DaftBrit_tm

I first met Simcity way back in the days of the Amiga 500+. A lovely game where I could pretend I was creative and,when it went horribly wrong, destroy it all with equal entertainment. Then I upgraded to an Amiga 1200 and a modem. Simcity was kinda forgotten as I explored mailing lists and other web-based offerings to wile away my free time. Two consecutive visits to a local charity shop saw me the proud owner of Simcity 3000 AND Simcity 4. At the time I had progressed to Windoze XP and these games installed easily and away I went. After a while these games became a bit boring....... cities always looked very 'samey'. I kinda lost interest and discovered Facebook. I was hooked! Spending stupid amounts of time playing Kingdoms of Camelot. Looking back I also spent too much time wanting to play the game but was unable due to server problems. Updates..... maintenance...... upgrades and unexpected crashes. In hindsight, these delays were absolutely stupid and, despite major complaints from the KoC community, were never solved. I spent a few quid on 'extra features' but, in the end, abandoned Kingdoms of Camelot and moved on. Next I tried Farming Simulator ( from Giant) and was impressed with the user community. They have understood the games architecture and lovingly recreated every piece of farm machinery imaginable and brought it into the game. Here I could use the machinery from my childhood or harvest crops with modern machines on maps created by real wizards. But eventually I got a bit bored. I moved on to Microsoft's FSX. Diverse possibilities from a tiny microlite to an immense Boeing 747. And an immense user community offering more realistic scenery, additional aircraft, online flights with real air traffic control. I joined not one virtual airline but two! Only a few days ago I landed an Airbus 380 @ YMML (Melbourne) after a short flight from Auckland (NZAA) with VATSIM's controller cautioning me for exceeding 250 kts @ 4000 feet. Ooooeps! I also upgraded from Windoze XP to the new-ish Windoze 7 and found that some of my older games wouldn't install but...... Simcity 4 would! I also found Rush Hour and the NAM. Yes, I know this was years after every1 else but...... I also found the user community and Simtropolis. Jesus! The amount of freely downloadable buildings! I downloaded loads of extras, finding the work of the Pegasus team and SimGroober to name just just a few. Simcity4 just expanded beyond belief. I could create fishing communities, mining towns or belch clouds of lovely pollution from my ironworks and smelting factories and see my sim residents cough! Simcity4 was reborn! I also experimented with lovely parks that generated money AND industry-doublers when my mayor skills failed. Being an offline game, only I knew I was cheating a bit LOL I also found out that Simcity 5 was due to be released soon. I dashed about the web finding out about this new product. With Maxis in charge of the coding and the mighty EA pushing this product onto the market...... what could possibly go wrong?? Youtube excited me! The graphics looked so cool! Also the concept of expanding my fire-station instead of finding room for another one! Yes! And playing online with other mayors, selling coal and buying other commodities. Yes, I could learn to embrace that concept too. But I also wanted the gameplay of just me..... in a little private bubble where I could learn-by-doing, bugger it all up, demolish it all and restart and no-one would every know how terrible I was/am. Then I discovered the always-online feature. Gulp! I can understand the anti-piracy philosophy. Piracy will always be with us and the software companies will always be creating new ways to protect their intellectual property. Such is the nature of the beast. And I'm usually sat @ home with constant broadband so connection isn't really a problem. Flying online means I have to be connected to a server for hours at a time so I'm kinda used to it. And obviously, if I'm sharing a region with some kid in Ohio and a lass in Beijing, being attached via a server to buy/sell resources is essential. I can see how connection is necessary to negotiate global and regional prices. I suppose I wanted Simcity 5 to be a Super-duper Simcity4/RushHour/NAM combo with new buildings, with kickass graphics to take advantage of multi-core processors and other computer improvements since Simcity4 debuted all those years ago. I wanted Simcity 5 to be single-player game with the ability to go multiplayer and interact with other cities and other 'mayors' across the globe but only if I so choose. And I wanted Simcity to have the ability to enable to diversify like the Simcity 4 we have now with towns specialising in clay-pits and pottery; quaysides and fish-processing plants; loggers and sawmills or even farmland with flour-mills. It's mebbe unfair comparing the new, crisp, just-out-of-the-box Simcity5 with the essentially-modded Simcity4 that we have today. I can already predict that this new Simcity5 user community will get behind the product and mod it, mould it and it will become far more than it is now. In the same way that Farming Simulator, Simcity4 and FSX have expanded and grown. Or will EA cut their losses and switch the servers off in 2 years? I have finally managed to save my money and now have the princely sum of £65. I'm a week or so late to spend my money on Simcity5 and 'enjoy' the 'unable-to-connect' messages of launch day. Now I have to decide whether to buy Simcity5 and install this unknown Origin client software thingy. And................ No I'm going back to Simcity4. I love the 3rd-party mods. Part of the fun is finding just the right one to fill those tiles and fulfill the requirements of your budding city. Simcity 4 has grown and evolved over the years and quite frankly, Simcity5 is not a move forwards......its a massive step sideways. Until an offline mode is available I will not buy it. My money will buy another add-on for FSX. So, to EA, Maxis and all those folks who bought Simcity 5......... I wish you every success and I hope this product will grow and flourish but, as it is atm, this isnt a game for me.