EA Gifting Free Game to SimCity Players

So, any thoughts regarding Cities XL? Started to look at that game since I refuse to buy SimCity from EA.
 
night_2004 said:
So, any thoughts regarding Cities XL? Started to look at that game since I refuse to buy SimCity from EA.
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There are bugs, but it isn't as polished as say SimCity 4.

The citizens, to me, tend to get unsatisfied too easily. It was easier to satisfy needs in SC4 than CXL 2012. I have more than enough Unskilled workers yet it's telling me I need more. Ok.... what gives? And so on.

SC2013 excluded, CXL 2012 does offer a better way to map streets, roads and highways. It unfortunately lacks railroads and other mass transit. Those I have to rely on user-created mods.

Tell you the truth, I play SC4 more than CXL 2012, and lately, much more than SC2013.
 
So my free game for spending $86 (including tax) is some POS game with the same Crappy DRM, or broken gameplay created by EA.. Awesome.. Now I have two headaches instead of one..
 
Aside from the whole DRM debacle, I have managed to get some gameplay in, which appears so broken, it is not funny.. Not sure if it is related to the DRM/Servers, but I created a region, and am the only one playing in it..

I transferred some money from city A to city B.. (two times).. Money never showed up..
The amount of money you make per hour is broken... I was making 8k/hr, then all of a sudden a new month starts, and I am -7K/hr.. Population stayed about the same..

I have 3 police stations in my city.. The police officers seem to take the criminals to the first police station I created.

Water.. Where do I start.. It runs out, and does not replenish itself. Normally I could see this happening, but hell, I am right next to a river.. Why can't I get water from the river/ocean what ever it is??

Traffic patterns (Traffic is just stupid, there is no algorithm, it seems totally random) Especially with buses. I have buses that go down a road towards a bus stop with people waiting, and pull a u-turn and drive in circles.

I added an airport at City B, so I could build an international airport.. Took about 4 hours for it to actually show up in City A that there was a airport in the region, and international was unlocked for City A, although it was already unlocked for City B... (Not to mention I could see the airport if I looked at City B from City A)...

I had two casinos right next to each other. Serviced by a single road.. Casino 1 got full and people turned away and left while casino 2 was left empty.

I decided to create a recycling plant to try and offload some of the trash issues. This would have been cool if I could sell the plastic that it generated.. Unfortunately to be able to add plastic containers to shipping ports, you have to either have a particular add-on for trade.. or have petroleum add-on, unfortunately I could not see how anyone could make 2mil (don't remember the number) in a day for my trade HQ.. And I had no oil. So I had to go start a new city w/ Oil to just try and get the stupid Energy HQ w/ petroleum.. (I was already using the metal add-on).. But why in the hell should I know how to create plastic from petroleum, if all I want to do is sell it??

This game seems so broken, with everything that is done..

I am really disappointed that getting in to play is a game of luck, and if you do get in, updates, disconnects, etc are frequent.
 
This ain't EA's first rodeo, nor is this unique to the PC game industry.

This is how it went at EA HQ:

"Stats indicate normal load is requires $1m in infrastructure. Peak load is historically at 21:00 zulu, at which point $1,5m is required. We will buy $2m worth. However Day One requires $5m. With $2m spent we will get complaints that cost us $1m. So by using $2m, this is the optimal level statistically to balance capital outlay versus profitability."

These guys are run by accountants. In an accountant's eye's you balance losses, you do not eliminate them.

Expect every new game released that requires servers to get swamped day one. That is where the money is for them.
 
Most plastic recycling requires mixing with virgin content to resell. ie - You need fresh plastic from oil to blend with the recycled plastic in order to sell it.
 
Qinsp said:
This ain't EA's first rodeo, nor is this unique to the PC game industry.

This is how it went at EA HQ:

"Stats indicate normal load is requires $1m in infrastructure. Peak load is historically at 21:00 zulu, at which point $1,5m is required. We will buy $2m worth. However Day One requires $5m. With $2m spent we will get complaints that cost us $1m. So by using $2m, this is the optimal level statistically to balance capital outlay versus profitability."

These guys are run by accountants. In an accountant's eye's you balance losses, you do not eliminate them.

Expect every new game released that requires servers to get swamped day one. That is where the money is for them.
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The thing is since EA is using Amazon's cloud service they can order the resources needed for launch and then cancel them when they are no longer needed. They are not buying the physical hardware or even renting dedicated servers.
 
It's cheaper to piss off a fraction of your customers than make them all happy. This is how accounting works today.
 
Anyone who has filed an insurance claim has perhaps seen this as well. They deny a fraction of legit claims to maximize profits. Only a fraction of the denied claims fight the issue.
 
You won't be able to play it at all years down the road when they shut the servers down, so why even buy it in the first place? Sell me the server side of D3 and SC 5 and I'll consider it. Paying money for a client is lunacy.
 
chrispix said:
Water.. Where do I start.. It runs out, and does not replenish itself. Normally I could see this happening, but hell, I am right next to a river.. Why can't I get water from the river/ocean what ever it is??

I decided to create a recycling plant to try and offload some of the trash issues. This would have been cool if I could sell the plastic that it generated.. Unfortunately to be able to add plastic containers to shipping ports, you have to either have a particular add-on for trade.. or have petroleum add-on, unfortunately I could not see how anyone could make 2mil (don't remember the number) in a day for my trade HQ.. And I had no oil. So I had to go start a new city w/ Oil to just try and get the stupid Energy HQ w/ petroleum.. (I was already using the metal add-on).. But why in the hell should I know how to create plastic from petroleum, if all I want to do is sell it??
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At the later stage you place the sewage treatment planet next to or near the water pump as the treatment plant cleans the water and thus creates ground water in the surrounding area.

AFAIK the trade depot can have any of they from the start, the trade port has certain requirements because it is a lot bigger.
 
What sucks is even when you do get in the entire time in the upper left youll see lost connection to servers on and off, and when this happens and your buying electricity or water from a neighbor it stops working or just never starts working, so... every city that is super tiny to begin with needs water, sewage, electricity, fire, police, ambulance..... so every area on the map basically needs services of its own...stupid... would be fine if my area was reasonable like 10x the current space given
 
octoberasian said:
According to Joystiq or Engadget, the free game is supposedly Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

That's your consolation gift from EA.
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To make up for our failure of an online only game, please accept the game that killed the MoH franchise.
 
Dark12 said:
Did anyone really expect to be able to play on the week of release?
Sure you SHOULD have been able to play, but have we learned nothing from D3?
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It's also a single player game. There's zero reason to not expect to play at any given day.
 
Just play Cities XL. I have a few cities in XL 2012 that are doing very well. The game could use some polish but I have been pretty successful at making cities 'work'. I want to get Cities XL Platinum soon, hopefully it will fix the few issues in 2012.
 
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