Rian Gray

While I agree with the points you made, you can still "abandon" a city and let someone else take over. There are even trollers who leave a lot with no budget, no buildings and all the bonds taken out. The problem is, only few actually does that. Exactly!!! I agree with both of you, but if you're not coming back you should abandon the cities though. I've played several regions where people just claim the city and never actually build them. I think maybe they want to claim it and come back to build it later so it's not filled up when they come back, but never come back to build up the city. I looked at one region I had where a person did this and a week after the region was inactive the city still was never built on. I'm probably guilty of not abandoning cities in certain regions too. I used to play on many servers, but I quickly got lost in the sea of servers and forgot which cities were on which server to go back and play them or abandon them. I only play on one server now and when the saved regions fill up I abandon certain regions. The server I play on now, I have at least 5 regions filled with cities I no longer play at one time, but at least their fully built cities and no one else plays in that region anymore anyways. I just keep them for the leaderboards and a few of them are in the top 5% which doesn't really mean a thing since the top 5% is hundreds of regions. Either way I can still compare them to the region I'm currently working on and only keep the best regions. One fix is that after so long (a month possibly) that a city will go abandoned if an active member still exists in the region. By active member I mean on within 24 hours for at the very least playing on a city for an hour at a time. Now that you've mentioned it, is Simcity keeping properly track of save datas? I mean, whenever I see the selection menu of servers, it actually has that sign that I've been on that server on which I've never been to. I think that's one of the main reason why gamers can't, quite literally cannot, abandon their cities. Because it's too bothersome. How many games in 21c makes a gamer to select a region beyond continental level? It's a shame EA decided to simply multiply the numbers of server, not properly uniting them as a cloud.

That is the problem for me as well. I am playing on Europe East server, thanks to the server issues Simcity had right after the launch. And mostly whenever I have someone new in the region, they tend to never speak English. Even if they did, it's usually broken, probably used Google Translator or some other random translators available on the internet. I wonder it would be possible to add some kind of communication kit, simple yes/no answers to questions like could you build this or that, or like declarations, "I will concentrate on X" for instance. It shouldn't be so hard, and considering how EA has been able to launch the game globally, it shouldn't be much of a burden to translate a simple communication kit for available languages.

I suppose it's possible to have a sequel to Simcity franchise, but not to new Simcity (2013). The new method of Simulation, I haven't much seen an enthusiast who liked it, smaller map, same, multiplayer, put me in the roster as well, really the list keeps on growing. Perhaps it's a trend making all the games unnecessarily online. But still I don't see how the new Simcity will have a sequel of its own.

While I agree with the points you made, you can still "abandon" a city and let someone else take over. There are even trollers who leave a lot with no budget, no buildings and all the bonds taken out. The problem is, only few actually does that.

Do they take actions though? I really doubt EA will do anything about it except for lying out theirs policies and how everyone should have equal access to their cities and etc.

I believe everyone by now probably had an experience in a region plagued with trollers or unplayed cities. I myself had 3 regions, all of them were and still are plagued with unplayed cities or being stopped playing. (I really hope there was a better word to explain this) There are people who simply stop playing a city at some point. They still own a spot, they didn't technically "abandon" a city (nobody else can claim it). But they don't play in that very region anymore, and often times that very city they had been playing has a finance problem. All can be easily fixed, IF s/he lets someone else take over! Now, some players even claim multiple cities in a region and simply leave them. They don't abandon them. (what a pattern) I am guessing they are abandoning the city the moment they run out of initial funds, and move on to next region. Again, if they had actually abandoned the city and let someone else take over, it wouldn't have been a problem. But they don't, they leave it as it is. One of my region had 4 players who stopped playing all-together around April. How is this supposed to work while Simcity is actively focusing on region play? I am actually hoping EA to add a vote-kick system with some rules, like only the city had NOT been played in last month or so.

By making a giant flipping lizard to walk right pass them?

I'm not quite sure whether it's the question of "base-level computer specs" in any regards. Hate to bring this up again, but Simcity 4 lived in much harsh and outdated world, yet they managed to simulate it. Because they got it right, they simulated the numbers, not every single objects running in the game. Not even so-called supercomputers can run that kind of simulations in a city-scale. I know it, because I've done it before. Not to mention poor optimization as well.

-Proper RCI simulation -Traffic Simulation Enhancements and Fixes (i.e. adding one-way roads, more than one in/one out of the city and different transport methods) -Bigger Tiles (self-explanatory) Okay, seriously. This is supposed to be a simulation game, not a virtual mayor-ing game. The difference would be either the game use manipulations of numbers or simply run every possible objects and individuals in each destined in course. Simcity franchise has been known to follow to former method, while the new Simcity decided to follow the latter. I'm not even slightly suggesting there is a fundamental flaw in its method. If there was a flaw, it's due to fact that EA did not put enough number of objects, meaning different patterns of life and individuality in each and every virtual citizen. I must say, latter method is usually not used in any kind of simulations, due to the fact it's always impossible to know "why" when it comes to it. How would we know why Mr. Doe is driving today, not yesterday? What about Mr. Doe 2? One could be going off to vacation, funeral, annual medical checkup, it could be anything. What mayor needs to know and can know is probably that there are certain number, an average, of traffic depending on the location and the time of the year. RCI had done it so far, not in this game. Just no. Traffic goes about the same. There are cities with different solutions to their own traffic problems. It could actually be anything, from one-way roads to monorails. The purpose of it always the same: to resolve the traffic issues in the city. When it comes to the game, it should be focused only on two areas, first how to make it simulatively (not a real word) realistic, and second how to give more controls to dear mayors. Second is quite simple: add more options. We can't even add highway entrances in the game. What could we possibly expect? About a half year back, I replied to one of the posts suggesting that ground pollutions and radiation removers will be added as a DLC, which did happen in the form of expansion. Yeah, and it really happened. I don't know what else to say, except for EA seems to think expansion is a way to complete a game, instead of adding to a game.

The most recent announcement from EA was that they've already tested with bigger sized map and decided not to include it. I'm guessing EA figured either current Simcity (original) should be played as a collaborative game or the coming expansion should be able to fix it as a collaborative game. Either way, I honestly don't see the point of forcing "how to play the game" on players. It's Simcity, we play simulations not training software.

After the update which supposedly have fixed the issue, the glitch is still there, plaguing my city. Anyone else with this issue?

I am not against it as esthetically. It's a question of how graphic designers want to put it, and honestly doesn't bother me at all. The real question as a game should be whether the simulation is realistic. I don't care if EA or Maxis wants to put, say, alien mothership floating in the center of the city. But I do care about the mechanics, how the game will work out. Having an unrestricted theme can be a good place to start, but horribly bad place to end with. EA revealed the expansion without proper explanations, and that's usually the sign of "we have deus ex machina coming in" for EA.

That's my point. We don't know what's gonna happen after 50 years from now. It's unlikely that simulations will possess any realism in it, rather idealism. I'm not saying Simcity should always aim for the realistic simulation. But having seen numerous games that tried to build its own world and failed, I can't just let them have their own way with the new expansion. Completely agreed. I'd rather live with more probable feature, like developing underground urban network. Precisely.

I totally forgot about Simcity 2000 had arcology! Thanks for bringing it up again. I still have to make the point about the "floating roads" in the new expansion. I am well aware of skybridge, it is, even with the current technology, is well possible to connect two different buildings without having any columns. But the skybridges don't jump couple of blocks at once. It is usually used to connect when two or more buildings are operated or built by the same company. Quite simply, it's building's own mini-infrastructure, like elevators, working horizontally. And those skybridges usually do not interfere or benefit the city-wide population. It's up to the owner to build one, it's only used by the tenants of the building, not the entire population of the city. At least at the current point, skybridge is a skybridge, not a city infrastructure. They don't function as a terminal. Singapore's example makes more sense. The city designs and takes full control of infrastructures. It doesn't necessarily have to follow Manhattan-like block styles; there are more than one ways available in civil engineering. We can always build 2 or 3 stories street roads and avenues. What I'm really asking is, is there any city that utilizes a road between the skyscrapers that connects beyond a single block? There are many Arcology designs that suggested building a skybridge-like roads that will function just like any other roads in the city. Japan has couple of examples, buildings that contain a huge hole within to let the traffic go through. Many of them are built on top of railroads, utilizing the lands around the railroad that would have end-up being wasted. Anyhow, many infrastructures, unless for aerial transports, are not built high-up. And even if it is off the ground level, it usually doesn't go right through the building itself.

MegaTower is something I am completely against to. We already have arcology, and EA (or Maxis) failed horribly how the city in a tower is supposed to work. The basic idea behind building an arcology is to solve the traditional urban problems, then what's the whole point of having it in the Simcity?. Who knows how the future cities will work and what kind of new problems will it have. Maxis has aways drawn the line between contemporary and futuristic, and that fine line kept the games work more realistic. I don't know how will the megatowers will work in-game, but solely floating roads itself is a complete nonsense. Going back to the real world, many skyscrapers do exceed 20 floors, and many cities are filled with buildings that are taller than 20 stories, from apartments to office buildings. I really don't understand why the new simcity doesn't have building that goes beyond 20 stories. On the other hand, there is no building that connects a skyscraper with a hovering road that completely ignores city blocks.