SimCity 5 Disappointment-All

Can we end the thread here?

You can't make this sh*t up, or apparently they did:-/

I don't know if we're allowed to still talk about Simcity, but according to my twitters, patch 3.0 went live.

EA Forums wrote:

Update 3.0 Notes

• New: Added more Hotel models to increase hotel variety.
• Traffic: Updated routing system to improve traffic. Routing system now understands more information about u-turns, required vehicle stops, and vehicle behavior on certain road types. This should make traffic smarter.
• Traffic: Commercial and industrial buildings stagger their work shifts to start throughout commute hours instead of at the top of the hour. This should reduce traffic.
• Traffic: Fixes one issue where a car won't move causing traffic to back up behind it.
• Traffic: Vehicles can now make right turns on Red. This should improve some cases of traffic.
• Traffic: Trading polish that will improve regional traffic when one city has a lot of jobs and its neighboring city has a lot of workers.
• Air Pollution: Fixed more issues where cities that placed air polluting buildings received large amounts of air pollution from unknown sources.
• Service Vehicles: Fix for disappearing service vehicles on cities that whose vehicles had disappeared before update 2.
• School Buses: Fix for issue where school buses were getting stuck at neighbor's city or arcology.
• Audio: Tuned audio on French Police Station.
• Trading: Fixed issue where fire services were not trading consistently between Brakeman's Folly and Twain in Whitewater Valley.
• Trading: Sewage trading: Sewage will now take a more direct route to regional sewage plant instead of throughout the city.
• Trading: Made gifting more reliable.
• Ferry Terminal: Ferry Terminal can now send its sewage to the output pipe and treatment plant.
• RCI Tuning: Fixed issue where sims going to a park via transit would sometimes lose their money or happiness on the way home.
• RCI Tuning: Bulldozing abandoned or rubble buildings will now prevent new developments for 6-12 hours.
• RCI Tuning: Less Happiness is taken from wealth 2 and 3 buildings when rent is due when no money is present.
• RCI Tuning: Fix for issue some users experienced where buildings would stay abandoned because moving trucks would not be able to move in.
• Trees: Trees now last longer, but also do not eliminate as much ground pollution.
• Radiation: Radiation causes less ground pollution than previously.
• Transit: Changed thought bubble suggestion to add more trains to deal with crowded passenger trains to suggest that you add more train stations.
• Transit: Improvements to lights to make rail look better at night.
• Transit: Streetcar stops can now be placed directly on standalone streetcar tracks, and passengers can walk along the tracks to them.
• Transit: Tuned the chance buses or streetcars will go to high-traffic stops first as a minor traffic improvement.
• Roads: University pedestrian paths can now cross streets.
• Manufacturing Trucks: Fixed issue some users experienced where manufacturing trucks left the city and were lost permanently.
• Delivery Trucks: Fixed issue where some users would experience a loss of resources is their delivery trucks returned to garages without proper storage.
• Sports Parks: Tuned the amount of skateboarders and neighborhood athletes at the sports parks.
• Data Layers: Zones are now visible in heavy data layers.
• Edit Mode: Added more valid snap points in edit mode. This improvement is most noticeable on Parks.
• Buildings: Addressed some cases where buildings would stack on one another.

Thinking I'll just uninstall this and go play Tropico 4.

Budo wrote:

Thinking I'll just uninstall this and go play Tropico 4.

Thats really your best option.

I like that changelog and will give it another shot sometime soon.

Anyone else a little worried about the Sims 4 now? I really like the sims (especially medevil) but man the simcity debacle hurt my faith in them.

3.0? Didn't 2.0 just happen? I guess I'll just wait until my autumn upswing in gaming and play version 19.0.

LiquidMantis wrote:

3.0? Didn't 2.0 just happen?

That's the Al Lowe numbering system at work.

Gee, I don't see anything on that list about fixing save game rollbacks. Oh well.

EDIT: I decided to update anyway. And then...

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/w5ug0Td.png)

I laughed and laughed. This error comes up immediately upon launching the game. Login error retry/cancel? No way to... you know... enter different login information? Maxis, you so funny.

Startup is fine now.

I think that they might've been better off making this a proper MMO. Even a F2P version. This sits somewhere in between sp and mp and just doesn't seem to have lasting appeal for me.

Cobble wrote:

Anyone else a little worried about the Sims 4 now? I really like the sims (especially medevil) but man the simcity debacle hurt my faith in them.

I found it hilarious that in the official press release for Sims 4, they mentioned that it's a "single player offline experience".

garion333 wrote:

I think that they might've been better off making this a proper MMO. Even a F2P version. This sits somewhere in between sp and mp and just doesn't seem to have lasting appeal for me.

Anyone ever read Ta Nehisi Coates, one of the editors of The Atlantic? He's one of my favorite columnists. He's also a gamer. Here's what he has to say about SC5:

I can't really play more than one MMO at a time. Evidently you can hack your way into a single-player mode. I've loved SimCity since high-school. But I'm a grown-ass man, dog. I'm not paying $60 only to have to hack my way into the game I want.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...

concentric wrote:

Anyone ever read Ta Nehisi Coates, one of the editors of The Atlantic? He's one of my favorite columnists. He's also a gamer.

So he's renaming this one "SimCity Online" so the next one call be the true SimCity 5?

From the 3.0 patch release notes:
"Fixed issue where sims going to a park via transit would sometimes lose their money or happiness on the way home."

All kinds of jokes available here, for example the obvious: Did the sim happen to pass a store selling SimCity on the way home?

lorenzolio wrote:

From the 3.0 patch release notes:
"Fixed issue where sims going to a park via transit would sometimes lose their money or happiness on the way home."

So is it a simulator or isn't it?

Scratched wrote:
lorenzolio wrote:

From the 3.0 patch release notes:
"Fixed issue where sims going to a park via transit would sometimes lose their money or happiness on the way home."

So is it a simulator or isn't it?

Painfully accurate.

With the launch of the Mac version fast approaching I've been tempted to pick this up but with all the negative press and opinions surrounding it I thought I'd first ask those of you that had played it whether or not it's worth my hard earned money.

Is the game actually fun to play? As a long time Maxis fan I've always loved that they've managed to make their games both fun and accessible even when it comes to some of their more technical or obscure games (e.g. SimAnt / SimIsle).

Can you start a city just to experiment around with multiple approaches? That was probably my favorite aspect of SC2K but from what I've seen so far it seems as though there's no real sandbox mode that allows you the freedom to play around with your city.

Merkaba wrote:

With the launch of the Mac version fast approaching I've been tempted to pick this up but with all the negative press and opinions surrounding it I thought I'd first ask those of you that had played it whether or not it's worth my hard earned money.

Is the game actually fun to play? As a long time Maxis fan I've always loved that they've managed to make their games both fun and accessible even when it comes to some of their more technical or obscure games (e.g. SimAnt / SimIsle).

Can you start a city just to experiment around with multiple approaches? That was probably my favorite aspect of SC2K but from what I've seen so far it seems as though there's no real sandbox mode that allows you the freedom to play around with your city.

Good News! There is the option to start a region in sandbox mode. My opinion on SimCity, now that it works (i.e. you can log in) and they have patched some stuff is that it's a decent game with some good ideas, ...and some bad ones.

Overall, I enjoy playing it and love the style. I don't know what the price point is these days, but I'd say buy it at $40.

If I go for it I'm looking at $66 at the current exchange rate on the Japanese Origin store :/

Good news about the sandbox mode though. Thanks!

Yeah, it's a fun game to dip into, especially if you build up your own region and start to have specialized cities. My city of Pork Slope is a huge commercial/tourist mecca thanks to a couple of oil and mineral rich towns. You know, just like in real life.

But I agree with clever id above, $60 is still a bit steep. Watch for specials from Amazon maybe? At the time I bought it, they had it for $60 with $20 Amazon credit. (Edit: so you know, $40. Maths.)

Merkaba wrote:

If I go for it I'm looking at $66 at the current exchange rate on the Japanese Origin store :/

Good news about the sandbox mode though. Thanks!

Yeah, I'd wait @ $66. I'd be pissed that I preordered @ $60 but I ended up getting Mass Effect 3 and a $20 Amazon credit, so that math makes me feel much better about what I paid.

Although too many games not saving made me take a rage break for a while, there is a lot of potential. That said, I would wait for a lower price point. I was fortunate and caught it on a $40 Amazon sale, and I would say that is pushing it had I not gotten a free game too. I would also say the more time they have to patch the better.

Most of the hassle for me comes from the fact that in order to get the Mac version I'm pretty much stuck with Origin and its terrible pricing.

Unless of course I could buy the PC version via Amazon and activate it via Origin in order to get the Mac version. Does anyone know if that would be possible?

Merkaba wrote:

Unless of course I could buy the PC version via Amazon and activate it via Origin in order to get the Mac version. Does anyone know if that would be possible?

It's your lucky day. According to the FAQ:

If I have both a PC and a Mac, do I have to purchase two copies of the game if I want to play on both systems?
All players who registered their copy of SimCity will have access to both the PC and Mac versions of the game through Origin. Only one Origin account can be logged in at a time. No additional purchases are necessary.

Other sources like Polygon seem to confirm.

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for the next time it's a bit cheaper on Amazon.

Filthy enablers.

That is all.

Supposedly there is a theme park expansion on the way.

Budo wrote:

Supposedly there is a theme park expansion on the way.

This is more of a general SimCity question, but has anyone ever seen golf courses in any version of SimCity? (And, yes, I know about SimGolf. My question is whether any SimCity progeny has had a golf course.)