snick25

Yes, I've taken to calling it "SimVillage". Honestly, since most large towns are bigger in area and population than what one can build in SimVillage.

You are being overly cynicial. DLC provides games with new content they wouldn't normally get due to development cycles. I have to say, you sure have a strange definition of the word "cynical". I suppose you think we all should be happy if, a few weeks after release, Maxis comes out with a "bigger maps" DLC, a "highways and subways" DLC, a "agricultural" DLC, etc. (the list goes on), charging us $5, $10, perhaps $15 on top of the $60 already given to them for features that should have been included in any citybuilding game in the first place? Is it so unrealistic, irrational, and, as you put it, "cynical" to believe that EA, by extension of Maxis, is purposely holding off on some of these features until after release in order to milk extra dollars from their customers? It certainly isn't unheard of, especially not from a Machiavellian behemoth like EA.

I agree with all of what you said, save for the part about CXL. New content in CXL, with the exception of the 2012 content, is made by the community, for the community, and is free. As you said, with the server costs, coupled with the online and multiplayer nature of this game, I doubt such community contributions can be allowed. They will most likely make DLCs, with several new buildings and such, for a price.

^^ Same here. That's pretty much the way it worked in SC4; you'd work on once city at a time, and when going back to region view, that one city was now further developed than the others. It was no big deal, just go in and develop the other ones. As far as I know it worked well for most people...

I agree. This further confirms that Maxis got over-ambitious when making the simulation engine. I mean, do we really need to know about every drop of water moving throughout the city? The whole "cities don't live in bubbles" spiel is relevant, but does that mean they had to make this game completely online, on the cloud, on EA's notorious servers? I suppose now we can add the online and cloud aspects of this game to the ever-growing list of consequences of this over-ambition, including the constricting map sizes and no-man's land. Makes you rethink that whole "cities don't live in bubbles" thing, doesn't it?

When I play SC4, I usually build on large tiles. But the major difference here is the ability to connect them side-by-side to form a seemingly seamless, larger city over multiple tiles. You can't do that in this new game. Of course, that's only in region view, and it still feels lacking, in a way. CXL is even better - allowing you to build and fit a relatively large city on one map.

I always know when someone runs out of arguments... they use personal attacks instead. People are starting to see this game for what it is. If you don't like that, and can find no better defense than attacking somebody's supposed "atrociously bad" grammar (funny, because I've never noticed that myself), perhaps you ought to leave and take your bad feelings elsewhere.

I agree about filling in that space. Sad to say, that appears to be the only option left this late in development. Of course, this could have been prevented. The simulation didn't have to be so intensive. I don't think even those who adore good simulation need to know about every single "bundle of electricity" or drop of water moving about. And, if the simulation wasn't so intensive, cities could have been bigger. Even if the simulation was kept, they could have made cities adjacent to each other. But they decided against that too, claiming your neighbors cities would look dead. So, if all else failed, they could have filled in the gaps with something. Suburbs, perhaps? Apparently not. Farms? Nope--since there are no farms, that option isn't viable either. What does that leave? Empty, barren wasteland that will make even the most serious attempt at creating a city in this game fail. A constant reminder of how this game restricts the player. So, how 'bout it, Maxis? How about some screenshots of that wonderful no-man's land? It's a feature of the game--you might as well showcase it.

Stuff CXL already has. Sure, SimCity expands upon the "specialization" aspect, and the building modules are a nice touch. But the constricting map sizes, lack of highways and other transportation features, as well as the inability to add or change anything in the no-man's land, give one a severe sense of restriction and lack of control. The fact remains that, with these restrictions, you can build nice towns, even towns with dozens of skyscrapers, but you can NOT build an actual city. Certainly not as the name "SimCity", with both it's literal and connotative associations, implies.

Indeed, I don't want to have to pay and play at the whims of EA and their infamous servers. And CXL, with mods, is a great game. Ironic, considering its online origins and the path the new SimCity is taking.

Also, while SimCity isn't a social networking game in the strictest sense (e.g. not a Facebook game), it is a virtual setting in which many people interact. Some would indeed call it social networking.

Which is one of the reasons I believe Maxis got a tad too ambitious this time around. I'd personally be fine with a simpler, less intensive simulation à la SimCity 4.

The Glassbox is rather ambitious for today's technology, at least if they want to cater to those with lower-end computers, but then again, the same could be said for CXL. I'd personally be fine with previous installments' statistical simulations. At least we'd get bigger maps. As it is now, it is simply impossible to create a city with this game. Is the Glassbox worth that? Some would say yes, but I don't think so.

Indeed, thanks for posting that. The question at the end asks "Should Maxis be working on this issue?" If they want my $60, they better. Also, I'm no techie, but those last few paragraphs are interesting. Could they indicate a correlation between the cloud nature of this game and its map limitations? That's something I suspected a long time and would not be surprised to find it be true.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14umm1/we_are_the_simcity_dev_team_from_maxis_amaa/c7gmuw3 Apparently the whole "reconciling edges" thing along with road connections between cities was also a factor in segregating the player's cities. Not sure why, but apparently the devs thought it was a big problem in SimCity 4. Again, I'm not sure why, since I've played SC4 for almost a decade and so do many people I know and none of us have ever experienced issues with those features. So, apparently it was either just a big problem in SC4 no one in this community was ever aware of or Maxis is getting desperate for excuses.

Judging by the recent outcry on Reddit and increasingly public criticism EA/Maxis has been facing throughout the development process, I'd say a pretty hefty majority are also aware of the limitations this game forces on the player.

The graphics are getting better--at least they aren't as cartoony as before. But what of the maps? I really do want to like this game, as there are some features I do admire. But the map sizes are just too darn small. In just about every screenshot, excluding the ones show closer to the ground, you can see the no-man's land in the distance. A constant reminder of just one of the several limits this game puts on the player.

As I said before, I'm not surprised. It's also worth noting that the total area of a region in SimCity is not much larger than that of an individual city in CXL.

Yep, it was confirmed way back in the development process that there would be a limit of 200,000 agents per city. Once that limit is reached? I'm not sure, but if my memory serves me correctly all excess data would be handled via a statistical simulation just as in previous SimCity games. So this idea of the all-knowing, all-encompassing simulation, unless the facts have changed, is a farce.

I'm also skeptical. I'd assume the NDA you'd be required to uphold would prohibit the disclosure of details such as those. Of course, if that were true, it wouldn't surprise me.

It's called DEBUG mode (closely related to God mode/cheats.), stats don't matter, especially when they are purposely setting up situations to show off certain features. Watching every little aspect in this video might be over analyzing? You're right. I guess we might as well just not examine these new videos or look at those new screenshots at all to see how this new Sim"City" works. Great Idea. Considering the size of these maps, I would be surprised if the densest of cities did surpass 5,000 people.

And what fantasy world did that tidbit come from?

Anyone notice the population? At the beginning, the time-lapse shows skyscrapers being built at a population of about 800. At about 1:47, we see the whole map, filled about halfway with skyscrapers. The population is around 1,000. So, figuring a map filled completely with skyscrapers, you'd probably get a max population of 2,500-3,000 (and that's assuming some of the highrises in the video were commercial). This is even worse than I thought it would be. In SC4, you normally wouldn't get your first midrise until you had at least 1,000 people. Now, in this new game, you get skyscrapers at 800 and the biggest cities you can build may be as low as 2,000. Wow. I guess I should've been expecting this, considering the size of the maps, but still. Wow.

Yep. I've suspected that from the beginning of this whole downward spiral. And it will certainly be interesting how modding will be handled on the online, Origin-run cloudware.

Nice town. And I'm not being sarcastic this time, it does look nice. But, since this is supposed to be SimCity, I'd really like to see some cities. Of course, that's assuming that anybody could even make one.