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[PotatoeMasher]

Can we PLEASE drop the complaining about no multi-core simulation? The city size limitation has nothing to do with how many cores the simulation runs on and everything to do with the actual foundational approach of the game. The engine clearly has deeply rooted algorithmic complexity decisions that explodes past a certain point (guessing either polynomial or exponential complexity).

Even if you could magically add parallelism without worsening the performance of the algorithm (hint: you can't), doubling the cycles available wouldn't improve the maximum size of cities all that much.

And while I realize the study of Big O complexity is limited to computer science and such, just consider that area of a square is n^2, which further supports that GlassBox is limited by at least polynomial complexity:

It should be clear why simply changing the size isn't even an option. The simulation will actually break. This engine is really cool, but it should have never been used for a full SimCity game.

 

[Rentahamster]

*gazes out into the vast wasteland*

Patch notes for 8.0 if anyone cares.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9768286.page

New: 4 New Regions
There are four new regions being released in celebration of the Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack. Two of these regions are desert-themed with saguaro cacti, dry brush, and fewer water resources. The other two use the new tropical themed textures complete with palm trees and long coastlines. For players that want to experience cities with multiple Freeway entrances, both the Verdant Jungle and Desolation regions offer this city layout. These regions are available to all players."

Serenity Key - 6 city island region
A tropical island region centered around a long dormant volcano. Each of the three islands has two cities on it, so boats will be vital to trading with your neighbors. The city sites were made flat and easy for players to experiment with MegaTowers, OmegaCo, and The Academy.

Rambling Badlands - 14 city desert region
This desert valley region was created to provide opportunities for our competitive players. There are two clusters of seven cities in this region separated by a natural barrier. Each cluster has a great work that the other cluster can see. Race to complete the great work and show off to your neighbors.

Verdant Jungle - 8 city jungle region:
The jungle meets the sea in this eight city region. A cluster of four cities in the mountains looks down on another cluster of four cities along the coastline. The city sites in this region provide more of a challenge for city builders looking to clear back the jungle.

Desolation - 7 city lake region:
Desolation is a desert region recovering from a nuclear disaster. Most cities will take advantage of the natural desert canyon land beauty. Only an expert mayor should take on the challenge at the bottom of the crater in the Fallout Epicenter city site. New buildings from Cities of Tomorrow should help with this challenge.

New: Roman Casino
This Roman themed medium-wealth casino comes with additional expansion options including:

Baccarat Room – The Roman Luck Casino has a Baccarat Room module that allows you to increase the capacity of your casino.

Concert Hall – Increase your city's tourist attraction further with an exciting Concert Hall!


New: Added the option to disable Random Disasters in the Normal game mode.
Note: Random Disasters are ENABLED by default and can be disabled through the in game options. Players disabling random disasters in pre-existing cities may experience one additional disaster after making the change. This is due to the way disasters are queued within the system. New cities created after disabling random disasters and cities that have experienced the additional disaster should no longer experience further incidents.
Great Works: Now synchronize across all cities in the region
Hotels: Now develop only in Commercial zones near Landmarks, Stadiums and casinos.
New: 3D Zoning, RCI can now build under bridges, the RCI buildings will estimate the appropriate height building and develop according to the space allowed.
Medium Wealth Happiness: Medium Wealth happiness varies past a rating of 330 depending on how Sims are feeling about the city
Recycling and Garbage: Trucks now operate 24 hours a day
Recycling Center: Resource storage capacity has been increased.
Emergency Services: Fire Department helicopters will more effectively respond to fires if available
Education: Improvements and balance changes to ensure that buildings won’t go abandoned as fast due to lack of tech or unskilled workers.
RCI Zoning: RCI rollover effects will no longer persist on roads when zones are not placed in that location. The ghosting zone effect is also resolved.
Tourism: Tourist specialized cities will now be more effective when used in conjunction with public transit.
UI: HQ modules’ unlock requirements now display more accurately.
Tutorial: Mini-tutorial about radiation added to help players in the new city; Fallout Epicenter in the new region; Desolation
UI: Updated the legend on the radiation map
UI: Oil under building monthly calculations is now more precise
Audio: Residential buildings will now play the correct audio when selected.
Trinity Point: Trees will no longer be affected by minor graphical issues near the coastline.
Miscellaneous performance improvements

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

I take it people aren't very hyped about Cities of Tomorrow.

 

[Mengy]

I take it people aren't very hyped about Cities of Tomorrow.

It doesn't add anything I wanted in an expansion. I don't own the base game, and nothing in the expansion, I mean literally nothing about it, entices me to pay any money to own the game. It's amazing in it's level of lacking, honestly.

 

[Phreaker]

I got an email from them today saying that they finally turned some of the features back on that they disable a day or two after launch. What a joke…. all the email did was to remind me of how pissed off I was at EA/Maxis for this steaming turd of a game.

If anyone cares anymore here's what it said:

SimCity Improvements

Since SimCity launched in March, Maxis has been committed to improving the game, including restoring formerly disabled features, adding new features and delivering free content. We've completed eight major game updates, and we are here to share what we've accomplished so far and the steps we're continuing to take to make SimCity better.

Improvements
• Improved game stability – Stability has seen significant improvements, greatly reducing cases where cities stop processing or cannot be found.
• Restored disabled features – Cheetah Speed, Achievements, Global Markets, Region Filters and Leaderboards are now available.
• Improved traffic – Traffic behavior is smarter. Vehicles can make right turns on red lights and accelerate and decelerate faster, allowing them to leave buildings and cross intersections more efficiently. The number of lines formed by all available vehicles converging in a single spot is reduced, and commute times have been staggered to make for a more realistic flow.
• Upgraded servers – All servers have been upgraded to ensure faster speed and performance.
• Tuned RCI zoning – The game has been tuned to make Industrial zones a more important part of your city. There is now a profit dependence on freight deliveries that is crucial to keeping your Commercial buildings happy. Additionally, demand bars will respond more accurately to which zones are needed in your city. This means the game is more challenging, industrial cities are more important in region play and the RCI bars provide players with clearer direction.
• Fixed terrains – Improvements have been made where the terrain covers sections of the road when the camera is zoomed out.

New additions
• Raise and lower roads – A new tool allows players to raise new roads, turning them into bridges, or lower them to create tunnels and underpasses.
• Multi-entrance maps – Six region maps, including two with multiple entrances that were designed in celebration of the upcoming SimCity Cities of Tomorrow Expansion Pack, have been created. These free maps include Edgewater Bay, Desolation, Granite Lakes, Serenity Key, Rambling Badlands and Verdant Jungle.
• New buildings: More than 80 new variations of existing buildings and 20 new hotels add more variety to your cities.
• New free content: Reignite the glory of Rome with the new Roman Luck Casino or keep your residents happy and spiritual with four distinct Houses of Worship. Available to play in game now. If you purchased the game before Sept 12, you also received the free Launch Park as a reward for being one of our first players.
• Tree tools: Place individual trees along your city roads. This tool is located at the end of the Nature Parks menu.

If you haven't played SimCity in a while, we encourage you to experience the improvements and new features for yourself. Let us know what you think – Maxis is committed to improving SimCity!

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

It's amazing how this thread moved super fast within the month of release and then suddenly died. People completely lost interest.

Such a big fuck up from these companies. They may have hurt the franchise too much. I wonder how long it will take for them to release another Simcity. When they do, I hope they do it at a time when computers can run what details the game has now, plus terraforming, subways, and decent city sizes; call it SimCity 5, we should forget this disaster.

I'm a huge fan of the series, but held off getting this one because the city size and stuff they took out from the previous game were a bummer.

 

[chubigans]

I got an email from them today saying that they finally turned some of the features back on that they disable a day or two after launch. What a joke…. all the email did was to remind me of how pissed off I was at EA/Maxis for this steaming turd of a game.

If anyone cares anymore here's what it said:

SimCity Improvements

Since SimCity launched in March, Maxis has been committed to improving the game, including restoring formerly disabled features, adding new features and delivering free content. We've completed eight major game updates, and we are here to share what we've accomplished so far and the steps we're continuing to take to make SimCity better.

Improvements
• Improved game stability – Stability has seen significant improvements, greatly reducing cases where cities stop processing or cannot be found.
• Restored disabled features – Cheetah Speed, Achievements, Global Markets, Region Filters and Leaderboards are now available.
• Improved traffic – Traffic behavior is smarter. Vehicles can make right turns on red lights and accelerate and decelerate faster, allowing them to leave buildings and cross intersections more efficiently. The number of lines formed by all available vehicles converging in a single spot is reduced, and commute times have been staggered to make for a more realistic flow.
• Upgraded servers – All servers have been upgraded to ensure faster speed and performance.
• Tuned RCI zoning – The game has been tuned to make Industrial zones a more important part of your city. There is now a profit dependence on freight deliveries that is crucial to keeping your Commercial buildings happy. Additionally, demand bars will respond more accurately to which zones are needed in your city. This means the game is more challenging, industrial cities are more important in region play and the RCI bars provide players with clearer direction.
• Fixed terrains – Improvements have been made where the terrain covers sections of the road when the camera is zoomed out.

New additions
• Raise and lower roads – A new tool allows players to raise new roads, turning them into bridges, or lower them to create tunnels and underpasses.
• Multi-entrance maps – Six region maps, including two with multiple entrances that were designed in celebration of the upcoming SimCity Cities of Tomorrow Expansion Pack, have been created. These free maps include Edgewater Bay, Desolation, Granite Lakes, Serenity Key, Rambling Badlands and Verdant Jungle.
• New buildings: More than 80 new variations of existing buildings and 20 new hotels add more variety to your cities.
• New free content: Reignite the glory of Rome with the new Roman Luck Casino or keep your residents happy and spiritual with four distinct Houses of Worship. Available to play in game now. If you purchased the game before Sept 12, you also received the free Launch Park as a reward for being one of our first players.
• Tree tools: Place individual trees along your city roads. This tool is located at the end of the Nature Parks menu.

If you haven't played SimCity in a while, we encourage you to experience the improvements and new features for yourself. Let us know what you think – Maxis is committed to improving SimCity!

Yeah, I got that too, really sad how this game ended up. Ugh.

 

[Mengy]

Yeah, I got that too, really sad how this game ended up. Ugh.

Hell, I got the email and I don't even own the game! It's probably because I was a beta tester, or they are just spamming it to origin accounts.

 

[Smiley90]

It's amazing how this thread moved super fast within the month of release and then suddenly died. People completely lost interest.

Such a big fuck up from these companies. They may have hurt the franchise too much. I wonder how long it will take for them to release another Simcity. When they do, I hope they do it at a time when computers can run what details the game has now, plus terraforming, subways, and decent city sizes; call it SimCity 5, we should forget this disaster.

I'm a huge fan of the series, but held off getting this one because the city size and stuff they took out from the previous game were a bummer.

Yeah I've only started up the game once after they were down for like 5 days right after launch. Despicable.

I can't believe they actually BOAST about "re-implementing features" THAT WEREA VAILABLE AT LAUNCH AND DEACTIVATED AFTERWARDS. Just terrible.

 

[Slacker]

I'd love to know how many people bought this game and how many are still playing now. I uninstalled after the "no big cities ever" announcement.

 

[storybook77]

I'd love to know how many people bought this game and how many are still playing now. I uninstalled after the "no big cities ever" announcement.

I still play it every once in a while since its a good time killer and I can just stop and quit at anytime.

 

[Broder Salsa]

I'd love to know how many people bought this game and how many are still playing now. I uninstalled after the "no big cities ever" announcement.

I did too. At least I bought it from their indian store for like 15 dollars and got Most Wanted as a "we're sorry" compensation. Still makes me fucking angry they missed an opportunity to make a great Sim City game to try and make whatever the fuck this shit became.

 

[Rentahamster]

I'd love to know how many people bought this game and how many are still playing now. I uninstalled after the "no big cities ever" announcement.

I held on as long as I could. I even posted that I might try the game out again after the patch that implemented overpasses and tunnels, but newp....still have the game uninstalled....lol

I can't wait for the fucking XCOM expansion though! HYPE! Punching fucking ALIENS through fucking CARS fuck YEAH!

 

[DrBo42]

Holy shit they had cheetah speed disabled? Hahahaha. WHAT?

 

[Rentahamster]

Expansion comes out tomorrow. Is anyone actually gonna buy it? I guess no one registered to do an OT, either, heh.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Expansion comes out tomorrow. Is anyone actually gonna buy it? I guess no one registered to do an OT, either, heh.

I knew people weren't going to be excited about it, but not that practically no one was going to be talking about it.

Not even an OT, lol.

 

[Rentahamster]

The soundtrack is kinda neat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dlVZ1tcnI&list=PLzYbftNvTrZcIDhFu_0Rprwcs1UY5fML1&index=1

Props to Chris Tilton http://www.christilton.com/

 

[eznark]

Expansion comes out tomorrow. Is anyone actually gonna buy it? I guess no one registered to do an OT, either, heh.

Fucking Shameful that they are charging for it

 

[Mengy]

The soundtrack is kinda neat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dlVZ1tcnI&list=PLzYbftNvTrZcIDhFu_0Rprwcs1UY5fML1&index=1

Props to Chris Tilton http://www.christilton.com/

Yeah, for how terrible the game itself is, there are some good things about it. Namely the incredible music, awesome user interface, and stylish graphics. But it's the lack of features and gameplay that make the new Simcity just a bad game. I still feel that if they would just add an offline mode then the modding community could save it and make it into something worth playing.

But, alas, instead they are selling a futuristic city expansion, which is something no Simcity player ever wished for....

 

[Rentahamster]

Well....it's out...

 

[Mengy]

Well....it's out...

Did you buy it Hamster? Has anyone on GAF bought it?







Did they include a surprise offline mode?

 

[Rentahamster]

Did you buy it Hamster? Has anyone on GAF bought it?







Did they include a surprise offline mode?

No sale for me. Not the kind of expansion I wanted. I don't like nickel and dimeing the customer with DLC when customer satisfaction of even the base game is so low. I want to send a message that while I bought SimCity due to brand name alone (like I did with Diablo III), their subsequent abysmal performance will prevent me from purchasing the expansion. I want their numbers to tell them that.

(I will, however, probably buy the Diablo III exp day one. I have a better feeling that they are trying to right that ship).


Also, XCOM expansion is out.

Firaxis has been extremely impressive with their recent Civilization expansion, and with the XCOM reboot. They deserve my money.

 

[munroe]

Definitely not purchasing it. I bought the game based on the beta and how fun that was, can probably see why the short time limit on the beta, so you didn't see any of the later game problems.

 

[Orlandu84]

Did you buy it Hamster? Has anyone on GAF bought it? [/i]

I have not bought the expansion for the same reasons as mentioned above: low quality of the base game, bad customer support, and nickel and dining us for what appears to be their solution to the game.

Additionally, the expansion is their way of "fixing the game" with Arcologies-lite, aka MegaTowers. By having single buildings provide everything that the sims need, they never leave. Traffic? No problem! They just use elevators. With these future buildings in play, cities can have a higher population without the headaches of managing the sims stupid AI. In summary the expansion is their admission of failure at delving what they promised.

 

[Mengy]

Definitely not purchasing it. I bought the game based on the beta and how fun that was, can probably see why the short time limit on the beta, so you didn't see any of the later game problems.

Heh, the beta is why I didn't buy it actually. I spent a lot of time with the beta, and even with the one hour restrictions I kept finding myself out of building space and bored. I had really hoped that the small city sizes were for beta only, but alas they were there for good. And now it seems they are truly the city size limit forever.

I really hope that Maxis and EA learn from this whole ordeal. I love the franchise, I still play Simcity 4 regularly, it's a fantastic game and my favorite of the series (and I own them all, except for Simcity 2013). Hopefully for Simcity 6 they actually make the game that the playerbase wants and not what some corporate shill higher up wants. Or, maybe someone new will make a worthy successor to replace the broken Simcity franchise and give us all a good, open ended sandbox of a city building game that the fans truly want.

They came close with Simcity 2013, they had a lot of great ideas, they just had the wrong focus and made design decisions that nobody wanted to see. The expansion is a huge example of that misdirected vision, no one at all who is a fan of the Simcity games ever wanted a futuristic setting. NO ONE. There are dozens of other things they could have done with the expansion that might have actually enticed players of the franchise, but once again they ignored all of them,



Oh well. Maybe Simcity 6 will be better.

 

[GreyWind]

I really love the CoT soundtrack.

 

[Rentahamster]

I really love the CoT soundtrack.

Did you buy the game? Or just listening to it? I agree, it's quite nice.

 

[GreyWind]

Did you buy the game? Or just listening to it? I agree, it's quite nice.

Only bought the OST, might buy the expansion some time later.

 

[Rentahamster]

Only bought the OST, might buy the expansion some time later.

Oh I see.

lol, I'm tempted to make a thread just to ask if anyone even bought the game. I wanna hear opinions.

 

[Rentahamster]

A review from a gamer who also happens to be a real life mayor of a town in Canada. Verdict? Not that great. Pretty much the same complaints we've all had.

http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/simcity-review-a-real-mayor-s-perspective/1900-6415554/

 

[jax]

Eh. I bought CoT and I'm really enjoying it, but I've always enjoyed the game. Sure the city sizes are a bit on the small side, but region play more than makes up for it. I like to strategically and aesthetically build my cities in certain sections all the while trying to build population. It's not a bad game, it could be better, but it's not bad.

 

[eznark]

Sure the city sizes are a bit on the small side, but region play more than makes up for it

Lolol

 

[Rentahamster]

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9703871.page

In the works for next patch:

Offline: Exploring the option of Offline Mode - http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/state-of-simcity

"exploring" Hmm..

 

[PotatoeMasher]

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9703871.page

In the works for next patch:



"exploring" Hmm..

That forum and blog post are from two months ago and nothing indicates offline mode is in the next patch, just that they're exploring it the same way they did city sizes.

 

[dudeguy24]

That forum and blog post are from two months ago and nothing indicates offline mode is in the next patch, just that they're exploring it the same way they did city sizes.

The forum post was edited/updated yesterday

 

[Rentahamster]

That forum and blog post are from two months ago and nothing indicates offline mode is in the next patch, just that they're exploring it the same way they did city sizes.

They edited it today to include the offline part.

 

[Mengy]

My only real hope for an offline mode is that it allows the modding community to go crazy with the game. If the modders can increase the city sizes, and if they can allow building out in the empty gap areas or even place the larger city zones right next to each other, and if they can put in some terraforming tools, well then we'd have a worthy Simcity game. Much larger city sizes being of paramount importance.

Truthfully, I'm not expecting much at all. Maxis seems very disconnected from the fanbase, and very intent on the game being always online so they can push their DLC content. City of Tomorrow is all the proof you need of that fact.


I'm much more hopeful that some other company or even an indie dev comes along and fills the gap that Simcity 2013 has left wide open...

 

[Rentahamster]

I'm much more hopeful that some other company or even an indie dev comes along and fills the gap that Simcity 2013 has left wide open...

Banished is looking pretty neat, but I'd indeed like a true sequel to SimCity4. Even a spiritual sequel made by someone else.

 

[Rentahamster]

So I decided to take a look see at what the game is like with the patches....

lol

"6" recycling trucks. They're self replicating.

 

[Orlandu84]

This game and its bugs! We should have dedicated a thread just to SimCity's bugs for posterity's sake. Someone on the Battlefield 4 thread said that its launch was perhaps worse than SimCity. At least i can hope that DICE gets the bugs out within a year - Maxis has proven that it can only replace one bug with another.

So I decided to take a look see at what the game is like with the patches....



lol

"6" recycling trucks. They're self replicating.

 

[dudeguy24]

The DLC is 50% off right now if anybody (nobody) cares. I might pick up that amusement park set.

 

[Suburban_Nooblet]

My wife just got into this game. She is big into Civ games and played a lot of the old Sim stuff. But she is having trouble finding good resources for tips to help her with the game besides the tutorial?

Anyone have a good site to refer me to?

 

[Slacker]

I realized recently my most played games lately are:

- DayZ
- Prison Architect
- Starbound
- Kerbal Space Program

All four are "early access" alphas, and all four have more to do than SimCity.

 

[Rentahamster]

My wife just got into this game. She is big into Civ games and played a lot of the old Sim stuff. But she is having trouble finding good resources for tips to help her with the game besides the tutorial?

Anyone have a good site to refer me to?

http://www.reddit.com/r/simcitystrategy

 

[Suburban_Nooblet]

http://www.reddit.com/r/simcitystrategy

Thanks! She will appreciate it.

 

[Rentahamster]

Thanks! She will appreciate it.

If it's not too much trouble, ask her about her opinion of the game. It would be interesting to get a fresh take on it after the patches. A lot of our opinions on the game are tainted by the aftertaste of the botched launch.

 

[Suburban_Nooblet]

If it's not too much trouble, ask her about her opinion of the game. It would be interesting to get a fresh take on it after the patches. A lot of our opinions on the game are tainted by the aftertaste of the botched launch.

Came back to tell you thanks. She spent about two hours tonight checking out all the reddit references you sent over. She loves it so far, she wanted it right at launch but saw the madness that was SimCity and decided to wait it out and keep playing Civ V.


She only has about 10 hours in it so far but has been having fun thus far. She told me that the social aspect of the game is a bit confusing to her a she has never been big into multi player except for MMO stuff.

Spoiler

For reference I know nothing about SimCity except it was a shit show at launch.

 

[Rentahamster]

Holy moly, this game is still suffering from bugs from way back in the beginning. Commuting is all kinds of fucked up, especially in large population cities. I made a 500,000 pop city, and eventually all the shoppers and workers disappeared. There was no traffic because no one was around. It was crazy.

This is a bug that has been around since 8 months ago. http://www.giantbomb.com/simcity/30...-most-bugs-probably-region-commuting-1429908/

After doing some digging around, I saw this thread:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9844816.page

At least there's this...

We have a fix for this as part of the next update.

I have a weird love/hate relationship with this game. I love the genre, and the underlying ideas behind this game are neat, and the aesthetic is cute...and while the bugs and shitty game design are utterly baffling and at times infuriating, I can't help but be fascinated by them and I take a strange sort of masochistic pleasure in trying to work around them.

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[chubigans]

Holy moly, this game is still suffering from bugs from way back in the beginning. Commuting is all kinds of fucked up, especially in large population cities. I made a 500,000 pop city, and eventually all the shoppers and workers disappeared. There was no traffic because no one was around. It was crazy.

This is a bug that has been around since 8 months ago. http://www.giantbomb.com/simcity/30...-most-bugs-probably-region-commuting-1429908/

After doing some digging around, I saw this thread:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9844816.page

At least there's this...


I have a weird love/hate relationship with this game. I love the genre, and the underlying ideas behind this game are neat, and the aesthetic is cute...and while the bugs and shitty game design are utterly baffling and at times infuriating, I can't help but be fascinated by them and I take a strange sort of masochistic pleasure in trying to work around them.

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

Holy crap, wow.

Also, am I crazy or were there rumors of a new SimCity for iOS/Android after development was finished on SimCity 2013?

 

[Rentahamster]

Holy crap, wow.

Also, am I crazy or were there rumors of a new SimCity for iOS/Android after development was finished on SimCity 2013?

I dunno, the only mobile SimCity game I recall is that port of SimCity 3000. SimCity Deluxe, or something.