snick25

My God, you'll do anything to defend this travesty of a game, won't you? Whatever, I guess if that's what it takes to rationalize wasting 60 perfectly good dollars on broken software, then so be it. I've seen worse. People defending the draconian DRM feature, defending the very corporations that are taking their rights away as consumers. I also just saw someone bashing the military, claiming making a video game was a much more difficult thing to do than serving overseas. I've never seen such stupid, mindless BS. Some people are simply beyond reason.

Another great feature of the game that has most likely killed city-building in the mainstream gaming community. Ironic, considering one of their main goals was to draw more attention to the franchise. I suppose they ended up getting what they wanted, in a way...

Sad thing is, I saw this coming many months ago. Maybe people just ought to learn some foresight before they buy a piece of junk? The whole Sims switching jobs and homes thing was talked about months ago. How it would ever work was beyond me. Now, it's clearly obvious it is not working at all. The traffic simulation, though, is a surprise. Maxis has really screwed up big time. How they'll recover from this is anyone's guess.

Wow. This is just terrible. A simulation game that can't even determine paths correctly? I said I felt pity for Maxis in another thread, seeing how many aspects of this game were obviously influenced by the Big Brother, but this is just unacceptable. How could they not see this? My pity is waning...

This. So much this. There was a lot of this going around here a while back, but down that people see for themselves how bad this game failed, it's thankfully pretty much stopped. Still a lot of blind sheep over at the official EA forums though. But yeah, seeing people actually drying to defend the DRM aspects of this game made me sick. Attitudes like that is what has destroyed so many a good franchise - the SimCity series being the latest victim.

Heh. True that; as said before I wouldn't put such a thing past them.

I feel sorry for Quigley, Bradshaw, Katsarelis, Moskowitz, Willmott, and all the rest of the Maxis team. They indeed did their best - it was EA's corporate greed and agenda that ruined this game. If not for that, I have no doubt this new SimCity would have been the successor so many of us were waiting for.

Are you talking about the Chinese spammers article? If so, that was not meant to be taken seriously, and anyone acting as such a spammer is clearly just trying to get a joke out of this whole fiasco.

Man, that's a laughable fallacy if I ever saw one. EA is making a joke of itself.

That depends. After the servers are fixed, how will people react? Will they remember the inconvenience, incompetence, and outright absurdity of launch day? Or will the game's supposed virtues be able to win enough people (and reviewers) over to save some face? In any case, there's no doubt in my mind that this game, as much of a trainwreck as it is, was still a financial success for EA. In the end, it doesn't really matter what the consumer thinks about the product, as it's already been sold. Of course, then the question is, does the consumer have a good enough memory to avoid making the same mistake again and purchasing from the same company? Bottom line, this was likely a financial victory and PR disaster for EA. What comes next for the franchise itself, only time can tell.

Clever and amusing, and above all, accurate! That's something not many reviewers are able to pull off. Kudos to Mr. Cresswell!

Figures. Reviewers are first "influenced" by the gaming company and give glowing endorsements, and when all hell breaks lose in the consumer base, adjust their reviews to avoid looking stupid. Of course that's not always the case, and it may or may not be it here. Still, this is a great example of why pre-release reviews are just plain moronic. Sure, customers who are purchasing on or prior to release day should have some idea of what to expect, but then again so should the official reviewers. These reviewers certainly didn't.

Why not return to Cities XL...? Indeed. Of course, we could also hope that EA will finally wake up in the grave they've dug themselves Maxis into and remove those unsavory aspects from the game. But hey, who am I kidding? That'll never happen. I also don't think that one trainwreck of a game, however bad it may be, will be enough to stop corporations from pursuing their destructive, anti-consumer agendas. Heck, when the servers are fixed, those who adore the social knock-off will probably forget all about the trouble and praise the beloved game, and the company who brought it to them. Until they crash again, of course.

That's a bit extreme, no? I, as a CXL fan, have been ridiculed for liking that game. However, with all of the awesome mods coming out for it and the increased awareness of the talented community surrounding CXL, such criticisms have waned. I do agree there is a strong and strict group on ST which expects nothing but positive praise for SC4 and nothing but doom and gloom for other games. However, I don't think this is the case here. Why wouldn't a SC fan, or fan of any game franchise really, not want a new and worthy entry in the franchise? Why would they not look forward to and be excited for news, interviews, videos, and screenshots about the new game? Why wouldn't they scrutinize said news in order to try and discern what the new game will be like? Why wouldn't they comment on features they like and are looking forward to, and comment on features (or non-features) they do not? And why wouldn't they criticize the game company when they cannot deliver the expected product at the release date? What's so brutish, slimy, and thug-like about that process? I will say, concerning ST supporting or not supporting certain sides, that a recent news story concerning another, independent city-building game was swiftly removed from the news section of the site after being posted there, coincidentally right after the release date of the "big game". That doesn't really mean anything, of course, but it's just interesting.

Oh, I see. So customers who paid good money in advance for a game with a set release date are supposed to wait, stay quiet, and not complain when said release date goes by and they can't play it? My, my. I agree. People are waaay too entitled these days. Heck, we should just let EA fix the servers at their leisure and reopen them whenever they feel like it, without complaint. I see the light now! I never said people can't complain. I can take that. But there's a difference between complaining, and outright bashing the game. We might as well change the name of this forum to the Simcity bashing forum because that's all we are ever going to see in here. When the game actually works, perhaps people will stop complaining. Until then, it's the natural reaction of a consumer to be angry when they're ripped off.

No way, man. Cities XL is a hundred times better than this campy social knock-off.

Oh, I see. So customers who paid good money in advance for a game with a set release date are supposed to wait, stay quiet, and not complain when said release date goes by and they can't use the product they paid for? My, my. I agree. People are way too entitled these days. Heck, we should just let EA fix the servers at their leisure and reopen them whenever they feel like it, without complaint. I see the light now!

How? This game is worse than SimCity Societies. Heck, at least you could actually play SCS...

Food for thought indeed. They spent so much time running around, trying to modify the game to fit EA's precious online aspect, cutting and slashing core features of both the SimCity franchise and the citybuilding genre in general from the game, and then trying to make their childish, cartoony, campy looking social knock-off look better with filters. And then the servers go down the first day of release. I guess not many people will be able to enjoy those neat filters, not until the servers are fixed at least. And how long will that last until they're down again? Food for thought indeed.

Finally. It's about time something lifted the sheepskin from their eyes...

Well. Here we are; it's opening week. How are things faring in the world of SimVillage? How playable is the game on the cloud? Is it worth the $60+ customers paid for it? Judging from the thousands of user reviews, ratings and comments on Amazon, Metacritic, and on EA's own Facebook, I think those questions answer themselves. So, I just have two further questions to all those who dismissed the legitimate concerns of their fellow citybuilders - how's the game going so far? How's that whole 'online-only' thing workin' out for ya?

I figured this would happen. So, all of those who love playing on the cloud... how's that whole online-only thing workin' out for ya? It's very interesting to see the discrepancy between the "official" game reviewers' scores and those of people who bought and actually played the game, or at least tried to. This just goes to show that customer reviews are almost always more trustworthy and reliable than those of people who do it for money. Heck, not even Monte Cristo's online play wasn't this big of a disaster. Not on the opening week, at least. Yep, this is totally a good sign for the future of SimVillage.

I may or may not buy it as a DLC (Platinum is being offered as such to customers who already own a previous CXL), depending on the price and whether or not I like the new buildings. Quite frankly, we have about 50 buildings made by the community coming out for free, so unless I really like what I see, I have no reason to buy it. It is nice to see something new from Focus, however. Many wrote the franchise off as dead on the official development front, but I believe this shows FHI still has their eyes on it - probably due to the commitment of the fanbase demonstrated by the extraordinary efforts of the community. Whether or not they'll put forth a real effort to further fix/develop the game is yet to be seen, however.

This is funny since fans of the series hate the XL 2012. They claim XL 2012 was ruined by Focus (the one who currently makes the games). So yeah you like the most hated version of the game. Perhaps you should educate yourself more about the CXL fanbase before you make generalizations, and incorrect ones at that. I will agree that FHI is an incompetent developer - that's to be expected considering they are a game publishing company and have a virtually non existent developer staff. Of course, one would think that they could find another developer to work on the game and go back to what they're actually semi-decent at doing: publishing. But, then again, this is FHI we're talking about. CXL 2012 is not hated. I don't know where you got that from. A disappointment, maybe, and I'm talking about the vanilla version of the game. Many, myself included, were disappointed at the lack of fixes in the technical department, but, considering the paragraph above, it's surprising they added any new content at all. That's not to say that CXL fans were content. Many were frustrated with the bugged content that was included, but that has since been fixed. With the all the new content made by the community (like the SC4 fanbase, you see, we pulled together and basically remade the game), I'd say that the game we play now is a hundred times better than it was at release. Many mods, in fact, require the 2012 version of the game to run properly. So no, the 2012 version of the game isn't "hated". I also want to add that I find that last line funny. You seem to be very fond of SC2013 - aka SimVillage, which most folks around here aren't too fond of, and that's putting it lightly.

Yep, as I expected, no addresses to any of the large technical issues, but unfortunately that's to be expected with FHI. The new buildings interest me, and hopefully widening the compatibility for 3DS Max will make modding easier for more people. I do think Soltan should be given some form of compensation for his work; since they're using it to make money and all... In any case, CXL remains better than SimVillage by leaps and bounds, and the expanded modding capabilities offered to the community will hopefully expand the modding scene. Thanks to mr-tom for confirming the news and clarifying stuff for the community. Some cover art, btw: