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Yep, taking a break from the game as well, back to The Secret World for me. My "coming back point" will be when they release an update that expands the map size. At that point I'll reinstall and revisit to see if that makes a big enough improvement. If it does, I'll consider purchasing any DLC's that may have been released. Point being: EA/Maxis will not be getting anymore money from me until they fix the game.

They're doing that though. The international city packs contain improved transportation and law enforcement services, depending on which country you wish to make the city emulate. Since this is being sold as a multiplayer game with some competitive elements, it could be seen as giving someone an advantage for purchasing the city packs. The international city packs only change the look of buildings and vehicles. For example, the French police station is not better than the vanilla police station, it comes with the same amount of cars, the same response time, and the same number of jail cells. It doesn't improve anything other than the look. There are advantages to the different services: https://twitter.com/Iobham/status/296785226930221058 Didn't know that, you can't tell from the ingame descriptions. However, I still don't think it's pay 2 win, simply because you can't really "win" at SimCity. Besides, we should all be used to this anyways. Afterall, the mods and such created by this community for SimCity 4 drastically altered the composition of the game, and someone who installed mods was able to create better, more efficient cities than someone who played the vanilla Deluxe edition. And, yes, it did matter in SimCity 4. After all, this website itself promotes the Trixies which award such things as best city journal, which, of course, no one would win using vanilla SimCity 4.

They're doing that though. The international city packs contain improved transportation and law enforcement services, depending on which country you wish to make the city emulate. Since this is being sold as a multiplayer game with some competitive elements, it could be seen as giving someone an advantage for purchasing the city packs. The international city packs only change the look of buildings and vehicles. For example, the French police station is not better than the vanilla police station, it comes with the same amount of cars, the same response time, and the same number of jail cells. It doesn't improve anything other than the look.

I don't think you understand completely what Pay to Win means. Pay to Win is when a company sells advantages in the form of an online store with products that make you more powerful than your competitors. What I think you are trying to say is that you don't like the concept of DLC, or Downloadable Content. Unfortunately, companies found out that DLC's are a great money maker and that people, in general, don't mind spending the extra money to add more content to their game. Now, one could surmise that this has lead to companies holding back features and capabilities specifically so that they can sell them later on and increase their profit. I'd tend to agree with that statement. However, I don't mind DLC. I play Skyrim and Bethesda has a great DLC model that has kept me playing that game for over a year. The key to successful DLC's is content and quality. One cal look to Tropico as an example. The Tropico 4 DLC Modern Times added 20 some buildings, extended gameplay, and basically changed the way the game was played for the better. It was $20 and I happily paid it. Tropico also released a bunch of smaller DLC's that included 1 building, a new avatar, and a new mission. This cost $5 and I didn't buy them. But, see, that's the beauty of DLC. If you don't feel the content justifies the cost, then you don't have to buy it. I really look forward to seeing the first true DLC Maxis releases. If its a proper DLC with tons of features for a decent cost, I see a bright future for SimCity. If not, well, I guess it's back to Skyrim.

Meh...beta access. What we are all dying to know is what is in the two emails that you blurred out!!!

This pretty mcuh sums it up, SimCity Tile Size: CitiesXL Tile Size: I'm almost positive that a single Cities XL map is as big, if not bigger, than a 16-city SimCity region.

Yeah, I put SimCity on the back burner and am redownloading CitiesXL from Steam. The new SimCity made me realize how much I don't really care for city management and just want to design amazing looking cities. And to the OP, the modding community for Cities XL is really picking up steam, they have some impressive patches, UI mods, and building additions that can be added to the game.

"The new simcity is very basic and the majority of people on here and elsewhere agree." I would disagree. If I read the official Simcity forums I find conversations regarding city building far, far outweight the few remaining people that are complaining about simplicity or the AI. Oh, and if anything, the new SimCity has been a boon for this fansite, up 128% in the last 3 months and I would imagine all that extra traffic isn't here to discuss a 10+ year old game. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/simtropolis.com "Why don't they make use of the community?" I know this is hard to accept, especially to longtime members of this community, but this community is not the target audience of the new SimCity. Shocking, I know, but reality. How do I know this? Because the game isn't SimCity 5! Besides, Maxis probably took notes from Monte Cristo on how bad this community can be if they so choose to be. Have a gander at this fine example, which, shockingly, looks a lot like what folks are saying about SimCity today: "A brilliant city simulator can be created..." Still waiting then.

Did SC2013 kill off SimCity? No, I don't think so. I believe the fans have killed SimCity. Looking back over the years, I think we've agreed that many studios have attempted to develop city builder games and each and every time the fan base for these types of games has jumped in and demonized the games, insisting on comparing them to a game that, if it hadn't been for the capability to mod, would have ended up in the bargain bin a few short years later. We want a realistic transportation system / / enter Cities in Motion / / everyone complains that all the game is is a transportation simulation. We want to build realistic cities / / enter CitiesXL / / everyone complains that it lacks micromanagement and is buggy. We want a new SimCity / / enter SimCity / / everyone goes completely out of their way to hate the game, taking pleasure in the fall of the studio that, ironically, developed a game they loved so much. I think the studio's have taken the hint, there is nothing they can develop on any type of budget that can compete with a game that has had 10 years of modding. I don't think SimCity was ever developed to compete with SimCity 4; instead, I think Maxis is using it as a stepping stone into a more Sims type gamestyle, where people don't care exactly how the game simulates a city, but simply allows them to have fun building. And we all know how well the Sims franchise does compared to SimCity... I sometimes wonder if folks want the new SimCity to simply be a 100km by 100km green square and the developer saying "have at it".

Server maintenance. Took them 7 hours to take a server down and upgrade them. No idea why they didn't just build a better server and move the data over to it having only 5 minutes downtime. I think they should outsource to a company that knows what they are doing. Still, not even remotely enough reason to not buy and play a great game. It's more than enough reason to not buy and play a terrible game. Have you purchased it, or are you just another anti-DRMer making negative posts? It's not even remotely a bad game, no matter how much you wish it to be. It's hands down the best SC I have ever played and has huge potential for expansion making it even greater. It's quite possibly the best game I have EVER played outside of the SC series, I will be sure of that after all the server / latency and AI issues are fixed which I am 100% confident they will be. Scroll up 2 posts. I absolutely have bought and played it....your mantra of "You don't like it b/c you haven't bought it!" is quite old by now. There are enough people who have played it for a considerable amount of time and do not like it. And I don't care at all about DRM, I didn't even know what it meant until a few days ago. I understand you obviously like it quite a bit...I dislike it quite a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is the WORST game I've ever played (though you claim it is the BEST...), but I definitely rank it as one of the worst, most unfinished, most bugged simulator games I've ever played. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a0taq/compiled_list_of_suggestions_and_bug_reports_to/ I'm pretty sure Skyrim has this game beat when it comes to the amount of bugs. There are so many bugs that modders released unofficial patches. Take a look at this bug-fix list: http://www.iguanadons.net/Unofficial%20Skyrim%20Patch%20Version%20History.html. Quite a difference when compared to the Reddit post. Point is, there isn't a single game released today that isn't riddled with bugs. Its pretty much expected with any game release that there will be big patches to fix everything that is wrong (http://www.gamefront.com/files/game-patches). To single out this game as one of the worst is dishonest. Although, you may be right in saying its the worst simulator game, but that's because there haven't been any simulator games released in years. Well, except for maybe Minecraft, if you classify it as a simulator. But, jeez, they even have their own bug-tracker website (https://mojang.atlassian.net/browse/MC)!

You must be an Activision mole.

i7 3930K (6 core) 3.2 Ghz 16G RAM SSD Hard Drive GeForce GTX 580 (4 GB RAM) Settings were completly maxed out and I used the GeForce to force such things as FXAA, though I'm not sure it actually made a difference.

You guys might find this article on Massively interesting as it directly relates to the games-as-a-service push that has been happening recently. And, basically, that is what a constant connection to Origin means: You don't own the game, you are paying for a service. It makes perfect sense for MMO's, which I play religiously, but not for single player games with a small online component. Short excerpt: http://massively.joy...r-the-consumer/

Well, if they're like my neighbors, they'll keep the decorations up until March!

Personally, I think the lighting effects are great. Funny how people can still complain, though. I mean, jeez, if I wanted uber-real lighting effects I'd go buy Forza Motorsport 3. It's a game people, you can't expect reality...our computers would crash. Did anyone notice how the old-english (not the drink) villages don't hardly light up at all...just a dim orangish hue in the windows, no street lights, etc.! Compared to the rest of my city, that looks like a great place to mug someone.