SimBurger

Just another note to Monte Cristo - As population increases, it becomes harder and harder to affect the percentages on the Employment screen. The result of this is that there are businesses looking for employees, but the Statistics still say 0% available jobs. The more residents you have, the less informative the employment screen is. As you have more people, 1% equals a lot more people. So if one business needs 5 people, that's not even going to register on the employment stats. As a result, all my stats say 0%, even though that isn't correct. The end result of that, is that my businesses do not perform as well as they could, and my cashflow is directly affected. I don't want to muddy up the employment screen too much, but maybe a 0.00% display might be more helpful and accurate. It also might be ugly on the eyes. Just opening this up for discussion. I practically live by the employment stats screen. Checking it every nearly every 30 seconds. -SB-

a perfect circle.quote> Great Band

Hi Guys - Im sure you're already aware of it, but 4 out of 5 maps on each of the pages says "0%" ... "No slots available". Roughly 80% of the maps are disabled. Im told that the British "planet" has so few people playing that there's nobody to trade with, so maybe you could allocate some of their servers to the USA planet, Pollux?

To the Simtropolis team - There are way too many "Stickies" (Alert Topics) in this forum already, but I find myself coming here to post bug reports, etc. Hoping Monte Cristo will see my thread. Could you consider creating a stickie that simply contains a link to their feedback form? One for bug reports. One for comments suggestions. (assuming they're not on the same page) ? I would use it regularly as I run across lots of things I'd like to tell them about, but dont want to risk them missing if I just post it here.

Thanks, that's helpful. I think to make it even easier - here is the official link for reporting bugs you find: https://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?option=com_account&task=newissue&Itemid=107 If you're not logged in, it will prompt you to, then take you right to the form. If you're logged in, it will take you right to the form. -SB-

They fixed this! WooHoo! Thanks MC -SB-

After the patch, they will react to the quality of life in the neighborhood, which is influenced in a negative way by air pollution and noise pollution and in a positive way by landmarks and greeneries.quote> Does this mean that Landmarks currently reduce pollution in any way? I know greeneries don't do anything for pollution at this time. But you guys are still working on the trees so i know thats in the pipeline. office workers are tired of working with ear plugs to cover the noise of Boeings landing nearbyquote> Hmmm. Is Paris really quiet, with poor soundproofing in the buildings? Most of our offices are near Airports here in San Diego, and - airplane noise doesn't affect Offices at all. People are awake. Windows are shut and unless you're directly under the plane as its 50 feet above ground, Airport noise isn't an issue. The only thing Airplane noise affects in real life, pretty much under any scenario, are those who are trying to sleep. So only residential. And usually even then, only at night. Thoughts? -SB-

Yeah, its a joy to have to restructure things without a pause button! Argh.

That makes one of us!!!

Okay so just an update on this. Apparently the new FORD CAR DEALERSHIP ..... has a -2 (thats negative two) % effect on Pollution. It's accessible in RETAIL under that "extra buildings" or special buildings button at the bottom. Someone also said they found it in Landmarks. You should place it near PASSENGER SERVICES (that means on the right sidebar menu, find the PASSENGERS menu and click on it. Your greenest roads have the highest passenger services). So there is now something that solidly improves pollution in this game, even if only by 2% The electric cars they offer reduce auto emission pollution. (we need to get Bentley to sponsor CitiesXL - oh well - its a good start) By the way ABCS - you got tons of badges! You're a seasoned war veteran!!! -SB-

Let me translate his post for those of you who can't make heads or tails of what he's saying: Paraphrase: He screwed with the software and modified it. Monte Cristo's recent patch intentionally disabled his Mod and gave him a slap on the wrist. Now he's mad and wants Monte Cristo to go down the toilet. End Paraphrase. Edited for inappropriate comment. --Liv CXL Forums Moderator

I guess I just assumed with some of these cities that they just HAD to have sat down with a canvas and draftsman tools to have an end result as awesomely structured as they have. THe roads on some of these cities are just downright ARTWORK. Take a look at DarkPrince and his city Siekielo or whatever. You might have to just search DarkPrince then find the one resembling that name. That city's road structure is downright sexy... -SB-

I've started and deleted about 5 cities now. Consistently something I've noticed is that if you want to make a nice, low density sprawling city, you're in for a world of hurt. The expenses purely based on distance from things becomes such a huge issue, that you will spend all your time barely seeing any positive cashflow. On my sprawling (more beautiful) cities, I rarely see a cashflow above 6,000. Its stressful and frustrating. Yet every time I do a high density grid type set up (way ugly), where everything is in the boxy gridlike close proximity, I can have 9 billion people all together and one tiny elementary school. I guess SimCity was more accurate in this regard. Once your elementary school had 350 students, you had to build another one. In this game the only thing that seems to matter is distance from the school, police, fire, etc. Ive noticed my grid cities can easily reach 150,000+ in cashflow without a single thought. Its a bummer in some sense, as building a beautiful city becomes nearly impossible to maintain. You have to keep building new schools to reach all the various areas. Businesses fail because they are far from freight or passenger services, etc. Take a look at my current city - Castille - on Pollux. What you see there is an aesthetically pleasing sprawling set up. With nearly 100,000 citizens I've got a whopping 300 cashflow. I did the exact same map with a mindless, unoriginal grid set up and had 100,000 citizens and well over 100,000 cashflow. The only difference? Sprawl versus grid. -SB-

Agreed that "sprawl" would cost more in real life. Its just very frustrating that with that type of set up, you can't get above 6,000 in cashflow. That basically means you are constantly bankrupt. You can never build new services or grow. So in a sense, I was just conveying with sprawls effect on cashflow as it pertains to this game. I don't want them to make it too easy for me, but I find it basically *impossible* to continue with the current set up on City: CASTILLE (Pollux). And Im not doing anything crazy or irrational with my set up either. Just don't have everything in a tiny little grid. In real life, cities are NOT like that. The grid is almost always downtown. I guess the point is that there is such a drastic difference. How is it that I can do a grid on the same map and hit 150,000 cashflow with ease, but do a minor sprawl setup and I can't break 10,000 cashflow no matter what I do. I don't think in real life that cities with actual suburbs are basically bankrupt. Its just way too hard to build a city like that. As far as aesthetics - take a look at Castille. Its nice. Its all suburbia. And its a financial disaster. Simply because things are further from eachother. -SB-

Its official. The School bug has been fixed with today's patch. They have also added a high school to the mix! -SB-

Admittedly, I haven't played "video games" much since Legend of Zelda, circa 1989. I had a short dip back into that world, thanks to an ex girlfriend who loved Final Fantasy. But that's it. If people have gotten to the point that they declare a "FAIL" on a new game simply because the game didn't create a customized Holday Extravaganza 3 weeks after version 1.0 release, then the gamers of today are not the gamers of my day. Entitlement is a scary thing. -SB-

I was told "Schools are broken" above a certain level. maybe they're working on fixing it so schools and satisfaction work better. -SB-

Originally posted by: SaintyIn my mind missing out on Halloween is a big fail. quote> Are you serious? Geez.... -SB-

Growing Pains are expected! -SB-

I have to agree with what people have said here. 99% of those things should just be additional "structures" added to the basic game play. The thing that made SimCity fun was all the new, fun buildings that got unlocked, the longer you played. Ski Resort, Beaches, etc - these really should be part of the game. Especially given MC offers ski resort maps and even says "Great for a ski resort!" on the description (but none is available) GEMS - i would think, would be value added content like being able to hop in a car and drive your own streets, or a module which enables you to interact with your sims. As far as structures go, this game would quadruple its awesomeness if they just kept cranking out new buildings and structures and features as part of basic game play. GEMS should be something substantial, and major. -SB-

You might think so, but like I said, in any 15 minute period, you'll see it make some very illogical jumps. At 3am i dont think 75 people deleted their "MOUNTAIN LAKE" map all at once, and caused the % available to jump from 0 to 50%. My guess is that its a lag time combined with pointing to different boxes that have different maps available on them. The only real bug here is that MC should be able to sync the planet with the map menu on the right. One shouldn't be saying 0% while the planet has 20 available slots showing. No biggie - just wanted to bring it to their attention. I spent about 2 hours trying to get my dream map last night. It was really frustrating. I finally realized that if you click on the MAP MENU before it finishes saying "Checking cities" you sometimes get a different result than if you just wait, and let it finish checking cities. SB

Thats me in the foreground, greeeeeeen with envy. And thats Morris in the background, showing off his sand castle city

AGREED that expert mode feels like cheating. I think it is. No city starts with skyscrapers. It grows from tiny little caveman huts I dont know guys. I have seen some pretty beautiful cities and they were definitely planned out. When I have tried to "Wing It" ... I always ended up with a complete disaster of a city. Maybe i just suck at it, but mine end up looking like a crinkled piece of wadded up dirty paper. Some of these other cities I see look like artwork. That has to be planning. SB

Okay update on this. Apparently if you wait 15 minutes, or ... do something ....only the good Lord knows what ..... that 0% will change randomly to 50% .... then down to 15% .... then back to 0% ..... all within a time span of 15 minutes. Its very random. Accuracy seems to be off by a big margin. As mentioned, even if it says 0% on the map menu, you may find 15 of them by hovering over gray dots on the Planet itself. Seems like maybe each time it is "Checking Cities...." it may point to a different server. Some may have available maps of a certain kind whereas none of another kind. Not sure how it works on the back end, but one thing is certain - the Map Menu does not match the Planet. And availability is fairly low. -SB-

Actually it turns out this might be a bug. I actually found numerous "THE BEACH" maps by simply hovering over gray dots on the planet itself. But when i immediately pan over to the MAP list on the right side of the window, and click on THE BEACH - it says 0% - No Slots Available. SB