slimeball9999

These are just things added in by the EA suits to try to rationalize their DRM crap (see the other article just posted). Where they've thoroughly convinced themselves that locking up the game behind all that DRM is for our own good.

Who wants that crap? I would want a nice relaxing city builder experience free of ANY interaction whatsoever with anyone. (The article itself calls out that griefing and market curbing will be possible). City builders are a sub set of godgames (where you should have total control; sandbox features and "just create your own aesthetic" matter), not a subset of economic games. If you want to build a "green city", no outside forces should have any amount of push against that.

This makes me wonder, do buildings like plazas and parks need road access? They do have a > on them when plopping, but I've always ignored it.

I don't recall seeing that (detailed explanations of each simulator) in any of the html documentation with the NAM download. I'll look again. Sorry to threadjack, but it was related.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the default installation of NAM does not alter the pathfinding? I recently installed it (first mod ever; I came back to SC4 after a few years away), and the installer had options for other pathfinders, but the default on all the install levels appeared not to change it.

Spore is a completely different monster than are city builders. I'd say "no".

I've had nearly single-line replies, that took about 3 days to reply. They're not efficient, fast, nor helpful in any way.

It'll probably be a subscriber-only feature, active only during multiplayer...

It wasn't last month and all during the preorder time.

moaku: I guess I need to call my bank for a chargeback then, since Monte Cristo's not willing to do a refund. There was no indication at all back in September when I preordered that I couldn't play the @#(%*@#() game. (And, BTW, Windows XP doesn't do activation.)

Notice how the system requirements say NOTHING about needing the Internet to get into the game and play it. My weekend's already shot, since I'm sure Monte Cristo's support is off for the weekend (they've yet to reply to me). If I don't get it resolved by the end of Monday, I'm going to call my bank about doing a charge back on my pre-order that I've yet been able to play because of that asinine "you must be online to play" BS.

Partial story. I could copy my installation (excluding the huge PAK folder) to the other computer -- it's about 200-250 megs -- and download the patches that way. To install the patches, I had to move them to the actual Cities XL folder for them to run. However, I still can't play. I still don't get the "play offline" link. It says still "you must activate your account."

I bought it (preordered at the beginning of September), but wish I hadn't. I can't even play it because of the whole "must be online" thing. My game computer isn't online, just an old POS laptop with wireless is. Moaku, in another thread, gave a suggestion for how I might be able to get it to work, but I shouldn't have to jump through all those hoops just to play the game I paid $50 to buy!

So I just registered. There's no "download update for solo play" or anything like that.

I'm just ever going to play the single player mode of the game. Why do need to register for the online component? Like I said, my gaming computer isn't even online.