3vol

simcity socieities is on that list....as simcity 5:societiesquote> Yeah but that's from January. It has since dropped off the list and SC4 is around #18. I couldn't find the march list for some reason.

Originally posted by: Ntq$310 Overall This is something societies will never have because the fan-base has not moved, and the new fan-base that's has been created isnt really in intrested making it realquote> I would say that SCS has a fairly active mod community for being out as short of a time as it has. I have started learning how to mod and there are many good mods that come out that make the game much better.

Originally posted by: Yeah_Right i bet more people like scs than sc4.like my little bro loves scs but hates sc4 because its 'too hard'. in my shopping centre, the game shop has sold more copies of scs than sc4. i think we are just the hardcore diehard fans of sc4. scs is/was meant to cater of different people. when scs evolves into sc:creations, we might eventually see a better version of sc4 come out after this mess.quote> Actually, SimCity4 continues to outsell SCS every month according to the "Top 20 PC games" lists that get put out every month. SCS has now dropped off the list. Here is the list from January http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2008/03/03/top-20-best-selling-pc-games-of-january-2008.htm This is probably why they are packing SCS, Destinations, and a puzzle game with SC4 Deluxe so that more people start playing SCS. I do not like saying this, as I love SCS, but it is a truth that we have to accept. SC4 continues to outsell SCS 6 years after it's release. I remain confident, however, that with more updates and expansions it'll come to be just as popular 6 years after it's release. SC4 had it's share of problems too.

Don't believe what you hear. Try it out and see for yourself. Societies is a great game if you take the time to study the sims and their behavior. The magic of it will make itself clear to you with enough time. But you gotta be into the idea of a society simulator that is not a city builder. The game is all about the people and their relationship to each other and the buildings around them. Start playing around with all the interface options for displaying sim happiness levels, happiness modifiers, and special sim tracking and it'll start to become clear. No it is not the most complex game around, but it is still young. Simcity4 had it's host of problems until Rush Hour came out, and I think SCS deserves the same levels of patience given that it is not SimCity5, it is a new series.

I think SCS, but I haven't given CL a huge chance. Keep meaning to try it more. I really like how you can zoom right down to ground level and start walking around in CL. I don't mind the splitting up of ghettos, though, cause really that's the way a lot of cities end up forming. Even up here in Canada, a country that likes to consider itself acceptably multicultural, different classes and races segregate into their own areas. I think SCS will get a lot better as time goes on, and people should remember that SC4 wasn't amazing at launch either. Many of it's transportation problems weren't fixed until the release of Rush Hour.

It's interesting, because of this thread I started to research what "CU" was. Took me a while to figure out it was Cities Unlimited. I then found out that City Life is very similar to SC:S, and SC:S was probably created to compete specifically with City Life (odd choice when you are the current leader). I then read that CU is actually going to be called CitiesXL and it looks AWESOME! It has everything I like about SC:S, but looks to be a far better city builder and has MMO qualities. I can't wait! I have started downloading a "demo" copy of City Life 2008 and will play around with that some. If I like it then I'll go out and buy it and maybe I'll be done with SC:S altogether.

- Movement of the camera and rotation/zoom is fine for me. - Graphics are fine for me, and are generally inconsequential anyways. I don't play games for good graphics. It's a nice addition, but I'm more about gameplay than graphics. - As for replay value, I have already put in well over 100 hours and I still don't have all the achievements on Nightmare difficulty. I plan to put in 100 more and 200+ hours playtime for a game is a fair investment if you compare it to other games, or any other form of entertainment in our society. - Yes, I am not a hardcore sim player and obviously Societies was built for the non-hardcore player. This goes back to my statement that the biggest problem was slapping the name SimCity on this because all the SimCity fans were expecting something for them, the hardcore players. For some of us, SC4 was too hardcore and we wanted something simpler. - As for the game not being fun to play, I can't believe you'd make such an obviously subjective comment. You may not find it fun, but I assure you there are people that do including me and a few of my friends.

All of your comments are made in comparison to SimCity which is exactly the problem IMO. I disagree, handyman, you are not building a city so to speak. Being able to plop down a power station a few miles away and not do any wiring to hook it up, and being able to start building your city from the top down, making your first building skyscrapper if you want, clearly demonstrates to me that this game is not about realistic city building. The naming mistake is akin to if they called The Sims something like SimCity Houses or SimCity People. The Sims was the perfect name for that game because it accurately describes what it is and doesn't steal fame from a previous franchise. There's a reason it was called SimCity Societies and not SimCity 5. The same reason it should have just been called SimSociety. Then people wouldn't expect it to be a realistic city builder like SimCity 4 was. As for the technical issues, they really should have put system requirements on the side of the box. If they did that I don't see a problem with needing a great system to play it. Many modern games require the player to have a killer system. The soda comparison is a good one, and I think it's exactly the problem. If they had just labeled the game as soda then no one would have expected it to be wine.

SimCity Societies is a fantastic game. If you disagree, then clearly you were expecting it to be a game in SimCity franchise, and why wouldn't you? It did bear the SimCity title. Therein lies the huge marketing flaw surrounding it. This game should have been called SimSociety, end of story. Attaching the SimCity brand to it may have sold a few million copies, but in the end it's what will kill the game. It's why it was reviewed so poorly, and it's why the SimCity community hates it with a passion. If the game was simply called SimSociety then I am convinced it would have reviewed better, and been more generally accepted, and conversely ignored, by the right people. When I see post after post, on multiple forums, of "LOL I played societies for 10 minutes and it was geigh. Wait for SC5!" it really breaks my heart. First of all, anyone who judges a game after playing it for 10 minutes is retarded. Second, societies should not be considered a sequel to SC4 or a replacement for SC5, despite how much EA's marketing wants you to accept that idea. I will admit that I did not start playing until Update 3, which explains why I do not have the bitterness that so many others have that may have bought it last year. Without the implementation of strategic modes and automatic firing of building events the game is wholly uninteresting and incredibly easy. I do find the game to be one of the most interesting I've experienced in years, though. I've spent a lot of time here talking about the marketing flaws, but not a whole lot about why it's great. So here it is. The elimination of the complexity of SC4's city building and the focus on the individual sims and their relationship to the city is fascinating. The UI for showing the ways different buildings influence each other and the sims, and conversely how the "Special Sims" affect each other and the buildings, is perfectly executed. The potential for role play is huge, as each time I've set out to build a themed city it's come out exactly like I wanted and I enjoy just watching it play. I've built Berkley, CA. I've built a small island community with no electricity and no roads. I've also built a themed city based on the NiN album "Year Zero" showing a confrontation between a heavily religious authoritarian society and an artistic-rebellious group of cyberpunks. I still haven't built half the ideas I have in mind as well. Finally, it's insane level of simple XML based customization, healthy mod community, and frequent support and massive updates make it an evolving experience that is difficult to stay caught up with there is so much new content to explore, and destinations is gonna make that even better. I have never had technical issues playing this game, either. Not one crash, and I have left it running overnight on some of my stable cities achieving play times of well over 1000 days. I have a fairly new machine, certainly not the most amazing PC but a pretty good one. I have my complaints as well, but I believe over time they will be ironed out.

I think it's really sad how poorly received this game has been. It is actually a very good game, it is just not SimCity and never should have held that name. Going to make another post about it now.