IntoxiNation

I ran it in Parallels on my Mac with Win 7 and it ran fine. A little sluggish, but that is to be expected running in a virtual machine. @Archean - You have to run Windows inside a virtual machine on a MAC to get CXL to run. It's a Windows only game, as are many. Basically MACs were never big gaming machines, and MAC actually accounts for less than 7% of computer operating systems out there. (OH - and you can run the Mac operating system on a Windows machine using a virtual machine )

Originally posted by: Cobhris96 I think the biggest problems were: -No publisher at all for North America. That means that no one here except for devout SC4 fans would find the game and buy it.\ -Lack of marketing. I don't know about the other regions, but over here, there were no CXL ads outside of the game itself, and no clear strategy with them. If this game were aggressively promoted as the "SimCity Killer" and there were ads plastered everywhere showing it off, the sales figures would not have been so low.quote> Those were huge problems. A lot of people also forget the selling capabilities of a packaged game sitting on the shelf. You take a bigger chance of getting that teenager to grab it and put his Christmas gift card money down on it than ordering it online, especially since a lot of teenagers don't have credit cards. The other factor, which we will most likely never really know, is the build up to the release of the game. Marketing costs big bucks, and we already know that MC was facing financial uncertainty when the came came out. It makes you wonder how much may have been moved from marketing to the development budget. So yeah - it's one of those things we may never know. There's a lot of pieces to the puzzle and, from the outside, it looks like they didn't all fit together as snug as they should have. But now that FHI has the full rights to the Cities XL franchise, and since they have a stronger source of income from other titles, I'm a little more optimistic than I was a couple of months ago. If 2011 is released as a rather stable game with some extra challenge to it, then maybe the money will roll in a little better this time and FHI will look at investing more into the future of the game.

Originally posted by: mr-tom That's why I said one of the original publishers. If a manager who is in the industry and is a fan of the genre has not heard of the game, then none of the publishers did their jobs properly.quote> I was simply pointing out that FHI dealt with only Steam and tried to point out the positive of their retail exposure. Being limited to that single online outlet also limited what they could do in marketing. Now that they have full reins, things could change dramatically, or they might not change at all. Only time will tell.

Originally posted by: mr-tom I know it's already been pointed out, but FHI were one of the original publishers too. That the game failed to attract the attention of the industry is surely down in no small part to them. quote> FHI handled the Steam sales, but since they also do have a retail presence, hopefully they will use that to promote CXL 2011 more. I believe that if the game was sitting there on the shelf at your local Best Buy or Walmart, then sales would be a lot higher.

Originally posted by: Scratchy ... I dont know if i have the right to say this but their advertising could be blamed for it, i mean i only heard about CXL about a month agoquote> My brother in law is a store manager of a local game retailer. He never heard a word of the game through any of his regular channels, only from me, and he is really big into the city builder games. That was a huge problem for the game IMHO. Now the good news. When I told him FHI had taken over the game this weekend, he instantly named off 3 titles of theirs and 2 that they still stock. CXL is one of those games that I believe would sell really well off the shelf. $40 isn't really that bad of a price to pay for a game in today's market. It's a little on the high side of the "impulse buy" scale, but would still qualify. Hopefully FHI will push out retail units to the stores in the U.S. I think if that happens then 2011 will have much better numbers. It's like I've said before: it's been 7 years since SC4 came out and the fan base has dwindled, mostly due to the age factor (age of the player). Any new city builder that comes out and wants to achieve comparable levels of success that SC4 saw needs to do some aggressive marketing to bring in new fans.

Originally posted by: pete1061 Though I had no use for the PO myself, I paid for it so I could have access to the extra content. I think an online option would be good for those who want it. Many games have a function to host your own server with a smaller limited number of users. That's probably the best way to go. That way those who want multiplayer can have it, and those who prefer single player don't feel coerced into paying for something they don't want just to get extra buildings. On top of that the publisher/developer of the game doesn't have the extra overhead of running big central servers.quote> I was just thinking the exact same thing. Do a LAN type option that can be used over WAN. They could use a lot of the funcionality built into the PO stuff to build that and it wouldn't cost them much at all. Then if the game really grows in popularity, they could look at opening up more premium hosting, or even just host a feature where you could download and go through other people's cities. That's the part of the PO I miss the most - not the trading, but being able to visit other cities.

Originally posted by: jeje71 what people here tend to overlook is the fact that focus is a PUBLISHER, not developper and as stated on their home site: CitiesXL 2011 Publisher: Focus Home Interactive Developer: Monte Cristo so, my guess is they got all the dev from MC before they closed, and it's not garanteed at all that they have made tremendous additional work on it, except myabe bug squashing. furthermore, MC stated from the beginning that cities xl 2011 was essentially the corrected version of cities xl, so i don't understand why people expect 2011 to look different from cities xl, it IS cities xl (2011) the october launch may have more to do with marketing placement than due to technical reasons. i'm not pretending this is what WILL happen, but focus is more of a budget game company, it's likely that they will treat this game as a simple franchise they will publish having bought a finished product from mc and simply reselling it, with minimal maintenance and additional work. if mc managed to finish it before closing, the game could be what cities xl should have been and that's good enough, but people really shouldn't expect new things and extended and continuous support and additions. maybe if a new developper is associated to the coding aspect of the product, this could be revised, but is unlikely to happen in my opinion. quote> That's true, but there is also the fact that the game has life in it again, after months of very uncertain future. If reception of 2011 meets or beats expectations, then FHI would be more likely to go out and hire a studio to expand the game. I think one of the big helps on this could be the fact that FHI is the publisher now. You can find their games at Gamestop, Walmart and Best Buy, so 2011 should (hopefully) get more exposure and the sales numbers go up.

Originally posted by: warrior EDIT: and there much more than 700 buildings in SC4 and the community.So saying that the collection is like no collection before is a vast overstatementquote> SC4 had around 400 buildings in it, then Rush Hour added around another 100, so I don't think it's that much of an overstatement. Yeah there's a lot more when you consider all the custom content made for SC4 over the past several years, but they are talking "out of the box". Originally posted by: mr-tom The way I see it, there's four things that could be included in CXL 2011: 1 Mod tools 2 Tech fixes e.g. memory leak 3 Significant gameplay changes e.g. trade between cities 4 Moddable changes If any of the top 3 are in then yeah, I'll probably buy. If it's just stuff that we could mod (and already have to a certain extent) then why bother? quote> Well your one point on #3 is already going in - trading between cities. They are also changing the taxing system, which was something I really wanted to see. From their release; "A more elaborated tax system will let all apprentice mayors adjust personal and local business taxes". As far as modding, I',m not to optimistic on tools going into 2011. Instead what I could see them do is release the tools at a later point in time as downloads. Right now Focus is probably focused on polishing up what's in there, making it stable and getting it out to recoup some of the costs of the acquisition. I'll admit that Focus has their work cut out for them. Basically they are taking on a product with a somewhat tarnished reputation because of all the problems and broken promises from the original CXL release. They need to work to bring in new customers for the game, and a big help for that would be satisfying more of what communities like this want (word of mouth is the best advertisement), and embracing the modding community would be a big help.

Originally posted by: jeremy12 The publishers site says Q4 that means in the October-December time frame so most gaming sites will list it as October. just because someone says something does not mean anything go by what it says on Focus Home Interactive's site, and the CXL 2011 product page is at http://www.focus-home.com/index.php?rub=games&gid=45 on the right it says Release date: Q4 quote> From the CXL homepage: We will therefore release Cities XL 2011 in October and will do so with the intent to please those who bought the earlier version So they are going with October it does look like. Why? There's a number of reasons that could be. Maybe they don't view the game as "complete" yet, while MC did - meaning they want more time to go through and make sure everything is working the way it should. That's a really good thing in my opinion, especially for this genre. The past few city games that have come out have been busts (CXL, City Life, Societies), and hopefully Focus is wanting to devote the time to make sure the release is as close to expectations as they can get with the community. In other words, they just put a big investment into this genre and they want to make sure it pays off.

This is awesome news. From the release: Cities XL 2011 pushes its limits further: hundreds of new buildings and structures appear for a total of more than 700 constructions, leading the way for new building and combinations options never seen before in a City Builder. Many new maps are also available, for a total of 45 buildable maps. City management will offer the full experience thanks to the addition of public transportation (subway, bus) which will decongest downtown traffic while lowering pollution levels and increasing the population's satisfaction. A more elaborated tax system will let all apprentice mayors adjust personal and local business taxes. A new commercial user interface will permit trade between cities in single player mode if a player decides to develop several cities. There's a few items in there I really wanted to see, so I'm extremely pleased with that. Another thing is that Focus does a lot of titles. MC basically put everything on CXL, so everything regarding its future depended upon reception. Focus will be able to afford some wiggle room here. If the game takes awhile to take off, then they can continue to work to improve on it and update it to get it to a point that will attract more users. The only thing missing that I really wanted to see was more focus on modding. There's a chance it could be in 2011 and they aren't just announcing it, but we'll have to wait and see. What I think would be really awesome is if SC could arrange some sort of "live chat" with people from Focus in the upcoming months so we could get questions answered. There are die hards, like me, who would pre-order today if I could, but there are others who were left with a bad taste in there mouth. Something like that could help put some minds at ease and help the sales meet their goals.

I remember this information being posted in another thread about CXL 2011, back when they announced the end of the PO. My guess is that the site assumed that it would be in September, since that's a common time we start seeing the release of the next year versions.

I much prefer VirtualBox over VMWare for Windows.

Originally posted by: LivingInThePast Originally posted by: nerdly_dood Originally posted by: LivingInThePast Great. Now we know that a commercially produced city simulator will NEVER happen ever again.quote> IBM is developing a new city game, i think it's called CityOne.quote> No, I watched the trailer, it's more about "sustainability" and keeping water/power/growth in check in an already fully-grown city. Not the same thing. quote> Here's a review and trailer. It looks more like a city management game than a city builder. The price is awfully nice though - free.

Originally posted by: nashville nelson Wir haben die neue Version von Cities XL („Cities XL 2011" bis zum Ende weiterentwickelt. -> We worked on C'11 till the end. As you see he didn't specify which end he means. This could mean two things: 1. They have C'11 done and its ready to release. 2. They worked on C'11 'till the closure of their studio ! For me it sounds more like they worked on it 'till MC closed their doors and the game isn't ready yet!quote> Honestly, I'll be a little optimistic here. What I could see as happened is the new publisher gave MC a little operating capital to finish of CXL 2011, that way they have something to sell in order to try and recoup the costs. The biggest selling time for CXL 2011 would be right after it's release, so the new publisher would want that income. Also it makes a lot more sense to let the developers, who know the codebase and have been working on it for the past several years, to finish it up, instead of having to find someone else to finish it. After they release it, then they have a great gauge to decide the future with. If sales are good, then they can hire a couple of the developers to continue to develop content. This is actually something that happens rather frequently in the industry.

Very sad news. The news of the publisher picking it up to continue to sell the game makes it sounds iffy on CXL 2011. Hopefully I'm just being pessimistic. Thanks for the update Gregory and take care!

Originally posted by: JinRenegade What has happened to video games these days? Back in the 1990s and the early 2000s, video games had some great gameplay, good graphics and a large choice of genres. Now the video gaming genre is just dumbing down gameplay, upping the graphics (slowly...) and focusing on FPS, adventure or some other type of game which doesn't need you to think. quote> Well as CXL shows, because that's where the money is at (lack of money when it comes to CXL). Also games have turned into productions the size of action movies. You got actual actors, wire work and motion capture all in play now. It adds a ton to the cost of development, so they got to try and sell a butt load of units to recoup their production costs. As for me - I still prefer the classics like Adventure and Pitfall on the Atari 2600. Gameplay means a lot more to me than graphics. Even the classic text games like Zork were more fun than a lot of what comes out today.

Well one of the issues I brought up in another thread is 3rd party licensing issues. One item is SpeedTree, which is used in CXL for the trees. They will not allow that to be included in an open source program (prices for commercial licensing starts at $10,000), so it would have to be removed and then if we want trees in our city we have to add our own code in for them. That's only one example. There is most likely a few other 3rd party items being used in there that will also cause the same problems.

Honestly I think the city building genre can be broken down even further into 2 categories: City Builders - These are the people who focus more on building amazingly beautiful cities. They want awesome building and graphics, plus a slew of options to when it comes to road placesment, types of buildings, ability to mod new buildings, etc.. The actual simulation side of the game only comes as second nature to them. City Simulators - These are the people who aren't as interested in the graphic abilities of the game as much as they are in the actual management of a city. They of course want decent graphics, but that comes second to the actual challenge in managing and building the city. IMHO CXL focused a lot more on the first one than the second one. They did come out with some amazing graphics and abilities. Sure there are more to be done, like the mod ability, but that will all come in due time. For Cities 2011 they really need to focus their energies on the second item. Increase the challenge to the actual simulation part and give more options to the route future mayors want to take (ie: if they aren't worried about the simulation as much they can do a sandbox type city and worry about building). For MC the hard work is actually done. In the development of this type of game, the biggest challenge is developing a graphics engine that can handle a ton of polys and not run on a middle of the road computer. Now the second phase should be focusing on the game logic. For a city simulation type game, that logic isn't really all that complex. A lot of it is just adding new properties to different building types and features. This is one place the SC4 really excelled, and was ahead of the time. If CXL can expand upon that, then I think they will see a nice turn around in sales by giving something that both classifications I mention above would really like.

Originally posted by: dedgren The fact that CXL was just not very much fun to actually play, whatever else were its faults, was pointed out over and over again in the private beta forums. That situation never improved over time, probably because the majority of MC's effort was directed toward aspects of the Planet Offer- things, in the end, that got the company absolutely nowhere. Davidquote> Not only that but it also seems they spent a lot of the budget on "eye candy". Sure it's nice having a pretty game to see on my screen, but much rather have challenging game play.

I agree with this. What would be much more realistic is for a company to offer to build the bowling alley, but they want X dollars from the government (either for building expenses, or in tax abatement) . You then can accept or deny that. It wouldn't be that hard to also have both options. Either the leisure is privately owned/run OR you can go with a government owned one. It could also add a new level of challenge. Say your city goes to pot and you have a privately owned bowling alley. If you don't get your city in order, the owners decide to pack up their tent and move out. Now you have the option of trying to sell that alley, leaving your citizens with less leisure, or you can go ahead and take over it. If you decide to leave it as is, then it would take time to sell (ie: your city has to start doing good again) and the longer it sits the longer it takes to open up, plus that could be more a potential buyer wants from the city. It's little things like this that would add a much better game play experience to the game. From a development stand point you are just looking at some rather simple logic to add in. It's a lot easier than adding new eye candy and would make for a much more challenging game over all.

Originally posted by: billmallon The Simtropollis Community alone shows a statistic of more than three-quarter of a million 'registered ' users. Obviously, not every member plays the Cities XL game but it should be worth recognizing that there is a significant number of people that enjoy this type of game and want to see it continue.quote> Here's what I see: 389,411 users are registered to the Simtropolis community. That's not even 1/2 a million. Given how long this site has actually been around, we can safely say the active base is 1/2 of that. Just in the CXL forum, there are quiet a few posts by people who made 1 post to inquire about CXL (or complain) and that was it. I don't think we can really call those people a fan base, but rather more of a somewhat interested party. I don't know if Simtropolis deletes accounts after X amount of inactivity, but if they don't I'm sure there are a bunch who haven't even touched a city builder game in years. People's tastes change. Honestly, I think that should be used in a constuctive way by MC. I posted about it the "Is this game dead or what" thread. MC really didn't do any marketing for their game. Most of their marketing was based upon word of mouth - hoping people in communities like ours would go out and really push their game. Given all the problems CXL had at its release, and even beyond, that most likely turned out to do more harm than good. IMHO to make city builder survive there should be a strong effort to bring in more newcomers to the city builder genre. The climate is also perfect for it, with more people showing an increased interest in things like politics. If MC really embraced our communities and combined that with a marketing blitz outside of our communities, then we could see interest really grow.

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey Originally posted by: spa The Sim City community may be small, but we're the core group and I believe we have influence beyond our small numbers. quote> This is a good point; Lately I've seen this idea of "city builder fans are a small, niche market" thrown about as a truism quite a bit, but I don't think Sim City fans are a small group at all; all of the past Sim City games sold millions of copies, and while the number of people going so far as to write City Journals or make mods is limited the broader fan base for this kind of game is pretty substantial. quote> It took 2 decades for the Sim City name to build up. SC4 is over 7 years old now and I can still go down to the local store and pick it up, even Wal-Mart. There was also a big shift in the type of games people play in the past decade. More and more people want RPG and MMORPG style games. The new social age we live in with the web has really pushed that over the top. A more truthful statement would be that city builders have BECOME a niche game over the years. That's in large part because the generation who cut their teeth on city builders is getting older. They have moved out of mom and dad's, have careers and are raising families now, so their gaming time is very limited. I do believe that city builder games have the potential of breaking out of being a niche game, but that is going to take a company that really knows how to develop a solid/stable game and (more importantly) market it well. Here's something I have been thinking about last week. Take a Facebook game like Farmville. That has an active base of over 82 million users right now, and face it - in a lot of ways the game can be considered similar to a city builder. Now what if a company put out a city builder built on the Farmville model. Sure it won't have the graphics of CXL or the management rich features of SC4. To us in the "small niche" of city builder fans, it would probably actually be a big let down, but think of the fan base such a game could build on Facebook. While people are busy playing the new Facebook app city builder and getting hooked, trading with their friends, maybe giving away things like blue prints to their buddies, etc, that studio that produces that game takes the revenue coming in from it and start developing a full version stand alone version. It's based off of the Facebook style game, but has more of the graphics that CXL offers along with the management of SC4. Suddenly the millions of fans are building their cities on Facebook and a popup comes up "Hey purchase the full desktop version for $40 and really carve out your city building skills". I could see that route, something rather new in marketing, generating sales that MC could only dream of. It's also something that is very possible, especially with some of the 3D engines out for Flash/Actionscript now. Like I said, the graphics would pretty much suck by our standards (it would be much more like SC3000), but that really reduces the development costs of the flash based game and leaves money to go into developing awesome graphics for the full release.

Originally posted by: Asgardi "A quick calculation says that the game cost a minimum of $30 million dollars." LOL. Anti-piracy corporate propaganda seems to be working. First of all CXL is not "a modern super high quality game". It takes 400k to create a modern high quality engine so it does not take even 100 000 to create CXL engine. Then there is the extra money for content. One experienced guy can certainly create two models per day and one guy texture those models. That makes 700 models per year. How many models are in CXL? Not more than 500. So they don't have 50 people making the game. My quess is 10. So with over 3000e/month salaries it would cost 400k to create CXL. Then there are rents + computers + software + etc. So 500k is a good quess per year.quote> There are also thing like liscensing fees (ie: CXL uses SpeedTree with is $10,000), marketing costs, support staff plus administration costs. Since MC was working only on CXL during this time all the administration costs had to be made up by CXL. There was also a lot of money that went into the whole PO thing. Developing the server cluster that powered it (and yes there were a lot of servers). Those had monthly costs and then the cost of support staff to keep them running, plus development costs to fix bugs and do upgrades. I would say if MC had it to do over the better approach would have been no PO at the beginning. Put some of that money into a better marketing campaign and try to increase the city builder fan base. If they could have done that, then they could have released the PO in a new version or, better yet, as an addon.

I got to agree that things look very, very bad. MC isn't updating their site. No mention on their front page of a CXL 2011, let alone any sneak peeks or anything. Basically there is no sign of life from MC right now. I hope I am wrong and it means that they are working extra hard to put out a killer CXL 2011, but I'm not very optimistic on it.

Here's the Google translate version of the article from French to English Article Link