soldyne

I voted for PS3 which, at the time, put PS3 and Xbox360 in a tie! PS3 is more stable on all the games I play vs a 360 (Oblivion, Fallout3, bladestorm, a few others). I use it for DVD and BlueRay movies. also, when my DVD player can't read a DVD because of scratches or whatever, the PS3 can! I also found out recently that PS3 has built in wireless internet receiver. nope, I did not know that until about a month ago. Funny story with that; I recently installed a wireless network in my house and then went to play PS3 and it said there was an update available. I then said outloud, "How the Hell do you know that? You are not even plugged in!" thats when I realized it had a wireless receiver Also, my PS3 will play all of my PS and PS2 games with no problem. I was able to replay all past Final Fantasy games in order all on the PS3 (except FF3 which I needed an emulator on the PC for). I also like all the demos and downloadable games from the playstation store. I have a ton of demos. I also like games like Trash Panic, Pain, Savage Moon, The Last Guy. I was using the folding@home feature but, I just don't keep my PS3 on all night anymore (electric bill is getting a little high so I have to start cutting corners...) PS3 all the way. PC is actually my favorite platform, but it was not on the list, so...

Where did you get those figures? did you crack into the code? also, can you translate those tables for the rest of us?

I actually made a thread like this a while ago, but, it got lost. I will repost my ideas here: Hospital GEM - This would allow you to build a privately owned health care complex which could be anything from a small clinic to a large university cancer research facility. it can take the burden off of your city funded health care system and perhaps even provide health boosts to the city depending on what kind of medical research you do (cancer, aging, mental health, child care, cardiac, etc). this GEM could also create new events for the city that are based on Health issues. instead of just having a percentage/number for the overall health of your city, it could give details about the cities health and provide different kinds of research paths to ensure your citizens are properly cared for. it might even provide a new kind of tradeable health care token which allows citizens from other cities with health care problems to use your health complex which then increases the overall health of the other city. Justice GEM - this would allow you to build and micro manage a complex justice system, including a police HQ with SWAT research, forensics labs, court system for criminal and civil cases and even a prison system with various levels of security. this GEM would benefit the city by providing extra protection, increasing safety and attracting higher quality residents to the city. This GEM could created new events for the city based on different kinds of crime including a more complex criminal system. are drugs becomming a problem in downtown? fund a vice unit! Trade your security tokens and house other cities criminals in your prisons. Fire and Rescue (FAR) GEM - This would be like the justice GEM only for fire stations; Fire HQ, special rescue teams. this could create new disasters in the city beyond a standard building fire. there could be different types of fires (electrical, arson, chemical, wood, wildfire). there could also be floods, mudslides, earthquakes, building collapse, sinkholes, and each type of disaster would require special training for your fire and rescue staff. a well played FAR GEM would increase overall safety in your city and attract more citizens as well as making the standard fire stations in the city more efficient (putting out fires faster, etc). Trade safety tokens and reduce other cities likely hood of disaster (simulates sending your rescue crews to other cities to help out in times of need). I got a ton more ideas, but, I will stop here for now.

I would like to see a road planning tool. basically it would be another option to go along with all the current road types (and other future transit types like rail, subway, etc). it would cost nothing to use. when you use it, it would lay down a "ghost" road (transparent) and would not be usable by the simulation. this would allow you to plan out a large city with a complex road system (beyond just the standard grid) without paying for huge construction or upkeep costs. after the ghost road is laid down you could click on it and a pop up would ask if you want to build this section of road.

I would love to know how the mathematics work on the token calculations. it is going to be difficult to write any kind of a FAQ or Strategy Guide on tokens with the game always using vague terms like few and many. if that guy (or gal) had 350 tokens in contract suddenly end then they might also have a problem getting their cash flow back in the black!

8800GTX is actually comparable to the GTS 250. it has 128 stream processors, 768 MB ram, direct X 10, open GL 2.0. it may be old, but, it can still hold its own against current models which cost around $120 -150. If I were going to upgrade I would get a GTX 275, but, the increases are not enough to warrent the $250 price tag. perhaps when the 300 series is released and the 200 series goes down a bit I will think about upgrading. also, I have decided to stick with 2 HDD and save about $60 on the new build. if I start to run out of space I will get a new HDD then.

that second pic is very telling. you can see that the avenue in the center was made after the main grid was formed since it is not parallel to the overall grid. I bet it took a lot money and time to demolish all the buildings that were in the way to make room for it.

Originally posted by: manuelandrei Originally posted by: 8elhaj Originally posted by: soldyne I am building a new PC complete with a 3.2Ghz quad core, Windows 7 and a ton of RAM. of course I have to wait for windows 7 release date in late Oct, but, that gives me some time to save up for the PC components. i have already converted one of my older 80GB HDD to a data only drive. I plan on having 3 HDDs in the new comp, one for the OS, one for games and one for data (pics, docs, etc). now all I have to do is wait.............quote> I will build a new desktop too, but i am interested in what you said, why would you have 3 HDDs, 1 for os, 1 for games and 1 for data?? is it gonna be faster? do you think doing that is faster than a single 500GB 10000rmp HDD? Please explain? quote> 3 HDDs is a waste. 1 Intel X25-M G2 does the trick. Read/Write performance of mechanical disks sucks. You can improve on that performance by letting the OS work on one disk (swapping for example) and games using another disk. I don't think you will see any large performance gain in CitiesXL even if you use an SSD disk. You need a fast CPU the higher the frequency the better. When playing at 1920x1200 with 8x FSAA you also need quite some GPU power as well. In my case I might need to add another Radeon HD 4850 to my setup. quote> because I already have 3 HDD from previous builds and I don't want them to go to waste just sitting there collecting dust. also, its more about data protection then speed. having games and saves on one drive and data on another, if I get a virus or something happens to the OS drive then I can do a low level format/reinstall of that drive and don't have to worry about the information on the other two (I still use optical back ups of course from time to time) (assuming the virus did not jump to the other drives...). I might have to reinstall the base games but the save data and mods will be safe. it is sort of like using partitions on a single drive. I can't do raid since they are all different sizes (80, 250, 500). also, I will be using the fastest drive with the biggest cache for the OS/drivers and other small utility progams which should allow the system to boot faster. 3 HDD will not make CitiesXL run faster, thats what the 3.2 Ghz quad core processor, 8GB DDR3 ram and 8800GTX GPU is for! what it boils down to is that you don't have to seperate your OS, Games and Data if you don't want to. I happen to have 3 HDDs and want to make use of them, some people on another tech forum suggested seperating the information out like this and so I will give it go and see how it works out. also, I am a very neat and orderly person so I like having things organized like this. just personal preference really.

I'll give anyone a second chance to make the city builder I dream of. I would even give EA and Tilted Mill a second chance even after the SCS scandal. hopefully they would learn from their mistakes...

I am building a new PC complete with a 3.2Ghz quad core, Windows 7 and a ton of RAM. of course I have to wait for windows 7 release date in late Oct, but, that gives me some time to save up for the PC components. i have already converted one of my older 80GB HDD to a data only drive. I plan on having 3 HDDs in the new comp, one for the OS, one for games and one for data (pics, docs, etc). now all I have to do is wait.............

Originally posted by: USA_Pride Originally posted by: soldyneas far as cost comparison goes, I would say they are equal. you get what you pay for.quote> Wow, I couldn't disagree more! LOL. So let's do the best case scenario for MC, you do the cheap option of $6.30 USD a month, that's still $75 USD a year, plus the cost of the initial game purchase, plus the additional cost of GEMs. $75 + 40 = $115 USD for one year of game play (once again, GEMs not included in this price) So I can either play CXL for one year, or buy potentially 2 or perhaps three other games. However, if I was to buy those other games, I would have them to play with forever, but if I spend $115 USD on CXL I can't play it forever, I can only play the game with all the fancy updates if I subscribe. That's not a good value, in my humble opinion. Perhaps we just think differently though.quote> I can see your side of things, however, your value calculation does not seem to take into account the added content you will be getting every month for your extra 75$. before i continue I want to say that we don't yet know the quality of the added content but it should enhance the game to some degree. with that said the added content is simiar to stuff packs from the Sims. so is $75 worth 12 stuff packs (1 year of subscription)? seeing as how a stuff pack is worth about 10-20 bucks I say $75 is a steal assuming of course that CXL stuff packs are decent.

at the present time I don't think a postponement is possible, it is too close to the official release date and I am sure there are contracts they have to fulfill with all of their distributors. should they have pushed the date back a few months ago, possibly. the problem with telling the public about your game so early on as MC did is that the community builds up this bubble of anticipation and, IMHO, gamers are not a patient crowd. in the vernacular of a StarCraft game player waiting for a map to load, "gogogogogogogo!!!11!" also, MC is not what you would call 'A list' as far as developers go, so, they need to get their game out there on the market in order to start making back some of their investment. Blizzard can delay all it likes, it has a very loyal fan base that is willing to give them some space with lots of well known products and lots of income from WoW and D2 sales (another classic game BTW). MC might not be able to afford any more delays and so going to market with a few bugs is a calculated risk they are obviously willing to take.

comparing the costs is a difficult venture. with SC4 there was no/very little official support for new game content other than RH. with CXL, MC intends to offer new content in the form of new buildings, architecture styles, maps and more every month as part of the PO. so with SC4 you paid nothing and got nothing from the official developers. with CXL you pay a monthly fee and get monthly add ons from the official developers. if you don't pay the monthly fee you don't get the monthly add ons and it becomes the same as SC4. RH can be seen as a transportation GEM for comparison purposes, we already know MC plans to release lots and lots of GEMs in the future. as far as cost comparison goes, I would say they are equal. you get what you pay for. one thing that is left up in the air at the moment is the capacity for custom content. I don't remember how easy or prevalent CC was for SC4 vanilla (I don't think I was around here that far back). but I think it safe to say that CC was rare for SC4 at release and soon after so it is still on par with CXL at release. the key words here are "at release".

ha, RegisteringSucks has a point there. I never even stopped to think about the "simulation" aspect of CXL and he's right, the simulation is kind of lacking. when I started SC4 many years back I was all about the mechanics. I even wrote a few guides here on simtrop (see the omnibus!) about how to master and understand the game mechanics. but after that, I started to see SC4 as more of a canvas for painting and that how my CJ was born (Newtopia Valley, Simtrop CJ forums) and the mechanics sort of fell to the back burner of my mind. when SCS came out I did not give a "rodent's behind" about the simulation or mechanics. I just built a city which looked good to me and that was all I needed to feel satisfied. I feel CXL can deliver on the "good looking city" concept and that is what interests me most. however, I would like it more if the simulation aspect was more involving.

I am no therapist, but, I think I understand why people are so angry. on the surface people complain about this feature or that feature but really deep down people want SC4 with a few upgrades that mods can't offer like curved roads, no grid and full 3D rendering. every time a new company steps up to the plate they say they are going to make a new city builder and (eventhough they don't say it) they have no intentions of making SC4 with upgrades. People, however, get the idea in their heads that it will be everything SC4 is with curved roads, no grid and full 3D rendering. then they find out that it is not going to be like that then their dreams of an improved SC4 are crushed and feel like they need to lash out. The community just want's to know "why can't we have an improved SC4?" and no one will answer them. its frustrating and that leads to anger which leads to hatred which leads to the dark side and bunch a of dead children in a Jedi Training Facility. people will always complain because they want this classic game revamped with improvements and when the new games don't measure up they bash it as a way of lashing out. yes it sounds petty and perhaps it is. the point is not that people think MC or Cities XL is a bad game its that they are not getting SC4 with improvements which is what they want. SCS is actually a very nice game with lots of potential. but, because it was branded as a Sim City game it was witch hunted to death because it was not SC5, not because it was a bad game (well it had issues at first which were dealt with after a few free patches). another way to look at it is that a kid asks for a Red Rider BB gun for xmas but gets a Wed Wider BBQ gun for xmas instead. it looks sort of the same and shoots BBs. It even has a neat little scope for long range aiming and you buy extra parts later on to add to it but, you can't make your parts for it and it might not have that nifty little extra ammo pouch you saw on TV. The WWBBQ is still a good BB gun but its not what they wanted. Few people on this forum will admit that as being the reason and they will claim till they are blue in the face that they don't like the game because of this feature or that feature, but, I am confident that people are angry because they are not getting SC5 and not because Cities XL is a 'bad' game.

well, I for one like the idea of billboard and in game sign advertising as it brings a level of realism to the simulation. just look at the STEX and see how many people use real world buildings and brand names in their creations. there are even entire BATs and LOT packs that are just for billboards and advertising signs. this seems like a good decision and as long as it does not get too out of hand then I support it. EDIT - while playing the demo I saw a Novotel hotel sign with a nice moose in a nice lobby. I never heard of them before so at first I thought it was refering to one of the in game business hotels I plopped earlier. I thought it was quite intertesting and entertaining.

I had lots of contracts with three different cities I created (at different times of course) trading over 40 different contracts total (throughout the demo) and I was not able to cancel any contract I had ever. I kept clicking on that red X and nothing ever happened. I tried it in game city mode, in game planet mode and out of game on the website and I could not cancel a contract. I had to wait until the other city was deleted, they could not keep their end of the bargain or the 5 day limit expired. also, I read that in the live version there will be a way to trade directly with a person and you can negotiate a time limit. what is the point in having a time limit if you can cancel whenever you want without consequence? if you want to trade then you better be willing to keep it for the duration and plan your city accordingly in order to keep it going. also, I thought I read the PO as though you would have 5 cities on 5 different planets. this would make it so that you could not trade with yourself even if you wanted to since there is no interplanetary trading. I don't mind omnicorp as they set a min and max value for tokens and are always available if you really need a trade. I know that when I needed to sell my office space but had not unlocked manufacturing yet I had to sell it to omnicorp just so I could build more office space and thus increase my population. but I would like to see those values change from time to time. it would be interesting if omnicorp values would fluctuate depending on various trading patterns. yeah, I know, that would require a bit of balance and programming on MCs part, but, it would be a nice feature for a future release. EDIT - If MC is reading this ... I just want to say that there are people out there who get off and have fun bringing grief to other players. they are known as Greifers and Player Killers. their soul purpose in life is to gain personal pleasure from causing others misery. with that said an "angry email" is only going to fuel their desire to continue to bring grief and will in no way curtail it. my suggestion is to put some kind of penalty on breaking contracts early. such as 10,000c per day that the contract has left on it. thus if you have a new contract with 5 days remaining then you must lose 50,000c from your city as a one time fee which transfers to the other city as a one time payment. this will limit the amount of grief that players can bring and will also allow the victim to gain some restitution. also, trade contracts in the real world always have somekind of monetary early release clause. this of course would not affect contracts that are "in trouble" due to lack of tokens because of a disaster in the city.

I think what MC needs to do is to clarify how PO downloads will affect the SP experience. for example, if I get a free update or GEM because I have PO will I be able to use that content in my SP game? also, will content that was made available for PO in one month be available for download next month or do I have to have a PO subscription at the time it is made available or lose it forever? there is just so much about the game that we don't understand yet, I think it would be prudent to simply wait for release and let the reviewers let us know how things work before we make any final decisions about whether we want to buy or not.

just to play the Devil's Advocate here, it may be true that GEMs can only be purchased via points which are only accessible if you have an online account, however, we don't fully understand, yet, how online updates and features like GEMS will affect the solo mode. in other words, one might purchase a GEM with their online account, but, may be able to access the GEM via their single player cities after it is installed. so yes, one would have to sign up for at least 1 month of PO to get a GEM, but, then they may be able to use it in SP once it is activated. also, IIRC one of the benefits mentioned for PO is that you can get a 35% discount on GEMS. what is the point of providing a discount for PO people if only PO people can access them? I think, that GEMs will indeed be download only and purchased by points, but, anyone with a valid copy of the game will be able to log in to the official site and purchase points and download content whether they have an active PO account or not.

will I be able to keep my log in name and account from the demo for the final released version or will the demo account name be forever taken and unusable after my 7 days are up?

this is true for me now as well, so that gives hope that we can continue to use our demo login for the main release. I would hate to lose the ability to be "Soldyne"!

I still have hope for Cities XL. I cannot go back to the grid and 2.5D view of SC4 so CXL is my only hope (either that or SCS). if they get decent support in the first few months they will put out a few patches, upgrades, and new add-ons (buildings maps, etc) and the game will get much better. all new MMOs feel unfinished at first and that is because they know they will continue to support the game after market. also, we have not even had a chance to try the GEMs which may add quite a bit to the game play. for those that don't want to spend the money now, thats fine. give it a year and see what happens with it. don't close your eyes to it entirely though, you may miss a lot.

morriswalters, now that is a good idea. I like your use of small roads as driveways. this is a new game and there a lot of tools and possibilities that we all need to get used to. once we start experimenting then things will start to take shape.

***EDIT**** I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. I am in the game now. still not happy with initial error though. ***EDIT**** I downloaded the 1GB demo, I registered with the main site and got the verification email almost instantly. I ran the game on my desktop and logged in. I downloaded a patch. I logged in a second time and hit the play button. I get a pretty splash screen and then I get the following message: This is not looking too good for the game when it won't even run. this is burning into my 7 days here. any help would be appreciated. could it be because of the patch?

try putting a border of trees between your farms, I see this a lot in Ohio where I live. trees give a natural look and a free fence between property lines. it also helps to smooth the blockiness of the farm lots in the game. also, try to put the farms around the town center. rural towns are all about a sense of togetherness and community, but, there are always a few farm houses out in the wilderness too. also, while building my CJ I found that smaller farm sizes look much better than large plots. see for yourself. here a few examples from Newtopia Valley: