SimCity 5 Disappointment-All

Elliottx wrote:

Does anyone know how clock speed will work in regions? If I was playing at cheetah speed and my neighbor was playing at turtle speed, could we just go about our business doing that? I'm assuming with the "Great Work" it will just go off a server timer but I really do wonder how the cities will be able to interact when they're running at different speeds.

I'm wondering how it will work if, say, I decide to go on vacation for a week, or if one person only plays in the morning and another in the evening. Or if a majority of the people in the region abandon their games...or decide they're done with this one, so they go start a new one elsewhere. Or any of the many things that can happen with asynchronous multiplayer.

How much control do you have over who is in your region?

Have there been any MMOs or online games where relations in space are important but the player is confined to one spot that work? Most successful games either have a player character who wanders around or have your farm only very loosely connected to other players' spaces. Having a patch of earth that is part of a persistent world with defined relationships is something I can't think of any other examples of, off the top of my head.

As a long time Simcity 4 fan I have been on self imposed blackout from this game until recently. But now that I have looked.....not excited. I am firmly convinced that 9 year old Simcity 4 will continue reign as the king of city building games. The whole appeal is the realism and being able to build something that actually looks like a real city.

I'm afriad to say how much money I would pay for simcity 4 with an updated graphics engine, new UI, and quality of life upgrades (yes I have spent untold hours of my life building sunken highways and all manner of unnecessarily complex transportation networks in simcity 4)...but this is not the game for me I think.

The only hope is the modding community, but of course, mods are not enabled at launch. In a crowded spring gaming season I'm really on the fence about this and will likely wait 6 months to a year until modding is enabled to see what this game truly becomes.

As much as I had strong interest in this when it was first announced, I have no interest in supporting their shady business plans. I suppose it will be $15 one day. Low enough of a price to tolerate the unnecessary BS they slapped onto a good game, in order to milk the micro-transactions.

shoptroll wrote:
DaScorpion wrote:

The Sims games have always been that way, it's not just Sims 3. And to me, that's a little different because most of those expansion packs (not the stuff packs) add loads of more gameplay time to the game, in my opinion. Do I like it that way? No, of course not. I wish we had all of those packs from the get go, but as I mentioned, that's always been that way. I hope SimCity doesn't do it to that extreme and the core game doesn't suffer without the add-ons that I'm sure are coming.

They tried to do the stuff/expansion pack thing with Spore, except that game didn't have the sales to warrant support for more than 1-2 years. SimCity 4 had a second expansion in the works before support dried up in a similar manner (presumably due to lack of sales). I don't have an issue with them issuing expansion packs, although I'd be incredibly worried about a microtransaction store like they did with Sims 2 and Sims 3.

Looking at the Deluxe announcement, it sure looks like they're taking a lot of monetization lessons from the Sims, where the extensive modder community basically hijacked potential sales. Solution? Don't allow mods and set up a server system that locks out unauthorized add-ons.

I know it's cool to be cynical about this game right now, but I can't help but think the worst almost every time I see anything new.

kazooka wrote:

I know it's cool to be cynical about this game right now, but I can't help but think the worst almost every time I see anything new.

No man... when we are talking EA, then it's not cynicism. Sadly, it's just simple truth.

So, now it looks like you won't be limited to one city in a region. That is, you can have cities that neighbor each other; it's not just "someone else".

Maybe they figured out nobody wants to play SimVillage?

The only hope is the modding community, but of course, mods are not enabled at launch

No, mods are actively locked out, and you can be pretty damn sure there won't ever be any modding, at least not if EA can stop it, because it interferes with the gravy train. They can't allow the poor suckers customers who bought into this ecosystem to make and share things for free avoid the wonderful monetization opportunities that EA so generously provides.

Oh, and as far as that Deluxe edition goes, did I tell you so, or did I tell you so?

They're going to charge you extra money if you want subways. And freeways. They're probably already done and working, but they will be held out for awhile so they can charge you more for them later.

Malor wrote:
The only hope is the modding community, but of course, mods are not enabled at launch

No, mods are actively locked out, and you can be pretty damn sure there won't ever be any modding, at least not if EA can stop it, because it interferes with the gravy train. They can't allow the poor suckers customers who bought into this ecosystem to make and share things for free avoid the wonderful monetization opportunities that EA so generously provides.

I'm 80% sure there will be modding. Legal or not it will be there. People swore to me that Far Cry 3 would never get modded but it took a week or two and there were 'mods' to remove the HUD. Heck the RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 community swore for 4 years that you couldn't create new rides or mod the game before someone finally cracked the code and now there is a thriving modded ride community.

Maybe I'm just too hopeful but if people really want something bad enough it's possible to make any mod. I'm already envisioning a mod that 'convinces' Sim City your PC is an EA server thus forcing it all to render on your home computers so that you no longer need always online. I could see it happen, happening or not is yet to be seen, but I'm sure some savvy coder out there might be able to pull it off.

Too bad. Why would I want to pay extra for subways?

Pass. Probably buy SC 2K again.

For anyone interested who hasn't heard, there will be another beta on the 16th that will run for 24 hours.

http://www.simcity.com/beta

Play with family with multi-city play. So how many simultaneously online players can I have from one purchase? Wife? # Kids?

I'm 80% sure there will be modding. Legal or not it will be there.

The whole point of the online play is to prevent that sort of thing. They'll be doing their best to stop any such nonsense.

Wolfen Victrocious wrote:

People swore to me that Far Cry 3 would never get modded but it took a week or two and there were 'mods' to remove the HUD.

Take a good look at what the mods are doing. Most of them seem to be relatively simple replacements/edits on what's there. I'd say it's the difference between modding in Dragon age:origins, where they provided a toolkit and there's a metric f-ton of new content, and DA2 where it's limited to override mods. Take a look at some games with great SDKs and toolkits and it's not a favourable comparison.

Besides, I think it's a bad attitude to have to be looking for a 'lucky break' and someone breaking in for modding. Better to treat the game as un-moddable than assuming it's mod friendly with a list of "ifs".

Keithustus wrote:

Play with family with multi-city play. So how many simultaneously online players can I have from one purchase? Wife? # Kids?

I'm going to take a stab and say everyone will need a unique copy tied to their account.

After listening to the love the game got on Idle thumbs, I'm much more interested. While researching a purchase, I saw that the physical PC copy on Amazon comes with a $20 credit. $40 for this game might just be the tipping point.

That was my strategy as well. Just remember it's a $20 credit towards a future purchase. In my case, I like to think of it as a $60 Simcity and a $7.46 Fear Agent Library Edition Volume 2.

So on a "I'm excited for this game and don't hate it note": How many people do we have interested in a GWJ region?

IUMogg wrote:

After listening to the love the game got on Idle thumbs, I'm much more interested. While researching a purchase, I saw that the physical PC copy on Amazon comes with a $20 credit. $40 for this game might just be the tipping point.

Idle Thumbs discussion warmed me up a bit to this release, along with the forum post they referenced by an ex-Maxis employee. I definitely get where they're coming from in talking about the multiplayer being an evolution of what they were trying to do with SimCity 4's regions (which was really a continuation of the interconnected households in The Sims) and the massively single player elements of Spore.

But I don't see a need to drop money on a pre-order and I would like to see how the launch goes and if the game actually has any legs. Maxis games are something I dabble with in spurts these days (this was not the case when I was 10), and if the servers are going to be offline or there's barely any community in a year I don't think this is a wise use of money as I've still got the discs for the previous entries where I can play on my own schedule. I can guarantee I'd only play this for a week since March is already a big release month for me with Stacraft II's expansion and Bioshock launching not long afterward. Once I've got a new shiny I have no guarantee when I'd come back to this, if ever

Also, I think I'm still smarting a bit from Darkspore, Spore, and SimCity 4 not seeing much in the way of post-release support as sales for all three titles missed EA's expectations.

In short, it's not them, it's probably me.

shoptroll wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

After listening to the love the game got on Idle thumbs, I'm much more interested. While researching a purchase, I saw that the physical PC copy on Amazon comes with a $20 credit. $40 for this game might just be the tipping point.

Idle Thumbs discussion warmed me up a little bit to this, along with the forum post they referenced by an ex-Maxis employee. I definitely get where they're coming from in talking about the multiplayer being an evolution of what they were trying to do with SimCity 4's regions (which was really a continuation of the interconnected households in The Sims) and the massively single player elements of Spore.

But I don't see a need to drop money on a pre-order and would like to see how the launch goes and if the game actually has any legs. It's just that Maxis games are something I dabble with in spurts these days (this was not the case when I was 10), and if the servers are going to be offline or there's barely any community in a year I don't think this is a wise use of money as I've still got the discs for the previous entries where I can play on my own schedule. Darkspore, Spore, and SimCity 4 are all very real lessons in how quick EA will drop support for a game if the sales aren't where they want them to be. Which is a shame because all those games deserved better. Well maybe not Darkspore, but at least they tried.

I don't disagree with anything you said. For me, it's more of predicting my own behavior. I know I'll likely pick it up near launch, so might as well get the discount. I would guess this game will be more successful than Darkspore or Spore, at least long term. Spore had a lot of initial buzz, but the substance wasn't there to hold interest. Hopefully it will be more along the lines of the Sims.

I would be surprised if there aren't problems at launch. If a company like Blizzard has launch problem on Diablo 3, I can't imagine EA pulling it off.

IUMogg wrote:

For me, it's more of predicting my own behavior.

Yup, and my behavior puts me on the other side of the fence Will definitely be watching this thread and reading the reviews at launch.

Don't venture onto the Maxis forums unless you're ready for full strength shill. Those people are dedicated! They're EA apologists, Origin fans, and will even defend the always-on DRM. It will be interesting to see them respond to the game getting decent but not great reviews but almost no sales.

(I expect only a Spore-like commercial response: some loving fans, but many more frustrated by design decisions and/or DRM.)

Beta code for the beta this weekend. Enter into Origin:

AL9H-U46F-ZU4E-DADS-GM64

Enjoy.

Nice. Thanks, Tkyl!

Edit: Well, looks like someone else snagged it.

IUMogg wrote:

After listening to the love the game got on Idle thumbs, I'm much more interested. While researching a purchase, I saw that the physical PC copy on Amazon comes with a $20 credit. $40 for this game might just be the tipping point.

Just had a listen and I'm really not being swayed. I think I fell over the line after my experience with the Beta. So it's kinda scary their opinions only made me not want play Sim City 5 more. In fact, I've gone from being so excited to wanting to pay full price when it came out,in January, to "I think I'll pick it up on a Steam sale, if there is no Steam version then I'll pick it up when it's 10 dollars."

I really have no clue what Maxis can do to get me on board again. I'll keep listening to various podcasts reviews and thoughts on Sim City 5 but as of right now I don't think I'll pick it up for a few years.

Fool me once with the Sims 3 shame on me, Fool me twice with Sim City, shame on you.

Greg wrote:

Too bad. Why would I want to pay extra for subways?

Pass. Probably buy SC 2K again.

I think gog.com has it.

I'd go with SimCity 3000. That's the best one, in my opinion.

Got into the beta, but it's my birthday tomorrow and my gf wants to go do stuff. Boo

Origin is now offering $20 off your next purchase if you preorder through them.

Wolfen Victrocious wrote:

Fool me once with the Sims 3 shame on me, Fool me twice with Sim City, shame on you.

Don't forget Spore!

Druidpeak wrote:

Origin is now offering $20 off your next purchase if you preorder through them.

Lol, as if there were ever a good reason at all to use Origin even the first time.