SimCity

tpatt100

Omg don't buy this game until maybe this summer.....

EA really messed up with the launch and it's fake "server side computations always on connection required" which is fake I lost connection last night and played for almost an hour.....

Anyways the benefits of the "cloud" is saved games on the "cloud".

What happen to clouds? They float away with my data and lose everything I worked on for two hours today and the game rolled me back to when I first started working on my city around noon.....

This game is really broken I have put in many hours because it is fun but noticing a ton of bugs in game and connecting to the game.

Aldur

I've always really enjoyed SimCity games, but I'm glad I sat this one out. The idea of combating piracy by requiring you to be logged into an online server just rubs me the wrong way. After playing Diablo 3 and getting lag in a single player game I doubt I'll ever play a single player game that requires me to be logged into an online server to play.

Trifidw

What I don't get is why people buy EA games? It must have been about 10 years ago I felt burnt by their poor quality and they are still the same. And Origin is rubbish.

Aldur

It seems to be hard to avoid EA games now days, with how they tend to buy up gaming companies left and right. For example, the takeover of Bioware. I used to love Bioware games, but since the EA takeover occurred, their games have seriously gone down hill. I was so disappointed in Dragon Age 2 that I haven't bought any game that carries the EA tag since.

tpatt100

I don't mind "Origin" I see it as the same as Steam, I would prefer to just buy and download an executable and not require all these services though.

thegoodbye

This amazon review sums up this fiasco fairly well.

Amazon.com: Malor's review of SimCity - Limited Edition

ptilsen

I have to admit, I'm guilty. I got excited by the SimCity reviews and had to get it. Even with the server load issues mostly alleviated, the game has serious flaws. Forget the always-online bit. It bothers me, but not enough to dissuade buying and playing a good game. The problem is the game mechanics don't work right. They bill always-online as a feature. Play any claimed city from any computer with other people. Work together to do cool stuff in your region. However, over a week later region mechanics are still partially broken. Everyone is playing Heart of the Swarm and they have more that five times as many servers as release day, so it's not a load issue. Inter-city stuff just doesn't work right, probably even worse than in SimCity 4. There's no rhyme or reason to commuting, to available utility load, when utilities run out, or anything like that.

This wouldn't even be the end of the world, but solo-city play for more than a few hours is literally impossible. There are effective limits due to how small cities are that necessitate region play, even if it means switching between to or three cities on your own.

It had, even still has the potential to be a great game. Even when you look past the server problems of the first week of release, it hasn't met that potential. I bought the game and won't return it, but I won't recommend playing it -- even if you own it, my recommendation is to just not play it. It's fun until you realize the broken mechanics are a virtual brick wall to your region progress. They have to fix it. Even EA can't leave it this broken.

Honestly, I should have just said no to EA after they destroyed Westwood. Forget Bioware and Maxis (not literally -- they, too, were great developers), EA-led Westwood wrecked the Command & Conquer/Red Alert series over ten years ago. Every time an EA game worth getting comes out, it's marred by nonsense like this. As long as we keep paying, this will keep happening.

Mutata

@ptilsen +1 - I miss old Westwood . Red Alert will go down in history as one of my most played games. Post EA C&C really hit me hard and I found the games really hit and miss, mostly miss (Red Alert 3 was one of the few decent ones).

I almost feel for Maxis, in many senses SimCity itself plays well. I think the regions - on paper, were a decent idea. However; the city sizes and technical issues are brutal. As someone who's played all the previous SimCity titles I think this version lacks the essence of SimCity. I just want to get on, build a good size, self-contained city. I don't want to share my fire-trucks, see commuters etc. I wonder how many of Maxis' design decisions were based on pressure from EA, vs developers creating what they felt aligned with what SimCity is.

I don't hate the game, but I wouldn't recommend it- nor do I see myself playing it much with all the new Heart of the Swarm content

tpatt100

I kind of like the specialized cities and trading between them. Just wish it was more straight forward and made sense, seems the community is trying to figure the game out together and are finding bugs along the way

ptilsen

Yeah, I would definitely prefer at least the option to build bigger (even if still limited) cities and have them fairly self-contained (and EA will probably add it as $10 ****ing DLC in a few months), but I could get behind the whole region play if it actually worked as expected.

I can see a lot of Maxis in the style of the game and some of the better design aspects, but I see more EA. Release it incomplete. Patch what's truly broken eventually. Sell DLC to fix the rest. That's SimCity, and if that isn't EA, I don't know what is.

Oh, also, something really specific that was basically the last straw for me: Resources run out, even water. If you play long enough, you have to go through major urban renewal just to get enough water. As time goes by, a larger portion of your land real estate must be devoted to harvesting water, ultimately limiting city growth and even condemning it to eventual decline no matter how much region mechanics get patched or how well you play.

jmritenour

Seriously upset to see the way SimCity has shaped up. I've been waiting for a new SimCity game forever, and my wife had planned to get it for me for my birthday later this month. But between the launch issues, and the latest fail about the AI's pathfinding algorithms I told her not to bother.

Guess I'll just stick with SimCity 4. Maybe I'll give Cities XL a try next time it's on sale on Steam.

chrisone

wow 3,000+ 1 star negative feed backs!

If i were EA i would be backing up and securing all my data. They pissed off the tech community, they are about to get hacked severely for their greedyness!

Just watch , 2 weeks from now or sooner , you will see EA being hacked massively.

N2IT

SOCOM 1,2,3,and 4 (ZIPPER)

Roguetadhg

I have SimCity. I have to say on the side of the developer - it's definitely ambitious. It so ambitious it was doomed to be a failure in some regards.

Let's look at it from the big picture though:
1) They've developed a simcity that's multiplayer. One that I've always had wanted.
2) There's Traffic on the street. I'm not talking marching ants, or ghosts. Real-ish-traffic. People traffic. Working stop lights.
3) Camera the way you want it. I love being able to do what I want, when I want it. I can zoom in.
4) One City Effects the Others. Your Casino / SimPimps town got crime problems? ...How do I react? I build a police prescent and march an army down the other mayor's throat (28 cars + 4 Helos). No Really. I did. BEST Gratification in hearing him moan about the police invasion was too awesome.
5) It's what I wanted in a SimCity game in a long time. I've owner other Sim games and wanted to be "In the town" - Streets of SimCity, SimCopter, SimTower. All trying to get a glimpse of how it would work from the micro to the macro. I used my imagaination before to imagine what Joe on Launch Arco does. It gives a surreal approach to the game that I find so damn awesome.
6) Color blind friendly. Game has filters for those who can't see a certain color, or colors. Call me crazy but I think that's a seriously brilliant move. It's the first time (I know of) a AAA-game made proper changes for people to see. I think all games should have this option or make it so that nVidia/ATi can do this driver-side. It's that awesome.

Cons:
There are definite problems with pathfinding. Anyone whose played any amount of time in the game will tell you this. I say this saying players above 100k of population. Priorities are messed up. Controls for little things aren't there. Fire engines will all swarm one area, Fire Helos will get stuck above buildings (Letting the fire burn)... and you have to hire MaxisMas (The hero) to do things. [Not so much a Hero, imo]

I can say this here, because we networkers have some sense of how routers path find. I think they've should introduce some type of system to give priority to "as close, definitely faster" routes. If the game was to calculate values for the roads (Avenues = Better than a smaller street running beside it). Or heck, we could assign waypoints for traffic that enter the city - go this router. For example, I'm having problems with my trade trucks using my avenues that stretch around the city, with limited access to the inner-parts. If I could tell "All traffic (to the area) of Z, go A then B then C ..." would be great.

I don't think there was enough testing at the higher-stages. They definitely were pushing out patches and fixes right before the launch.. so I give them some credit.

--I say all this knowing it's Maxis. Considering EA is in it.. and how my beloved Command and Conquers series came out (Lul CnC:4 - wtf?!). I believe this will be milked, and milked, and milked. And as much as I hate this - I really don't think DRM will disappear. Unfortantly. I disliked EA before. Now I just down-right find them offensive. And YES - I did have 4 months of thinking saying "It's a SimCity. But... It's EA... It's SimCity..." I wanted to support Maxis. I could really give a flying about EA. I hope the company goes under because apparently this is done with EVERY game. Every game that comes out with multiplayer this heavily, out of the gate, EA stumbles. They just got a lot of attention this time.

As far as the city size - I'm glad it's that small. Really. It's taxing my gaming computer to run 400,000 simulations at the same time. All the data layers, all the computations. Multiply the distances and the processor will be easily taxed hard. I'm not even running the game at any serious graphic level!


Summary: The game is awesome. It has it's problems. But it's a truely magnificant game that anyone who had any imagination - despite the headaches of traffic - should try.

spicy ahi

Maybe it's just me, but I've been enjoying the bugs. I've had to rebuild my city 3 or 4 times because either all my firefighters suddenly went narcoleptic and let half my city burn while they fell asleep at the wheel or suddenly my hospitals and clinics forget how to do their jobs and my city population drops dramatically because of disease (I imagine it as the avian flu sweeping through my city) Yeah, it's frustrating because the game is screwing me and not me screwing me (like I do in the other SimCity games) but at the same time I've taken up the challenge to rebuild my city again and again which has strangely been fun. Guess the 10 year drought will do that to you.

The one thing I hate, and I agree with ptilson, is that the cloud aspect sucks when it suddenly d/c's you and you lose an hour of progress. That's happened to me once already and suffice it to say I cursed every one of the developers mothers Now, whenever I see that server disconnected warning pop up, I wait until it says I'm reconnected then I exit to let my city sync with the server. So far so good.

yoshiiaki

Well on the other side of things, this is the top rated 5 star review.

Amazon.com: Sim Lover's review of SimCity - Limited Edition

He's even asking for a sequel. lol

(yes I know it's a joke)

WilliamK99

I am actually boycotting all EA games, which means basically all games for the forseeable future. EA needs to be hit in the pocketbook for them to make serious changes to how they operate.

WafflesAndRootbeer

As long as EA is slinging football and basketball games, nobody can harm them. Those are their cash-cow and there is a very large socio-economic demographic of working-class/lower-class men and boys from ages 12-45 that will always buy whatever they serve up under their EA Sports brand.