beatle

I think they are looking into offline mode to get out of maintaining the many servers currently in place for online play. I would think usage has dropped considerably since their reactive decision to setup so many servers. Once offline mode is in place, I can see the start of unplugging of multiple sc2013 servers and the end to this poorly designed game. The game looked great, but the engine under it is not scalable enough to support bigger maps. Modding would be great, but does not look like ea/maxis will spend any money on developing or giving tools for us to use. If they were smart they would sell terraforming and modding tools. It looks like the current mods out there only replace existing buildings (skins?). Anyway, why spend any effort creating new buildings if you don't have any map room to put them on...

Very nice work, it looks so real.  I wish I had the patience to do this!  

That is unfortunate about the city sizes, I liked the game's graphics and did not mind being online all the time to play. I was holding my breath, not playing the game for the past several months, waiting for some sort of expansion pack/dlc focused on city sizes, terraforming or new maps. They shot themselves in the foot with their GlassBox engine design, being online and probably knew about it a long time ago, so they hyped the game and shipped it out early. They limited themselves in so many ways. They now talk about modding but also in a limited fashion. Back to Simcity 4 I go. I never get tired of that game after 10 years of playing it. The modding community here has single handedly kept Simcity 4 alive for this long. I will hold my breath again for another great city simulation game but it probably won't be from Maxis EA.

I've been reading elsewhere (Reddit) that people have been seeing the same problems with pollution, that its worse. I am wondering at this point if the patch did anything at all. I don't really see much of a difference with my city.

Make sure you pick up the DRM flavoured toothpaste, the DRM free won't work

The Chief Quimby quote "No no, dig UP you idiots!" kinda fits nicely here....

Good Lord. *shakes head. Love the image on the website, it has Xbox and Ps3 consoles on it. Is this promotion only good in the US? What about the rest of the planet?

I have no more space in my cities to add this extra junk. I am not playing this game until patch 2.0 is out. Last time I played it didn't save any of my progress, waste of time.

Wouldn't there be a problem with ground pollution and polluted water if you did that? I have seen this too. The water table never replenishes. I was thinking that the rain you sometimes see in the game would replenish the water table, but it rarely rains, and I am not sure if rain does replenish it.

I think I know what you mean, I saw this in my other city where I was trying to send power from my oil plant. It was connected to two other cities. The maximum I could send one city was 1/2 of the total power (75mW out of the total 150mW the power plant had). I guess they divide the power by the number of cities you are connected to?

You will need to buy a metals storage at the trade depot gerbles. Make sure it is set to export in the manage global area..

This may sound silly, but I am wondering if the recycling center is filling up on one specific type of recycling material, if you don't have all 3 types of reclamation lines in place to consume it. For example, before I did not have a metals reclamation line tied to the recycling plant, I only cared about alloy and plastic. So what I did was blow up the old recycling plant, stopped the regional recycling trucks, added an alloy, plastic and metals reclamation lines to it, made sure I was exporting metals in my trade depot while the plastic and alloy was being delivered to the processor factories. Things seem to be working ok now (so far).

... well I was going to stop the regional recycling but when I entered the game my city of 190k was gone and is currently busy processing good grief Maxis is right Dirktator!

I will have to try that workaround of stopping the regional recycling, thanks! In relation to plastic and alloy, - does anyone have a problem importing Alloy with the trade depots? It seems to be always empty - I am not sure if its because the processor factories are taking it as fast as it is being imported. I don't want to add another alloy depot for importing or I will go broke from all the imports. Any thoughts or ideas?!

Cars don't want to move for emergency vehicles in real life either sometimes lol... If you want that much detail, go outside! hehe

Nice review Hym! I wish I had the chance to visit the people of Maxis, you are very lucky. I am looking forward to region play and interacting with actual people with their own objectives. I think it will actually feel like being a mayor working with other real mayors. There are some things missing with this game (like farms, subways or more highways) but I can definitely see Maxis adding this on down the road, for a small fee perhaps. I feel the game is definitely open to expansion. Remember SC4 first release without the rush hour expansion pack?

It will be interesting to see how smart the pathing system is. Remember when SC4 was first released how bad the pathing was? They eventually fixed some of it with a patch or two, and an expansion pack. I don't think they ever got it right if I remember... Will you eventually be buying the game Buggi? Is your DOA computer stopping you, or you not buying because you don't like the way the new SC works?

I've bought the game. A lot of people feel that the game is too pricey, but most major releases are at that price level when a game comes out. Look at every ps3 or xbox title, between 60-70 dollars. You also have to think of the amount of time you invest in it - if you spend 80 bucks on the game and spend 200+ hours playing it, then I think it was money well spent. Or you can wait a couple months and the price drops, like every single game in the history of the planet... I don't mind the online only aspect. The only thing that scares me is if the plug gets pulled on the servers after a couple months or a year. But if the game is great, and the game gets updated constantly with addons, and we are able to mod it some time down the road, then it might last for some time. Look at SC4 and how long its lasted. It was too bad that Maxis/EA stopped updating that game with new features and fixes. Online only also gives the ability for constant updates, and addons. Why are people so afraid of online only??! I've heard people saying that they sometimes don't have an internet connection. When was the last time you used your computer without the internet??! On a plane? Pretty boring without the internet. City size isn't a problem with me. I think it will allow me to focus on the quality of the cities that I will build and the simulation part of it, instead of building the same thing over and over in the same city. Maxis has even said that they have the ability of increasing the lot size down the road. I can see that happening. But I can also see Origin/EA putting a price tag on "upgrading" your lot size, along with adding a price tag on every other addon they include..

I don't think it will be in that much in sync SirChick. I can imagine one city residential with 500 people and the other city being industrial with let's say 500 jobs - you might see 500 cars go back in forth at the speed that you are playing at. As each city grows in numbers, the numbers might increase. But who really knows until we play...

You might have problems winstonbuilder. I think I have a similar setup, my laptop is a couple years old and it didn't handle the beta that great.

whoa curved bridges.. totally impressive! This request has been brought up by many of us for over 5 years. Finally a gaming company that has listened to the people buying their game. MonteCristo/CitiesXL will be the gaming company that surpasses the maxis/simcity franchise! Does anyone know if this new game will have weather/climate changes?

I must admit the graphics look really good.. but I am worried about building repitition and having the ability to build a giant and diverse city.. Hopefully we can mod the heck outta this game!

Originally posted by: John-SJ Well, I've seen the movie. The impression I get is that those who worry that SimCity Societies will be lacking in strategic depth, needn't. The video focuses on optimizing a single energy in a downtown area. There are lots of choices and many things to consider with only one energy. Dealing with 6 energies across an entire city will be interesting indeed!quote> I can't believe how Maxis kept mentioning in the past that Simcity 4 became too difficult of a game for most people with micromanagement and that they would like to go in a different direction. This version of Simcity looks even more complicated!! And I absolutely dislike the whole plop every building idea.. How many buildings will we be given to choose from??