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SimCity Traffic and AI is broken, Sims are fake
- Thread starter jambo
- Start date
Not only is he an awesome person, I believe he isn't even a game developer. He does some story stuff and voice acting but that's it. You'd have to be a vile person to hate him =/.
dragonelite
Member
Not sure, not that big of a fan of kick starters i will probably buy it when it is done. This project seems kinda to big and can fail or needs a second round of kick starter to finish.
I would love if the zoning worked like this in Sim city the zone you have now is your starter zone. But you can later buy pieces of land surrounding your city for a hefty price. Believe it or not a i saw this in a city management game on Facebook or an other social site.
Just surround the initial zone with with 8 more equal zones so you have a 3x3 zone area to work with that should allow for 1.8+ million citizens. Gives me more breathing room to plan it out. And relocate the different service buildings and Electricity,Water and Sewage.
Yeah, reading up on some other comments, it seems like the Kickstarter was just thrown out into the wild without any serious planning. However, there are still other alternatives. I mean, heck, half of the people buying SimCity 5 could have probably just bought SimCity 4 instead if they havent played it yet for a better gaming experience.
exmachina64
Banned
And there's the problem. Was the game essentially pay to win? That might line up nicely with EA's monetization schemes, but would really detract from the overall gameplay experience.
Synth_floyd
Banned
If they fixed the horrible AI and the server issues would the game be good?
The complex simulation of individual Sims going about their business was EA's justification for the small city sizes. So there's that. It was also a pretty big selling point for the game, so I think it's worth pointing out if it is, indeed, untrue.
Here's another video illustrating the fudged simulation at work.
I've backed way too many Kickstarter projects at this point but this one doesn't inspire much confidence. It was obviously started in response to this EA/Maxis disaster but they don't have much of anything to show. Very opportunistic, possibly a scam. They should have waited at any rate.
we.are.the.armada
Member
From the outside in, this seems underhanded and not accurately a city simulation.
I've worked in enough public sector affairs and seen enough metric initiatives that it concerns me that this is sold as simulation software.
I've worked in enough public sector affairs and seen enough metric initiatives that it concerns me that this is sold as simulation software.
Simcity 2013: A life underwater.
lol
Ok, this is awesome.
Not sure the AI is fixable since its the foundation of their whole game. Its pretty much broken beyond repair.
Yeah, I went back to edit that post. Certainly looks like it now after I read more posts in that thread.
Point still stands though, people shouldnt senselessly throw their 60$ at EA for such a product on day one. I bet half of the people buying SimCity 5 havent played SimCity 4, which would have been the better game AND cheaper. There are alternatives out there, the desire to look for them just isnt big enough I guess.
dragonelite
Member
I mean its a social game so yeah there are options to use real money.
But it was more like plop down houses so you can lease them. With the leasing you had some options like lease for 5,10,30 min with less money coming in or lease them out for 1,2,4,8,16,24 hours for the bigger payments. But twenty 5min leases netted more more money then a 1 hour one.
You had a starting zone after a while you could expand using ingame money or real money. You could buy the more expensive building with massive amount of ingame money or real money. But the expensive buildings were a combination of real money and ingame money.
Social games are like that but they are also free to start with. And don't cost upwards to $70.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
To your bolded point, I'm pretty sure SimCity 4 is still the better, cheaper game. Especially when you consider all of the mods available...It is sad to think that a load of people bought SimCity 5 as their first SimCity (either ever or since an earlier edition). I really wish people would see how terrible this has been and stop supporting EA and this game.
Why wouldn't it be? They need to add new rules is all, it's not broken top to bottom.
The basic foundation the simulation is running on is essentially broken, which basically means they would need to develop a new game. Alright, "beyond repair" was exaggerated, but getting those mistakes right AND to fix all the other bugs that pop up everywhere seems like it would take them 6-12 months to fix. This game is not ready to be released and needed a year more to be what it actually wanted to be.
Besides, the AI thing doesnt seem to be a mistake. Its a clearly intended decision since it must have been blatantly obvious to the developers coding it. That makes me think there is a reason the "simulation" works as it does. Maybe because its the best they could get working?
Throwaway123456789
Member
This is absolutely stunning.
Glassbox isn't really a simulator at all then? Every single aspect of the game is just variants of a "water tower", pumping people/electricity/sewage/water/etc into the closest possible building?
Traffic will take the absolute shortest route, ignoring jams even though a road is completely clear right next to it - just a few meters longer and therefore unusuable?
Emergency vehicles will follow traffic rules, get stuck in jams, and only pile on the nearest emergency (same water tower principle) even though there are several going on?
This game is SEVERELY broken.
Glassbox isn't really a simulator at all then? Every single aspect of the game is just variants of a "water tower", pumping people/electricity/sewage/water/etc into the closest possible building?
Traffic will take the absolute shortest route, ignoring jams even though a road is completely clear right next to it - just a few meters longer and therefore unusuable?
Emergency vehicles will follow traffic rules, get stuck in jams, and only pile on the nearest emergency (same water tower principle) even though there are several going on?
This game is SEVERELY broken.
dragonelite
Member
It will sometimes even drive around multiple times on the same lane before going to the building that is on that lane to save it.
In a game like SimCity, getting a solid simulation of individual behavior ought to be the foundation of the entire game. That's going to drive how residential areas develop, how traffic works, which commercial and industrial areas are viable, etc. etc. etc.
Just from reading this thread, it seems like they just faked the whole thing. There is no foundation. Glassbox is just a pretty graphics interface. I don't know how you just add new rules to fix that.
Edit: beaten like a dumb old donkey.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
I kind of wish glassbox was still here to comment on this.
I definitely agree with Toma that you should vote with your wallet, but I just can't help but buy pretty much every city builder that comes out. Part of the problem for sure. Just a shame that such a generally high quality franchise can't deliver to this degree. Don't get me wrong, I've had some good times with the game already, but I don't like having to constantly fight broken mechanics at all. Maxis really needs to start patching the shit out of this game, because right now it is not in a playable state. I'm pretty glad people have finally started talking about this too, after all, the server issues are a temporary factor (though still awful, and it's complete anti-consumer bullshit), but the game being fundamentally broken means that unless some huge changes are made this will never be a truly playable game.
In general, I'm definitely more disappointed in the Maxis end of things than in the EA side of things. At least from EA you expect to be treated like shit as a paying customer, and thus know what you're getting into when you buy a game that requires server logins to be played. I knew upfront I'd be having problems with server crap, but I definitely didn't think the simulation would be completely broken (or absent might be a better way to describe it). Can't remember the last game I played that was as broken as this at launch. Maybe some Paradox Development Studio game, but at least with those you know that your issues are being addressed at lightning speed and that the end product after a good deal of patching will be nothing short of amazing.
In general, I'm definitely more disappointed in the Maxis end of things than in the EA side of things. At least from EA you expect to be treated like shit as a paying customer, and thus know what you're getting into when you buy a game that requires server logins to be played. I knew upfront I'd be having problems with server crap, but I definitely didn't think the simulation would be completely broken (or absent might be a better way to describe it). Can't remember the last game I played that was as broken as this at launch. Maybe some Paradox Development Studio game, but at least with those you know that your issues are being addressed at lightning speed and that the end product after a good deal of patching will be nothing short of amazing.
br0ken_shad0w
Member
Not just reviewers, the one hour ̶d̶e̶m̶o̶ beta was fool's gold. Everyone finding out simulation stuff breaks was when people started putting many hours in and really micromanaging.
LOL
Imagine if our culture actually worked that way, any given day of the week you're either in the ghetto, on the farm, or in a penthouse.
So every road type has the same speed limit??
I'd bet money on it that this was EA's fault for trying to push a product out of the door which clearly needed an additional year of development time. And I'd say the decision for always online, Origin Only and Monetization wasnt too un-EA either.
Simcity 2013: A life underwater.
lol
How was this bullshit not picked up in testing?
10 fucking years for this game and we are left with shit like this?
RumblingRosco
Member
I haven't bought a game on day 1 in such a long time, and this is one of the many examples as to why. Still, there seems to be a potentially fun game in here somewhere, so in 3-6 months after some patches and some price drops, it's probably totally worth it.
But, think about the last year and a half of major releases. Diablo III, SimCity, Skyrim, the Walking Dead, and so on. There are just too many potentially high-profile games that have released that are in one form or another busted, jank, or in some way shady. Feels bad, man. And, if consumers keep lapping them up on day one, there's really no incentive for developers or publishers to stop this nonsense.
But, think about the last year and a half of major releases. Diablo III, SimCity, Skyrim, the Walking Dead, and so on. There are just too many potentially high-profile games that have released that are in one form or another busted, jank, or in some way shady. Feels bad, man. And, if consumers keep lapping them up on day one, there's really no incentive for developers or publishers to stop this nonsense.
People should give Indie Games more attention, which they absolutely deserve. Yesterday I played a demo of a game called "Factorio", which blew me away:
Thats a more advanced setup where they gave you lots of stuff from the start. Usually you'd start out with nothing, build an axe, chop wood, make a basic coal mining facility that you need to power yourself with coal and then work your way up. In that level, you basically built a pump to supply water, which then gets heated up and the steam from the water gets transformed into electricity in the generator, which then supply all the other means of production as well. Oh and yeah, all that on huge maps that let you explore, defeat enemies and find secrets.
I posted some more impressions in the Indie thread here, which has a LOT of interesting Indie games that most people dont notice:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=517647&page=8
I'll create a thread for it once the preorders go up this week, but holy crap. Its not about simulating "people" in your empire, but the foundation of a city building game with resources that need to be spread to have everything working is rather similar.
And god damn, what a great concept.
For the record, Maxis stated this is EXACTLY how the simulation works nearly a year ago, just after the game was first announced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxTcm1YFKcU @ 0:40
The game has certainly had it's issues, but people are just looking for things to be outraged by at this point.
The game has certainly had it's issues, but people are just looking for things to be outraged by at this point.
This is really frustrating, unlike others I was very excited about the small city size considering how much more of a quality experience they could focus on all those details. Watching the sims go about their daily routine was supposed to be a way to build some strategy into your social-engineering schemes.
I was really looking forward to the style of game lending itself well to building a little model-railroad dirt-road village but that type of society is difficult to mimic if their daily lives are so chaotic.
Damn you're right i remember that, it never occurred to me that they're just filling in slots every day I was under the impression that they'd find the job agent and stick with that employment for a year or so. Suppose I just assume to much when a team is trying to simulate society.
I was really looking forward to the style of game lending itself well to building a little model-railroad dirt-road village but that type of society is difficult to mimic if their daily lives are so chaotic.
Damn you're right i remember that, it never occurred to me that they're just filling in slots every day I was under the impression that they'd find the job agent and stick with that employment for a year or so. Suppose I just assume to much when a team is trying to simulate society.
Just because people didnt catch them on their bullshit when they announced it, doesnt mean people cant complain about it now. And that just emphasizes that this is as PLANNED, and therefore not likely to get fixed. In that video it sounds somewhat plausible, but as a SIMULATION in the game, its totally unacceptable.
I think the problem with that video is that people didnt realize what it actually meant in ingame.
What they planned also doesn't matter as much as that it has led to a game that does not work on a fundamental level. The one thing it does say however is this was not (or at least not entirely) a consequence of EA rushing Maxis but rather a conscious design decision of their own.
True, which is rather unfortunate. Although, I am still convinced EA cant just wash their hands clean off this, as I am sure that they were the ones setting a deadline. The issue in question might not have been EA's fault, but there are too many bugs and other oversights in the game to just release it in its current state. I cant imagine Maxis NOT realizing that.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Having to make so many concessions just to work around the piss poor AI doesn't sound like a very fun city-planning game. The joy of city planning is being creative and trying your own things.
poppedcollar69
Member
I for one assumed that the people agents looking for work thing happened once, and then that sim was tied to that workplace until they quit/got fired or what ever.
I've been playing Tropico 4 recently and it's almost everything I imagined Glassbox would be. It's more of a small town simulator (default pop limit is 1k or something) but there's so much depth to it that I'm actually enjoying it more than I was with SC4.
Yeah, I don't think it was at all obvious from that video that sims could (and would) go to work someplace different every day, or go home to a new house each night, based on the vagaries of shortest-route pathfinding.
old manatee
Banned
The only thing that sounded appealing about this game to me was when Maxis claimed that everything that was being simulated would show up 1 to 1. When you play Sim City 2000 for instance there is just a random number of dudes wandering and driving around, and there is no correlation to the actual population. If they are just going to wander around in circles and forget where they live it is actually worse than being misrepresented visually, as it actually causes gameplay issues that you have to deal with, like traffic jams. so I guess there is nothing interesting about this game.
Haunted
Member
Exactly what I was thinking. I just assumed they meant this would happen as a one time thing when a factory is first turned on (and something like that would be the kind of smoke and mirrors that don't actually affect a person's enjoyment of the simulation).
That this happens every fucking day is just terrible, both in terms of keeping up the pretense of a working society and the in-game ramifications of completely broken traffic and transit.
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