upgrade from the original Demo but even so. I mention in my original post that if the strain on the server was an issue then they should of simply made it a SP Demo. I have also seen these in the past as they showcase the fundementals of the game in a sort of tutorial fashion before you ever login to the server to join other players. I use to be a major MMO "addict" . At times I have trouble finding ones on the list I didn't play at some point, though there are often side niche ones that I haven't and of course Browser games don't count. I've played UO, EQ1, EQ2, AC, DOAC, AO, Horizions, WoW, EvE, StarWars, Linage, StarPeace, Mankind, and many others. I got out of the habit though a while back so haven't played most of the newer ones like Aion, Conan, and etc. My point is I've been around a while and seen a lot of different setups and I don't think this one was planned out to well. The trial period via Bring a friend sounds like it would be a good thing but they seem to have underestimated the influx. And I also have to wonder as the size of that influx since on the main page you can actually see a list of the planets(servers) and it puts roughly 24K cities spread across 8 planets. Since multiple cities are available to users, 5 for PO users and 2 for those who got in on Bring a friend while still offered. We have no way of knowing how many actually users there are other then it is less then that if not maybe only half. So 12K-24K users most of which are probably actual game owners getting in their free 7 days. That doesn't really seem to go well to indicate their server potential. Those are pretty small numbers for a MMO and you'd think they would of been ready to handle a much larger influx of people.

Originally posted by: His Divine Hand Originally posted by: PyroMancer And personally there is nothing wrong with that. Once a person buys software, such as a game, they have the right to use that software however they see fit for their own "personal" use. So if they want alt it so Cities XL looks like it's on say Mars (SimMars Mod hehe) when in SP then they are perfectly within their right to do so. Now if they try and sell it they might have some legal issues. quote> . . . And here you fall off the boat. You see, things like movies, books, music, and yes, video games fall under a different area of ownership. You see, the code that your computer reads to play games like CXL is under the ownership of the game creator, not you. All you own is the disc it comes on; the company so kindly lets you lease their wares for only the original purchasing cost. Intellectual Properties, how loved you are.quote> Yea and I think you overlooked the part where I said for "personal" use. If I buy a book I am perfectly within my right to cross out whole sections of that book, rip chapters out of it, paste pages in from another book or that I have written myself to change the story to make it more interesting to myself. The book is MINE I have the right to do whatever I want to it. Though you are right that the Intellectual Properties IN the book are not mine though and I may not distribute them as my own. As in reprint or reproduce and distribute regardless of if it's free or not. And the purchase of them is not a "Lease" which is basically a type of rental. The purchase of Media such as video games is the right of useable of the item for PERSONAL use. To further clarify you have the right to Mod a game you purchase all you want. Whether or not you have the right to distribute that Mod you create however could be considered a legal gray area. Though as long as the implemental of the Mod does not contain any of the original software's code I do not believe there is a legal issue. Like with CounterStrike which I know was original free but not sure if they worked out some deal with Valve when they started selling it since a 3rd party developed it as I recall (Never really got into FPS) since it of course hand to include the original Half Life code to be sold as a seperate game unlike when it was simply distributed as a Mod. Because Mods are nothing more then a set of instructions on how to change an exsisting setup. You still have to purchase the original setup (AKA software) to implement the Mod. Though things like cracks that get around copy protection to aid in the piracy of software would of course fall under the illegal section. But for the case of this discussion we'll stick to actual Mods. So Mods actually help facilitate the sale of an item. Now because the original owner still holds the rights to the "core" software they are well within their rights to see what kind of Mods people come up with and then incorperate it into the next version of their software. This is actually one of the things that made so many people hate Microsoft early on. They would release thier programs like Office, Excel, and other such things to 3rd party developers to allow them to develop and sell "addons" (aka Mods) to their software. Microsoft would then sit back and see which addons were the most popular and then incorperate their own version of it into the newest version of the software. This of course then put those 3rd party developers out of business because they can't sell an addon if the feature comes default with core software. But since Microsoft owned the core software they were within their rights to improve upon it as they saw fit.

Originally posted by: sacasoh The point is: i think that simulation city building is a niche market that don't sell enought to have titles coming out every year... if you the companies "dumb down" the games certainly they will piss off hardcore gamers, but will attract younger consumers... So, all this time, all companies could have done a "SC5", but instead they invested on FPS and other styles that are aimed to people that have to see a explosion every 20 seconds to continue playing the game. It's called profit and we can't blame them for that, can we? quote> Yea but I think not only in the case of CB games but in many games now a days they confuse Dumbing down with Easy Accessibility. The Simcity games have always been fairly accessibility which is evident by their popularity. I mean you don't sell millions of copies of a game by targeting small niche audiences. By it's very definition that is impossible cause their aren't that many people in the niche. Games need to follow the moto of some of the original older board games like GO. It takes 5 minutes to learn but a life time to Master. By making the game simple to understand and use so the casual gamers will be drawn in. But also has a lot of depth so that it takes a long time to master and learn to draw in the more dedicated gamers. This increases the longevity of the game like in the case of SimCity series. They are fairly easy to get into and get a small city going. But it takes a lot of work and effort to really get an large excellent city built. But instead games now adays in their attempts to draw in the Casual gamers take the moto of. It takes 5 minutes to learn and 10 mins to Master. So that things are very shallow as you quickly hit the bottom. And you find they have no depth so you shelf them and move on. Now some companies may think "Oh that's fine we already made our money since they BOUGHT the game." But this is a TERRIBLE mind set and is incorrect. Because bad reviews and word of mouth from people who play it prevent more people from buying it so they make less money. Also the games that last like SimCity do have a lot of depth to them. So companies continue to make money off them years after their original release. These type of games often end up among the most profitable. Games that end up in the value bin 1 month after release because they have no depth or replayablitiy don't make money. Because again how many other "niche" games like simcity do you see still on the shelves in many major retailers after several years? The "niche" crowd is the dedicated fans who even now continue to play and mod their game using stuff found on sites like this. But the vast majority of those SimCity sales were from casual gamers who play plain old vanilla SC4.

Originally posted by: jap88 In fact, if we talk about real life, lowering taxes only creates profitability in that they retain more of their original profit. The only way in which they will generate more revenue for the government in terms of taxes is if they expand their revenue base. But I don't quite see how they would do that in CXL. Of course, I don't suspect MC would understand that idea either. quote> Actually your wrong about this. Taxes do effect the profitability of businesses beyond simply how much they take at a 1 to 1 ratio like you suggest. You said you were currently minoring in Econ so not sure if you've gotten this far. The economic concept of Monetary Viscosity effects how health the economy is. What this has to do with is how quickly money "turns over" in an economy. And quiet simply it goes like this. You buy something for $100 so now that person/company had $100 dollar. They then maybe put $10 in savings, $10 in taxes, and spend the remaining $80. Now this new person/company has $80 and they put $8 in savings, $8 in taxes, and spend the remaining $64. This cycle continues until at last you reach the end of a predetermined period, say a year. So in the end that original $100 dollars generated $244 dollars worth of economic activity just from it's first 3 cycles. This principle is very important to tourist towns as it's how a few visitors help generate large amounts of business and growth far beyond what they actually pay out. Well in RL since companies automatically take withholdings for taxes that means that is money you don't have for the rest of the year to help generate further economic activity for the rest of the year. But also since the effect is cumulative the larger the tax the more is pulled out of the economy at each cycle thus further hindering growth at an ever increasing rate. Of course in most econ classes they simply use spending and saving in their examples to not over complicate it for new econ students. And they talk about how the savings rate lowers how much activity the original amount generates but this applies to taxes as well as the % people set aside for savings. And back when Japan had it's econ crisis several years ago they traced the problem in part to the savings rate. As most Japanese has rather large sums of money in their accounts even though times were tough and work was hard to find. Their were of course other issues but it was a contributing factor. Anyhow I've drifted off topic a little. The reason this Monetary Viscosity effects how profitable the business is comes from the fact that more economic activity is generated. So the business has a better chance to earn more money. The problem I think a lot of people have with econ is they see it like a giant pie. In that if someone has more I have less, and that for someone else to gain say $1 more then someone else must loss/giveup $1. But this is not really the case as by it's very nature the principle of Monetary Viscosity shows us the economy is a very fluid thing and depending on how fast things flow through the system along with how much is taken out at each point we can actually increase and decrease the size of that imaginary "pie". Thus it is actually possible to make it so everybody wins/gains which some people find as very hard to understand and grasp.

Originally posted by: 0wn3d Was this SP or PO? In PO if your afk for like 10 minutes it pauses. quote> WAIT WHAT!?! I thought that PO was persistant. That was kinda the point. So how can you "pause" in it? I mean how do you setup regular trade exchanges if your games are running at different speeds? It's kinda like the SC4 region system which I both liked and disliked. I disliked how easy it was to abuse by having a long term contract with another city yet when you went back to that otehr city all that money you had spent as an expense in the other city was simply lost. Or you could exploit it by selling stuff constantly for a profit even though the other city couldn't really afford it and didn't need it.

Originally posted by: rhenry I was looking for people talking about this today. I am pretty much convinced by now that it's just not even possible to build a very large city without being on the PO. When it comes time to buy resources from Omnicorp, you never have enough money or he's not selling any to begin with. The only maps that have a respectable amount of oil have no water and visa versa. I thought maybe if I just started buying oil from him as early as possible, before I even needed any, then it might help but it doesn't seem to help at all. So the basic conclusion after 4 days with this game is that solo mode is just a demo version for the PO mode. You play solo until your frustrated with your limitations and then you give up and buy your online membership. I'm 100% certain of it. I've already found myself trying to dig out my old wireless adapter to put my game computer online, which I did not want to do out of fear of viruses. but if I want to play the game to it's full potential, what choice is there? Resistance is futile. You must assimilate.quote> Or you could just wait until a Hack/Mod comes out. I'm sure one will be out eventually after all the game hasn't been out a full week yet so there hasn't been much time for that yet. I mean after all people talk about how SC4 is superior because of all the "fan support" along with the fact it has better simulation. But the "fan support" is nothing more then hacks and mods to the game. Cities XL is a nice pretty gfx engine from what I've seen. I'm sure in time some people will make some kick ass mods. And probably even ones that do stuff like unlock Mass transit and lower Omnicorp's trade prices. And personally there is nothing wrong with that. Once a person buys software, such as a game, they have the right to use that software however they see fit for their own "personal" use. So if they want alt it so Cities XL looks like it's on say Mars (SimMars Mod hehe) when in SP then they are perfectly within their right to do so. Now if they try and sell it they might have some legal issues.

Originally posted by: Albatross Domain What they should do is what games such as Runescape that not only allows non-members to play (f2p) but with limited abilities and such, and those that are members, to have access to everything. So if those people should decide they want to go p2p, they will have that choice also. I also understand that bandwidth could also become an issue. however I also agree that as long as the person logs on at least once per 6months, they will be able to keep their account.quote> I think that is a good idea. Since you have to actually BUY the game to play it and create and online account there is already a sort of limit in place. After all the people did fork over the money to purchase the game. It's not like runescape or those other "pay to upgrade" type web games where you got a ton of people who didn't fork over anything at all. Here is what I think a good starting point for the limits should be. Trade: Limit 10 contracts with other players. (Depends on how much they want to limit growth since trade is apparently very important to large cities) Cities: 1 per account Special Buildings: Can't Access Blueprints or join group to help other access (Not sure how they work only seen MP Video) Special Events: Don't have access (Not sure how or what those are but player can't attention or etc.) Mass Transit: Full (That way at least the player can see what their missing in SP and might encourage them to buy since thier stuck with only ONE city) Extract Content: None (They won't get new content such as upcoming medieval stuff and so on) Personally I don't think any of this is unreasonable. After all keep in mind the player has already BOUGHT the game. And from what I hear they only get a SEVEN DAY trial for PO?!?! Most MMOG give a FULL MONTH with purchase of the game. This is also a much better marketing "scheme" then the one imployed now. Because this will allow people to make friends and contacts with other players they want to continue to hang out with. They will be limited on their cities growth because of trade limit so they will have a desire to increase that so their city can expand. They will be stuck with only the one city and most people who play CB games like to design multiple cities with different layouts. After all right now it's the SP vs MMO and that's pretty much an easy choice for most people. Either they are going to signup for the MMO or they are not. They simply resign themselves to having the fewer options and move on never to look back. Where as this option by letting them just get a foot in the door and peek around they see others having fun and doing more then they can so they want to unlock those features as well. But if their stuck in SP they aren't going to be talking with subscribers (via chat) about what their missing or hanging out in the City Blogs talking about thier city and viewing others. They have no interest in it cause their playing it by themselves in SP.

Originally posted by: PLB82 This is the first actual review I've seen... unfortunately, it's not in English, so I can't tell you what it says... http://www.gamesnation.it/giochi/1045/recensioni/cities-xl.html Perhaps one of the bilinguals on the board could summarize?quote> Use babelfish to translate websites. It's a great site and does a pretty good job of translating stuff. I use it all the time for sites in other languages. http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Originally posted by: 0wn3d The only way to make a ton of money is through exports, and the only way to get certain things is through imports if your not on a balanced map. Obviously in the beginning there is no trade, there isn't supposed to be trade. The beginning is supposed to be easy, but when you make a big city its very possible to have over 100 trade contracts. quote> So it sounds more like Cities XL is a MMO Trading Game with a fancy CB feature to help you organize your "production" facilities. Much like the early Ceaser games were more an Empire Building RTS with CB to manage the main resources of your empire/income. I only played the first 2 Ceaser games but that's how I remember them.

Originally posted by: knightrider When I first heard that they were going to make this game MMO, my initial reaction was disbelief. Then I got to thinking, how could one actually make a city builder into an MMO? quote> The closest game I ever saw to this, which was actually pretty good, was a game called Starpeace. Except instead of being the mayor of a city you were the owner of a corporation. It also took place on a planet and there were multiple cities on the planet but they were seamlessly connected, sorta like regions of SC4 only you didn't have to load between them. Anyway one player could be elected as "Mayor" of each city and they were allowed to "zone" and do the other government type stuff. There were some restrictions though to being mayor so you weren't completely in control like in SimCity where you can doze established businesses and houses because you "feel" like it . Anyway the players could setup businesses and housing of many different types. They then ran those companies by adjusting the wages, prices of goods, and etc. The businesses did require raw goods which could either be made themselves or by other players. You could get them either via contract or simply put a max bid out and it would find the lowest price available. The only risk with that was if someone didn't sell goods for what you were willing to pay the business might stop production because it ran out and then sit their costing you lots of upkeep while you were away since it was a MMO that ran in real time. Which is why most people did contracts or made themselves thus making that "open market" not so open and a bit scarce at times. One of the major down points of the game though was the "progressive tax system" they setup. Much like the Real Life tax system where you pay a larger percentage the more you make. The problem with it was that it was WAY to steep. If you made like 1B per Quarter (3months in game time) then the tax rate jumped from like 20% to 90%. So if you made $1 less then 1B you only paid 200K in taxes and made 800K profit. If you however made $1 over 1B you suddenly paid 900K in taxes and only made 100K in profit. This tax setup though applied to EACH industry in the game though. So I'll makeup 3 industries for this example. If you had a lumberyard, papermill, and book maker industries they all could make up to 1B before hitting that tax mark. If however you sold really cheap with the first 2 so the profits were high on the book marker that you went over 1B you had to pay more taxes. This mean you had to end up doing what REAL LIFE companies do which is creative accounting by charging more when selling to YOURSELF so the profits are lower for curtain companies and thus you pay less taxes. Besides the hassle this tax system created is also meant that almost no one specialized in the game so it greatly limited trade since in order to maximize profits you had to be a jack of all trades. Of course the excuse of the developer was that they didn't want someone forming a monopoly and muscling out the competition. The main source of competition came from the "consumers". As you had movie theaters, restaurants, car dealers, apartment buildings, and etc which were all marketed directly to the NPC citizens in the world. This did however still endup causing a bit of that muscling out the competition. Since in the game you could see the stats, including wages, price of goods, profits, and etc. of ANY building in the world. So new players would often look for industries that seemed profitable or good locations. They would then setup a rival car dealership, movie theater, or etc. across the street and often times slightly undercut the price of the company. This of course did not go unnoticed by the owner of that business as they would login to see their profits had taken a dip. And then they would go look to see why and spot the offending new player's buildings. You could also view players stats in the game so they would easily see that it was a new player. They would then tell them to close down the business and go move to an undeveloped part of town or find a new city to build in. If the player refused the cut throat tactics would begin. The established player could afford to take a loss in that business and a few others because they had plenty of other profits else where. So they would sell at a huge loss forcing the new player to be unable to sell at a profit at that business and eventual close it down. Some players went as far as to track down all the businesses the new player had setup rival business across the street and undercut them as well forcing the player to near bankruptcy. Though usually this was only within the confines of a single city to force the new player to move to another city. In the end the only "safe" way to start was to make raw goods and sell them to other players then when you got wealthy enough try selling to customers because even if you weren't new it was still a very cut throat competition . Anyway I know the game wasn't really a CB since you ran individual companies but on a whole the players working together did eventually build rather large cities. And honestly I can't really think of another way you could really do a MMO CB. Since things like zoning and such would come down to people voting on how things should be laid out. Which does remind me that despite all the cut throat tactics it seems the mayors of most cities were the nicest of all the players and helped out new players a lot of times. I think it was in large part because their "re-election" depending on having the other players like them hehe. Though in the end ironically the thing that said was their to help "protect" the game and keep players was what caused me to leave. That progressive tax designed to "punish monopolies" meant once I had reached the max income from all the industries there was no reason to expand any further since I'd have to build like 8X what I had to get back to the same profit I was before I hit the increase tax point. So I ended up quiting when I had gotten to that point cause I didn't feel like taking 20 steps back just to take 1 foward.

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey I doubt that very much; EA holds the trademark for the name "Sim City" but you can't copyright gameplay; As long as they don't directly copy code or art assets, or call the game "Sim City 5" they are free to make it however they like from a legal point of view. quote> Actually you can to a curtain extent. I don't know if you recall but a few years back Sega sued Fox because Simpsons Road Rage had some side missions where you "Taxi" people around town. The claim was that they copied The Crazy Taxi series gameplay. I don't recall all the details of the case but that was the basis of it. Also when I was studying programming our teacher told us how it was actually possible to copyright some aspects of mechanics, user interface, and etc. This to ensure someone doesn't simly make a copy of the software you made and sell it under their own name. It has to be significantly different. I don't really know all the legality issues but again that is the general premise. Anyhow I'm sure now that EA owns the rights to the SimCity sieres they also own the rights to many of the core aspects that make it unqiue. Like "Zoning" an area and letting it develop based on demand, property values, and so on. That is probably why we haven't seen any other CB type games use that model. I've only seen a few other CB style games and most of the others seem to be based on setting down specific buildings or types of buildings. Granted even if the case wouldn't hold up in court I don't think anyone want to risk taking on EA in a legal battle so they simply make wide turns to steer clear. Also these types of cases can be brought at ANY time. The case with Crazy Taxi suing The Simpsons happened like a year or two after the game was out and had been successful. The key to such cases is waiting to see if they actually do pose a threat and make a lot of money then sweep in and take a large block of the profit for themselves. So it's likely EA would wait to see if it was successful then they would sweep in and sue. Because they make a lot more money that way since it's not speculation on how well it would do vs laywer cost. They already know the outcome of the product sales.