magicrobbie

only if EA will give us offline singleplayer larger city tiles cities side-by-side terraforming map creator ability to control zoning density full moddability

Great review, thanks. Sums up my impression/opinion as well. It might be very negative but I hope our complaints will make EA listen. The game has promise and can be fixed (if EA delays the release). EA - there is consensus here - long-time players are really unhappy and they are all complaining about the same points. And if we all sound too pessimistic - more than 10 years have passed since the last Sim City and technology has made incredible progress in the meantime. This game should feel like an iPhone5 vs a cell phone from 2003 (oh wow, some actually had text messaging! - but it doesn't.

That's a great observation and it hasn't really been discussed in this Forum so far. I can confirm that traffic flow seems a bit off. I built a city with one big avenue cutting it in 2 halves and tons of medium density streets in a pretty efficient grid. The Sims all rushed to take the avenue. As a consequence, there were huge traffic jams on the avenue, even though all the other roads were empty. I was also not able to figure out how the traffic simulation actually works - I had traffic jams in remote dead ends even though there was no obvious reason for cars to take that route. And regarding busses - I think it is great that bus stops no longer eat up whole city tiles, however it is a pity one cannot determine bus routes. Sims will be happy if you just drop a ton of bus stops randomly on the map. In reality however, and I believe Glassbox could/should pick this up, chaotically placed bus stops should lead to very inefficient routes. You know, I remember that only Simtropolis mods actually fixed the traffic system in Sim City 4 - it is good to have great and very capable fan base. I guess those types of mods are no longer possible.

thanks for this great review - very much sums up my impression/opinion as well! If you think about a city like New York or San Francisco - a lot of roads downtown are actually NOT high density roads but there are high rises nevertheless, of course. I would much rather prefer determining zoning density myself than having the engine decide on high rises based on road density.

...if only this were possible in Sim City 2013... sigh...

Beta servers are down and failing. EA - listen to your customers and give us offline single player!

^This! The game's launch won't go as smoothly as planned... And it will definitely have a falling-out within a month or two after launch if things aren't fixed (like tile size and being able to really make a metropolitan region, as opposed to patches of city with an empty expanse inbetween) I mean, there has to be something we can all do right now... Demand that Maxis change these things or boycott the game, I'm sure plenty of people are already backing out of buying it. I agree. The beta shows promise but the game seems not ready for launch. Most of the things fans have been complaining about (tile size, terraforming, etc.) were said to be due to multiplayer region play. However, those functions were not available in the beta. And I am wondering why. I imaging balancing the multiplayer part is actually quite challenging and I am surprised they didn't test multiplayer trading. The engine offers potential for depth - but the small tiles take all depth away. Even though the new engine is much more capable, game play in the beta seems rather shallow. The terrain in the beta is rather unexciting (all flat). I don't like how zoning works now (no tile sizes shown, players have no control over zoning density). All in all - the game could be great but it needs much more content (buildings, infrastructure, landscape features) and bigger tile sizes for it to be lasting fun. While it is impossible for a developer to please all people, there seems to be a consensus here regarding what is missing and what should be done. Better to get a truly great game 6 months later than a half-ready and unexciting game on time.

Well spoken, jcarlilesiu! Maxis, please listen to your fans and give us large and adjacent city tiles. (and offline singleplayer with terraforming and free modding).

Remember the guys who re-created huge metropolitan areas in Sim City 4 and posted them on Simtropolis? I myself spent months re-creating the Bay Area on huge maps that I modeled based on Simtropolis maps, screenshots, mods and building downloads. It is such a shame that this will no longer be possible as maps have become really small and cities are no longer adjacent. I also think it is rather silly that the new maps are interconnected by just a very limited number of transportation links rather than merging into each other as it used to be. From the screenshots - Sim City 2013 looks great but also somewhat like Sim FarmVille. Maxis, please bring back large and fully-interconnected maps. Some of us players do have very powerful computers at home. Heck, I bought a new computer to play Sim City 4 and it was so worth it!

Dear Maxis, PLEASE bring back terraforming!!! Designing landscapes and freely creating maps was one of the best features in the old games and I used to spend hours modeling maps. So please bring back offline single player, terraforming and large, fully-connected cities. Please!