SimCity 5 Disappointment-All

AnimeJ wrote:

I'll probably wind up picking it up, despite any misgivings, because it really does look that cool :D

That. I love the organic nature of placing roads/rails and how the zoning adapts to create the lots.

That train is starting to bother me... I know it's a city simulation but is it too much to ask for a little more realism with their trains? I guess I should be pleased that the train is at the least more integrated into the game this time compared to the appear and disappear tricks they used in the past to give the impression the rail line was being used.

Have they discussed if you can choose to join regions with friends?

IUMogg wrote:

Have they discussed if you can choose to join regions with friends?

Yeah, you probably don't want that. My city's chief exports will be pollution and anger.

LobsterMobster wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Have they discussed if you can choose to join regions with friends?

Yeah, you probably don't want that. My city's chief exports will be pollution and anger.

I said friends, not frenemies.

LobsterMobster wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Have they discussed if you can choose to join regions with friends?

Yeah, you probably don't want that. My city's chief exports will be pollution and anger.

MMO-lite is all fine and dandy, but what I want to know is how they plan on letting me deal with d-bags like this. And I'm not just taking a friendly swipe at Lobster, but rather I'm being serious. What if someone comes along and parks a new city just up-river from you, and starts a massive pollution campaign?

MoonDragon wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Have they discussed if you can choose to join regions with friends?

Yeah, you probably don't want that. My city's chief exports will be pollution and anger.

MMO-lite is all fine and dandy, but what I want to know is how they plan on letting me deal with d-bags like this. And I'm not just taking a friendly swipe at Lobster, but rather I'm being serious. What if someone comes along and parks a new city just up-river from you, and starts a massive pollution campaign?

Hopefully they'll have something that gives you bonuses for responding to these kinds of neighbor problems. Maybe something like a Federal Grant for cleaning up the environment.

Armed conflict?
Armed legislation?

I admit to skimming, but is it the case that you will be have no choice but to have other people influence your game? If so then my growing interest in this has fallen to zero.

When I play games like Sim City, I want the success or failure to depend on me and not some griefer who decides to build a crime-and-pollution generator next to my idyllic town.

I don't know why exactly, but the more I see the more I am getting a Master of Orion 3 feeling about this. It almost seems like the game plays itself once you get the basic infrastructure going. After that, there are out of your immediate control factors that influence the game's systems. It just, I don't know, doesn't look "fun" to me.

The more I see of this, the less I want of it, unless they start outlining ways of dealing with griefers (agreeing to become neighbors, being able to choose neighbors, etc.) This sort of thing if less of a problem if we can have, say, a GWJ region (pollute on purpose and get banned from the forums!) but if we're left to the mercy of, well, the general internet public, you can count me out.

To be honest, I think we'd be better off reinstalling Sim City 3000.

Everyone wrote:

OMG regions, Blargh!

Everyone breath.

I dislike the idea of simcity griefers as much as the next guy, but if the quoted paragraph is true, we can just have a GWJ region or you can do your own.

OK. That allays my fears, mostly. I'll still wait. To be sure they're not lying. I may have trust issues.

FeralMonkey wrote:

To be sure they're not lying.

Agreed. Why not sign up for the closed beta maybe you'll get in.

I think the idea of a friends region is pretty awesome. Since you don't have to play simultaneously the non-American continent Goodjers might join the fun as well. Might be great fodder for some neighborly AAR's as well.

Set up the Great Nation of Goodjistan?

FeralMonkey wrote:

OK. That allays my fears, mostly. I'll still wait. To be sure they're not lying. I may have trust issues.

Especially because it's EA. I'm with you on this one.

dejanzie wrote:

I think the idea of a friends region is pretty awesome. Since you don't have to play simultaneously the non-American continent Goodjers might join the fun as well. Might be great fodder for some neighborly AAR's as well.

I'm setting up next to Dejanzie, to provide a dependable export market for Belgian beer. Don't bother with the trucks, just pump it through the water pipes.

My main exports will be illegal guns. I hope you guys like crime!

That 9 minute video actually got me to reinstall CitiesXL and SC4.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

My main exports will be illegal guns. I hope you guys like crime!

You do that, and I'll send you our British food and tabloids. Your sims will need the guns to kill each other (or themselves).

Have they even said if pollution from nearby cities would affect your city or not? I wouldn't think they would ever allow that. I do wonder, though, if the citizens of your city will have a choice of your neighbors' cities. If my city is "worse" than my friend's city next door, will I lose population to him? Again I don't think they'd allow that to happen - I don't think they really want to bring competition to SimCity. They said in that video that they'll talk about neighboring cities in the next vid, so hopefully that'll clear up a lot of confusion.

Well, they've released a video demonstrating that crime from neighboring cities can spill over into your city, and said that cities can arrange to purchase power from neighboring cities. I'd assume it should similarly allow for one city to pay another to take care of its septic "output" and trash... and given that it looks like it really is just a big contiguous overworld map, I think it looks like other pollutions could affect neighboring cities.

This line: "specialize in industries that create pollution and then watch as the Sims in your region become sick." (emphasis mine) makes me think that the pollution from one city affects all the other cities in that region, so yeah.

EA has already said that pollution carries over into the region. In fact the first teaser trailer shows how one city can affect others. According to an article that came out after that teaser the video is supposed to be two cities across the river from each other own by two different players. Can crime cross over? Since pollution, and more does it shouldn't be hard to think that a very large city with a crime problem might bleed over to another city that isn't protected as well too.

I don't understand the engine. Okay, so it supposedly simulates each citizen, right? Just one question - who cares? Making a model more complex does not necessarily make it more accurate, realistic or (since this is a game) fun.

I'm not even sure what it's doing that SimCity 4 doesn't. I.e. they make a big deal about how you can see each car go to work, and see garbage trucks drive around, etc. Uh, you can see those things in SimCity 4, a game that's 10 years old. I think they're more representations of the model rather than elements, but so what?

In exchange for this dubious increase in complexity the game is removing power lines, removing sewage/water, reducing city size and most likely getting rid of zoning density. That doesn't seem like a very good trade.

Ok, I don't like Always on feature..

but, this game look nice.. a little bit too nice, that it might convince me that always on drm is the next best features of gaming :S (Ok, I love city building, and this one look nice!)

I really like where I see the mechanics of this going. I'll have to wait and see what their final DRM is like, but if they decide to change it I'm in at launch, if not I'll probably jump in at the first half-off sale unless everyone is having tremendous fun.

Questions : did they discuss the addons aspect? What would be pricing? It's EA after all.

Maxis did a live stream today, half about the Sims 3 and the other half about Sim City. It's here. Go to 35 minutes in for the Sim City stuff (about 45 minutes in if you've already seen the 9 minute video from the other day).

I'm in the midst of watching it so I can't speak to the quality as of yet.