USA_Pride

Monte Cristo thought it would be best if they deleted\closed the old forums and all the messages and work that went into them. Answer: There are no official forums.

I hope that in the final version of the single player game that MC can include advertised features and also fix the Omnicorp trading prices.

Originally posted by: cheuk18me94 MC won't bankrupt because the maintain cost of PO is higher than the profit from PO.quote> No, they'll bankrupt because they didn't sell enough CXL games to make up for the development costs.

Originally posted by: Asheroo Ok, I'm just going to have a quick reply..... @ The "negative" people (mainly to USA Pride) - We, "positive", did not say you really were wrong, we just disagreed with you, gave our reasons why, and asked you to stop spamming unconstructive comments all over. We kept giving out the message many times but in the end you still are assuming the wrong stuff. We all have our own opinions, no one is right or wrong with it. Also, as I have been saying to a lot of people recently, never assume, it wrecks life. Just because we asked you to be more constructive and disagreed with you, doesn't mean we're saying you're wrong and we're right. Also, because the PO failed, doesn't mean it was because it was a rip off. My main reason why I didn't go on the PO was because I don't want to do city building online. Just for the record of it, my opinion of the PO is actually half with yours because I too disliked how the PO had fees as I believe of what it had (apart from the exclusive content), it was not worthy of a fee. Besides, MC have been planning SP content packs for a fee anyway, which they are definitely doing now, and even giving us buses for free, as originally promised.quote> No, you and your types responded to our negative criticism of the game. We then responded to what you said and that was "spamming". It was OK for you to speak your opinion, mutliple times in multiple threads, but it wasn't OK for me to do that. Heck, you and others even sent me personal messages for bashing your precious Monte Cristo. My point is while I do my victory lap, I was right. The Planet Offer is a huge scam. All the stuff you paid for is going to dissapear out of your game. All your hard work is gone and your cities are going to dissapear. I don't take joy from that, but I do take joy from being right when others told me I was wrong. Your cities you built in Planet Offer? Gone. MC has some high experimental thing to try to transfer them but they refuse to support it. That's what I've been saying from day one, in Planet Offer you have no control over your cities. Stop subscribing? You lose all your work. Or in this case Monte Cristo bailed on you after three months and poof, your cities will be gone. Once again, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas lights, because that's what the Planet Offer bought you, Christmas lights... for a month... a broken trading system that was more chore than fun... and a chat box... I'm not a negative person. I can come off as positive. But when I see bull poop, I call it for what it is, and that's what the Planet Offer was, scam and a sham.

Originally posted by: Bountytaker Originally posted by: mrdazza_460 that's the shot, kick them when there downquote> Not sure if that was directed at me, as I didn't say anything personally attacking, insulsting, mean, or flaming.... But if it was.... I'd have sympathy for the company if their statement had simpy been: We misread the market, and we weren't prepared, so we have to make this decison....here's a clear path for our future. Instead, we get "We tried everything"and a fuzzy picture of the future of the product. Well, I think players deserve a clearer picture for the money they've spend...and, I have a nice list there of things they DIDN'T try..many of which relate to STANDARD mmo practices. Some of which were outlined for them for years by players. So, if you're asking if I have sympathy for the company after their press release today...the answer is no....I don't. And I don't believe I am required to by any rule or law. Therefore, I stand by my post. quote> LOL, but MC has treated us so well! They deleted the beta boards. The gimped the single player game. They charged people for the Scam Offer and then didn't deliver on what they promised. I don't understand why people are still defending them...

Originally posted by: mrdazza_460 this is what they side on there site have already subscribed to PO to support the game. Will I have to pay again for DLC so that I can access content such as Old England buildings? As a Planet Offer subscriber, once Cities XL 2011 will be released you will be automatically granted with all the content present in the European Pack which will include new maps, Megastructures and the Old England building pack. Also, the Bus will be included in the solo game which will be automatically patched on march 8 2010. i cant see all that being cheaper then $10 quote> That is VERY interesting, that if they charge for 2011 that some people will have payed for the same content twice... Interesting Dazza!

mrdazza_460, I don't think former PO subscribers will be treated differently for making their PO donations to MC. The whole idea is simplifying to a single version of the game, the solo-mode. Former PO subscribers and people who only play solo mode will all end up in the same place, a single version of Cities XL. I hope everything works out, but I fear MC is just going to fade into bankruptcy.

I think it'd be nice for it to be $20 for Cities XL owners and $40 for non-owners, but it all depends on how much content there is in it. If it's a rush-hour size update, then I think what I described is fair. But if there's more content then it might be more fair to treat it like a completely different game and charge everyone the same price. I think we're too far. I think both the community and Monte Cristo themselves will have to see how much they can get done and play it by ear. I'm just so happy that they'll be un-gimping the single player game and soon I'll be able to play the game I got several months ago.

Originally posted by: andisart no surprise at all after turning off most of the community with trying to force players to online subscription in order to obtain basic game functions such as buses...quote> I'm in total agreement with you. I wish Monte Cristo luck, but I'm happy that the Planet Offer failed. Just as I said, holding basic game functions hostage to an online subscription is not a business model I want to support. Just as my sig says, money speaks louder than words. People said an emphatic "NO" to the Rip-Off Offer. Gamers don't want to "rent" their games, especially after buying it for 40 USD. Monte Cristo I feel is now on a path that I can support. Make updates and allow people to purchase them. I'd hate to say "I told you so", but all you folks that had the Planet Offer saying that mass transit and other grand updates were in the air, well, you were simply wrong. Your Planet Offer "donation" to Monte Cristo bought you a few buildings, buses, and Christmas lights. If they would fully open up to the modding and custom content community that would have made multitudes more, FOR FREE. Look like all of us negative nancies were grounded in reality. Funny how we got attacked and we ended up being right... Good luck MC, I'll be looking forward to see what you come out with in the future. I also hope they fix solo-trading to allow bigger cities.

Originally posted by: mentarmanAssuming you are in the United States, I wouldn't read too much into that, my understanding is that it was never part of their plan to have much of a presence on retail shelves in the U.S.quote> I'm not too family with the "ignore the United States" model of business for video games, especially if the game is already in English for England.

I too tried to recreate Detroit. I had to settle for Warren and Center Line. I just simply don't have the SC4 skills. I have been able to recreate the People Mover, it's a small monorail that goes in a useless circle that nobody uses. Not too hard to recreate! (grew up in Clawson, live in Warren now)

Just be careful making road connections, someone correct me if I am wrong, but they have an expensive recurring fee (kind of like the Planet... n/m). I once made a highway connection too soon and almost bankrupted my city.

Originally posted by: b3nr Promising. But in the meantime, my susbscription ran out last week. I'm not prepared to pay that much. So now i'm left with a barely playable (due to trades) off line game. Dissapointing quote> Yup. And you're also unable to access what you've already built and your cities will be deleted if you don't pay up. I was called a troll and told to go play SC4, but this is exactly why I've been so persistent about the RipOff Offer being a horribly bad thing.

You're being critical of Monte Cristo and Cities XL, that's kinda of taboo here, only positive commentary is welcomed. You should go complain to EA instead of trying to voice your thought out, articulated, polite opinion here, where Sim City 4 lovers were targeted for this game, but then ridiculed for expecting to be like SC4. (/sarcasm)

Thanks and good luck Mathew!

It is interesting that they aren't there. (insert negative speculation here)

The vacation\holiday speculation does make some sense. I would imagine that the folks at MC have been putting in serious time for months now. We do that for our developers here (the company I work for has an in-house software department). After the dev team busts butt for a couple months they give them time off to re-charge.

I'm still very interested to hear about what they are going to do with PO pricing. I got called a troll for suggesting that MC had horrible PR for killing the 2 and 3 month subscription prices without a single word of what they're going to do to replace it. I'm still surprised by the silence on the issue. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but between all the launch issues, lack of advertised features, canceling of long-term subscription options, and what some estimate to be low sales I just don't see this company staying around too long. I wish them luck, but I just don't see success.

Originally posted by: Herdervriend I had the same problem with this game and actually with all games, that is why I use cheats...Because without I can't win. Still, it's all about strategic playing, not to just randomly do things.quote> LOL. I don't like cheating. It takes the challenge out thus less reward when you finally get things the way you want.

MC is being tight lipped about it all, but many are hoping they are somehow switching to an ad-based revenue system and make the PO free. I am doubtful, but there is an opportunity for realistic in-game advertising that is non-obtrusive. Also, I think that player would be willing to even put up with some obtrusive adverts if it made the PO free.

SimCity had some similar (but I believe less frequently occuring) issues when selling resources to neighboring cities. Sometimes budget and resource issues would (fairly and) unfairly cancel them out sending your city either into financial oblivion or into the dark ages because of a lack of garbage collection, electricity, or water.

Originally posted by: RakeeshTo be honest, that's just too much work for too little in return. It doesn't hurt anyone for power tokens to be counted as freight, and you achieve the same effect without having to worry about power lines and a powergrid.quote> Well, it is odd that all resources are carried by vehicles. It's all about depth, and how deep the game is going to go to be a city simulator. But at the same time, it is possible to go too deep and too complex. Games that are too complex are overwhelming for new players and turn them off because not knowing everything equates to failure. I think a good example of a game that is just the right level of depth is NHL 10. I know it's outside of the city building genre, but the game is just great. You can stay high-level and just play with the default and turn some rules off and not manage lines, or you can go all out, edit your lines, send players to the minors, etc... NHL 10 also has a lot of auto-mated depth (elements that are just there and don't require player interaction). For example, I was playing as Niklas Kronwall and I checked a guy so hard that I gave him a concussion. For the rest of the series whenever I was on the road and Kronwall got the puck the crowd boo-ed him! I think that Cities XL is complex enough right now with all the trading required, in fact, I think that the trading actually distracts too much from the core city-building and infrastructure design. If I were MC I wouldn't add new features related to trading (unless it fixes something) and instead work on refining\adding features that would give the game additional depth without complexity. Like others said, imagine the power lines running under or above ground. In many cities the power lines run right with the road. On my street we're lucky because they ran the power lines between the back property lines so you don't see them as much. In my city (Warren, Michigan) there are only a few instances of Sim-City like power lines, and it's called the "Detroit Edison Corridor", which are huge steel high-voltage transmission lines that are taking power long distances which are then converted to lower voltages at power substations and distributed out to utility poles. However, my large city (Warren, Michigan 135,000 ~32 square miles) only has a couple of these high voltage transmission lines and I just don't see the need for them in Cities XL when there's already so much to worry about. The same goes with water, water is almost always underneath the roads. That's where SimCity gets redundant and chore like because you lay your roads and then have to go over most of them again with water pipes. Here is the Detroit Edison Corridor that I was referencing. Going down the center of it are two runs of tall steel supports with long thick wires. You can imagine they could have fit a road with houses down either side of it if it weren't there. In the center it goes over I-696, an 8-lane freeway with 4 lanes of service roads.

I'm not a big CXL fan, but I highly doubt the game did this. Boot into Safe Mode and do a system restore back to the last day it was working.

I agree with many of your points, but I wish that CXL would allow an in-place density modification such as going from medium density to high density residential. Just as I wish they would allow in-place upgrade for roads (even if it were to destroy building on one side (of your choosing) of the roads. For example, the city of Royal Oak, Michigan, United States (11.8 square miles / 30.6 square kilometers, 60,000+ residents) has a downtown area that has recently been transforming from 2-3 story building to 10+ story buildings because they've allowed it with their zoning ordinances. As a result the city has been naturally growing from just a "suburb of Detroit" into its own city with a bustling downtown district. However, I do agree with you that Cities XL is much more realistic in some regards because in SC4 it is very annoying that the buildings will change so easily and frequently. Cities XL allows more real-world consistency in this manner. Great, well thought out post Soltangris.

I have the game, I'm not willing to pay for the PO, and I actually found myself playing SC4 two days ago. I can say for sure I don't think solo mode is worth $40, but $20... If you don't have SC4 it may be worth it! I agree with the others, don't think of the upfront cost, think of the monthly costs (~9 USD per month). You can (by design) only do so much in single player. Although I must say the single player has improved since launch, it still has the intentional limitations in place. I'm still very interested to see what they're doing with PO. They've suspended long-term pricing and say they are considering their options. Optimistically and hopefully they are ditching the subscription model in favor of ad-supported Planet Offer play. But pessimistically they may just be upping the prices to make more money by only offering the higher cost short term subscription. However, no one can say for sure because the company has a total lack of communication and respect for its fanbase. Do they still have a demo out? I remember I played a demo before it was launched. Good luck!