knightrider

MC has TWO full forums of ideas... the old CUPlanet/CXL forums, and the CXL beta forums. Most of the ideas there were outlined in painstaking detail. If they permanently deleted all of that information, that's too bad. I'm not typing it all out again.

I was a beta tester, and I hated the direction the game was taking so much that I never really looked back after the beta ended. When I got this notification in my email, I jumped out of my chair and laughed out loud. So now they will attempt a single player game again. Except this time, they won't have the support of the vast majority of this community. Maybe they will turn it around and make it a decent game, but based on what I've seen of MC so far, I don't bet on it. Plus, I feel like giving them any money would be rewarding bad decisions. I can't have that on my conscience, you know? ; )

Originally posted by: Kredit Thing is, you're not "the government", you're not even "the mayor" (even if it's what you're called in-game), you're a lot of things rolled in to one. Mayor, developer, trade unionist, architect, etc. etc. This is not supposed to be SimMayor or SimGovernment It's about "building" a city in a way that's both challenging and enjoyable. Not about defining the tasks a mayor should or should not do. Bottom line: Gameplay ALWAYS trumps realism. Always. Most of the rest of your gripes seem to be details and finetuning. Yes, the amount of retail needed is a bit low, I agree. They'll probably tweek that at some point. However, why that specific shop went broke? Dunno... polution? traffic? wrong kind of shop (discount store in Elite area)? That's what makes CXL interesting. It's not just "I need 10 of those for 5 of those and then I can build 2 of those again". quote> I agree that when there is a conflict between gameplay and realism, gameplay should win. Good gameplay would mean that when I perform an action, the game responds in a way that is consistent with what you would see in the real world. The game is not based on any sort of real economics and instead follows arbitrary rules like a board game. Even video games that are based in fantasy have some root in reality. Not every game has a realistic physics engine, but when there is a task in a game that requires you to stack blocks or jump across a gap, and the physics of the game are so totally off that you have a hard time controlling it, pretty soon you are taken out of the fun. If enough of the game is compromised, you might just quit playing all together. Similarly, CXL takes control away from you in some areas while also giving you responsibilities that shouldn't be yours. I can agree the argument that you are more than a mayor. Urban planner, engineer, architect... I can see all that. Hotel owner? How does that fit in? Bowling alley proprietor? What? If the city owns these businesses, which are businesses just like any other, then why doesn't the city own all businesses? Every game has a background story, even if it is a subtle one. Who am I supposed to be? If I am not "the government" then why do I have control of taxes? Am I god? If so, why can't I terraform or build a farm wherever I want? It's clear most of these "gameplay" choices were not really made for the sake of gameplay, they were either made for the sake of the little trade window, or to make up for shortcomings in the game's simulation.

Did you try libraries and such? There's more to it than just schools.

Originally posted by: Apache We agree both I think that at this point Simcity has a better approach to CB and that we would so much love for another simcity type game to come out BUT here is where we grow apart....for one NOONE will ever build another Simcity game or anything like it not EA not another company Simcity Societes FAILED so bad people will have second thoughts now....Simcity the name has lost loyal customers ....two Cities XL is a great game its totally different then Simcity and people knock on it for not being simcity..:l ok first of all its called Cities XL not Simcity whaterver Cities is on the map MC is on the map and have dived in the CB genre while simcity is slowly being forgotten to be honest the Cities XL apporach is beggining to grow on me ...and thats ok some people will let it grow on them and others will hang on to simcity 4 waiting for something that will not happen its called having different tastes and thats ok its just im a fan of CB games not just simcity quote> I don't oppose the style of CXL simply because it's different, I just don't enjoy it. For me, when I start designing a city, I expect it to react in a logical way that, for the most part, mimics real world mechanics. In this way, I'd like to see the game follow real world rules instead of arbitrary, board game rules. Maybe a company will make another game that attempts realism, like SC4 did. Perhaps you are right, and no one will ever attempt this, and CXL is the future of city builders. For me, if CXL is the future of city builders, I hope another city builder is never, ever made.

To say nothing about why the city is responsible for creating bowling alleys in the first place. Leisure is handled very poorly. Entertainment should pop up wherever there is a zone and demand. The citizens want more leisure activities? Great, leave me alone and go tell some entrepreneurs. I'm busy running a city here.

Try clicking the cultural leisure button. It looks like a treble clef. Try a museum.

When I first heard that they were going to make this game MMO, my initial reaction was disbelief. Then I got to thinking, how could one actually make a city builder into an MMO? First of all, there would need to be a spirit of cooperation. Cities on the planets could be grouped into countries. Each city within the country would share resources automatically. Why? Because mayors don't trade in commodities like offices and manufacturing, the free market should do this. Thus, it would be handled by the simulation. Distance would also be a factor. For example, if you have a shortage of fuel, it would not be a problem as long as a close neighbor within your country has fuel, because it can be assumed your sims would seek out the supply of fuel like people do in real life, not wait around for the mayor to provide it. This shared bond between cities would become less efficient with distance. Neighbor connections should also be realistic... a road connection lets you connect to other cities by road. An airport lets you go farther. An airport in a nearby city could also service yours. Secondly, the population should move in and out of cities and not just spawn/disappear magically. In this manner, a city that sucks might have people move out in favor of another city. Because of this, you would actually have to compete with others, even within your own country, to make your city appealing. This would encourage everyone to make the best city possible. It would also be possible for sims to commute from your town to another for work if the cities are close. Careful, though. If the commute gets too grueling, they'll just move closer to work. Trade between countries would also be possible. This would have to be done through trade deals, no automatic sharing here. Some other cool ideas: Sports teams between cities and countries could face off and the game could provide updates on which teams are playing and who wins the "game". Also, there could be special buildings, like capitol buildings, where only one is allowed per country. Little roads would start to develop on the planet view for cities that are linked by road. Planes would fly around to/from cities with airports. Ships in the oceans, too. That's just my take on how a city builder MMO should work, but let's see what CXL has: A trade window A chat box Even worse, the location you choose on the globe affects nothing, the globe is just a pretty graphic. There are no realistic distances. A simple neighbor connection allows trade with the other side of the globe. One could come up with many ways to make a city builder MMO. Unfortunately, CXL doesn't do any of them.

Apache, I am glad you enjoy the game. For the most part, I don't see people crying. I see well-reasoned commentary on why some of us, not all, but some, find CXL to be much less engaging than SC4. I am a vocal critic of CXL, but I am happy to engage in discussion with those who do like the game as well as those who agree with me. This SimCity 5 thing gets thrown around a lot, and I don't like the term. First of all, we did get SimCity 5, it was Societies. But mainly I don't like the term because I'm not necessarily looking for SC5, nor do I want an SC4 clone. I simply want a game that is an improvement upon the current CB standard. I want better than SC4. MC were the ones who lumped CXL in with SC4. They have stated they were aiming to take SC4's spot. The logical way to do this would be to expand upon the things that SC4 got right, while improving the things SC4 got wrong. Had they done this with CXL, we would have this same thread, only it would be about how dorky SC4 was compared to CXL. However, CXL, in my opinion, failed to do so. Instead, it breaks everything that worked fine and then finds new things to break.

You can also easily fill your bank account. Create a city on a fuel map, then build as many fuel fields as you can. This will be your slave city. It doesn't matter if you're not making profit, just make sure you have enough workers for the fuel fields and that you finish building them all before you run completely out of money. Also place some landfills as the fuel fields will work more efficiently if they have a place for the waste. When you are done, leave this city. Go to your other, actual city, and offer to buy all of the fuel from the slave city for only one cash token. Accept your own offer on behalf of the slave city. Now, trade all of that excess fuel away for full price.

Between the two games, the most significant difference I can point to would be the simulation. SimCity is intricate, while CXL is linear. One glaring thing that seems to be missing from CXL is the concept of property value. Without including some sort of simulation regarding property value, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to simulate the behavior of a city in a believable manner. Property value drives everything. It determines what type of housing will be built. It determines how much property tax revenue will be brought in. It determines whether an area will continue to decline into a slum, or whether an area will be redeveloped. These should be major factors in the simulation. It also affects the actions that the player takes in the game, as well. An attentive player will realize that finding methods to raise property value would be beneficial as higher values mean more tax income. A mayor who is paying attention might ensure that high-density zones are in areas of high property value in order to maximize the number of people using these areas. Property values that are too high might cause your city to be too expensive for your working class. You can come up with dozens of scenarios where the simulated people in your city will make "choices" that affect your city, mostly based on property values. I maintain that the simulation in CXL will always feel flat because of the abandonment of any sort of algorithm for property value. In CXL, there is no method for the city to develop organically, so you, as the player, must decide which neighborhoods will be high-wealth and which will be low. There is no tax benefit to increasing the quality of your city. Neighborhoods cannot slide into a slum, redevelop, or be remade through gentrification. Whether a neighborhood is suitable for a certain demographic is determined by simple yes/no checks. Is there a go-kart track? Is there a school? Without property value, which is the major driving factor in development of a city, there is nothing to build a simulation upon. Since the sims cannot "decide" what to build or where to live on their own, we are left with the player plopping everything. This is in contrast to SC4, which addresses property value. Now, some argument could be made that affecting property value was too easy in SC4, and that neighborhoods and buildings changed way too often. That would certainly be a valid argument, but CXL completely ignores this and does not even address these simulation issues at all.

Originally posted by: deanco Nobody in beta commented on this? quote> Every issue you have, plus all the issues that can be found in other threads, were brought up in the beta, ad nauseam.

I really don't think there are any surprises in store for release day, at least not any miracles large enough to make the game playable for me. (For example, major simulation changes...) "...there is no reason not to invest your gaming budget in this effort." I don't like the game, I don't believe in the concept, and it's not an investment, it's a rental. There's three reasons.

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey Either management noticed among the long list of features to be incuded "Multiplayer support," read that as "MMO" and started getting euro signs in their eyes, or the company badly miscalculated the cost of developing the game and needed a desperate gambit to stay profitable.quote> MC is a smaller company. The CEO is also the lead on CXL, or at least that is what was reported. I don't know what that says about management interference. Part of me says there may have been little interference because the company is not very large, another part of me says that, if I were a programmer, I would not want my project leader to also be the CEO. A project leader who is all about making the best project with the time and money alloted might make very different decisions than a project leader who also happens to be CEO. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, I'm just sayin'.

If MC makes another game, I would take a look. It would be a skeptical look, though. The one-two punch of City Life and Cities XL has established a pattern that makes me wary of MC.

A city builder could be made profitable by creating a solid core game that we'd actually want to buy, and then through timed releases of expansion packs and DLC. I'm not opposed to the MMO model, but first, the game has to be solid. Then, the MMO has to actually be worth playing. Trade and chat does not make an experience worth paying a monthly fee.

Any time you are in the negative on an item, you should either import or produce more. If you have negative population tokens, you need more residential zones.

Not enough freight means the industry is too far from a city link. On the right side of the screen there is a menu that shows freight capacity. Look through the menu to find it, it's in there somewhere. It will show you the best places to put industry. As for the tokens, they just represent the items you are trading. When you overproduce enough of something, like heavy industry for example, it will show up as having 1 token. This means you have more heavy industry than you need. If you continue to overproduce, you will get 2, 3, 4 tokens and so on. For items like fuel and fuel, you do not have the ability to produce them, so eventually, as your city's needs grow, you will start to show negative tokens for food and fuel. The idea of the trade is to sell off all of your surplus tokens, and to buy the tokens you are lacking.

The way I look at it is, if you like the game and want to buy it, then more power to you. I'm not here to change your mind and I hope you have lots of fun. But, let's not prop the game up to be something it is not. If you like the game, then like it for what it is despite its faults. Making excuses for the game and insisting that MC will suddenly change direction is just a primer for another round of heartbreak. I get the impression that people think if they concentrate on liking the game hard enough, they can just will away the facts of the situation, sort of like Peter Pan clapping his hands to revive Tinkerbell.

Originally posted by: morriswalters The farms. Look closely at them and you will see one of the limitations at once. No driveways, sidewalks, and the field textures are the only ground textures. They even run into buildings if they dont have floors. We can draw a conclusion from this, there can only be one floor texture. What you can get away with on a farm won't work on a house. I neither cheer or jeer this, it appears to be a fact of life. quote> It behaves this way, not because it's a fact of life, but because they programmed it this way. They could have programmed it any number of ways, but they chose to go the current route. The discussion hinges on the fact that they should have been more innovative when they came up with the concept.

I'm not a fan of organized boycotts. Even if MC decided that they wanted to implement our suggestions (the suggestions have been available for years), I would have to assume they are at the end of their budget. Once a game gets so far, it either goes release ready or the project is killed. If it's killed it is a total loss, if it's released they can hope for the best and at least try to break even. To extend the project they would need more funding, and I don't know about you but based on what I've seen I'm not rushing to invest in this game.

The lot is what gets in the way. In real life, a square house can still sit on a triangular lot. In the game, lots serve no actual purpose other than eye candy, as well as a buffer between houses, yet there is no way to "knock a corner" off of a lot to make it fit into a space that is plenty large for the house, yet too small for the lot. The first thought that comes to mind for me is separate the buildings from the lot. The zone tool should flood fill an area. In effect, the whole area becomes one big "lot." The game would stick buildings within that lot until there is no more space. Before the game decides to build a new building, it would go through a quick check: Is there enough room for this building in the space that is left? If no, it will choose a smaller building. Also annoying are the so-called high density lots, which are even more huge than the standard lots, and just as square, making them even harder to place if you're using omni-directional roads. In reality, not every high density building sits on a huge lot... that's why it's called high density. More people in the same space.

Well, I think that SC4 vanilla is still better than CXL, but that being said... Where else in the real world do you evaluate a new product on the market by comparing it to a competitor's product of six years ago? It doesn't happen. Fair or not, it's not about being fair. It's about what the consumer gets for their money, and there is already a product available right now that offers more. That's just the reality of it. Even so, the lack of enthusiasm over CXL isn't because it does not match SC4, it's because it will never match SC4. The reason for this is CXL's lack of a solid foundation to build upon. The simulation is absent and the MMO is a glorified board game. You can pile buses, trains, and custom buildings on top of it, but it's all still sitting on top of the flawed foundation. MC did not need to include the equivalent of 6+ years of custom content to make the game appealing. To be successful, they needed: - a fun game with a solid simulation running behind the scenes that is based in reality - all the transportation features of the NAM, only integrated into the game instead of tacked on - look at the top 10 or 20 downloads of SC4 custom content, and make items similar to those to include with the game If they had done this, which would have been entirely reasonable to accomplish in the time they had, I think we would feel much differently about the game. The added content would come later, built upon a solid foundation. An impressive expansion pack by MC could bring in more revenue. The MMO could be added through expansion pack, as well. That's far too much talk about what could have been... but the point of it all was--SC4 started bad and got better. CXL is starting bad... that doesn't mean it gets better. Some things just start bad and stay bad.

Most everything is covered here, as far as I'm concerned. Just a couple points. In SC4 the education sim wasn't perfect, and it could be argued that there are better ways to go about it, but it did exist, and it did more than just create satisfaction. Remember, in addition to different wealth levels of sims, there were also different ages of sims with different needs. You could watch your city become more educated as time went on and generations grew older. Now, CXL shouldn't have to clone SC4 in this regard, but it doesn't even address it at all. It doesn't have it's own version of how education should work. The game simply checks if the school exists, and how far away it is, that's all. There is no passing of time in CXL and the citizens have no ages. As far as neighborhoods go, perhaps SC4 was a little cheesy in that turning a slum into high-wealth housing is more of a feat than just building some city services. But again, even if SC4 got it wrong, it at least tries. CXL has no attempt to deal with evolving/devolving neighborhoods. Perhaps a slum in real life would never be converted into rows of mansions, but what if some city development projects nearby increased the property value? The poor citizens would sell to cash in on the increasing property values, and developers would buy to cash in on the prime location. Of course, we don't know how that would have worked out, because CXL does not try to simulate anything like this, in fact there are no property values. There is no underlying logic to what wealth level of buildings get built where, which is why you, as "mayor" have to zone by wealth. I just don't see a simulation here.

Originally posted by: soltangris Look, I'm not stupid and ignorant, nor have I been paid by MC, I'm just trying to find good points where everybody keeps searching for the bad ones. quote> Oh, hey, I don't think you're stupid. I also don't think MC paid you, they can't even moderate their own boards let alone organize somehting like that. I don't want to rain on your parade if you like the game. I also know most games aren't perfect. I just don't see this as a matter of the glass being half full or half empty... it's more like 1% full and 99% empty. Anyway, I really am not sure why there are so many people who think the release version is going to be miraculously different from what we have seen. I'm sure they will improve on some issues, but they won't change the overall game mechaincs or add in a complex simulation, which is really my main hangup on the game. Besides, my experiences with the lack of progress in the beta do not lead me to expect the game to change much. If you want to get the game, I'm not trying to change you. If there is anyone out there who isn't sure if they should shell out the cash for this game, they can read my posts and decide for themselves if my points make sense. After all, it's not like the store will accept returns on video games if you change your mind. Besides, I just like discussing. Anyway, take care!