New Sim City game

[lizard]

Game is immense, but server just booted me out an I can't seem to currently get back on just yet.

 

[dingodan]

Well I've just spent the best part of 6 hours on it almost continuous and not a single issue using Europe West 3.

As for the game, well it's immense. I've got 63,000 sims living in my casino city which was using wind power, but is now using Oil as I was running out of space for all the turbines. Taking into account the server issues I'd probably go for about 7/10. If the servers were fine it would be 9/10.

I did wander why Cheetah Speed wasn't all that quick. If they've disabled it that would be why. There should still be an offline mode though. EA are going to shoot themselves in the foot with their "always online" fantasy.

I feel sorry for the Maxis guys who put a lot of love and work into making a great game, only for EA to screw things up.

 

[Djmiles]

Played it for 2 hours this morning, no problems at all. Incredibly addictive, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Went to play it when I got home, and well, all hell broke loose.

My saved game is in East 4 or something, but oh no that's too busy. So I go to play in West 2 with my brother, but apparently I'm not friends with him. YES I AM, ORIGIN. **** OFF!!! Oh and because I'm new to the server I have to enter the tutorial before I can do anything, but because the servers are ****ed it too 2 minutes just to load it up, just for me to quit back to the main menu.

In it's current state, it doesn't even deserve a 1/10. When the servers are fixed, 9/10.

 

[brighton_girl87]

How on earth are you supposed to join a game with other people? Every single region I click on is full! Surely there should be some sort of filter that only displays regions with empty slots?

 

[dingodan]

I am so disappointed. I thought it was a real simulation. I thought each sim had a specific home, a specific place of work. It's not true. Sims work like water, electricity etc. In the morning they leave "their house" and, rather than go to "their job" they just go to the nearest available workplace, regardless of where they worked yesterday. After work, they will go to the nearest available house, regardless of where they lived yesterday.

First all the DRM bullshit, and now the simulation of the population isn't real, and much of the simulation does not work properly. For example, if you put your casino on the other side of the map from your city entrance, your tourist visitors will get swallowed up by the commercial buildings they get to first. They too just swarm around (in-fact they all take the same path) until they get sucked in by a vacant "slot". The game also creates "phantom" sims which don't exist to beef up the numbers.

Traffic "AI"... This is why services and traffic are broken! - Answer HQ[

I'm out.

 

[pastafarian]

im not doubting you

but is this really how it works?

i was looking forward to this game....but the more i read

 

[dingodan]

im not doubting you

but is this really how it works?

i was looking forward to this game....but the more i read

Game looks nice, and maybe worth playing for that alone. But I have played Tropico 3 & 4 and the full simulation of "sims" I really liked (each person had a job and a house etc). They (EA/Maxis) made out that this was the case for SimCity. It's complete bullshit though.

And even if you don't mind sims not actually being simulated, the way the glassbox engine works at the moment, even the basic simulation of water, electricity (and sims which basically work like that too), and traffic based services like fire and police, they are all unintelligent and cause massive problems when the city gets big.

For example having 6 fire engines is great, but what is the point when all six attend fire number 1, and none will go to fire number 2 until fire number 1 is out? Same for police and criminals apparently. Add to this the fact that the traffic is just swarms of sims looking for their nearest slot and it creates traffic chaos, services cannot reach emergencies etc. I wondered why I had a line of garbage trucks in a parade, and a line of school buses in a parade (whats the point in 5 buses/garbage trucks coming one after the other?), now I know why. The game is not the intelligent simulation they made it out to be.

More: EA Forums - PROOF THAT THE GAME IS MISLEADING REGARDING POPULATION COUNT, AMONG OTHER THINGS...

 

[dingodan]

They are lying about the game being unable to run without the servers too. They claim their servers do some of the processing of your city, and the city could not work without them. Again, bullshit it seems.

Maxis Insider Tells RPS: SimCity Servers Not Necessary | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”

 

[beorhthelm]

They are lying about the game being unable to run without the servers too. They claim their servers do some of the processing of your city, and the city could not work without them. Again, bullshit it seems.

its rather down to semantics, if they are holding your city in the cloud only, there is some processing of your city online.

 

[dingodan]

its rather down to semantics, if they are holding your city in the cloud only, there is some processing of your city online.

They aren't exactly "holding your city in the cloud only", they are just saving it there. There is no processing of the city mechanics done by their servers. That was their claim, and, they said, this was to reduce the processing weight on your PC. They made out that your PC could not manage all of the simulation processes without the server, and they could not possibly make an "offline mode" for this reason.

Lies.

 

[Woodchip]

So who's taken what freebie off EA's hands?

A filthy sweetener, but as a fickle gamer I'll swallow it whole.

 

[willyfantastic]

So who's taken what freebie off EA's hands?

A filthy sweetener, but as a fickle gamer I'll swallow it whole.

what have they offered?

 

[Woodchip]

Battlefield 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Need for Speed Most Wanted,Plants vs. Zombies, and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition.

I went for a bit of Battlefield 3. A game I've been meaning to buy for ages anyway.

EA limits 'SimCity' free game apology offer, but includes major titles | The Verge

 

[willyfantastic]

Battlefield 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Need for Speed Most Wanted,Plants vs. Zombies, and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition.

I went for a bit of Battlefield 3. A game I've been meaning to buy for ages anyway.

EA limits 'SimCity' free game apology offer, but includes major titles | The Verge

Decent

 

[brighton_girl87]

I'm going to go with Battlefield 3. I'm still not happy with the game though!

I wish the region sizes were bigger, it's ridiculous how small they are.

 

[Sussax]

Battlefield 3 is a good game, more tactics and thought has to go into things.

 

[Woodchip]

Had a quick go last night. Quite impressed so far

 

[Rookie]

Get the feeling that despite wanting to buy it I should at least hold off, correct?

 

[Boris Yeltsin]

Don't buy it just yet, there's already been one patch. Wait for the various other problems to be ironed out including the small plot sizes.

 

[Box of Frogs]

Any news on the Mac version yet or are their hands full getting the PC version right?