I hate to say it but I think this game is a true bred failure. For all the hype and talk about it's amazing features (and quite a bit of this game is pretty cool) it seems it's just a broken mess. Probably shouldn't have been released in this state.
They could simply go back and turn off the glassbox engine for sims , re-code something similar to how simcity 4 worked and then also give us some of the tools simcity 4 rush hour had- such as the ability to designate roads as 1 way only.
I imagine much of these problems showed up in testing, there's no way they couldn't have but with 3 years and millions of dollars invested in the game it was either release an unfinished mess (which they went with) or delay/possibly cancel until they can get it working right.
The only audience out there that finds the entire affair wholly appealing are the first time players. People who haven't played a single simcity game before they won't care as much about whats going on under the hood like longtime fans might, they wont' care about the small size either because they'll just fill it all up and move on to something else.
Unfortunately you've got people like me that have been playing this series since the spectacular SNES port of the original, the DOS release of 2000, eventually 3000 and most recently simcity 4. 20 or so years of brand recognition and faithfulness tossed aside to hook a new audience. It'd be one thing to try something like this and consider it a different brand- perhaps calling this game Simcity Online but EA marketing likely determined no one would be as interested in the game if it were called that.
Ultimately my only faint home here is that Maxis first fixes the server issues and then goes about fixing the glassbox engine so that maybe 6 months down the road (when they likely had planned to release the first of at least a half dozen expansion packs) the game will actually work like it's supposed to. The problem is that by then, I don't think anyone will give 2 shits about playing this game. It's release was sandwiched between a number of high profile franchises like tomb raider, metal gear and starcraft as well as bioshock infinite. I've already moved on to starcraft myself.
They could simply go back and turn off the glassbox engine for sims , re-code something similar to how simcity 4 worked and then also give us some of the tools simcity 4 rush hour had- such as the ability to designate roads as 1 way only.
I imagine much of these problems showed up in testing, there's no way they couldn't have but with 3 years and millions of dollars invested in the game it was either release an unfinished mess (which they went with) or delay/possibly cancel until they can get it working right.
The only audience out there that finds the entire affair wholly appealing are the first time players. People who haven't played a single simcity game before they won't care as much about whats going on under the hood like longtime fans might, they wont' care about the small size either because they'll just fill it all up and move on to something else.
Unfortunately you've got people like me that have been playing this series since the spectacular SNES port of the original, the DOS release of 2000, eventually 3000 and most recently simcity 4. 20 or so years of brand recognition and faithfulness tossed aside to hook a new audience. It'd be one thing to try something like this and consider it a different brand- perhaps calling this game Simcity Online but EA marketing likely determined no one would be as interested in the game if it were called that.
Ultimately my only faint home here is that Maxis first fixes the server issues and then goes about fixing the glassbox engine so that maybe 6 months down the road (when they likely had planned to release the first of at least a half dozen expansion packs) the game will actually work like it's supposed to. The problem is that by then, I don't think anyone will give 2 shits about playing this game. It's release was sandwiched between a number of high profile franchises like tomb raider, metal gear and starcraft as well as bioshock infinite. I've already moved on to starcraft myself.
