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ebalosus

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Everything posted by ebalosus

  1. +1 +1 as well

  2. Discussion about City Tile Size

    ebalosus replied to alex macnamara's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    What am I looking for? The picture posted doesn't seem to indicate a bigger map. Am I blind...well, blinder than I thought?

  3. SimCity Offline Mode Discussion

    ebalosus replied to Xenocity's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    I'm hoping that the region play is finally fixed...or at least fixed for offline mode. My biggest gripe (apart from the broken simulation and bad AI) is the small city sizes, which I would be a LOT more forgiving of if the region play ACTUALLY WORKED! I should only have to build a single university within a given region for it to create high-tech jobs in all the other regions, instead of it only really having an effect in a single city.

  4. Discussion about City Tile Size

    ebalosus replied to alex macnamara's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    Friend, I keep asking that question everywhere to Simcity devs, quoting what a developer said in this interview: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/14/maxis-simcity-online-opposition-was-clear-ahead-of-launch Alas, I have yet to hear a reply unfortunately.

  5. Offline Mode Coming Soon

    ebalosus replied to hellmunkey's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    With all due respect, Patrick Buechner seems to have contradicted those rules in the interview he gave with IGN: I don't interpret that as contradicting their own rules. Its seems as if he is saying that while in offline mode you can do almost anything, for instance making large city tiles, which is within the scope of their rules. It seems that where maxis and EA might have objection to mods is during online mode, however I don't know how mods are going to distinguish between online and offline. (emphasis mine) I will concede that the thought has crossed my mind that you could keep within the modding rules and modify essential components of the game (which you will surely need to do to increase map sizes), but to me at least, the question remains: Can we mod the game to increase map sizes/modify the simulation and still keep within the rules? Like you and others, I sincerely hope that an offline mode will allow us to modify the game in the ways we want; I just want clarification from Maxis/EA that offline mode will allow us to do that.

  6. Offline Mode Coming Soon

    ebalosus replied to hellmunkey's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    With all due respect, Patrick Buechner seems to have contradicted those rules in the interview he gave with IGN:
  7. I agree with this except for the part about Java. I'm not disagreeing with you about Java (I used to be a Java programmer myself), but about what you said regarding it and Simcity. According to the blogpost about offline mode, the parts of the game that were programmed in Java were the parts that interacted with the online infrastructure, and that they would have to rewrite all those parts into C++ for the game to run in offline mode...which implies that what you said regarding Java and scalability may infact be solved by them rewriting a lot of the code into C++
  8. I hope to see this mod evolves to bigger maps and CAM stages as it was in Simcity 4. Plus advanced and sensible trading system in freight cycle would be perfect. Also advanced parks and square options with concrete fillers are my dream too. Friend, I like the way you think

  9. Offline Mode Coming Soon

    ebalosus replied to hellmunkey's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    That seems to be contradicted by what was said here: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/14/maxis-simcity-online-opposition-was-clear-ahead-of-launch
  10. If I may ask: With the announcement of an offline mode and unfettered mod support, will this mod project evolve into a bigger city mod?

  11. Offline Mode Coming Soon

    ebalosus replied to hellmunkey's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    I think that the top priority when it comes to modding will be to increase the city sizes, because that will address the other major criticism of the game. After that, the simulator itself needs to be fixed and optimised, since it still doesn't, y'know simulate a city!

  12. Purchasing the game in New Zealand

    ebalosus replied to Sporefreak67's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    As a fellow NZer, I'd suggest waiting until the following: Offline mode (because you know how bad our internet is) Bigger maps Fixed simulation It's on sale I preordered the game, and although I like what it has introduced, the limited map size, broken simulation, and persistent online requirement have left me regretting my purchase.
  13. Uh Wut?! That's not how programming works. I actually posed this question to friends whom are embedded software engineers, and they said that no, quadrupling the size would not quadruple the resource requirements. Would an increase in simulation size increase the required resources? Yes, but not to that level. Given how many corners the simulation itself cuts, I wouldn't be surprised if quadrupling the simulation size would only require 1.5 times the current amount of resources.

  14. Next expansion?

    ebalosus replied to Rufus Honker IV's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    Given the ostensible subject matter, I'd say a bigger maps expansion, since that would allow Maxis to avoid the (self-created)* issue of maps not being big enough. "You must have the powerful a computer to run this expansion" sort of thing. *My admittedly limited knowledge of software engineering tells me that they're lying about not being able to implement larger maps, as the issue is either an engine-optimisation one, or a RAM size one.
  15. Over 9000 years. It seems that EA is unwilling to spend the amount of money needed to get servers good enough to be able to handle the resource load for larger cities. They proved that back when SimCity first came out. In order to save money, and not have to buy new servers when SimCity failed, they shut down servers from 3 other games. ( Sims Social, Simcity Social, Pet Society) so that they could reuse those servers for SimCity. I could be wrong about them reusing the servers, but it seems strangely coincidental that SimCity got lots of new servers the day after all the facebook games were shut down. I'd like to believe this...but wouldn't this just make Maxis "We can't increase city sizes because of "technical challenges"™" look even worse? Yes, I know part of the blame lays with EA, but I don't like it when the devs themselves are also lying to the customers.

  16. State of SimCity: Offline Being Discussed; Bigger Maps Not Coming

    ebalosus commented on SilentMage's article in News

    Anyone remember when they said that they couldn't make the game offline without requiring "significant engineering work"? Remember how that turned out to be BS, since all you had to do was edit one line of code to enable offline mode. Yeah, I don't believe them when they say that they cannot make larger maps a possibility.

  17. What happened to the BOC mod?

    ebalosus replied to former_member 638788's topic in SimCity (2013) Modding - Open Discussion

    A shame, but I can sincerely understand where he's coming from, as I too find SC2013 frustrating to play ATM

  18. What happened to the BOC mod?

    ebalosus replied to former_member 638788's topic in SimCity (2013) Modding - Open Discussion

    I'd like to know the same thing
  19. Seconded, because if you pay close attention to the simulation itself, you will notice that as the population increases, the game starts approximating things more an more...which ironically breaks the simulation. If the online component was desperately needed, then why can you disable it by changing one line of code, with no effect on the simulation?
  20. If simcity is built using OO principles, then we can assume that the simulation happens within the Class "city". "city" is contained with the Class "region". The solution: make "city" equal to, or slightly smaller than "region".

  21. Discussion about City Tile Size

    ebalosus replied to alex macnamara's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    Remember when they said that they couldn't add an offline mode due to, and I'm quoting here "it would take a significant amount of engineering work for this to happen"? Like with offline more only really requiring an edit to a single line, I'm pretty sure that larger city sizes isn't (in theory) too hard to implement.
  22. First off: Yay for (possible) offline mode. BOO for not increasing city sizes. They say that it's a limitation of the engine...but if you've already played the game, you will already note that the engine does not function as specified once your city gets big enough, meaning that the engine issues are less to do with actual game-space, and more to do with agent simulation limitations. From a programming perspective, the city size limit is something completely artificial, as far as I'm concerned.

  23. Should I buy SimCity (2013)?

    ebalosus replied to Fatherted's topic in SimCity (2013) General Discussion

    I'd have trouble recommending it to anyone, because to simcity fans (the ones I personally know) it's a big step backwards from SC4, and to anyone else interested, it's not really representative of simcity. Take it from me: It's good at killing a few hours when you've got nothing better to do, but if you want to play it seriously, then prepare to be disappointed. Once your city gets big enough, the simulation breaks down, and you're stuck with issues for which there is no logical remedy.
  24. Uh, this is one of the most important mods to this game IMO (BOC); where did it go?
  25. Given that (as of writing), the only mods EA/Maxis is supporting is "cosmetic mods", my response is very tepid. Questions arise to me like: What happens if we use mods like Plop Outside the the Citybox? What about mods that modify (read: improve) the AI or the simulation? If someone mods the game to allow for bigger maps, what will happen? What about mods in lieu of current or planned DLC? And most importantly: Will we get banned, or have our accounts suspended for using the above-mentions, or any other mods not sanctioned by EA/Maxis? I payed NZ$110 for this game, and do not want to be locked out of something I legally purchased.
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