Ephemeron

Some very, very valid points have been made on this thread. I do not have much to say myself, but I'll second some of the points made here. Originally posted by: RegisteringSucks Education? There is none. You don't build a school (or schools) to reap the rewards of a solid education system. You build one to make your sims satisfied. No one gets smarter. No one's life improves because there is a school in the city. They're just more satisfied. The fact that schools have no capacity makes it even goofier. Blow up your schools. Nothing changes...just the people are a little sadder.quote> Originally posted by: niloluiz So using a toy car metaphor as an analogy, there can be a toy car that only appears like the real thing, with a chromed-plastic motor and some spring mechanism to give motion to the car.... or there can be a toy car with a little functional engine, with pistons, fuel cell, exhaust system etc... that work close to the "real thing". SC4 is the latter while CXL is the former....quote> I appreciate the people who have taken the time to post these. Thanks to you I already know a lot about the game without even playing the demo. These are points of very genuine concern. Added to lack of mass transit, annoying square lots, and monthly fees, it all seems to add up to enough reasons to not buy the game. And this is being said everywhere on the forum. We are just going round in circles, until finally the game flops and we can all get on with our lives. However I am still not sure about whether to think that Monte Cristo has selfishly screwed us over, or is still deserving of our sympathy. Maybe I'm just getting tired of CXL. Perhaps I should give this site a break for a while. I know that the problems I have in real life won't sort themselves out. Anyway, it's been one heck a year, or however many hours I spent on that forum. I am grateful for the things I learned from the experience.

Kaasbroodje, here they are: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=28

I'm not one for long introductions, so I'll just say I used to be a member of www.citiesxl.com, (though not sure if I stll am) and I'd like to share my thoughts on the new site. My first thoughts: The homepage has a big button saying "What is CitiesXL? Click here", as if people are too dumb to click the link on the toolbar above. News headlines are displayed on the home page, and twice on the community page. There are two big buttons on the community page linking you to other pages; these are pointless in my opinion. Aside from that, the videos are quite nice. The whole site screams redundant linking. It looks like a flashy website with very little actual content. But where are the forums? The login page is only for the beta. The site is designed to make people want to buy the game, and the forums were full of people complaining, and that might tarnish the game's image. Does that mean the forums are gone? In that case I've lost everything I spent time posting. If any other CXL forum members are reading this, you know who you are, I had a good time complaining with you. If anyone from Monte Cristo is reading this, I'd like to know if my speculations are true. There's nowhere in that site where you can ask questions.

Originally posted by: abcvs If the trolls and bashers think they can simply carpet bag their way over here to Simtropolis...quote> Trolls and bashers? Please tell me if I am one of them, otherwise I will assume that I am not allowed to miss the old site. I missed the community back there. And yes, it's true that (contrary to my first post on this thread) that the forums are not all about complaining. I worked hard on my 200 or so posts, and I felt a sense of loss when I found that the forum had gone. Can you imagine how it must feel for those who made thousands of well thought out posts there? I can't help feeling that I'm walking on thin ice.

Originally posted by: edcase2k4-thugangel1983 the website wasn't just filled with complaining. okay, so perhaps the last six months have seen a true downfall of the community that once peaked there, but before that it was great participating there. it was filled with so many good discussions full of concepts being developed through collaboration of our ideas, and other discussions about many other aspects of game development and developers. many of us had not only contributed to discussions, but like myself, had written some quite comprehensive articles on the website forums. it was quite rude and disrespectful to simple delete our accounts and the forums without any prior warning. well, i'm not bitter... but it does kind of feel like it was all for nothing. MC no longer care about all that we contributed through the good times. it is also annoying and sad that nothing can be retrived or preserved from the forums on the website. quote> I felt just the same way when the forums disappeared. I don't want to feel like everything I posted is a waste of time. So don't worry, you will see those threads again. Luckily, I have found out about Google's cached pages, and I have made an archive of some of our best threads. Besides the major complainng threads, I included a lot of the great ideas threads, including the ol' concepts articles. Like you said, the Cities XL forums were not simply about complaining (though I couldn't live without the complaints threads - some of them had some great posts). I also included blog comments - interesting to see how people's opinions of Cities Unlimited/XL changed over time. In the end it will be accessible from this site as a historical reference. It will be part of city-builder history, and never forgottern.

I don't like those bridges either. One thing that annoys me about the Golden Gate Bridge (and that no one else pointed out) is that the masts are too close together and too many in number. The real life Golden Gate only has two masts, which are spaced over a kilometre apart. Also curved suspension bridges don't make sense at all, but there's an easy solution to that - don't build curved bridges. So what if the highway interchanges are bad, I can build a city without highways. I'll just use mass transit instead, aren't there any mass transit options to use instead of highways? Well if not I'll just play the Planet Offer and see what comes up. *sigh*, I really should stop complaining about the game. If many people buy it and a few enjoy it, then that's good. If it flops, then no one enjoys it for long.

When I get Cities XL, I'm just going to build my cities in a big grid. That would eliminate the problem altogether. Shame about the bendy roads though. Edit: I've just thought of something. In SC4 it's impossible to fit lots to DIAGONAL roads. Trying to do so always resulted in a 'stepped' feel. So maybe we should give CXL a break. After all, people on Simtropolis have been complaining about the gird for YEARS. We got a gridless game, didn't we?

To me it feels like all the drama that we had on the old forums has dampened my actual enthusiasm for the game. That said, I have not lost my faith in Cities XL. I just need to catch up with real life. I have schoolwork to catch up on, and I am doing A-levels this year. I hate myself for every moment I procrastinate. So I won't buy CXL for a while.

Here's mine. I'd love to see my avatar wearing it!

Originally posted by: His Divine Hand You see, my problem with your arguments about this game is that you seem to find the game acceptable enough to buy, but because it is an MMO with a monthly subscription fee this game is now "ruined"; like some girl tarnished to your eyes because she once snuck a kiss from bobby in third grade.quote> I'm going to disagree with you here. The MMO part does compromise the rest of the game. I speak primarily of custom content, which I explained in an earlier post. To keep a long story short, MC are not going to allow creators to mod their own buildings. MC will fully control the modding of buildings to prevent cheating in the Planet Offer. I fear this will not allow modding projects like the NAM, or anything that might affect the functional side of the game. To quote MC themselves "We have an online side of the game and we need to make sure we have a good control of the buildings that are on the online game to avoid cheating". Originally posted by: His Divine Hand MC looked at what people wanted, figured what they could do, and then divided that by what was profitable. So now you get an MMO citybuilder.quote> Let me make this clear: the community did not ask for online play in the first place. I don't know if you saw Tr0uble's unofficial surveys (results shown here), but the idea of online play was voted one of the least desired potential aspects for the game. Originally posted by: His Divine Hand Heck, MC even allows there to be an offline single player mode, which is far more than most MMO's out there.quote> Heck, how thoughtful of them. Originally posted by: His Divine Hand I like the way Swat-Medic put it, and if you treated Monte Cristo as if it was your own personal game developer, then you set yourself up for disapointment.quote> They could have just made a SimCity rip-off with all the extra features that we wanted, but oh wait - SimCity is protected by copyright laws. I am no fool to see that MC are developing their own game; CXL is a different beast from SC4. I have no problem with that, but they could have made that clear from the start. To quote MC again: "We’re going for the Sim City 4 spot." In hindsight it would have been much better if they had approached Simtropolis with a premise of "We're creating a city-building MMO, wanna help us?" Some people would have turned the idea down immediately, but there would have been less disappointment later on. And if that happened, MC would probably guarantee more support in the long run. I am not radically opposed to Cities XL. I am just aware of its flaws. I'm sure many people will like it. But when they first started promoting it here, Cities Unlimited was not billed as an MMO. It was undeniably clear they were putting it towards this fanbase. I don't know why they changed the game concept. Like I said, they should have come up front with the idea. An MMO section is not something you just add in.

Originally posted by: Attila464 Disappointing i doubt that too many changes can, or will be made before release..quote> Even if not beofre release, it seems like an easy task to balance the trading system. Don't forget that RPGs like RuneScape are being given updates all the time - these have included back-end changes the the game engine, and a massive overhaul of the graphics. So I'm sure they could do a lot for CXL (adding mass transit, more lot sizes, a better UI, terraforming tools). It's all possible in theory! However RuneScape is one of the most widely played MMOs in the world. I'm not saying that CXL will have to be as popular as RuneScape, but the idea is painfully clear: Cities XL will only get better if it becomes popular. I'm not saying that MC's aprroach (creating a game, then updating it later) is the best idea in the world, but it's what they have chosen. Thus we ought to have confidence in the game, because I suppose CXL is like the stock market - if there is no confidence, people won't buy, and the value will go down. Hence I am forced to conclude that if we want a good city-builder, we should give MC a break, and give CXL a chance.

Originally posted by: beebs Originally posted by: Ephemeron I want to like Cities XL, but it looks set to be a good game, wheras it could have been a great game. quote> And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way? quote> You do make it sound like I'm being overly critical of Cities XL, when in fact I'm not. I contributed a lot to the forums, and I feel entitled to be a little disappointed. Secondly I will buy the game, and see how much better it gets once we (the Planet Offer players) are treated to a load of updates. However most of the development must be done by the community. Granted, SimCity 4 has seen a vast contribution of custom content over the years, yet I retain my skepticism. I too would like to see CXL become as good as (or better than) SC4 in time, but I have a feeling that custom content (and its implementation to the game) will not be as 'accessible' as it is for SC4. I have my reasons for believing this, namely a transcript of a chat between Philippe and members of Sc4devotion to discuss the future of custom content for Cities XL. Part of it is shown here with the important parts in bold. Originally from: sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5534.40 17:28 < RippleJet> RAISE HAND So there will be no way for us to mod the properties ourselves? 17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> RippleJet: that's not going to happen and I'll explain why 17:29 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND Sorry, it does make sense to provide us with the necessary tools...Maxis figured that out and SC4 is still for sale in shops. 17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 1. We have an online side of the game and we need to make sure we have a good control of the buildings that are on the online game to avoid cheating 17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: I never said we won't do it, I said we may do it 17:29 < barbyw> RAISE HAND: so it appears that the answer to David's question: "Will CXL offer to the user community tools, such as SC4's Building Architect Tool ("BAT") and Lot Editor, so that individual game purchasers can develop custom content?" is No 17:30 -!- diggis has quit ["http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client"] 17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Barb: not necessarly 17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> However, we cannot give you full control on the building properties 17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Let me explain you what we would like to achieve 17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Ideally 17:31 < PhilippeCitiesXL> We would like players willing to go on the Custom Content creation to have the right tools (provided by us and other dedicated community members) to create Art Assets 17:32 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Once those assets are made, we would take them and place them in our level design pipeline with YOUR recommendations as how they should react in the Sim 17:32 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND: Without full control, how can we add content that fits in-game? We submit it to MC for inclusion? So you want control of all content made for CXL? Do you realise the sheer volume of work you're opening yoursleves up for? 17:32 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Then, we would take care of its distribution to players throught our website and our dispatcher system that allows players to download and manage their buildings 17:33 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: Yes we do 17:33 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: But there is no other way aroundquote> (Although this was almost a year ago, I don't think that the focus could have shifted away from Planet Offer.) For me it pinpoints the issue as the centralisation of custom content distribution - that is that creators will not be able to mod their own buildings. The finished model must be sent to MC for them to mod the building themselves. The main reason for this is that it avoids cheating in the Planet Offer. But it has the implication that the only custom content in the game must be approved for Planet Offer, if they aren't going to provide us with tools to mod the buildings ourselves. It concurs that MC would not allow for anything that significantly alters the game's functionality, such as a mod to a transit network. It begs the question: why can't they allow for more custom content in solo play? Here's a later part of the transcript - judge for yourselves. 17:50 < Glenni> RAISE HAND: you really should try splitting the online part off from multiplayer somehow 17:51 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Glenni: we should know quite soon if the whole thing won't work at all: and if so, for us, it's a matter of a few weeks of work to remove all the Online part which would prevent players to get full custom conrol on thigns 17:51 < zero7> RAISE HAND Just separate building install directories. Online and offline. 17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Cal: We don't necessarly want models: we will provide buildings over time ourselves! We just know that some of you want to participate on creating custom buildings and we would like to consider it as part of our art pipeline 17:52 < Warrior> RAISE HAND But then Zero (Sorry forgot your name) some people might move buildings from one directory to the other 17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Exaclty 17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> That's not obvious really 17:52 < Glenni> simple 17:52 < Glenni> block all custom content on the online one 17:52 < Glenni> there are numerous games where this works 17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> But you would have to provide a way to differenciate them 17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Look at it this way: 17:53 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND Glenni no, as the online game would probably be more interesting....I'm thinking Trackmania 17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> By promoting custom content ourselves in the game, we get everyone happy: 17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 1. We get player happy with more content 17:53 < Warrior> RAISE HAND Are cities transferable from single player to online? So I can start a city in Single player and thn deicde to go online with the city? 17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 2. We get custom content makers happy as they can see it in the game 17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 3. We get ourselves happy because we are providing some more content and additional features to players which should result with better results 17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: no they aren't 17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: No cheating 17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: In Solo mode, you can accelerate time while not in the Planet Offer 17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> If you could upload a solo mode city, what would forbid you to accelerate time, get a lot of money and get online with it 17:55 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND In other words, we're providing the content, giving you longevity but we have no control over the modding and distribution of that content...what about IP? grey area 17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Cal: IP is another issue we would need to talk about 17:55 < Warrior> RAISE HAND Then could you make a file type that is only comaptible with single player mode and not mutliplayer will not recognize it? 17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> We would put your name as the author of the building 17:56 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: no, that's the same point: you would get people tweaking files and would have quickly some not authorized buildings in the online sidequote> I have not given up hope yet. I am interested to see how it works out.

Ah, very nice screenshot. Allow me to be the first to ridicule it. First take a look at the rocks in the bottom left corner of the picture. The colour and lack of vegetation clearly indicates a desert terrain. So what's with the farms? I'm no expert, but I don't think conventional agricultural techniques are suited to arid climates. This sorta implies that the terrains are just eyecandy, and there is no extra challenge in building a desert city, as opposed to a city in a temerate climate. Those farms bother me. The fields are just a flat texture painted onto the ground. For some reason the lines on all the fields are in the same direction. And it seems that every farm field must have a road along its entire perimeter. Finally take a look at that highway interchange. Need I say more? I want to like Cities XL, but it looks set to be a good game, wheras it could have been a great game.

Ah, this thread reminds me of the good old days of the Cities XL forum. Simfox, I loved those two posts. I wish I could raise your karma, but instead I'll go download one of your BATs.

I'm thinking something along the lines of "I contributed to the Cities XL forum and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." EDIT: Here's mine.