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[Salsa]

From what I've heard the entire point of SimTown Online was this low level simulation of sims. If that's busted then it sounds like a pretty big deal.

I haven't been following this whole thing that much but I believe EA has specifically touted the AI in this game saying things like each sim living out an actual life. Which is clearly bull.

Mh, never saw that used as a major selling point myself, but if that's the case, yeah.

That's really stupid to promise that though, the processing power to actually achieve that sort of thing would be fucking ridiculous. Game would be unplayable

 

[RoombaDance]

I wonder if this is the way the game was designed or if this was just someone's idea to "fix" the servers.

 

[Partition]

Because of the way the traffic system works, the most efficient city layout is based around a single snaking road from one end of town the the other.

Yep, /v/ figured this out a while ago.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

You'd be foolish to think that they just missed something like that.

How come this wasn't talked about anywhere? Granted I don't look at simcity forums but I'm sure it came up. There are lots of hardcore people.

 

[antitrop]

Maxis apparently consulted with Mr. T.

Wow that was surprisingly relevant.

 

[Poyunch]

Ahh, that explains the Giant Bomb QL.

Didn't want to bother watching a QL of this game, what exactly happened?

 

[lexi]

From what I've heard the entire point of SimTown Online was this low level simulation of sims. If that's busted then it sounds like a pretty big deal.

The whole reasoning we've been given behind why cities are so small is this apparently amazing simulation at work.

It appears that sims and traffic are nothing but power and water, they flow exactly the same way with nothing but 'take the shortest route' ai. This is fucked.

 

[Salsa]

Yep, /v/ figured this out a while ago.

car accidents: solved

you guys dont realize that what Maxis is trying to do is build a mold of the perfect city for humanity to follow!

 

[WillyFive]

I wonder if this is the way the game was designed or if this was just someone's idea to "fix" the servers.

But the servers don't do any of the computations for the game, it's all local.

 

[valkillmore]

How absolutely disheartening. I am so disappointed that this has happened to one of my most beloved franchises. It really is a disgrace what SimCity has turned into. Maybe that seems harsh but SimCity 4 is one of my most-played games in my life. SimCity for SNES was probably my most played game on that system.

 

[vpance]

SimCity may be the biggest leap backwards for a sequel in game history.

 

[Ignis Fatuus]

The Metascore is at 66% now, right? Seems too high.

 

[Retro]

Should have dropped the Sim from the title.

Considering they only give you 3 golf courses worth of land to build on, they should have dropped the City from the title too.

 

[Meier]

Just plain lazy programming, its not even hard to give agents unique attributes.

I would think that it would be fairly taxing on your system to have 100-200k truly unique "agents."

 

[codhand]

http://youtu.be/g418BSF6XBQ

da fuk

 

[MormaPope]

Round and round, this shitty ride only gets worst.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Honestly 90 percent of this sounds so irrelevant that its like people are just stiring shit up about the game being bad at this point just because they saw an opportunity to shit on EA and Maxis.

I mean really, how do sims being fake about where they leave and all that truly affect the way you are playing the game?

like I said, 90 percent, because having to alter placement and all that due to this does suck.

But the other thing? its a grand-scheme game, I dont care if the guy who returns to the house one day has a different color shirt than the one who left.

Quick, search his post history for DRM apologetics!

 

[Amir0x]

EA for president

seriously, SimCity seems like the worst misfire since Aliens: Colonial Marines, just wow at the endless problems

 

[DTKT]

Also, they seem to lie about the population sizes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a5pof/did_ea_lie_about_theoretical_population_sizes/

 

[CambriaRising]

Jesus. They could not have fucked this game up more.

.....until tomorrow when the next story comes out.

 

[Philia]

Just think about it guys, they charged 60 bucks for this. SIXTY bucks. Man, from what I'm seeing it should had been a XBLA title.

 

[Sibylus]

Considering they only give you 3 golf courses worth of land to build on, they should have dropped the City from the title too.

I like it, it's bold.

Maxis and EA Games are proud to present...

" "

 

[ElyrionX]

This is like Diablo 3 all over again.

 

[Spat_triate]

http://youtu.be/g418BSF6XBQ

what the fuck? I can't believe they messed up something so essential and so basic.

I was waiting for them to remove the DRM to buy the game, but I'll keep my money and vote for a better product.

On a side note, a few of my friends have been telling me about CitiesXL Platinum which apparently came out a few weeks ago and (reportedly) outclasses Simcity 2013 in every regard. Does anyone have any experience with it? Is it any good?

 

[jambo]

Also, they seem to lie about the population sizes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a5pof/did_ea_lie_about_theoretical_population_sizes/

Holy shit, adding to OP

 

[DrSlek]

Jesus. They could not have fucked this game up more.

.....until tomorrow when the next story comes out.

Reading about the various failures of this game may actually be more entertaining than the game itself...

 

[Slayer-33]

Christ mighty lol.. Biggest high profile game release blunder in modern videogame history?

 

[antitrop]

Jesus. They could not have fucked this game up more.

.....until tomorrow when the next story comes out.

I can't wait.

 

[Jake Tower]

Mh, never saw that used as a major selling point myself, but if that's the case, yeah.

That's really stupid to promise that though, the processing power to actually achieve that sort of thing would be fucking ridiculous. Game would be unplayable

It is.

 

[Berto]

What a disaster of a game =/

 

[Charoncaori]

So how do education levels work if all sims are the same? Is this why I keep hearing about everyone's reactors melting down due to low education?

 

[saunderez]

Are people really asking for a game to run an agent for every citizen when there are 200k+ citizens in a city? I'm sure that'll have low system resources. No game I've ever played keeps track of the routines of 200k NPCs at the same time.

 

[Skyzard]

Back to Sim City 4? Does it even keep track?

 

[Philia]

Are people really asking for a game to run an agent for every citizen when there are 200k+ citizens in a city? I'm sure that'll have low system resources. No game I've ever played keeps track of 200k NPCs at the same time.

They wanted emphasis on the Sims in this game apparently.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

This is like Diablo 3 all over again.

Yup, once people can actually play the game through the bullshit DRM, they find it's watered down, broken, and a total design failure at the fundamental level.

 

[chubigans]

This is such a sad, sad shell of a once amazing franchise.

 

[inky]

What a trainwreck. Whatever happened to "your sims will lead individual lives" you can follow them around and see what they do all day! I guess they should've included a disclaimer there.

http://youtu.be/g418BSF6XBQ

Hahahaha Wow.

Also, they seem to lie about the population sizes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a5pof/did_ea_lie_about_theoretical_population_sizes/

This game keeps on giving, doesn't it.

 

[ascii42]

...wow.

 

[Retro]

This is like Diablo 3 all over again.

Diablo 3 worked after a day or two, after which the gameplay worked as advertised and intended. It may not be as good as Diablo 2, and it may have a ton of problems, but it was playable.

This is now one week after launch for SimCity; there are still connectivity/server issues (cannot connect, losing progress to rollbacks/connection issues and just general shoddiness) but beneath that is a completely broken game. The server issues are just a launch problem; the game itself is a whole other ball of wax.

EA may have actually been lucky to have all of these server issues; if people had been able to actually play, they would have figured out how busted the game is much earlier.

 

[Revven]

Aaaaaaabsolutely fucking atrocious. I can't believe the one new feature they were talking about, the "following a Sim" around the city or whatever isn't even working as it was advertised.

Nevermind that though, the traffic and population issues are astounding. I am shocked, literally shocked, Maxis developed this shoddy of a product.

Horrible. Poor SimCity, you deserved much better than this.

 

[saunderez]

They wanted emphasis on the Sims in this game apparently.

Theres still no economical way to simulate 200k NPCs at the same time. It pretty much has to be faked to work in any way.

 

[chubigans]

Someone tweet @jeffgerstmann about this, seriously.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Are people really asking for a game to run an agent for every citizen when there are 200k+ citizens in a city? I'm sure that'll have low system resources. No game I've ever played keeps track of 200k NPCs at the same time.

Considering that that's what they sold it as, and that these "complex server side calculations" were apparently handled by EA's servers, absolutely.

 

[spandexmonkey]

what the fuck? I can't believe they messed up something so essential and so basic.

I was waiting for them to remove the DRM to buy the game, but I'll keep my money and vote for a better product.

On a side note, a few of my friends have been telling me about CitiesXL Platinum which apparently came out a few weeks ago and (reportedly) outclasses Simcity 2013 in every regard. Does anyone have any experience with it? Is it any good?

I too am curious on how Cities XL compares. Friends and I were quite excited for SimCity and then this...

 

[Rufus]

Welp, good thing I bought Tomb Raider instead.

 

[Tiktaalik]

At this point is it that far off to consider CityVille the superior city simulator?

(wait that's also always online...)

 

[joezombie]

Sims being fake is fine, traffic being broken is the problem. I do not care about simulating individual sims, I care about simulating a city

 

[Revven]

Theres still no economical way to simulate 200k NPCs at the same time. It pretty much has to be faked to work in any way.

They don't *have* to make 200k unique agents. Just having a few hundred work correctly couldn't possibly be that unbelievable or impossible to code.

 

[Duke Togo]

Must be a stealthy way of selling more copies of Simcity 4.

 

[trinest]

What makes this disgusting is two things:

1) The whole DRM needs the Server blah blah blah bullshit. If true, what the fuck does the server emulate which is really taxing?

2) The whole idea and revolution behind the game to begin with was how amazing Glass Box is, and how Glass Box will revolutionise game design specifically sim games. If the engine does indeed have horrible gaping flaws, then this is an issue.