Oruc
Reactionary
I just caught part of the live quicklook on Giantbomb and this looks terrible, the city size is tiny.
SimCity 5
- Thread starter KMRblue1027
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cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
These cities look more like local neighborhoods, Sims style, rather than actual cities, ya know...
XplorR
Chieftain
The game should be renamed SimVille. Oh wait SimsVille was cancelled 2001 by Maxis. Ok, then SimTown.
Ouch. Is this genre really one where its players appreciate getting trolled?Peter said:
The rest of their discussions posted there make it sound like a buggy mess.
Leonel
Breakfast Connoisseur
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Yeah, me too... who cares about leaderboards in a simulator? Are they supposed to be competitive?
Yeah, my Internet connection is pretty awful, too, although in some ways better than the one I had before that...
I found disasters in Sim City 3000 to occasionally be fun, to watch the chaos, but I also very much appreciated that I could disable them and could save beforehand. But generally, no, I wouldn't consider simlators to be a genre of people who enjoy being trolled. Rather the opposite, actually.
But I shall have to read Ars' review. Even though I won't be buying until it works offline, it's always interesting to see what impressions of the next divisive blockbuster is.
(Also, I might have to report that post to the moderators given the quote...
)edit: Loved some of the catastrophes. Morons running the nuclear plant, so that it melted down. The jittery tornado-building. The crime map highlighting the jail. The time always being 8:02 PM. Granted, the morons running the nuclear plant one probably should be possible... but it should indicate the risk when you go to build one. The others are amusing bugs, as in amusing because I'm not the one playing on day one.k
But on a wider level, 200,000 seems really low as an absolute max, and the city itself looks pretty small. It almost does make you wonder if this should be Sim Town 2000. Unless it's really inefficient, my dad's computer could handle a much larger city than that. And while, to be fair, 200,000 was the largest I can remember getting in SC3K, I still had tons of free space in that city, and others built much larger cities.
And it sounds like the Sim-level mapping might be a let-down? I'd assumed they'd add some role-playing elements to it... as easy as "follow this family, form an interest in them" type stuff. If it's just random people, that is kinda boring.
The lack of highways in the city was surprising. Of the four cities I've lived in, two had multiple major highways downtown. Though from the looks of it, a highway would eat up about a tenth of the space on the whole map here.
Entertaining read, but didn't make me want to buy the game.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
nevermind wrong thread
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
I don't want to be negative, and I want this newest SimCity to be awesome as all the other SimCities...
But it looks like I might have to just go back to SimCity 4. At least SimCity 4 ages well and allows me to create my deluded modern utopic empire of modern utopic cities sprawling across a wide expanse, instead of a tiny village-suburb of some tiny city in the MidWest.
But it looks like I might have to just go back to SimCity 4. At least SimCity 4 ages well and allows me to create my deluded modern utopic empire of modern utopic cities sprawling across a wide expanse, instead of a tiny village-suburb of some tiny city in the MidWest.
Kind of meant it as a rhetorical question.
I agree disasters can make for a fun challenge, but to not be able to save and potentially have your city ruined is probably not pleasant for a more casual player. Most of the time I played any of the Simcity games I was a kid and I remember that I didn't like having disasters turned on. These days I'm much more likely to play games with a sort of competitive mindset but I suspect I'm in the minority in this respect, but possibly in the majority for those who frequent the forums of a strategy game
.It's not really about what's on the surface though. The physical dimensions of the city aren't that important. 200,000 agents is a lot to simulate. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if that is a fairly big task for a powerful computer and so that is basically the limit for your cities. I've seen in some comments on these simcity impressions sites the more cynical person suggesting "larger cities via paid DLC", but I doubt that. Certainly more city styles or unique buildings or something, but I think the city sizes are going to be pretty much set from release.
The advantage each previous Simcity had was that it didn't have to simulate things so meticulously - a lot of stuff was statistical rules. An apartment tower that housed maybe 1000 people was basically 1 unit, or 1 agent, if comparing to Simcity5.
The big question is, and the answer might lie in the division of opinion over whether Simcity 5 is a success or not, ...
Is it more satisfying to have a more fine-grained simulation where a lot of what the individual agents will "make sense" at the cost of decreased overall city size, or more satisfying to have a massive city with many assumptions about how its agents behave on average?
I think that the more fine-grained simulation should allow for more divergent game paths (viable types of cities) than all the previous Simcity games, but it still depends a lot on the execution (and this is the big uncertainty, given it's EA, crazy DRM, over-hyped etc.), and whether it's worth the cost (backward steps in other areas) will be very interesting to see.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
I really don't think that simulating every citizen is necessary, even simulating every 5th or so person would suffice. You also sacrifice quite a lot with the small city size, tonnes of deadspace around them no really used for anything, including wilderness.
EDIT:
EDIT2:
Link to video.
EDIT:
EDIT2:
Link to video.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
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So, Slate's resident single-spacer Manjoo seems to love this game and posted a glowing review.
As if I needed another reason to hate this guy.
As if I needed another reason to hate this guy.
Chairman Meow
Class IV
This is an interesting article. The game is basically designed for being played with other people online, and if they abandon their cities, it can destroy yours.
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The thirty minute wait to join a server could've been avoided by allowing offline play. Since it seems that regional play is largely incidental, I don't think there'd be a problem.
City sizes should be increased it seems if for no other reasons than it being too cramped by most accounts.
City sizes should be increased it seems if for no other reasons than it being too cramped by most accounts.
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
God, I'm already hearing terrible things about it (though never from the "official" review sites, of course)... It's hard to distinguish between EA hatedom and actual reasonable criticism of the new SimCity, but I'm not hearing what I want to hear.
EDIT: Well, apparently all the official review sites reviewed a controlled version of the game monitored by EA that didn't have to deal with the servers... so... yeah, guess I can't trust them at all this time.
The small city size is ridiculous, though. Though we're probably going to just have "region pack" DLCs that add large city-sizes for only $10!
Well, if I do fancy playing this new one, then I'll just wait a year or two or three when it's on sale for 75% off along with all its DLC. Well, if the online servers are still on.
EDIT: Well, apparently all the official review sites reviewed a controlled version of the game monitored by EA that didn't have to deal with the servers... so... yeah, guess I can't trust them at all this time.
The small city size is ridiculous, though. Though we're probably going to just have "region pack" DLCs that add large city-sizes for only $10!
Well, if I do fancy playing this new one, then I'll just wait a year or two or three when it's on sale for 75% off along with all its DLC. Well, if the online servers are still on.
After a couple of years, Sims 3 and its DLC is still ridiculously overpriced and rarely has sales that are better than 66% off, which leaves the price still squarely in the "overpriced" range even at this much off.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
It´s amazing what PC games has become. Complex programming monsters where the 80% of the companies effort is dedicated to avoid cracking and the other 20% is a crappy game totally conditioned by that 80%. What has happened?
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
So, anyhow, has anyone played the new SimCity yet? Are the small city sizes that bad, or is it forcing you to play the regional-thingymajig the way EA wants you to?
Ah, right. Forgot it's truly an EA game now. I bought Sims 3 and some of its major expansions only when it was 66-75% off (somehow it was 75% off at some places here and there), and I suspect the large majority of the money I've spent on games these past few years has been for just that.
Ah, well. Maybe back to SimCity 4 for another decade. Which is fine. It's sustained me for a decade, and it's still playable and enjoyable. Or maybe even Cities XL, even for all the horrid bugs I've heard about.
Ah, right. Forgot it's truly an EA game now. I bought Sims 3 and some of its major expansions only when it was 66-75% off (somehow it was 75% off at some places here and there), and I suspect the large majority of the money I've spent on games these past few years has been for just that.
Ah, well. Maybe back to SimCity 4 for another decade. Which is fine. It's sustained me for a decade, and it's still playable and enjoyable. Or maybe even Cities XL, even for all the horrid bugs I've heard about.
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That certainly is a lot of agents to simulate. So yeah, I can see why technically it's intensive to simulate that, and 700,000 might be way too slow. It's a cool idea having every person be simulated, but the question of whether it's worth the tradeoff is open. It probably will be worth it to some people, but whether it's a clear majority, only time will tell.
The "server busy" and long time to rejoin might be preferable to other issues... except for the alternative that offline play would solve the issue entirely.
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