• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SimCity |OT| It's not the simulation or city that matter, it's <parameter: string>

C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Rentahamster said:
I dunno, the only mobile SimCity game I recall is that port of SimCity 3000. SimCity Deluxe, or something.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's bugs in that one that have gone long unfixed that make the game somewhat unplayable in the larger cities. Plus it's extremely ugly from a UI view.

Phooey.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I was browsing the EA SimCity forums and noticed this gem:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/60/9780005.page#30726704


MaxisKip said:
It sounds like these are the big issues you see:
* You want to be able to create a region that have R, C, I, or specializations in distinct cities easily and don't feel it works that way now.
* It doesn't feel like the numbers you see in the UI match up and feel unpredictable with fluctuations
* Trains don't feel like they are as effective as they should be to move people between cities
* Regional traffic is a bottleneck

We have made improvements since launch, so you should see a difference from what you experienced near launch.

Let me take you under the hood of Glassbox for a minute and explain how the city to city connections work and maybe it will give some context for how your commuters are behaving.

Each city splits their available resources by 4. For example, if you have 1000 available jobs in City A. City B will see it as 250 available jobs. City B would then need 1000 Unemployed workers to fill those 250 jobs.

You could build an all residential city, but it will need the support of multiple cities to provide it jobs.

This splitting behavior applies to all shared resources.

Hopefully that gives some clues on how things work.

Thanks,

-Kip
Click to expand...

Da fuck? Why the hell do they do it that way? Why is utility sharing also similarly divided by four for no reason?
 
K

Kabouter

Member
I suspected as much while playing it way back when it came out, city interaction never worked like it should, and I suppose this is one of the main reasons for it. IT should note be split equally, if there are 1000 jobs, 1000 workers should head over. If multiple cities are competing for those jobs, they should be apportioned those jobs by ratio of the unemployed workers on offer. Now, of course, I understand why they chose to do it this way, they did it because there's much less interaction between cities making it easier for them. There's no real excuse for that however when your entire selling point for the always online garbage is the interconnectedness of it all.

This game is frustrating even when you're not actually playing it. Good lord. How can a designer be this incompetent?
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Kabouter said:
This game is frustrating even when you're not actually playing it. Good lord. How can a designer be this incompetent?
Click to expand...

They made a ton of bad design decisions on Simcity, and a lot of them were done to deceive the players into making it look like a lot more was going on than there actually was. A whole lot of illusions and magic tricks in the Glassbox. I have a feeling that they started out with good intentions but quickly realized things weren't working like they wanted them to, and rather than try to actually fix the issues they covered them up and played tricks with numbers. What they ended up with was a broken system. I honestly think they massaged and tweaked so many of the simulation parameters in the game that they lose track of what is what and numbers get corrupted, and that's why you end up with hundreds of buses in conga lines and dozens of garbage trucks circling one city block where only six should be. It's why the RCI numbers lie and cities self destruct when they get to a certain pop size.


What irks me the most is how instead of fixing these issues they are focusing on DLC and expansions. That may be profitable from a business sense, but as a gamer I just can't support that kind of disrespect towards the consumer. I'll just stick with Simcity 4 until something better comes along.
 
R

Rootbeer

Banned
Everytime I think about buying this game I come to this thread to read the latest commentary and I get turned off again... I really wish it had turned out good :( Sigh.

Right now there's a pretty decent sale on it too. I kind am tempted to just see for myself but I'm not sure I want to dump $60 into the game + expansion (which I'm assuming adds some nice features and possibly improvements)

I really miss the days when simulation PC games were all the rage and titles such as this were actually good.
 
B

BolognaSoup

Member
I've said it in other threads but it's my most disappointing game ever. I have harder nostalgia for this franchise than any other and this game was a kick in the balls. It's so bad it actually manages to be an insult to series fans. The sad part is the visual and audio design I thought was great. Everything else was not.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I guess some part of Origin is down? I just got kicked out of a game and can't get back in. Origin server status says that it's still up, though. Hmph.

Thanks, always online!
 
K

Koomaster

Member
I got the Cities of Tomorrow expansion and have been playing it a few weeks. If anyone is still looking for opinions on the expansion, here are mine...

Megatowers are BROKEN. There is no other way to describe the nonsense that takes place there.

Floor 1 Residents: We are upset because we can't find shops.
Floor 2 MALL: We are upset because there are no shoppers.
Floor 3 Tech: We need more workers.
Floor 4 Residents: We are upset because there are no jobs.
Floor 5 School with empty desks.
Floor 6 Residents: We are upset because our kids couldn't go to school.

Seriously?! Figure it out amongst yourselves.

I have also had whole floors of residents (600-1,200 sims) just move out because something bad happened on that floor. Someone got sick, time for the whole floor to be evacuated. A crime happened, everyone leaves and never comes back because crime is too high. :/

The base game is still broken and the expansion adds even more broken behavior on top of that. You have to babysit every little bit of the game, if even one thing starts going wrong and you don't get after it, it will cause a chain reaction that will destroy your city.

Build Megacorp building -> Franchise businesses in city -> Profits

Traffic Jam happens -> Businesses receiving late or no shipments from megacorp -> Businesses go abandoned -> Residents have less jobs and no places to shop and leave your city -> Profits go from +$8k/hr to -$20k/hr -> Your city is dead.

Megatowers alone can destroy your city. I made the mistake of crowning a megatower with a solar power cell and having that power my whole city. Except a crime happened in the building, residents moved out en mass, shops lost money and the whole building was losing around $15k/hr with no way to fix the problem. I had two fully upgraded/staffed police precincts and an upgraded police station with a detective wing. Crime in my city was nothing. But there was one criminal living in the megatower who never left and who my police or detectives wouldn't go after. No one would move into the megatower because 'crime was too high'. Eventually had to destroy the whole megatower and rebuild it from scratch as fast as possible to reestablish power to my city. Then watch as it wrecked itself again not long after.

Megatower residents in general are the worst. Had an issue where all my city needed to be happy was residents to fill jobs. But there was no space to zone residential. So plop a megatower and some apartments. Things are happy for a while, till residents start complaining they want parks/shops INSIDE the megatower despite two parks right beside the tower and shops across the street.

Get real! This game is beyond all hope of fixing if this is the best they got.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Koomaster said:
Get real! This game is beyond all hope of fixing if this is the best they got.
Click to expand...

Nah, if they just put in an offline mode and allowed modders to have at it, I'm confident the modding community could fix all of the game's problems. Just like they did with Simcity 4.

Unfortunately, that doesn't jive with EA's online DLC pushing agenda, so the game will most likely never be fixed.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Mengy said:
Nah, if they just put in an offline mode and allowed modders to have at it, I'm confident the modding community could fix all of the game's problems. Just like they did with Simcity 4.

Unfortunately, that doesn't jive with EA's online DLC pushing agenda, so the game will most likely never be fixed.
Click to expand...
I have no proof and am pulling this completely from my ass, but I feel like the "we need time to implement offline mode because there are so many systems tied to the servers" excuse they keep saying is mostly a pretense for buying time so they can figure out how to implement offline without giving up too much access to the modders. I'd be more than happy for them to prove me wrong about that, however.

edit: egads at those impressions, Koo. I'm still messing around with the vanilla game. I'm trying out the challenge they have on the SimCity forums right now (get the highest pop in a city possible)
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
On a whim, I decided to try out the challenge on the EA SimCity forums (get the highest pop on Tamarin Island).

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9846105.page

I was able to shove over a million poors in that space. Not bad I guess. The top guy on the forum hit 1.4 mil, though. Impressive. I probably could have hit that too, with a different layout and more time.




edit: squeezed out another 100 thousandish

 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Rentahamster said:
On a whim, I decided to try out the challenge on the EA SimCity forums (get the highest pop on Tamarin Island).

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9846105.page

I was able to shove over a million poors in that space. Not bad I guess. The top guy on the forum hit 1.4 mil, though. Impressive. I probably could have hit that too, with a different layout and more time.




edit: squeezed out another 100 thousandish

Click to expand...

That's the kind of shit I love doing in Simcity 4.

This thread could use some positivity for a change, you should post more pics of your city. Overhead shots, detailed up close shots, street shots, etc.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Official SimCity modding policy released. Did it really have to take this long to come out?

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/modding-and-simcity

Maxis and Electronic Arts (“EA”) have a long tradition of supporting the creativity of our community. We’re so excited to see the new ground many of you are breaking with SimCity Modding that we wanted to do something that would make it easier for you to continue to create amazing stuff. We’re putting this policy in place to ensure that our guidelines on Modding are clear and that all of our players get to enjoy SimCity their own way while also maintaining the safety and integrity of the SimCity experience. What comes next is up to you, our players. We hope the SimCity Modding community continues to grow and we’re looking forward to seeing what you create.

What can I do?

We encourage you to create, redistribute, and consume Mods for SimCity, as long as you respect all of the rules and guidelines set in this policy (collectively, the “Rules”). By Mods we mean any modifications or alterations to SimCity, including add-ons, new content, modified UI, or updates that use content from SimCity such as code, art, footage or other elements (the “SimCity Content”).

EA grants to each owner of an authorized copy of SimCity, a personal, revocable, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-commercial license to use and display the SimCity Content and to create derivatives based on the SimCity Content solely in connection with the Mod and conditioned on compliance with these Rules. Mods must not include any music files from SimCity. We can revoke this license at any time, for any reason, without liability.

Mods can be freely discussed and promoted on our forums. The Community-Created Content forum is a great place for this: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/4227.page

But please remember that EA will not pre-screen Mods and your use of Mods is at your own risk. To help players understand this risk, Mods should include a disclaimer telling players of that risk in an easily viewable place like at the point of download or within a README file within the Mod. Please use the following text:

“Electronic Arts does not pre-screen, endorse or support SimCity Mods and your use of this product is at your own risk.”

What are the Rules?

We highly value our community, other content creators, and the integrity of our multiplayer experience in SimCity. We want to make sure that SimCity Mods used will reflect those values too and we expect you to follow these rules:

Mods must not jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay or harm the experience of others. Mods that affect the simulation for multiplayer games and multiplayer features, such as leaderboards or trading with other players, are not allowed.
Mods must not infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other intellectual property right of any third party and will not include content that is unlawful, tortious, defamatory, obscene, invasive of the privacy of another person, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, racist or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate. SimCity has an age rating of ESRB Everyone 10+ and PEGI 7, and similar ratings from other ratings boards around the world. EA requires that Mods not include any material that would not be allowed under these ratings.
Mods may not modify any .com, .exe, .dll, .so or other executable files.
The terms and conditions of SimCity EULA and EA’s Terms of Service are specifically incorporated into this policy by this reference. In the event that the terms of this policy are in conflict with the terms of the SimCity EULA or EA’s Terms of Service, the terms of this Policy shall supersede and govern over any such conflicting terms.
To maintain the integrity of SimCity and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, EA reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to revoke permission to use, distribute or make Mods at any time, to disable any Mod within SimCity and to take disciplinary action against players who harm the experience of others.

What if I create a SimCity Mod?

We encourage you to create new content and other Mods for SimCity. If you do, we’d like the opportunity to promote or distribute it too, without further compensation to you. Or in the words of our lawyers:

Distribution of your Mod in any form constitutes a grant by you to EA of an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, sub-licensable right to use, copy, modify and distribute that Mod (and derivatives of that Mod), and use your name if we choose to, for any purpose and through any means, and without obligation to pay you anything, obtain your approval, or give you credit. You also agree to promptly execute assignments confirming this license upon request from EA.

Can I sell my SimCity Mods?

In short, no. We’d like Mods to remain free of charge. Once again, the lawyers say it best (or at least most precisely):

Mods must be non-commercial and distributed free-of-charge at this time. Accordingly, Mods cannot be sold, licensed, rented for a fee, nor can the Mod Game contain features that would support monetary transactions of any type. Mods may not be used to advertise any goods or services
Donations may not be solicited directly through Mods. However, EA recognizes that the time and resources needed to create Mods can sometimes be substantial. Accordingly, Mod developers are allowed to fund their development costs through donations outside of the Mod itself, subject to the following restrictions:
Requests for donations shall be limited to the Mod website or distribution site and not appear within the Mod itself.
Donors shall not be provided with any in-game special advantages, such as private access to a Mods, special levels, graphical markers, special text, abilities, units, etc. All users are to be able to play the same Mods;
Corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, etc., donors cannot be listed in the credits section of a Mod; only individuals may be listed.

If you have any questions about this Mod Policy and how it pertains to a mod you’ve developed, please contact us through the SimCity forums at http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/4227.page.

Go forth and create!
Click to expand...

One of the devs has already released his own mod: adding the tech lines back into the game.

http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29194-purplelineinindustrialtechmap/
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Maxis is looking for more testers for SimCity.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1x5fy9/maxis_is_looking_for_some_new_devtesters_for_sc13/

SimCity DevTest is not the Test Server you find in the server selection screen of your game. Being a member of DevTest grants you access to Pre-Release builds of SimCity where you are able to test the client before it goes live.

What does that mean? As a member of DevTest you are expected to give feedback, report bugs, upload logs requested by Maxis, pay attention to detail etc.

If you are looking to simply play DevTest without participating in this volunteer opportunity, DevTest is not for you and I suspect your time in DevTest would be short lived.

DevTest is also not the place for attitude, insults and the like. It is the place for individuals to help squash bugs, report inconsistency's, and offer feedback.

DevTest builds are in a state of flux most of the time. During the course of DevTest you may experience, crashes, flickers, graphical problems, installation issues, update issues etc.

If these things make you want to snap your keyboard and cause a cat to scamper out of the room, DevTest is not for you.

If you are interested in volunteering for DevTest please leave your Origin name here or if you are not comfortable with this, feel free to send it to me or Andelas and we'll be sure to get it to the appropriate person.

All DevTesters will need to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement prior to any kind of DevTest acceptance. DevTesters should be able to write and read English please.

Thanks for reading. Good luck to those who apply and thanks on behalf of Maxis.
Click to expand...

As someone who think this game is deeply flawed, yet still contributed many hours into seeing how the inner workings of the game operate (see here), I think I'd have something to contribute to them in that regard. However, I'm more interested in design feedback rather than mundane bug squashing.
 
S

spirity

Member
I honestly don't know why they aren't trying to sweep the game under the rug and putting efforts into creating a sequel to SC4 that they could be proud of. While I admire their determination trying to fix the game, there comes a time where you just need to draw a line under something and move on.

I'm speaking selfishly of course. I know there are plenty of people who still play SC5 and enjoy it thoroughly, and more power to you if you do. But it's time EA Maxis just stuck a fork in it and moved on.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Norante said:
hhhehehehe

Came here expecting some positive news but I see nothing has fundamentally changed with the game.

Back to SC4. :(
Click to expand...

Nothing will change until offline mode gets added by Maxis. And even then, we don't know yet how much modders will be able to fix. It sure won't happen quickly, I expect it will be at least a year or two until we see any real progress, if it's possible at all.

Sadly, Simcity 2013 might never get fixed up properly, Maxis simply has it in too pitiful a state and it might be out of the reach of the modding community to bring it back. And judging by the DLC and expansion content, Maxis has no intention of fixing it themselves.

Damn waste of a great franchise.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Some Update 10 news:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10014507.page
As mentioned in other posts, Update 10 is currently with DevTest players right now going through final stages of checks.
There is a pretty comprehensive FAQ to accompany the Update but that will become available when the Update does. We haven't released an Update release time due to the DevTest work generating feedback we are addressing. We should have more information to share regarding the Update including release information in the near future.
Click to expand...

That is a Release Notes kind of post not an FAQ. Oddly enough there are performance improvements in Update 10 though.
verement - All I can say is that we are close to having the information you are waiting for, measurable in weeks (and no not 52 weeks )
Click to expand...

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/com...comments_on_simcity_update_10_made_on/cg09k2z

Its a noticeable amount of performance gain, especially if you're playing on a middle-end computer on medium settings... but all settings may feel like they've got a performance increase.
Click to expand...

In other news, they are looking for a new SimCity community manager:

http://careersearch.ea.com/california/marketing/jobid5026946-community-manager-(contractor)-jobs
 
K

Kabouter

Member
Mainly hoping they've fixed the bug where student agents disappear, profoundly annoying since it is the most potent city-destroying bug there is.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
S

SpyGuy239

Member
HELL YEAH.

I'm so happy and excited. Gonna get this working right now.

I know we haven't got bigger cities yet or will...ever (mods maybe) but with my own region to do what I want with, I'll settle for that, with none off the online lag!!

Bough Cities of Tomorrow yesterday for this (at 5 pounds no less)

Looking forward to having some fun with simcity again since I binned it 1 month after launch!

=D
=D
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
I just got an email from EA.com:

EA said:
You asked, we listened: You can now play SimCity offline with the latest game update*.

- No Internet connection needed! Play the game offline in a new Single-Player Mode and save it locally to your computer.
- Single-Player Mode enables you to experiment with your cities and regions. Regret that Sci-Fi Casino or Statue of Liberty landmark? Reload your game and start over!
- Single-Player Mode also gives you the opportunity to make gameplay modifications. Learn more about Modding in SimCity.

Check out the SimCity Blog to learn more about Single-Player Mode, plus read about the engineering work that enables Offline play.
Click to expand...


Anyone still here who owns / plays Simcity 2013 want to chime in and tell us if it works nicely? I really hope the modders can now take over development of the game and get us some progress.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Since there are no gameplay changes, I didn't bother to play it yet.

The only thing I'd be slightly interested in testing would be the performance improvements, vis a vis how much larger my population can get before the game starts bogging down.
 
R

Rubixcuba

Banned
So I've noticed some mods are slowly coming out, has anyone tried them? I haven't played the game since around launch but of the mods are halfway decent I might give it another try.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
lethial said:
And that's the end of that chapter. Thanks.
Click to expand...

It's a shame too, because some parts of the game are really done well. Like the UI, the music, even the graphics, all are very nice. It's just the bugs, lackluster simulation, poor gameplay, and yeah tiny city size that truly drag Simcity 2013 down to "it's only worth $5" levels of being. I still hold hope that someday the modding community can turn this into a great game. However, until that day arrives, yeah I agree, it's worth $5 but not much more. You'd be better off buying the ten plus year old Simcity 4 instead.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I finally got around to trying out the one way streets mod. It got me to reinstall the game! :p

After an hour of tinkering....dang this is some neat stuff. All my kudos to the creator, and smh at Maxis.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Former Stardew Valley developer announces city life simulation game Sunkissed City for consoles, PC
News
1
600
Arsic replied
  • Locked
Frostpunk 2 | Official Gameplay Trailer
Trailer
0
476
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
Cities: Skylines II | Review Thread
Analysis Review 2
66
5K
calistan replied
Dragonkin - The Banished - Announcement Trailer | Action RPG coming to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC in 2025
Trailer
0
458
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
Robocop: Rogue City | Review Thread
Analysis Review 3 4 5 6 7
320
21K
VinnyMac replied
Top Bottom