Xenocity

In heaven with all the mods! I wish I could figure out how to mod...

If you have the expansion pack, I'd suggest building a low wealth mega tower. Mass transit is necessary for $ weath sims to get around. Street cars, buses (double decker if you have them), ferrys, trains (high speed train if you have it) etc... I prefer street cars, trains, and blimps. If you do both it will help alot.

Do you have a trading depot in your city? They take all the unsold freight from industry and ships the excess freight to global market and other cities in the region. Eventually you have obviously add more freight plots to the depots as your industry expands.

This is just sad! Do you find Simcity boring and stupid because it has a very stupid story?

Actually Western developers use tons of market research to develop their games in order to maxmize sales. They use surveys, market research firms including NPD and others, customer feedback etc... I've taken part in them. Japanese developers on the other hand are criticized for not using market research or listening to customers. Simulators are one of the most expensive genre of games to make due to all the components and regularly have issues the play testers didn't discover because they don't play the game as much as simulation fans do. Due to this expense of making simulators, especially with modern graphics and features, you need to make one that sells a few million copies to breakeven! Simcity 4 sadly never had mass market appeal due the difficulty and complexity of the game. Simcity 4 struggled to breakeven. With this all said you know Maxis went bankrupt in 1996 and was forced to face liquidation or find a buyer. Only EA was willing to buy Maxis. I've used Arena simulation software (by Rockwell Egineering) which is one of the key simulation software companies use and it is more bug ridden and unstable than Simcity 4 and Simcity 2013 put together. This software is what they use in primiarly in engineering and construction. Using Excel and the professional simulation plugins causes Excel to regularly lock up and crash. No need to call anyone a fanboy either. Truth is Simcity 2013 has truer and better simulation than Simcity 4. Simcity 4 is based on the stasticial engine of the first 3 games, while introducing new pathfinding alrogrithms for traffic, freight and other stuff. The statiscial engine wasn't built to handle realistic simulation and big complex cities (those in Simcity 4). Modders fixed many of the key issues in Simcity 4 with NAM and other mods. I own and play both games on a semi regular basis, each has their own strengths. With that said Simcity 2013 is not the most broken game of 2013 let alone of the past 5 years. As for software, there is no way to prevent "broken software" (because no one can agree on a definition) from coming to market due to the complexity of software and people's expectations. Some people still claim that Windows 8.1 is broken. Others claim Mac OSX 10.9 is broken Many claim iOS7 is broken Etc... Software is never problem and glitch free. As for banking industry, they have gotten lots of trouble due to the software they have used. The software the banking industry used or in many cases still uses has tons of security issues, glitches, bugs, and others issues. This has allowed people to hack and steal tons of customer information including Social Security Numbers, Account numbers, adresses, names, and other valuable information. This has cost the world billions of dollars over the past decade, prompting government investigations, regulation and huge fines. The banking industry still has their online banking sites to get hacked as well causing huge theft of personal information on a semi regular basis to date. This is why I don't online bank. The banking industry's mobile apps have also had massive security breaches as well resulting in personal information being stolen. This happens for three main reasons: They refuse to spend the hundreds of millions required to secure the data and accounts. In part due to shareholders pressure. Very little government regulation Consumers are also ignorant of security features in their browsers and devices. Most industries refuse to spend the money on security or IT to make completely functional and secure software due to the upfront costs. They'd rather take the gamble and hope no one finds out when it goes horribly wrong. I won't even touch how bug ridden and insecure the software is that runs American credit card terminals and the backend. The American air traffic control system is still using the same tracking system they implemented in the late 1970s and still use the black and green screens. The reason they haven't upgraded to the new system is due to the costs (nearly every airport is privately owned). Ever wonder why American cell phone carriers still use mostly out of date hardware and using awful software to power their networks? Because investors WILL NOT allow them spend the money to implement update to date hardware and fully fleshed out software. Why do many gaming companies including EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square-Enix, Capcom and etc... release heavily buggy games? Because Investors will not allow them to delay games because it damages earnings and profits near immediately. If Investors are unhappy with the quarterly and yearly outcome, they either sue the company for failure to maximize profits and/or they take control of the company, sacking the board and managment, installing their people. Right now Apple and Best Buy are being sued by investors/shareholders in U.S. Federal Court for hurting investors profits by not releasing products on a timely manner and for refusing to maximizing profits for shareholders. Shareholders are currently in court fighting EA management for not releasing products in a timely manner and delaying games which have significantly damaged shareholder value and profits. Shareholder are also in the process installing the new board and trying to find a CEO who will act in their best interest (current CEO is temporary). By law publicly traded companies and/or companies with shareholders (you can be private with private shareholders) must act in the best interest of their shareholders (or the majority of shareholders), maximize profits for the shareholders, and lastly carry out the shareholders wishes. Shareholders are the main reason why EA and most companies are unable or unwilling to delay products. CEO will generally side with shareholders over costumers every damn time in most companies. Welcome to capitalism!

Agreed on those points. Also multiplayer and great works are still ridiculous or still broken, but not required to be fixed to enjoy the single-player game. Actually certain maps have bugs in them causing issues or rendering Great Works broken. Outside of those few maps, both multiplayer and Great Works works as advertised.

Simcity 2013 fell victim to market research, consumer feedback from 4, and the disastrous low sales of 4. Market research told Maxis that people wanted a simulator that ran realistically instead of the method used in 4. Market research also told Maxis that the market wanted an online city builder. Lastly they were told that the. Majority didn't like the large map sizes because they were too big! Consumers gave Maxis an earful after all the issues they encountered with 4 and Rush Hour. They complained about how broken the base game is. They also complained about how unrealistic the graphics are. They complained about the lack of online play in regions. They complained about the lack of DLC. They also complained about all the bugs the game has. Lastly Simcity 4 with all its releases has yet to break 2 million sold. Simcity 3000 sold over 5 million. Maxis took all this into account when making 2013. What happened? It became the second best selling game in the franchise and is on track to unseat 3000. The market spoke and chose 2013 over 4. After update 10 the only real issue I have in 2013 is the traveling students. I honestly prefer 2013 over 4 when it comes to the simulation part.

This. It's become normal to treat this game as if it was still the wreck they released, but there have indeed been improvements. When I do talk to friends about the game I do point out that EA has done some fixing since release and while there are still issues the game does work. Well to be fair once a something or someone gets branded, it is hard to undo it. That's not just EA.

This is not the first game in the series to have a demo released. Most of the Simcity games have had demos released, including Simcity 3000 (the best selling game). According to the last official numbers Simcity 2013 is the second best selling game in the franchise behind Simcity 3000. Right now Simcity 2013 is between 3M and 4M worldwide. It hasn't been geninuely bad since update 5, it became decent around Update 7, Update 10 + modding made it good. Vanilla Simcity 4 (without expansion pack) is worse than Simcity 2013 (standalone) Simcity 4 Deluxe (without mods and NAM) is still worse than Simcity 2013 Plus (without mods) Simcity 4 needs NAM to make it good (I am currently without NAM and am kindly reminded why I quite playing SImciy 4 back in the day! I am currently running both in my late 2011 Macbook Pro in OSX.

Formally Origin doesn't count offline mode! So Origin quit counting at 192 hours. I have put close to 400 hours if not more on multiple regions.

Does this include the DLC soundtracks that some games have? Does this also include the sound mixer in Smash Bros Brawl that allows you to increase, decrease, and turn songs off? Normally soundtracks don't bother me as a general rule.

Did I get them right? According to market research over the past few years it breaks down as follows: Hardcore and core gamers belive graphics are the most important aspect Hardcore developers believe in graphics over gameplay Casuals prefer gameplay over graphics Nintendo owners prefer gameplay at the expense of graphics Mobile gamers are split Many hardcore developers have gone on record claiming gameplay is holding gaming back and gaming needs to free itself from gameplay in order for gaming to reach its true form. I honestly prefer gameplay, though if you can somehow nail gameplay and still have time to produce great graphics then all the better. I shamefully admit I have spent countless hours over the past few years breeding Pokemon to get shiny Pokemon (I didn't get any until X).

Why hate anyone for their taste? Love what you like to do, never mind the others. I just think you're exaggerating there. You're right when you say that SC4 right out of the box was nearly unplayable because the release was rushed, and many things didn't work. For example, IIRC Sims weren't able to make left turns in the initially released version. However, there was an official patch, and there was Rush Hour. SC4 plus Rush Hour was basically pretty much what SC4 should have been in the first place. (And I think it's pretty much what SC4 would have been in the first place, if EA hadn't swallowed Maxis and rushed things!) Anyway, the game was playable, stable, and fully working after these official patches - even without mods. The other things that you allude at when you mention NAM and CAM are not bugs or errors, but simply limitations. So yes, the traffic simulator was not really capable, but then they had to tune it down to make it work on average computers of that time. It didn't keep you from filling a large map and making large, coherent metropolises with bazillions of inhabitants. (And by the way, the underlying logic was far more realistic than the "oh, I just pick the first empty house each day after work" logic in SC13. ) In terms of the CAM, yes, the game is limited to 8 stages and a maximum bulding occupant number that's somewhere around 8,000 for R and C. Once again, this is merely a limitation, but not a glitch or error. Could they have included 50 stages and buildings with as many as 20,000 occupants each? I guess so, but did the fact that they didn't make the game unplayable? Nope. That's like calling a racing simulation broken if it offers "only" 20 tracks, when they theoretically could have offered 100. Oh, and when you mention mods it shouldn't be forgotten that at least we were given a game that was designed to accommodate even very deep mods in a very liberal way in the first place, and that's not the norm these days! I'm certainly grateful for that because it has undeniably helped a lot. Not entirely true. EA bought Maxis in 1997, because Maxis came to them and asked for a buyout after the other companies refused them. Maxis had to either get EA to buy them or to face liquidation by investors. After Simcity 3000/3000U were completed in late 1998, Maxis imediately started developing Simcity 4. Surpisingly EA offered to give them whatever they needed to make Simcity 4. Simcity 4 spent about 4 years in actual development before Maxis decided to release it. They were well aware of the issues and had patches readied. Rush Hour was released about 8 months later containing a huge patch. Due to the low sales of both Simcity 4 and Rush Hour, Maxis canned the other expansion packs and patches that were in development and opened up the game to modding. The pathfinding issue was the Sims always took the shortest path (distance) instead of fastest path (time) which caused massive zone abandonement and them ignoring mass transit and free ways in medium and large cities. Though to be fair nearly every maxis game ever released has had massive issues except for Simcity 3000. Also why can't GameFreak's patch the Pokemon X/Y engine to make battles run at smoother frame rate?

Both! They literally are two very different games. Both games have exclusive features and levels. 3DS is more single player focused.

Mine is 3394-3545-1029, My Mii and system name is Xeno just like on Wii U. I own like 12 full games and many smaller titles. Currently obsessed with Tomodachi Life (it is that good)...

You guys are going to hate me for my post... SIMCITY 4 (includes the deluxe version)! The damn game was essentially broken until NAM, CAM, and job doublers fixed key issues. These didn't include other sizable glitches that made some cities unplayable (Including sims not visiting hospitals). We had to wait almost 5 years to get a truly playable version, then we had to await a few more years to get good version of NAM. Wii Golf, It just didn't work! It was fixed in Wii Sports Club Golf on Wii U.

Today is that very special day in July when Nintendo announces the year end gifts to their loyal customers. Those who reach Platinum are offered a choice of gifts exclusive to them or they can choose from one of the gifts offered to gold members As tradition has it, there is a massive backlash for whatever gifts Nintendo offers to their North American customers. This year the hated offerings are: You only get to pick one! Last year was: The limited issue Majora's Mask OST (which also caused a massive negative backlash as well, because many platinum members thought it wasn't good enough). What is Club Nintendo? It is Nintendo's customer rewards program that varies by region. You net points buy registering games (1st party only on WiiWii U) and systems. Reach 300 points, you become gold member (year runs from July 1st - June 30th) Reach 600 points you become platinum member for that year (year runs from July 1st - June 30th) Gold and Platinum status gifts are only for Japan and North America. How many of you are up in arms over this year's elite gifts? What gift are you guys planning to get from the list?

First off I hate to break it to you, but Smash Bros. Is not considered a fighting game due to the presentation, items, mechanics, and easy of play. Smash Bros. is considered to be a party game targeted at casuals. Secondly I've already played the demo of both games, during the Best Buy demo event. The speed is close to Smash for the Wii U version and the 3DS version is slower like Brawl. Greninja is super agily and fast. Though I played as Villager in the Wii U version. I cannot remember who I played in the 3DS version. Both games are distinctly different and all the characters haven't been revealed... Lastly I cannot wait to get the $100 Wii U game bundle with the GC controller adapter and controller. I'll end up with both games.

Who's buying in? Remember you still need XBL Gold!

Microsoft is most likely subsidizing this, hence why it is exclusive to Xbox One. Though it is heavily "leaked" that both EA and Activision get a cut of Xbox Live revenue. EA isn't really that "evil" and "money grabbing" compared to the other gaming companies and in a world where comcast, telecoms, big oil, and others exist.

I have bought close to 15 games if not more since the beginning of the year. I will have bought close to 30 if not more by New Year's Eve. Though to be fair I bought many at good discounts, even the ones I bought digitally. This means I came in under budget by a huge amount (yes I have a budget). You have too many games, if you cannot find time to play them all.

Yeah I hate them too.

As my grandmother says "What's good for the goose (Simcity 4) is good for the gander (Simcity 2013)!" Obviously I added in the names of the games to illiustrate the point.

$ Wealth residential holds the most sims (this is true for real life for the most part) $$$ Wealth residential holds the least amount of sims If you want maximum population you need to focus on being a low wealth city If you want maximum wealth, you need to focus on land value, city services and education. Though this city will have a lower population. 50,000 starting amount is the traditional starting amount in Simcity. So you have to decide between high wealth and max population (this holds true in real life) ______________ If you have Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack, I suggest you download and install the mod from here that allows you to have 100 mega towers.

Well to their defense, investors are now in charge and shutdown anything that isn't highly profitable. You all thought normal EA was evil.... I just want an update that fixes education on every level and the regional traveling/economy! Indeed. I just want great works fixed so I can mess around with them. I think I've only completed one since I got the game. I just want to make a full education town (damn schools are too expensive) I also want to finally complete a university!