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SimCity: Maxis releases video of improved traffic system, talks about mod support

J

Jindujun

Neo Member
On that "fixing traffic" video none of the cars use the dirt road when it's basically empty so they're still dumb as bricks.

And while this is a step in the right direction I find it baffling that people celebrate over this. This isnt something we should be cheering when it's patched in, we should still be pissed due to the simple fact that there is no way in hell this should even have made it out the door in the first place...
 
P

Piggus

Member
Awesome. Now get rid of the stupid region boundaries. Wouldn't it be awesome for two or more people to be able to build cooperatively and eventually merge the cities into one?
 
stufte

stufte

Member
Jindujun said:
On that "fixing traffic" video none of the cars use the dirt road when it's basically empty so they're still dumb as bricks.

And while this is a step in the right direction I find it baffling that people celebrate over this. This isnt something we should be cheering when it's patched in, we should still be pissed due to the simple fact that there is no way in hell this should even have made it out the door in the first place...
Click to expand...

I don't have the energy to sustain the amount of anger you seem to want everyone to have at Maxis. I'm disappointed for sure, but come on.

The cars are also probably using the large roads until there is a need to go down the dirt path. I absolutely celebrate this fix, because it makes a game that is fun (but broken) actually work better.
 
F

Foxix Von

Member
Jindujun said:
On that "fixing traffic" video none of the cars use the dirt road when it's basically empty so they're still dumb as bricks.

And while this is a step in the right direction I find it baffling that people celebrate over this. This isnt something we should be cheering when it's patched in, we should still be pissed due to the simple fact that there is no way in hell this should even have made it out the door in the first place...
Click to expand...

I don't own or plan on owning it but it kind of looks like all they did was set traffic to prioritize higher density roads. Which... I dunno seems like it's just going to sacrifice one type of problem for another. It will be interesting to see how the path finding reacts to those high density roads being congested.
 
P

Piggus

Member
Jindujun said:
On that "fixing traffic" video none of the cars use the dirt road when it's basically empty so they're still dumb as bricks.

And while this is a step in the right direction I find it baffling that people celebrate over this. This isnt something we should be cheering when it's patched in, we should still be pissed due to the simple fact that there is no way in hell this should even have made it out the door in the first place...
Click to expand...

Yeah! Screw those devs and their desire to fix problems and improve their game!
 
C

CoffeeJanitor

Member
NZNova said:
Because there was no way to know beforehand that it would be the case? And given that the reviews didn't mention it at all either, there was no way to know after launch either, until very recently? Are you sure calling the customers suckers in this case is the right approach there, chief?
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People are suckers for buying a game at launch. Or believing anything that devs/pubs say.
 
A

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
StreetsAhead said:
Are you serious?

There's a difference between not making the game I (or others) want and making one that is broken by design. Or lying about features.
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Lying about features is completely irrelevant to the point.

Unless I misinterpreted your initial post, the idea of "SimCity with friends" is a totally valid one.
 
S

StreetsAhead

Member
Alo81 said:
Lying about features is completely irrelevant to the point.

Unless I misinterpreted your initial post, the idea of "SimCity with friends" is a totally valid one.
Click to expand...

I was talking about the traffic system. It should never have been designed that way in the first place and celebrating or congratulating them on fixing it is stupid. That was my point.
 
P

plenilune

Member
I hope this isn't their only fix to the path-finding algorithm. I won't be launching SimCity again until they fix 1) nearest-empty-building commuting 2) regional commuting 3) service vehicles

#3 is easy, just allow players to trace a route.

#1 I'm guessing they already had better pathfinding in place where sims actually commute between their fixed home/work locations; but to lower the requirements they used this faster but retarded approach instead.
 
J

Jindujun

Neo Member
stutte said:
I don't have the energy to sustain the amount of anger you seem to want everyone to have at Maxis. I'm disappointed for sure, but come on.

The cars are also probably using the large roads until there is a need to go down the dirt path. I absolutely celebrate this fix, because it makes a game that is fun (but broken) actually work better.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying you should be furious. I'm just saying that this is like fixing a broken bone with bandaids. This is such a key feature in the game there is no way they've missed it in internal testing which means they pushed the feature out the door hoping people wouldnt care.

JackDT said:
https://twitter.com/MaxisGuillaume/status/312357278873444354
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"every once in a while"
If they only use the dirt road every now and then if it's light, doesn't that mean they change their behavior to use a inefficient path even though the shorter is available?

Piggus said:
Yeah! Screw those devs and their desire to fix problems and improve their game!
Click to expand...

Reducto ad absurdum is it now?
I'm not saying they're bad guys for fixing problems and improving their game, it's great that they care.
However, considering the game has been in development for quite some thing and traffic is a key aspect of any city there is no way in hell they didn't notice this problem in internal testing which in turn mean they pushed it out the door in a broken state.
Is it really that odd to not jump high when they fix a problem that should never have been there in the first place?
 
Filth

Filth

Member
i dont understand this. he clearly states he encourages modding and then they patch and remove the ability to mod.
 
P

Piggus

Member
Foxix said:
Yeah this is an issue that, like a lot of others surrounding this game, should have never been a problem in the first place.
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Agreed. But I still have no reason to complain about this. Is there a problem with quickly fixing an issue brought up by the community? It would be a lot worse if they didn't do anything about it. THEN I would be pretty pissed.
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Filth said:
i dont understand this. he clearly states he encourages modding and then they patch and remove the ability to mod.
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I believe this was because of the video (can't quite find a link atm, but it's in the other mod topic a) which shows someone wrecking someone else's public city using the mod-available debug tools and said in the description that it would be possible to do so to a live game and have the destruction save to the server.

Someone from Maxis saw the video, and tweeted that they'd look into correcting that (which may have had the incidental effect of limiting the modders), can't remember which person tho.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
As someone who spent real life money on this game, it's in my interest to see it improved but at this point no matter how many good patches they put out, it's reputation will always be stained. It's name will go down in the history books for all the wrong reasons. It's sad to see such a great series dragged through the mud but I don't have an ounce of sympathy for EA.
 
O

Open Source

Banned
What's the over/under on whether they knew this was a problem to begin with and knowingly released a broken game to make a ship date while continuing to finish it in the meantime?
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Open Source said:
What's the over/under on whether they knew this was a problem to begin with and knowingly released a broken game to make a ship date while continuing to finish it in the meantime?
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Standard EA operating procedure.

Too bad by the time they forced Origin to shit out U8 and U9 there was no widespread Internet.

God, I still can't believe they used that name for their platform. Talk about rubbing salt on the wound.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Say I want to mod the game to give me twice s much cash and greatly change the import/export balance for regions.

Will I be able to do this?

(Of course not, the game is always on and always connected, doing that would adversely affect other players, etc.)
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
Tesseract said:
all right, see you in a few months when you're fighting the lonesome fight on your little hateful island.
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You just bought the game so its understandable you're trying to defend Maxis and EA but fact is that they mishandled this entire situation in a way that will forever damage their reputation and brand. They lied about the DRM (doesnt need to be online), didnt have enough servers up for a week now after launch, missed key and obvious problems that are key features to the game before launch. But hey, if you gotta put your head in the sand to justify your purchase I understand.
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
Say I want to mod the game to give me twice s much cash and greatly change the import/export balance for regions.

Will I be able to do this?

(Of course not, the game is always on and always connected, doing that would adversely affect other players, etc.)
Click to expand...

But at least those who pirate the game and who don't care about their Origin accounts will be able to do that. Yay for DRM that only affects those who bought the game.
 
Tesseract

Tesseract

Banned
ClovingWestbrook said:
You just bought the game so its understandable you're trying to defend Maxis and EA but fact is that they mishandled this entire situation in a way that will forever damage their reputation and brand. They lied about the DRM (doesnt need to be online), didnt have enough servers up for a week now after launch, missed key and obvious problems that are key features to the game before launch. But hey, if you gotta put your head in the sand to justify your purchase I understand.
Click to expand...

good points, maybe my opinion will sour over time but i doubt it. i don't really care about brands or reputation. guess we'll see if they fix the things needing fixing, i'm patient enough to wait months for official or unofficial support.
 
S

Sophia

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Say I want to mod the game to give me twice s much cash and greatly change the import/export balance for regions.

Will I be able to do this?

(Of course not, the game is always on and always connected, doing that would adversely affect other players, etc.)
Click to expand...

You should be allowed to do this in a private region, at least. Understandable it wouldn't be allowed in a public region tho, but private ones should be able to set their own rules.
 
N

NinjaTehFish

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
Say I want to mod the game to give me twice s much cash and greatly change the import/export balance for regions.

Will I be able to do this?

(Of course not, the game is always on and always connected, doing that would adversely affect other players, etc.)
Click to expand...

It could be done so if you "own" the region and set custom rules then players should be able to see what they are and decide if they want to play with you. Not at all dissimilar to servers with custom rules in CounterStrike.

Its just so sad that choice, scope and options are so easily dismissed :/
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
NinjaTehFish said:
It could be done so if you "own" the region and set custom rules then players should be able to see what they are and decide if they want to play with you. Not at all dissimilar to servers with custom rules in CounterStrike.

Its just so sad that choice, scope and options are so easily dismissed :/
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The plan is to make players pay for it.

Just wait for the DLC.
 
D

dragonelite

Member
stutte said:
I don't have the energy to sustain the amount of anger you seem to want everyone to have at Maxis. I'm disappointed for sure, but come on.

The cars are also probably using the large roads until there is a need to go down the dirt path. I absolutely celebrate this fix, because it makes a game that is fun (but broken) actually work better.
Click to expand...

This ME3 ending was my longest rage inducing game ever and at the end it didn't really matter. Just fix up Sim city 5.
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Cool cool keep going, will buy when proper offline singleplayer is added. You can do it! *cheers*
 
M

Mindwipe

Member
Filth said:
i dont understand this. he clearly states he encourages modding and then they patch and remove the ability to mod.
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Duh, it's because if modding is allowed or not is a decision that is taken way above his head.

He can say what he likes, but I really doubt EA is letting Maxis make the decision. They will look, they will see that modding might impact online play or DLC sales, and they will ban on that basis, irrespective of individual devs making promises they can't keep in an attempt to help their Reddit karma or stem the tide of messages on Twitter.
 
M

mclem

Member
sohois said:
Would Maxis really be the ones in charge of the QA process? Wouldn't that just go through EA rather than Maxis having their own in-house QA team; seems like it would be a waste for EA not to just have a general QA team who handle most of their titles. But then I have no idea how they are set up.
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B-Dex said:
Most dev houses have their own internal QA teams.
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It's two slightly different roles. The smaller internal team is for testing features as they're created and offering direct communication with the programmers to try to diagnose and isolate bug situations. When the game is closer to completion the game is shipped off to the larger QA farm at the publisher (or an independent company), who have significantly more manpower, but not the advantage of being able to liaise directly with the team. Should the QA farm find a bug that's not trivial to diagnose and fix, the details go back to the internal team who can - again - work closely with the code team to figure it out.
 
B

BolognaSoup

Member
They've already lost me as a potential customer until modders have full control over this game and we can build by ourselves on the entire map without needless borders, and terraform, and subways, and farms, and more, offline. Wake me when that happens.
 
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