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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.

Originally posted by: John-SJ We can see how the PO is doing just by looking at the number of cities on each server, and has the number of servers increased since release? For instance, I played my 7-day free trial a couple of weeks after release. At the time there were 2 U.S. servers with between 5-6 thousand cities on each server.quote> But what we don't know is how long inactive cities remain on the server before they are freed up. In particular, how long do cities created by people who used their 7-day free trial stay online before they deleted. I see a butt-load of cities every day, but only a very small number are actually "in use". MC could just leave cities in play for weeks after a person's trial ends just to create a sense of "fullness" on the planet. Who knows!

Originally posted by: Sainty Originally posted by: soltangris Hey, if they're having money problems, it's completely illogical to push prices up. This is stated in every economics book or article I've read. When you need to sell more of your product, you make discounts, not raise prices!quote> You have probably misunderstood the books and articles. Selling more doesnt automaticly give you more money. It will just give you bigger group of consumers, and in some cases - higher costs. And discounts is not economy, its marketing. And that what Monte is doing by lowering the price on the boxes. The box is also a product that no longer have a big ongoing cost, compared to the MMO part. PS: In economy, when your income is going down the toilet, you never lower the price of your product - you lower the expenses. And raise your prices next. If you reflect a little around your self, you will probably notice that lots of people are unemployed today and at the same time common goods has been more expensive, like milk, meat and vegitables. quote> Actually, it would benefit MC more if they lowered their prices. Remember, this isn't a car they're trying to sell, its a subscription. In that case, the whole point is to get as many subscribers as possible, which would mean that a lower price with a greater number of subscribers trumps a higher price with fewer subscribers. As we all know, the PO is already over-priced. Raising prices further will have a negative effect. Consider: 100 people subscribe to PO at the 3-month rate, equal to about $6 a month (or $600 total). You can be sure as *#*$ that if the price were raised to the single month price $10 (a 40% increase), at least 50% of the subscribers will discontinue service (including myself). This leaves you with 300 subscribers paying $300 a month. However, if the PO were decreased to $3.50 (a 40% decrease), I bet you would easily double, maybe even triple, your subscription rate. 200 or 300 subscribers would equal $700 or $1,050. As I said at the top, higher prices are a benefit to single-purchase items, but a monthly fee (aka subscription) service benefits more from a lower fee, especially (and this is key), when the current rate is already deemed as to expensive. P.S. The rising prices of food are not because the manufacturers just decided to raise the price...you can thank biofuels for the steep rise. Farmers are electing to sell their corn crops to ethanol producers rather than sell them to feed producers because they can make more money. This in turn raises the cost per head of cattle as the feed costs more to purchase, which in turn raises the cost of each slaughtered animal. And the ball keeps rolling down hill, all the way to the grocery store. Same goes for milk. Fruits & Veggies...beats me! Finally, if your statement about never lowering the price of goods in a bad economic environment were true, then why are the sales during this time of year some of the deepest discounts on record?

I think MC is going downhill really quick. Found an article from July 08 that talked about them getting a 4 million euro ($7 million) check from various venture capitalist groups and back then the expected release date was 1Q 09. They are obviously 9 months behind schedule and now, with the boxed price going for a 50% discount on Steam, a 25% discount on Amazon and GameStop, are in dire need of some serious capital. An unless everyone here is lying about not buying the game, they're probably not moving as much product as needed. Ironically, I visited the Monte Cristo corporate website last week (www.montecristogames.com) and browsed through their company profile, locations, employees etc. That website no longer exists, per se, and now redirects to the cities xl website. (go to google, search for montecristogames, and then view the "cached" version of the site). Even if they get their prices squared away and back to what they were I'm beginning to doubt they'll be around for very much longer and am hesitant to even resubscribe.

I have a 3-month subscription and noticed yesterday morning that other users were talking about the removal of the 2 & 3-month plans. So I went and checked the website and sure enough, only the 1-month plan was available. So I went to my account to look at my subscription status and theres a button that said "Cancel auto-renewal." I then went back to the site 8 hours later, checked my account, and the button was changed to read "Subscribe for more time." So I don't think they're recalculating the rates, I think they just dropped the discount plans all together. Regardless, I won't be clicking on a "subscribe for more time" button anytime soon....

Originally posted by: Barbarossa Why would you "continue sucking in as much energy as possible" when you are one of many tools we need to reduce such actions? I gather, from your post, that you really don't give a sh... hoot about environmentalism, so why post your personal stupidity? It seems to me you could care less about how much energy you use and how it has an impact on those less fortunate. quote> I care about the environment; but refuse to change my habits when at the same time the individuals proposing i do so are such hypocrites. I mean, jeez, you think people would roll up to a world summit on the environment in hybrid cars or on bicycles. Tell me why they instead have to drive gas-guzzling limo's when the city itself made available carbon-neutral busses? Heck, in the age of the wired world, why didn't they do a video teleconference. My entire neighborhood could let all their cars idle in their driveways for a full year and still not burn as much fossil fuel as all those "climate concerned world leaders" will during their "save the planet" conference; not to mention the fuel burned by all those private jets...these guys ever heard of commercial flights? I'm a simple person . If people way smarter than me tell me I need to reduce my energy in order to save the planet and then they go out and guzzle energy like a bum in a liquor store...guess what...I'm not taking them seriously.

I just upgraded my system to a new i7 core with 8 gb of memory and an SSD drive and the computer just eats up this game, even with cities well over a million people.

Dude, if subways, rails, and other transport modes look (and work) as good as the busses then this game is on its way to becoming the bomb-diggity!

Majken Friss Jorgensen, operator of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, has noted that between her and her fellow limousine company rivals, over 1,200 orders for this weeks summit have been placed by various companies. The Copenhagen airport is expecting to service over 140 private jets related to travel for the summit. Our own government chastises the big 3 for flying in ther jets to Washington D.C. to ask for money and then they turn around and fly to a global warming "crisis" summit in private jets and rent limousine's to travel to and from... Please......Until environmental responsibility is required of all, I'll continue sucking in as much energy as possible. Damn, it sure is cold in Washington D.C. for this time of year...hmm

Originally posted by: USA_Pride No, I don't want to pay $9.25 a month. However, I now have a game that doesn't work! Yes, I can build cities, but I can't build big ones because in Solo Mode I can only trade with the unfair Omnicorp monopoly. It purposely limits the game that people paid for! It's like spending 40 bucks and finding out that you've bought a limited demo. I can understanding having the chat-box, visit other cities, and trading with other players features in the subscription based "Planet Offer". However, having the Solo Mode resource limited is just bogus. You can't sell people a demo for $40! Now of course I'm sure I'm about to get flamed by a bunch of people, but before you flame me, please keep in mind that I haven't flamed anyone. All I have done is expressed my opinioin about the game I have and am stuck with. I haven't commented on people that choose to spend their money on the PO, it doesn't bother me. If you like the game, that's fine with me, but please stop flaming people that disagree with you!quote> Hey USA_Pride...I'm an equal opportunity flamer I don't agree that PO is a waste, but I also don't think MC is doing everything right either. For one, i'm 100% with you regarding solo trade...its completely ridiculous that a solo player has to pay 150 tokes for 1 unit of oil when the going rate on PO is about 25. I saw the post by MC_Mathew where he said they were going to decrease the price by 20%...still way to high in my opinion. We shouldn't be hampered in solo mode by ridiculous trading prices. Based on my experience with the PO trading system, a good price to buy & sell each resource would be about 30-50 tokens each (office, heavy industry, manufacturing, high-tech at 30 and fuel, electricity, water, etc at 50). flame-on brother!

Originally posted by: USA_Pride I know it's really easy to attack people who are critical of the game, call them whiners, and then make the assumption we all buy bottled water therefore our opinions shouldn't be counted, but perhaps you should discuss the actual topic than attack other posters.quote> I guess my point is, if you would have told me, or pretty much anybody else, 15 years ago that we would be shelling out hundreds of dollars each year on water, the most abundant resource (besides air) on our planet, we all would have said you're crazy "cause I ain't paying money for water!" The fact of the matter is, MC invested a large amount of time & money into building a game for a very small proportion of gamers. Consequently, they have, and deserve, the right to impose a pay structure that they feel makes the effort worthwhile. To make it worthwhile to their customers, the promise of continual updates, enhancements, and expansions is promised. Assuming that this business model remains profitable, a paying subscriber can expect a constantly evolving game play experience…that’s what the planet offer is. Ultimately, what MC is doing is very similar to what this site Simtropolis does regarding the STEX Collector’s Edition DVD’s. I quote: “As always, there will be a few bonus items never before seen on the STEX that some of our favorite contributors have kindly provided just for this disc.” So, I guess it’s not okay for MC to only give bonus content to monthly subscribers but it is okay for Simtropolis to only give bonus content to donators? Ultimately, I think a lot of people, me included, are just tired of having to wade through the same topics of discussion and hijacked threads day after day after day. It is what it is, and we all just need to let our wallets do the talking (either by paying or not paying for PO). P.S. No hard feelings to anyone, we all have a genuine love for this genre, let’s just talk about city building and not the political/economical underpinnings!