Omniassiah

But usually they at least do it with a product that is connected with gaming (a game store), or is so ubiquitous its moslty a non-issue like ( a Soda brand). This is the first that I remember that has next to no connection to the game.

The reason I blame the Republicans is because they were the ones who went out of their way to shoot down the federal transportation aid that was earmarked for the city. It's not a general political thing, just a specific grudge I have because that delayed the completion of Metrorail by years. I don't live in the inner loop, but I support rail being built there because 1) Connecting every part of suburban Houston by rail will never happen. You'd have to build hundreds of miles of rail to even come close to it. 2) When the commuter rail finally rolls out to the burbs, people who take it into the town will need a way to get around (kind of like the way that Sims in SC will take the heavy rail train to a city then use the streetcars to get to their final destinations). Doesn't matter how many commuter lines you build if people who don't work near the station have to ride the bus or call a cab to get where they're going. One of the things I do like about this game is that it is accurate to the way cities tend to work in the part of the country that I'm most familiar with. Highways dominate, every building has a mandatory parking lot, and mass transit options are pretty much limited to buses and trains. Now if only they could combine that with the ability to break the Sunbelt mold. Well part of the issue with Mass transit in the US is we are just way to spread out over here compared to Europe. I always comment on how there really was no Suburbs in a lot of European citys as the just seem to suddenly stop at the edge of town. Because of this even my small 30k town that I live would require the same if not more transit services then Frankfurt or Berlin. This makes most mass transit either completely useless to most people as it never goes/take to long to get to where you need it to or extremely expensive for they size of the population it would support. Don't get me wrong I loved being able to hope onto a train in Germany real quick and get where I needed to go with out a car, but it would be impossible to get that over here. Sad part is I live on the "more densely" packed east coast and its still true.

Exactly. Bad design, and really kills any chance of making a realistic city/traffic network. It's really sad, because the agent based sim could have been the best traffic simulator ever implemented in a game had Maxis properly designed the agent behavior. They squandered an opportunity here. The lack of Permenant destinations and homes really kills the traffic simulation.

Problem I see with traffic is that it goes for shortest route instead of the theoretical fastest(if all roads were empty) route, and that very unrealistic. Most people will take the route that should be the fastest as opposed to the shortest. Basically the sims should avoid the smaller roads unless they provide a very distinct time savings in travel or are required to reach their destination. Of course you also have the no home/job issue that causes very weird and non-realistic traffic issues as the traffic will never properly distribute to bypasses to get to their home that is farther away.

There is difference between not liking something because its different and not liking it because its different and broke. If the Simulation aspect would have worked at least in a reasonable manner, I could have at least respectfully said its not for me. But the problem is the core game doesn't even function properly to allow me to make the choice. SC13 could have easily been a slightly larger Tropico 4 with out the island dictator comedy, but at the moment we can't even tell that.

Its the fact they aren't even doing the calculations. Basically, if i am reading it right, when simcity does a save it send what your city can spare to the servers. The server just sends that information out to everyone else. Short answer is this is region mode with play-by-e-mail.

Be honest E3 has been on a slow downward spiral of late. Most of the old big boys are using their own fanfests to do what E3 used to do with out the expense and generally better exposure for them. CCP and Blizzard are both planned to be no shows on the booth side of things this year for that reason. Both have been releasing much more information at their own fanfest/cons. Generally speaking E3 is becoming more and more a Console convention then a PC convention especially when you look at the MMO side of things.

Seriously ignore them for as long as you can. its the best thing in the world to do at the beginning. In fact overall you don't place any services till people start to move out because of it.

One thing to watch out is that most computers don't like graphical programs hanging off the edge of the monitor. I would suggest dropping the resolution for your computers max to 1 or 2 below it say 1024x640(guessing there look under your monitor settings) just a bit to avoid that problem

Persistent online server of what? Sorry but your city does nothing if your not logged on. If you don't log in even if all your trades time out or get canceled your city doesn't change. Trading away 200 tokens of Fuel to make your budget positive, All the trades got canceled? Quick log out and trade via the website so you don't lose money in the city. Because again if your not logged in to your city it will sit at a negative budget and lose no money till you log in. That's not persistent in anyway shape or form. CitiesXL has a online savegame storage device, and a basic trade function that I would be surprised if it requires more power then a higher end desktop. In fact there is a Distinct lack of anything that the server handles for you besides saying yep your +3 tokens this and -4 that from trades.

Only thing i think they could have done better with the auto fill and would have faked what a lot of people wanted was to have the fill bleed over the Lots so that you don't see the hard Square edge as much.

Realize that not all Internet are equal. Some people have bandwidth limitation. others may have access to forums and websites through University/Job connections but non http/email ports are blocked. Often getting 1 month of internet is impossible, in the US that is going to cost you an average of $240 for one month of internet since after you cancel you'll have a $200 cancellation fee for not finishing your contract. Internet cafes are about the only viable option and if you don't own a laptop that can run CXL, but instead play on a Desktop, taking your desktop to an internet cafe to activate a game is going to be ugly. While Windows does need to be activated they at least provided a toll free number to call them up and do a phone activation.

Pretty much same as you, Its worse when you consider that you can't add an interchange onto and existing section of high way with out bulldozing the entire highway.

You can it involves building 8 roads straight out from the center, using the 8 way tool, to the same length then connecting the ends with the the curved road tool. Its a bit of a pain but can be done.

Originally posted by: zaroba i really don't see how the planet offer can be factored into the game cost. mainly since EVERY pay to play game will cost hundreds, or even thousands if your a member long enough quote> I don't think its the cost but the value for the cost. At the moment I pay for not one but 3 Eve-online accounts. I still bawk at the cost of CXL online fees. Its not because of the raw cost but what you get for that cost and what it costs them. They have basically a minimum need on the server side for processing power, probably a decient amount of storage space but nothing too excessive. Now this is costing 2/3s the monthly fee as one of my eve-online accounts, that is helping pay for a multi-million dollar server cluster that is closing quickly in on being in the top 500 computing clusters using rapid access solid state Database ramdisks and generally everything possible to try to keep up with us eve players trying to kill the hamsters in the servers. Now add on top of that them providing expansions to the game every 6-7 months and complete game engine overhauls occasionally for no additional cost and thats what puts a lot of people, myself included, in the "is this PO really worth the money" group.

Unfortunately the minimum clearance for bridges is way too high, And they really need to get rid of the stupid stop lights at every intersection. Fix that and you can get some good stuff out of the game engine.

Would I buy the product if it really was good yes, Would I bother beta testing or wasting any time on it, nope.

soltangris - to not compare CXL to any other specific city game it still falls short; however, the reason why people compare it to SC4 is pretty simple and has been said many times over again: SC4 vanilla got the basic core game design right. If you took out all graphics on both of them and just labeled the areas on the map with Text indications for what structure/building is there, SC4 base would still be better. Key simulation problems I have found: Education buildings just provide happyness, no need to even bother providing schooling for each age group. Range done by transportation network(Awesome!, did that right); However, absolutely no factor for being overcrowded. No way to partially fund services, All or nothing means if you make a mistake you can't trim services till you can full fund it again. No set of actual stats for planning you city (no, the population numbers are not enough). All or nothing trade system where your entire city can fall apart because some one dipped below their arbitrary number of whatever that makes up a token Completely static city - buildings don't change unless bulldozed, once its up and running you can walk away for however long you want and it will never fail as long as you don't have any trades going on. No multi-core Support - That's going to slow things down significantly on larger cities(by the way that is not something that is easy to change in a patch at all soltangris, I'd love to give CXL a chance, but the problem is they pushed for the MMO aspect and as such they shot themselves in the foot. If they would have cut all the trading and MMO stuff out. Put a better simulation in, maybe not to the detail of SC4, and make a decent single player game in I probably would have went full bore into Mass Transportation or not. Problem is as many people have found out the game doesn't even qualify in their "It's okay" category. Now combine with the fact that MC has been very questionable with regards to consumer interactions and it doesn't lend itself to the give them money they'll make it better. The problem with Mass transportation was we have seen news about it, photos about it, all this information on it and suddenly now its not going to be in release, and we'll have to pay for the option to use it? Personally the idea that we too difficult to please in incorrect, If CXL could have contributed even a quarter of what SC4 core game could do then it might matter. As much as you are tired of hearing about the mass transport, there are a lot more complaints about the game. You know what we only ever here about the fact it has curved roads and is 3D. Pay for support? Who cares if MC dumps a billion building designs a month after release, Once I have my city maxed out which will happen before then. The new buildings won't replace the old buildings because the game will not change the building till you bulldoze it. End statement result is what you get from a lot of people: The game itself is fundamentally flawed to them in many ways that would be nearly impossible to change after release without major problems to current users.

GEMs are cool and I like them but it should not have been at the cost of even minor micromangement. The fact that current budget management is adjusting taxes and Bulldozing buildings is annoying. They didn't even put in the option to shutdown a service to reduce cost. As Living said GEMs as effectively game expansions that add a bit more to the game are cool. GEMs adding basic stuff that should be in there to begin with no so cool

It could be geek12, but if your looking for updating your computer I usually suggest finding the break in the price curve and buying right around there. If your unfamiliar with it, in computer parts there is a nice curve of price versus power, Towards the low end you don't have to spend much more to get a better piece, towards the high end your paying out the nose for a slight increase in power. If you can find the parts in the middle ground you can usually save a few hundred dollars but still have a very solid PC. with some room for expansion later on.

Originally posted by: soltangris Well anyway, I confess I haven't been in the beta, or followed too closely the forums. I might be misinformed. But whatever you guys say, I still can't believe the game won't have (at least) that many transport options as SC4, FOR FREE. It might not come with the initial release, but it WILL come with a future patch. And MC stated several times that we won't have to pay for ALL updates, but I wonder if such a buizarre concept of a non-evil, non-greedy and actually fans-friendly MC can enter your indignated, city-building veterans-king-of-the-forum-suggestions heads. After all, your opinion on the game is already formed, based on a demo and a truckload of forum speculations, and even BEFORE the game has even shipped. Societies at least got a chance to prove itself. Looks like Cities XL won't get even this....quote> A good bit of it was from MC own mouth once we finally got the straight answer. and it was: Buses will be added for everyone after the game is released, All other transport will be a GEM. Meaning you can get quite a few roads types, but a lot are fairly redudant(3-4 types of Avenues) and buses with your purchase of the game after hopefully soon after release patch. Trains, Subways, etc will all be included as a GEM to pay for later on. Note that is from what I have understood from stuff I have been linked to from Official MC represenatives, assuming I am reading it correctly.

Originally posted by: morriswalters ] There are three different types of zoning being talked about here; 1 Real zoning. In the real world zoning is a city planning tool consisting of codes and regulations about what can be built where and how. It's purpose is to make cities safer and more comfortable to live in. Developers determine what types of homes will be built and how expensive they will be with a goal of maximizing their return on investment. Services such as schools, police, fire services, libraries, and almost any other function available in cities follow populations they never lead them. Again wealth levels are determined by the developer. Zoning is not building. quote> I don't think you got how zoning works in real life compared to costs, etc... Yes, the developer determines what homes will be built... But its the enviroment/area that he is building them in that will determine what buildings he is going to build and as such how much they will end up costing. The Neighborhood will lead the developer decisions if he wants to make any money. End result is that its far more like SC4 then CXL. Cities are organic beings with Developers improving on areas or letting them fall to the wayside. Often the Mayor and City council just try and do thier best with what zoning tools they have. And if they even remotely tried the restrictive zoning capabilities in most places developers would just go elsewhere.

No at first, maybe down the road if it makes it that far.

Edited: Whoa helps if you read both pages.... Hua10, My guess is that you don't look at the City Builder crowd as the crowd that is pushing the edge with the latest graphics cards, Super high end Processors, and 32Gb of RAM. There are certain Genres that you can say that and then there are those you can't, City building is one of them. We're not talking about a game genre that has been known for pushing the limits of hardware. Your far more likely to get a kid or parent picking up this game then you will a Die-hard FPS player who never tried a city builder before. I updated my computer for Crysis, If you asked me to do the same for CitiesXL I would laugh at you. That said I found for the graphics that CXL has its performance is abysmal. But that said what killed me was how static your city was. It didn't seem like there we're people there that occasionally did things that you may not have wanted to happen. CXL just felt all very scripted...

One problem that I have with tokens is how arbitrary they are and how quickly they can crash all your trades. Say 5000 bushels is a token. If you have 4999 bushels of corn surplus you won't have a token, add 1 more you will. How this adversely effects the trading system is that if you have enough surplus of something to trade away for cash or another good, then you build a building that drops you below that magical value then your trades become suspended. Now your short either cash or another token which can cause more trades to suspend. Besides that little problem with the system I'm about as clueless and confused as you on how MC is keeping track of the tokens/trades.