tomfoolery_79

It's jacked up and I'm not sure it's not bugged. At one point my small casino was making $26k/day, so I opened another one (thinking there is demand). That one promptly lost $9k a day and never changed from that. So after a long time I bulldozed it. My first casino was still making a ton of money then without me changing anything it swung to a $8k/day loss. That's a $34,000 swing for something I didn't change. In fact, the only thing I did change should have only helped it and not hurt it (added bus stops, streetcar terminals).

I'm surprised none of you mentioned the most shameful thing...this "apology" from EA has turned into a sale. They are now not saying "sorry", they are using it to promote more sales of their broken game. This is evidenced by the new extended deadline of when you can buy this game and still get the free game. It's not an apology it's a sale now, plain and simple. Also, most of those games have microtransactions and DLC that they are trusting some of you will get your wallets out for. SC4 a 10 year old game, gee thanks. Plants vs Zombies I've seen free on multiple occasions. Bejeweled I can get on my ipad for $2 bucks? OHHHH, THANK YOU EA!!!

I saw this today today and it's a real shame. This should not be possible, yet here it is. This the only city in his region, so the sims aren't commuting to other cities for jobs. This video really concerns me.

I've been playing SimCity since SNES....blah blah blah. EA/Online always/DRM sucks...blah blah blah Frankly, compared to Diablo 3's launch, this has gone really well so far. Jury is out on the rest of the world loggin in... Trust me, I could write an entire page about it's short comings (park trails not lining up, imperfect routing, tile size, random inconsistences, rampant fires, health care, meteor shower after 3 hours???, etc). Could this game have been more after waiting for 10 years? Absolutely, but it's still better than no SimCity. This isn't a full review, just a counter to all the hate. I've played for at least 10 hours so far and despite it's flaws, I really like it and do not regret my purchase. It's quite addicting. The graphical style that I originally didn't care for has grown on me and looking back at screenshots from SC4 and SC3000 they have largely remained true to the franchise. Even still, the filters help with this (I like Soft). Data maps are great. I do like the Sim-lish, it's cute. Originally, I didn't care for the city specialization, but I understand why they did it with their regional plans and it has grown on me too. Upgradeable roads, precise controls, Glassbox, bus stops, expandable buildings are all great things. The multi-player is quite fun too, but has a lot to be desired, see next paragraph. I did want to harp on a few things though. The multiplayer although fun doesn't appear to be optimized well. For one, an hour after my friend and I started his city still said it had 0 population, but he told me he had 800. Also, there isn't control for how much service you can use from another city (like SC4 did). I'm paying for trash service from my neighbor and he has a huge excess, but it's still only let's me use a sliver, so I still have trash problems even though I'd gladly pay for more. Lastly, the city sizes simply are too small. There's no way to justify it or get around it. After 20,000 people or so you start having to bulldoze stuff to build other things...sad. I won't go into it more cause it's been discussed. There is a lot to like here and admittedly a lot to be upset about, but it's still something a dedicated SimCity fan should buy.

Thanks for posting, these are amazing.

exactly, it's going to be "pick one of these 3 games".

This could be another PR nightmare...if they only give this free game to people who bought on Origin...here comes REDDIT!! I personally bought on GreenMan Gaming, others have bought on Amazon, etc. If I don't get an email with a free game offer, LOOK OUT!

Good question...first of all, if I could get into the game it was a small miracle and yes I've tried multiple servers. Secondly, while playing I'd have constant disconnects to the server (which is ok, cause I wasn't booted). If I would try and go to another city in the region, that was another small miracle that I didn't get booted. All in all, connecting at all to the game has been the challenge, once you are in if you stay in your city and don't leave it, you "might" be ok.

It isn't, it's called simcity, it has repercussions. And no, they wouldn't necessarily, from what I've read the game is bug ridden and glassbox is broken and designed poorly. - sims walking in circleshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdyzx_ecbQ- Broken simcity pathfinding. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/19yjgz/has_anybody_ever_decided_to_follow_a_random_car/ - car's constantly doing u-turns https://i.imgur.com/iWJhc3Y.jpg - a fix for above issue, requiring the building of a dirt road, just like in real life. https://imgur.com/ZMSbYZQ - trade port won't recieve freight. https://i.imgur.com/MvGQp2W.jpg - bugged interface https://i.imgur.com/oAu9XxW.jpg - station apparently not connected. https://imgur.com/a/gVKs3 - optimal road layout is a one road network. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/19uev9/does_this_game_even_have_ai/ - extensive reddit post regarding the lacklustre, un-realistic, lazily designed pathfinding. I heard there we're some server issues too? Sure people might complain about the map sizes or other lack of features.

Your write up is nice, but you are forgetting something... most people can't get into the game to play it!! Play for 24 hours??? How is that even possible? Whenever I get in, I don't stay on too long because I get kicked from the server eventually. You probably played for 24 hours because you knew if you quit the game you wouldn't be getting back in. Still, good write up.

The more I play, the more I like it.

Update: I haven't been able to get into the game in 24 hours...starting to turn into the Diablo 3 launch.

Why did they change the parks since beta 2?!? In beta you could stack parks on each other, that is now gone. That feature was helpful....grrr.

Well, just had my first unsolicited Meteor Strike 3 hours in (3 hours!!) Only have 12,000 population...Really, Maxis?!?!! Had to bulldoze a good portion of stuff afterwards. No save game feature to undo anything either. Speaking of, it's 2013, is their really no undo button still?!?!

The download and install went fine and actually kinda fast for me. However, once in game, I could not invite friends on my Origin friends list successfully to my region...once it said they weren't online (which they were) the next time it showed them online but it gave me a generic "you cannot invite them at this time error".

again... http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/01/simcity-city-size-maxis/

I got an email from GreenMan Gaming saying "they have been in contact with EA and preloading will no longer be an option....the key will be available on release date"

I agree with the previous two posts. Saying "maybe" and "might" are direct answers, you just aren't happy with them. Personally, I believe if/when they get to an expansion much of these issues will be addressed. Farms, larger tiles, subways are all things I'd expect within a year.

I was able to get my pre-order from GreenMan Gaming awhile back for $40. However, my confirmation email said they won't release the key until March 5th!? Anyone else buy from them?

I am buying this game and perhaps I should reserve judgement on multiplayer, but other peoples crime, trash and pollution flowing over into my city (especially with the huge buffer between cities) irks me. If I wasn't trying to build a utopia perhaps it would be fine. I feel like it's "why do I have to suffer because you can't keep your act together". Then again, like your experience actually playing, maybe that will be fun!

The more I played in beta, the more screenshots I see, the more videos I watch, the more I'm excited. Glassbox is awesome. The only thing that upsets me (that I now have concluded I can overlook) is city-size and online DRM.

Ummmm, no write up about Simtropolis' experience?!?!

He did that in the same sentence that he complimented the design decision to do this. Think of SC4 as a 30" monitor and SC2013 as a 20" monitor. But your 30" monitor is 640x480 resolution, and your 20" monitor is 1600x1200 resolution. SC4 maps are a great big square... SC2013 is a cube. And even if the edge distance of the SC2013 map is smaller than SC4, SC2013 brings something to the maps that SC4 didn't--depth. SC2013 cities are more in depth and more interesting than the City Journal version of SimCity 4 cities we get, and that's without anyone making the effort to write a city journal about it. I can only imagine how great some of the SC2013 city journals have the potential to be. I agree with your assessment 100%, but maps shouldn't be able to be filled in 35 minutes (even on cheetah speed). These more thoroughly dynamic cities would be even better bigger.