Khanon

My condolences to the hard-working employees, and their families, of Monte Cristo. I have enjoyed playing the game, and enjoyed the beta. I'm not going to try to second guess what the root cause of the financial difficulties were, but we all need to remember that companies far more solvent at the advent of the world economic issues have already gone by the wayside... Cost increases and the increasing difficulty in getting people to part with their money in the current economy likely had a large hand in the unfortunate outcome. It's my hope that all those great people at MC find new jobs soon so that they can minimize the negative personal impacts for themselves and their families. While I hope that something comes of CXL, it was just a few bucks out of my pocket so it's of no concern to me when compared to the great people at MC that have been hurt by these events...

Some of us do something else entirely, SimBurger... I start off with a couple main avenues and some block districts to get things going... After that, once I've gotten a good build-up of cash and happy citizens, then I slowly expand in creative ways. Once the more creative sectors are built, I demolish the gridded areas and fill them in with more fluid sections. I still keep some gridded blocks, as you'd be hard pressed to find any major city in the world with no gridding whatsoever. Beyond that, just make sure you have a good cash flow from a core couple of districts and just play with the tools, roads, etc. It's what all of us have done. I've finally gotten my new online city of Nightshade to a level where I can start laying out custom work, like a medieval village (the original town!) on an island in the bay... Then, I'll be working backwards from that point until the rework swallows up the original districts.

I've also found it useful to use the bridge tool to smooth out the otherwise sharp-edged look of a road that goes down a mountain...put both road ends down, then connect a bridge between at a point where it creates a smooth road. then delete that section and replace it with a road... The bridge tool will smooth the whole roadbed slope... I've begun using it extensively. As for traffic stopping, you can't get away from that, as the game still considers it an intersection of sorts and not a true ramp. You CAN, however, semi-fool it by using a highway interchange and an interlink to change it from a freeway back to an expressway...but as interchanges are still bugged to create a bottleneck not worth the expense, you'd have to balance that with the desire for the effect of no signal.

Yes, SimBurger, but people who work in offices like to go out for lunch, take walks, etc. When your office is adjacent to an airport, you tend to not want to do those things. San Jose Minetta International Airport has office buildings nearby and before there were nice malls, parks, and other "landmark" items put in place, they weren't a very popular place to work... I think MC is on the right track with using landmarks, parks, etc. to offset the negative effects of pollutions (both noise and air) with things to increase satisfaction in the area (people tolerate negative effects when there's enough positive distractions and attractions for them to put up with it).

Originally posted by: UrbanSprawl I find this to be the opposite. The whole game is dependent on various resources. It plays more like an RTS except you aren't fighting. If you don't have the perfect map with enough of the right resources you can forget about building anything more than a small town in single player mode. Trading with Omni is too expensive. You're always worrying about your resources instead of how your city looks. quote> As someone who played through the beta and still playing, I've not found that to be true...I've had far from "perfect" maps and have been able to make quite creative and detailed cities... There's tricks and "hard points" through it, but once you figure them out, it's a cake walk, really... I'm working, right now, on a map that's got no water or agri resources... It's been easy to produce office and fuel enough to trade to OmniCorp for what I need. while leaving me enough to have fun with the aesthetics. One key thing is you can have one or two resources totally tanked and still have a good city...you just have to find other ways to make your people "happy". I've done all water and office maps, neither producing nor importing anything at all and managed almost 15mil population that liked it.

I'm going to have to agree and disagree with Soltangris at the same time. While I agree that it's rather difficult to judge an unfinished game (read: review) while using a veteran game with hundreds of thousands of hours of community aid and modding as a measuring stick, the game was released, so it's fair game to review it, blemishes and makeup together. I just base my opinion on what CXL is. It's got its warts...it's not finished...it has some bugs. MC, however, is working on more content development, bug fixes, and perks for going with the PO. I like perks...I go with the PO. Hellgate: London and Requiem both did/do this... I paid for them too. shhh...let's not talk about HG:L, mmkay? lol It's a difficult model to use and stay solvent with, as my previous examples bear out. However, with regular content boosts with a small token fee attached, I think it could work for CXL, as it's not like a fantasy hack n slash. Each city is only bound by the imagination and creativity of its mayor. In beta, it was shown just was spectacular things could be done with the limited (at that time) tools available. Tools are being expanded, under-the-hood mechanics are being adjusted and refined, and "look n feel" things are being added. I think, given enough room to grow into what it has the potential for, many more will be happy with than are now. The more "hardcore" SimCity series fans, in all honesty, will likely never be 100% satisfied with it. That's not to be negative towards them at all. It's just an opinion about the game. CXL is just as much, if not more, about the aesthetics and artistic creativity of its players than the core mechanics of the game. They are of the same genre, but not the same core game type. While both are a CB, SC4 always struck me as more of a business sim rather than "game". I enjoy the way areas develop...where I decide what's built where, not a random decision maker that has the buildings in constant flux. In CXL, when you build a sleepy neighborhood, the place remains largely unchanged (unless the mayor changes it) for years. In many other games, each home/business/lot could fluctuate as often as once a game month, completely transforming. Good points and bad: Curved road tool...bridge/tunnel tool... Love them both. The park (area fill) tool needs a lot of work...I've already submitted suggestions about that. However, it works well enough for many applications as-is. Public transportation is lacking at this time. Eh...that's okay...in many places where I've lived, it was also all but non-existent or very substandard anyway... I just build more and fancier roads...gotta love underground expressways... A more modular approach to large airport and seaport construction would be great...preferred...as well as the addition of freight to airport use. However, they are tolerable as-is. There are smaller features, such as vehicle and signal lighting, ambient sound, and system memory degradation that need to be worked on. There's other things, but I think I more fleshed out my previous response with more pointed opinion. In conclusion, I look forward to what more Monte Cristo can and will do with CitiesXL. I'm willing to play (and pay) through the rough seas as it is more fleshed out and improved along the way.

I'm going to go with the "commit resources to fixing major issues before using them for social events". Many games people are mentioning are games that have been out for some time. They can afford to commit resources to fluff. Let's get the meat and potatoes finished cooking before we think about the pumpkin pie.

I'll continue to pay and play... It's not an "unheard of scheme" in the MMO world. I play plenty of MMO's with a variety of interaction levels. CXL is no different than most in the aspect of paying for added content. I invested a small fortune in EQ1 as well as EQ2 and WoW. I have paid for all my expansions to other games like Age of Empires, Galactic Civ II, and Sins of a Solar Empire. Sure, it's got a way to go and sure they released it too early to garner a "great" review from so-called "unbiased" reviewers (on either side of the fence). That doesn't bother me, though... I still enjoy it, warts and all.