SimCity 5

[CivCube]

Translation: You can buy it on Steam but you'll still have to use the Origin launcher.

 

[Antilogic]

Let's give them at least some credit for the surprise. Things may be looking marginally up.

 

[Maniacal]

Translation: You can buy it on Steam but you'll still have to use the Origin launcher.

Due to having to connect to their servers every time you start the game or you can't play.

 

[civ_king]

Due to having to connect to their servers every time you start the game or you can't play.

At least they came up with a reason for it other than "because we said so".

 

[warpus]

I might just not buy this game for that reason.

Only thing I can do as a dissatisfied customer.

 

[Synobun]

They're doing an AMA on Reddit right now.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14umm1/we_are_the_simcity_dev_team_from_maxis_amaa/

 

[Skwink]

FAQ

When is the Beta? – Stay tuned for more details, we will be making an announcement in the near future!

So informative!

 

[Maniacal]

Bad news from the IAMA:

Hey, not avoiding this one. I actually just ran over to our online engineering team to get the latest info. We do handle "short" internet outages gracefully. Meaning, if your internet goes out while you're logged in and playing the game, we can can recover gracefully. You shouldn't notice a thing. "Short" is still being defined.

We will allow you to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most likely be minutes.

So it isn't just a connection needed when you start the game. Also just more handwaving and PR BS about modding. This is ridiculous but not really unexpected.

 

[NBAfan]

I've gave up on this when they had the marketing "look, you can make guitar shaped cities!"

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'm starting to be a bit skeptical about the way the game looks, too. While the Cities XL doesn't compare to SimCity 4, which is still in a highly playable state even after all these years, at least it got the general look of things right - the new SimCity still looks a bit too cartoony compared to Cities XL and SimCity 4, a bit too colorful and cheerful. Granted, it might just be a minor aesthetic thing, but I hope it doesn't bode ill about the game. I, like most of us here, want SimCity to be a good, interesting, engaging game like whatever our favorite SimCities were.

But f not, at least I can still try SimCity 4. Man, that thing still looks great now. It's aged well, perhaps way too well. Like immortal vampire or made-a-deal-with-the-devil aged well.

 

[Skwink]

Probably not going to get SC5 if it's not on Steam. I don't really hate Origin, but I don't want to have to open it up for one game I'll occasionally play.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Know what? SimCity is a nerdgame, and its good that way. If only the devs would accept that fact. Every problem with the SC5 plans comes from there: trying to make a nerd game mainstreamish.

Small Citys: The reason for small citys is that a) all the shiny gimmicks eat system power like there was no tomorrow b) onine is hip and online causes traffic, large citys -> more traffic, needs more servers, expencive, bad

Childish design: everything is colourfull and funny but thats . Citys are greay, brown, some green here and there. The new SC5 looks all shiny happy funny kindergartenish. Because funny colours are great!

No zoning levels: Casual gamers allways want big and mighty, and never clever, boring but usefull. SO lets just cut all the stuff that allows real gamers to make real plans. just cut it. only nerds need it anyway.

No modding and no Terraforming: Sure, if you want everyone to play together everyone needs to follow the same rules and play the same game. Its like forcing Garry Kasparov, Michael Jordan and Pelé to decide for only one game but who cares...

And know whats worse? after this one fails the devs will say they did theire best but the genre is dead.

Irony like a crowbar

Well, there are some gamers like me who hate the micromanaging stuff and need an easier mode. The problem is that EA needs to cater to both sides, and it's hard to do so.

 

[GenMarshall]

Probably not going to get SC5 if it's not on Steam. I don't really hate Origin, but I don't want to have to open it up for one game I'll occasionally play.

If they didint release Mass Effect 3 onto Steam, odds are they're not going to put SC5 onto Steam.

 

[Maniacal]

Well, there are some gamers like me who hate the micromanaging stuff and need an easier mode. The problem is that EA needs to cater to both sides, and it's hard to do so.

Its not like there was much micromanaging you HAD to do in SC4. I barely know how to play it and I have made a few relatively successful (ie not bankrupt and Detroit-like) large cities with very little micromanaging. The Sim City games haven't really been that difficult, but have offered a lot of complicated stuff one can do (especially with the help of mods in SC4) if you put the time and effort into it.

 

[Synobun]

Its not like there was much micromanaging you HAD to do in SC4. I barely know how to play it and I have made a few relatively successful (ie not bankrupt and Detroit-like) large cities with very little micromanaging. The Sim City games haven't really been that difficult, but have offered a lot of complicated stuff one can do (especially with the help of mods in SC4) if you put the time and effort into it.

This. I had no clue how to play SC2, had huge difficulties playing SC3, but SC4 was pretty lenient and SC:S was, well... Don't talk to me about that.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah I don't know if SC3 was because I was actually bad at the game (which I was) or mostly because I was like 11 and 12 years old when I played it, but it wasn't as easy without constantly cheating for money.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Yeah I don't know if SC3 was because I was actually bad at the game (which I was) or mostly because I was like 11 and 12 years old when I played it, but it wasn't as easy withotu constantly cheating for money.

That's the thing. SC4 had no sandbox mode. No matter what, you were always doing something wrong. Which is okay for some people, but I'm the person who would like to create a sample city just to see how it would function, or to destroy it.

 

[Luckymoose]

SC3 was the easiest one to play and the best SC game.

 

[Chieftess]

Is it just me, or was I the only one who had successful huge, sprawling cities in SC4? (busses and subways on almost every street corner seemed to help and create little boon towns within the city, and parks made for tons of mansions), plus a healthy educational, medical (which was a little annoying...), police and fire coverage. In fact, I next to neglected fire coverage in the residential area, as all I had to do was quickly place a cheap fire station near the fire.

Then again, I've been playing the series for decades.

Now, for SC5, I do like the organic-ness of it, but it sounds like they toned down the micromanagement (my favorite part of any simulation, actually. I really enjoy changing seemingly hundreds of settings.) If I read correctly, it'll require a connection to the Maxis servers? My main problem with that is, if the company goes down, and so do the servers, you can't play the game anymore since it won't be able to find the servers.

 

[Maniacal]

The game also saves your game online constantly as you play, so you can't reload an earlier one.