halicem

Hey folks, today is the 1 year anniversary of Star Citizen's initial, well, unveiling. A year ago, Chris Roberts, maker of games such as Wing Commander and it's successors, came out with this ridiculous concept of a game which I then ignored chalking it off as probable, well, honestly, vapor ware. He did come out with a kick starter campaign and I remember thinking "meh, I'll buy in when there's something out there from them". Well about a month ago, it came roaring back into my life with a vengeance. They released the hangar module and I now strongly regret not pledging earlier. I had to catch up on an entire year's worth of development. So here's the gist: - in a year, the game has raised $21M USD and counting - they eschewed publisher backing - there's no EA behind them!!! - it is an MMo, with a single player campaign(squadron 42) - though it's an MMO, you can run your own server(a la mine craft) - it'll be a classless system - entirely player skill based(ie no predefined Mage, warrior, etc) - there won't be a subscription when it comes out - it's not going to be P2W, you'll be able to buy in game credits but there's a daily limit and an overall max limit - the immersion..... Pretty unparalleled, except maybe GTA5 - one of the things that really hooked me: how death is handled(remember, it's classless) they'll do a better job explaining it. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12879-Death-Of-A-Spaceman - it's designed for the PC.... This is a AAA game. Without a publisher. It's a huge slap in the face across publishers who: A) think the hardcore pc games are dead and B) who don't believe in the space sim genre; C) thinks PC games should be dumbed down for everyone, D) everything has to have micro transactions. - though you can buy stuff now, everything is going to be available ingame - even the vanity items - this is very different from eve. In short, I've never spent this much on a game ever. And it's not even out yet. Ps. You only need to get the $40 package to get access to the alpha/beta.

So apparently this is supposed to be like an iq test but we've always thought it's a well crafted joke. Q: how many steps does it take to put an elephant inside a fridge? A: 2! Open the door, shove the elephant in! Q: how many steps does it take to put a giraffe inside the fridge? A: 3! Open the door, take the elephant out, shove the giraffe in! Q: the king of the jungle, the lion, calls for a meeting of every animal out there, which animal didn't make it? A: the giraffe, cause it's in the fridge! Q: you need to cross a crocodile infested river where dozens of people die every year, no boat nor bridge available, how do you get across? A: swim! All the crocodiles are in the meeting!

Interesting. Wonder if what Hoiphus suggested would work for Simcity. Only game I can think of which uses this effectively is eve-online: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Time_Dilation http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2437 Making events like this possible: http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/17dohb/eve_online_a_compilation_of_the/ In short, when too many actions happen(swamping the server), time is dilated to ensure all actions are recognized. Pretty much like turning off cheetah speed but more adaptive based on computational intensity. Makes sense for eve, say in the event above, it started by accident inside a "dungeon" that's not particularly trafficked so it was on a regular server node. So rather than barring people from entering outright, or pausing the game as the "room" is transferred to a higher capacity server, the server slows time down to ensure orders get executed in order. But for this simcity? I dunno, it does introduce a new dynamic which could make things interesting.

Watch out, uncollected recycling bins also causes land pollution. Double watch out: designating one city a recycling center city(provide recycling to another city and don't build a recycling center in the other city to maximize profits on original city) may have un intended consequences: - the target city residents will start generating recycling bins to collect - if you don't send enough trucks, these bins will overflow and you'll get the zots above buildings noting overflowing garbage - or if the trucks never get to your city(region play bug/host city got hit by recycling center bug), recycling will overflow too You'll have to keep reforesting... Almost daily... Great way to reclaim polluted land from demolished landfill

I believe those are caused by uncollected garbage/sewage. You'll have to let it pass if you don't want to demolish + plant trees. Takes a loooong time to even begin clearing up. You'll have to support it with hospitals for health + parks for land value... If you decide to tear them down and plant trees, I think it should clear up in 3-4 game days

Avoid 4 way intersections especially avenue x avenue. - I found that sometimes only one side were moving, so with only 1 out of 4 avenues moving, it was pretty disastrous T-intersections are life-savers. - at worst case where only 1 out of 3 sides are moving, that's still 33% of cars moving compared to a paltry 25% on 4 way crossings Also, avoid having small square grids - have your blocks longer. - this lessens the chance of a gridlock since you've got longer stretches of uninterrupted road Make sure you have more than one main road running through your city(3 - 5 running parallel would be nice). - main roads don't have to be contiguous - if you find sims preferring one road over the other road, find a way to divert the traffic like inserting a break on the preferred road and channel traffic to the other arteries(don't just transfer it to another arterial road) This may seem counter-intuitive, but in my city, I purposefully made my entrance a T-intersection. ie. you either have to turn left or right. - this is an application of all the rules above, especially since sims seem to prefer the straight road that came from the region and runs through the city These solved my traffic problems which was literally killing me(am relying on coal from global market.. Buildings turning off.. No more power from the region.. Losing money thanks to investment in big industry - whose deliveries are also stuck in traffic.. Yeah.........).

I like the petition idea but the whitehouse.gov is just plain stupid. The government has nothing to do with a digital consumer product, you want congress to stop trying to fix what's broken with the country to address a company's poor game? Seriously? That kind of attitude is simply pathetic as it is not the job of the government to even bother looking at this or wasting diskspace with a whitehouse petition. There are plenty of avenues of redress against EA and the courts are wide open, your credit card company, the BBB, public petitions and shame. Like I mentioned, I don't expect it to fix the game - it's meant to get the conversation started. There'd been petitions for Death Stars and more stupid things like that and this, I believe, has more relevance. The issue here isn't just about a game, like I said, it's about digital products and the reality is: - you can't take them to court because they're protected by existing laws - you can dispute charges but like EA said, do that and you'll get banned - multi-million dollar businesses don't care about public "social" petitions - corporations treat the bbb as a joke(reputation management 101: don't directly engage with the bbb issue center or ripoff reports, doing so makes those pages relevant in the Internet. Instead control it via official channels) - you may shame companies, but again, they've got big marketing budgets to weather it, shaming them only works for so long especially if they know by this time next month, the issue is buried

wrong. I didn't buy it and won't unless the fix the always-online issue as well as other issues that have been talked to death on this forum. you're right, I should have prequalified my statement to only those who've already bought it

Also ironic that when this whole debacle is over: Guess who's not playing the game anymore? The casual gamers who got fed up with this.. aka the gamers they went after because SC4 was too complicated. Guess who's still playing the game? The fans of the series who's been loyal through the years.. aka the gamers they didn't target with this release.

I'd prefer a whitehouse.gov petition, here's why: Because of the required connection to their servers in order to play, this is tantamount to a broken product. Picture this, you just bought the latest released brand-spanking-new car, you drive off the lot only for it to go out on you right on the dealer's driveway. As it turns out, the manufacturer forgot to put in an essential part in the engine which only they can provide. The manufacturer were so incompetent that they left this item out on all the cars they built and that are being sold by dealers worldwide. Reputable dealers, like amazon, immediately halt sales. The maker meanwhile tries to scramble to manufacture that part. Then they have to ship it. Then they have to train technicians what to do. Then your car actually gets fixed. Lucky if all that happens in under a week. As a consumer, your recourse is to walk back in to the manager's office and demand a refund, or exercise the return/love-it-or-hate-it programs. Here lay the crux of the matter, because it's currently unusable, it doesn't meet requirements, it doesn't work as advertised(that's a separate FTC complaint right there), under normal circumstances, if this were a regular product, you'd be able to take it back and ask for a refund. BUT because this is a digital product, it is "IP" and all the wonderful implications that come along with it. So because it was opened/used/activated/bought, you're not allowed to return it. So: Here it is: When you buy a movie, even though it's crap and you totally hated it, the fact is you watched it, you saw it, it fulfilled every function that a movie is supposed to fulfill. The same with music or tv shows. In this case though, you bought Simcity with the expectation that the software will start, and you'll be able to use it. But the reality is, that isn't happening. But what about the "it will eventually get resolved" argument. That is one of many possible outcomes. It is in fact almost a certainty that it will get resolved. But what's also a possible outcome is that North Korea make do good on their threat and detonate a nuke on US soil, say LA. Yes, we've got bigger problems should that happen - but that's a possibility. And if you want to deal with possibilities, there are an infinite number of possibilities that could happen. But in the here, in the now, in what's real right this moment is the fact that it's a broken product. For that reason, we the people should have every right to pull out and be refunded. After all, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and die, I never would have had the chance to use the product for which I paid for but never got the chance to enjoy because when I was alive and had the capacity to enjoy it, the product didn't work. In short, just because a product is offered digitally does not absolve anyone of any responsibility of fulfilling the promise of what the product should be able to do. Accountability? In the digital world, there is none. Oops, please wait, we made a boo-boo and we're trying to fix it. It's high time this was discussed on a higher stage, hence a white house petition. Sure he won't be able to do anything about it directly, it won't magically fix the servers, but it opens the dialogue - finally. ps. I should disclose that I myself work in the digital world. I'm a programmer. I build in-house enterprise apps used by our company and let me tell you, if we mess up, we have to fix it right away, we have plans for backups, and we can't disrupt our users. When users get disrupted, that means the company is paying a large group of people(our users) to do nothing but check their facebooks and twitters, that the company is not making money since we're not producing value(because employee's aren't working), and we might fail to meet client deadlines(in which case the company is obligated to refund our clients). accountability, Maxis, EA, learn what that word means - when you do, should you have this problem again, you'll see it resolved sooner.

wow, i'll try that once i can actually login! i'm now in the same boat with everyone regarding unable to login, unable to load city, unable to reticulate splines, unable-to-feel-sympathy-for-gamers-who-have-to-work-in-the-morning-so-ill-throw-them-in-an-unable-loop. but yeah, i didnt know you can recycle sewage that way!! also, for anyone curious - no even the water table next to the lake still drops. yeah.

I've so far played 14 hours, made 2 cities. It's a bit of a shock really. Where simcity 4 was like chess, this is more like football. Everything's going on all at the same time. It takes getting used to. Heck I know I'm running out of power even before the icon starts flashing amber. Is it an sc4 replacement? No. If I want a laid back atmosphere, I'd play sc4. Sc2013 is almost frantic at times... There were moments went it felt like everything's gonna give but just gotta hold on. And that's how I ended up playing 14 hours over the last 48 without taking a day off. My biggest gripe with it is the ever diminishing water table. I've relocated pumps half a dozen times and the map is practically light blue all over.... What the heck do they expect us to do when the water table runs dry on all the cities in the region? Don't see a bottled water storage lot in my trade depot...

Actually, if you double the size, you'd be quadrupling the computational requirements(at least), as in you can fit 4 2k x 2k cities in a 4k x 4k map. Now that's just pertaining to quadrupling the number of objects within the game. Then you have to take into account that the relationships between those objects, eg: a sim looking for a job, is like a permutation function - and quadrupling the number of available objects to relate to will more than quadruple the number of available relationships possible. I have no doubt the simulation engine can handle it, and that modern computers can handle it. Cloud hosting has also been getting cheaper and cheaper(seems like AWS keeps lowering their prices every 6 months!). So the only thing I can think of right now is the actual bandwidth, both inbound to their servers, and upload bandwidth from players' homes(which ISPs don't really care about and most people don't know that it's separate from the down). I forgot to check during the weekend but has anyone actually checked how much bandwidth simcity consumed during gameplay?

It's a bit late but, I put together this rule: [code] partialRule "AMD Radeon HD 7000 Slow-Down Fix" stringMatch cardIdentity "*Radeon*" partialRule "SlowSubrectDepthCopy" -any stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD*Radeon*HD*7???*" # turn off "special" low-impact scrolling mode. property noPartialBackingStoreCopies false property useSecondStage true property texBindMaxFree 32 property dirtyRectMergeFrames 1 # turn on buttery smooth scrolling. property usevertexbuffers false end end [/code] It's a combination of the other rules found scattered about. Added in useSecondStage and texBindMaxFree, honestly, I don't know what they're for and changing them doesn't seem to affect it. I merely followed context clues in the Graphics Rules.sgr file(how Lotsa Memory empty has double the value for texBiondMaxFree and 100MB vram was considered lotsa!) noPartialBackingStoreCopies false <- fixes the props/textures/shadow disappearing when scrolling usevertexbuffers false <- makes the scrolling buttery smooth I'm using a 7700 1GB card btw One reason my previous attempts to fix this failed was because of this line: stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD*Radeon*HD*7???*" ...I used to use ATI instead of AMD! Switching it lead to the modifications getting picked up. Double check under Device Manager > Display Adapters to see if it resembles the rule here. Hope this helps(and to anyone else looking for a fix to this issue)

It's been awhile since I last played and downloaded new content for sc4. Went to my Account section to see what else was updated and found the section which lists all my posts. One in particular stood out: I post this here because I think Maxis did the right thing with GlassBox, it is the next evolutionary step to the simulation. I detailed in that post why I didn't think they'd be successful then, but they did build it - albeit they had to make it smaller than what most would have liked. Reading through my old post, I found it chilling at how close it was to describing how the agents are supposed to work. I'll quote the closing section of the second paragraph: I think the GlassBox does have the capability to be really really complex, it should, in theory, surpass the complexity of SC4's calculations. Everything I've seen and heard so far suggests they were able to do just that. Now it just seems to be a matter of whether or not they've been able to unleash it to its full potential or will they be purposefully hold it back and wait to see how things go.

Is there a downloadable version of the disks? My disk drive is dying and now fails to read a couple of the disks. This laptop's eventual replacement won't have a disk drive, so kinda curious if there'll be an online ISO that'll be offered. I'd be glad to make another donation to help with the upkeep/hosting costs!

Monster cables is a sponsor of this bill.. You know, the makers of those overpriced cables. They've classified amazon, Craigslist and eBay as rogue sites. Presumably, because those sites offer reasonable alternatives to their overpriced crap. I'm fairly certain they didn't invent the cables but if they had their way, they'd like to see those sites taken out. Neat. Likewise, cause of the loose language, ST is also affected. Make a building with a popular brand on it like say a fast food chain? The bill can be used to sue the site out. And it will be. As with any new law, the will be lawyers out there who will actively seek this out and approach these companies who didnt even initially care about it and change their minds. Not just brands too but could possibly also be used for building replicas. Say even if the architects of Rockefeller center is fine with it, but if another company has rights to make models of it, then it's not hard for that company to also pursue it. THEN what next? You can take photos of you next to buildings? Holding a coke can? If you do take pictires, it's ok as long as you don't share it? Is that it? Unless you're naked against a white screen, you can get sued? That's some fairly loose language right there.

I think it's a great idea! Simcity teaches critical thinking and really sticks to the old adage that there's no one way to do things, heck there's no winning formula since there's no "win" condition. That being said, I think you need to explain more what you seek to accomplish with this exercise. This being an engineering class, I think one essential lesson that needs to be taught is durability and handling the unexpected. So I would recommend having two additional tests performed on their cities after the end of term(probably don't tell them what it is, just let them know it's coming). This probably means no plugins so it can be passed around and you can test it. More on this later, for now... As for coming up with the score, the mayor rating is a good way to estimate your performance, but as nonny and others mentioned, it's not reflective of everything. If I were tasked to come up with the formula, I'd probably end up with: For a full 100% metric 20% Mayor Rating/60 [60 being the max score 30% (Population/Commute Time)/10000 [10000 is based off a "perfect" 100,000 population with 10 minutes commute time, if they score more than 30%, cap it at 30 20% (IQ + Life Expectancy)/300 [i think that's 200 IQ + 100 Max Age 20% (Ending Money + (Monthly Income * 120))/10000000 [120 = 10 year of income, 1M money to well be easy on them, capped at 20 10% (CO$$$ Population + I-HT Population)/R$$$ Population [not actually sure what this would yield... but hopefully that yields something useful 100% Total +1 point extra credit for every reward structure above University I know nonny will probably say it doesn't accurately reflect other stuff and I would agree, this really doesn't take into account small-scale cities, maybe it does but they'll have a hard time getting at the scores. Now that we have 100%, I'd take it further and take only 70% as base score. The other 30 will be broken down to the two additional tests. Durability test: Run the game 10 years cheetah(disasters off) and recalculate score after 10 years. That will be 15%. If they go bankrupt and get thrown out of their city, that's a 0 score.. Can't have them constructing a real-life building only to have that crumble after 10 years Unexpected Factor test: The idea is to watch how their city handles the unexpected. IRL, that's like what if a building gets hit with a 1 in 10,000 year storm. In-game, I think what if you take a ploppable CO$$$ building and place it at their downtown, something with lots of jobs.. like one of the WTC tower which, if I remember correctly had 50k jobs in one of its incarnations, that may be too much for their cities but you get the idea. Run it 3 year games and recalculate the score, that's the last 15%. How will their city cope with the sudden demand? Or will their transportation network handle the congestion gracefully? Anyway, those are my thoughts - I realize it's a bit more work but I think it spices it up, even if your students get help from here(they'll probably google your assignment anyway).

I've never heard of the game before but I just want to put in - I LOVE The Longest Journey! It's one of a select few games that I actually finished(meaning it held my attention span long enough) and its not a sandbox game. On strength of TLJ alone, I think I'll give this a shot regardless. I'm hoping there's an april ryan type of class..

Or perhaps you really are that densely populated. For kicks, I used to have this WTC bat with 50k/tower and a subway station beneath. Now THAT was a huge pain in the... behind. Ultimately, it was too much of a challenge. All roads and subway lines leading into it were all red. Interesting to note, its another huge pain to force subway lines to stop intersecting when laying them down. Perhaps you have something of the same? A too condensely packed downtown could be the culprit(and rerouting, readjusting and watching them turn from red to green is what makes me keep coming back), or switch to a different traffic simulator with higher caps(personally prefer the z-imulator with maxis values to make them interesting). Thought just came to me, I play and build cities(though not at all lately due to lack of R&R) mainly to keep traffic humming. I like how development brings traffic which brings more development and congestion which leads to abandonment and a rotten early peak area/inner core. I love fixing a misstep in developing areas without displacing a whole bunch of buildings. I love seeing huge buildings grow because I want to see how well my network survives it. But that's me, I know some like to emulate real-life. Some like seeing their own version of new york. Some are extremely blessed in the story-stelling department. Some play to design buildings. I guess what I'm getting at is SC4 is a different game for everyone, unlike other games whose only goal is to kill a fellow player, or the quest to become more powerful, SC4 is quite unique in the sense that all you're given is a set of tools from which you can entertain yourself for hours(more appealingly, there's no awkwardness here when someone finds you enjoying yourself for hours.. har-har). I liken it to kids who are more interested in the big box and wrapper the toy was gift-wrapped in come Christmas-time. How about you, what kind of SC4 are you playing? errr, sorry to hijack the thread!

Well, like I said in the title, I was pleasantly surprised when I found a close-enough-to-be-a-full-page-spread section in my subscription! I think the most surprising news is someone admitting they're still subscribed to a print magazine you can touch! Kidding aside, I would love to have one in my city. The intersection I use everyday to and fro my bedroom community out here in the desert is particularly nasty. It's quite hard to steal with right-turns cause the guard rails are quite high but not high enough to make it a blind corner. On top of that, the left turn into the freeway is pretty much always congested. Lastly, there's almost no traffic coming from the other side.

As someone from Arizona, I'd just like to put in that we generally are a nice people. It's truly unfortunate that an unbalanced person got it his way. For everyone saying we are the seat of hatred and the capital of bigotry in America, it just isn't true. Sadly, those people claiming that has louder voices - and they are repeating those phrases again. More people will think that and eventually, it really does begin to attract them to our state. Personally, I'm thinking wtf is happening - just a couple of days ago we had a shootout in a major mall, then yesterday it was this. All within the first week of 2011. We're getting famous for all the wrong reasons.

nice downtowns! like Adrianor, I'm wondering if highrises were plopped on most of these. If they were grown, my question is how do you manage the traffic around them? And what traffic simulator you use? My thing is, getting a mega high-rise to grow is both a boon and a curse - it looks pretty and drives up customer traffic in the area but at the same time a challenge to get traffic manageable before sims complain!

...and its on sale for $5 right now! http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/