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Didn't get the zombie outbreak in any of the ones I made. I also had found a glitch that cause me to play for over an hour. but it doesn't work anymore. 
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Sim City Beta
- Thread starter Krazen
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bloodhawke83
I Strike Fear into the Hearts of the Masses
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Played a view more games, UI is just way more friendly than SC4.
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Game comes out March 5, so I don't think they will do another beta.
alot of online games run beta's up until the point of release. im sure they will be doing a stress test a couple days before release. there was a cap on this closed beta for how many people could play at one time at some point they have to open the flood gate and let everyone have a go at it and bring their system down before release.
but it also wouldnt suprise me if ea was treating this "beta" as a demo just to watch their origin pre order numbers to see if they spike up or down.
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So, the next beta will run from March 5th through about June 5th,
It will be public, but cost $60 to enter.
LeXXon
n00b
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I see what you did there.
TheMadHatterXxX
2[H]4U
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Rofl. nice one.
yes its true that each city is limited to 2kmx2km which you see in the beta.
the limitation is due to memory size confirmed by the devs.
source
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1728095/simcity_maxis_explains_limited_city_sizes.html
"It wasn't all a design decision, however, which Katsarelis admits later on. "We had some performance constraints that factored into the decision. The difference with this SimCity, there's more to do at the city level and more simulation shared between cities, making the multi-city combinations and play mind blowing."
It's the multi-city and in-depth systems working together that really makes SimCity, says Katsarelis, and when they are combined at "both the city and region levels, it adds all new depth to the game. Don't let the size of an individual city box mislead you, it's a big game."
This is all confirmed by Maxis' software engineer Richard Shemaka, who claims that having all these "components all interacting in real-time on a mid-range home computer" is practically a technical marvel.
He later confirms that there are technical limitations, however: each region is restricted to 16 cities because of a "client performance issue".
"The memory required to store information of more cities," states Shamaka, "and the performance required to show even bigger regions and additional cities is too much. 16 was just the number that met the budget."
they are looking into making larger cities possible but they wont be in at release.
there are a few things they prob need to do before they can implement larger cities.
make the client 64bit if its not already.
allow some sort gui for the selection
rework the leader boards to slit up the small cities and larger cities into groups so for people with lower end machines and memory restrictions they arnt competing on the same boards with small cities and the people with larger cities
im sure glassbox and the ai might need to be reworked some also to deal with the larger areas.
also here is a link to a post about City Size Limitation: Perspective of a Simulation-Software Developer
http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/17aqln/city_size_limitation_perspective_of_a/
which helps explain why the city sizes are what they are and the challenges faced with making them larger.
What's interesting is you have a game like Cities in Motion 2 which is going in the completely opposite direction by making its new map size equal to 4 of its predacessor's. I know there is probably a lot more simulation going on in the background with Sim City, but CIM2 is going to be quite the game to look at in the sim category when it comes to exceeding what one thinks are technical limitations.
Drakenfeng
Gawd
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Sounds like the simulation will continue running - to an extent - in cities you are not currently playing. If that is the case the size restriction won't be as bad as it could. In SC4 it was way too easy to cheese the system by creating 4 cities in a square fashion - each one selling utilities / trash to each other in a circle. End result is that garbage just 'disappears' into a black hole. If the new simulation prevents things like this it'd be a nice change.
The 'black hole' also ended up hurting players more than they realized. If highways / road connections are made too close to two borders of a city commuters could pass directly through the city - consuming demand - without actually contributing anything. To avoid this the player would have to knowingly place all connections near the center of the edges as possible.
Other oddities in SC4 is that pollution suddenly stops at borders. Since this is an online game I could see that still being in place but for offline regions it would make sense for pollution to spill over between cities.
The 'black hole' also ended up hurting players more than they realized. If highways / road connections are made too close to two borders of a city commuters could pass directly through the city - consuming demand - without actually contributing anything. To avoid this the player would have to knowingly place all connections near the center of the edges as possible.
Other oddities in SC4 is that pollution suddenly stops at borders. Since this is an online game I could see that still being in place but for offline regions it would make sense for pollution to spill over between cities.
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I remember doing this. Along with power plants and water.
I wonder that when the final version is released, there will be cheat codes for single player like in SimCity 4. Although I generally play by the rules, I still need to get some cash from the shady lobbyist every once in a while
pretty sure the final version does have a sandbox mode, where all the buildings are unlocked and you can use cheats and mods ect. but the sandbox mode i think disables taking part in buying/selling to the online player driven global market. and leader boards.
its been mentioned by the devs that pollution will not stop at your boarder and will traverse the region affecting other players (they said it takes awhile depending on how far away the other city in the region is) so its important to take note of wind direction when you decide to take over a city zone.
they didnt mention how long it would take or how much pollution dissipates over distance ect.
if you are up wind of one of your friends cities i would prob either try to make that city as high tech as possible if you want to be a good neighbor or as polluted as possible if you wanted to be an evil neighbor
TheMadHatterXxX
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I wonder that when the final version is released, there will be cheat codes for single player like in SimCity 4. Although I generally play by the rules, I still need to get some cash from the shady lobbyist every once in a while
I doubt you will need the cheat codes, apparently for some Sim City 4 was hard to generate a positive income but from what I've read so far this game has been dumbed down so that generating an income shouldn't be too hard.
$60.00 ...smh. All I gotta say is thank god for gray market websites that sell Origin keys.
Thanks for your response. I have no doubt there are legitimate reasons for doing it. I may not like EA, but I don't think they would screw customers out of options for no reason at all. I just think that limiting the options to smallish cities (in my eyes) is the absolutely wrong call to make to appeal to someone like me. Simcity "works" when you see all the systems working together in harmony, but it is only amazing when you can do it on a grand scale.
I would much rather them have put in the option and let me see if my city grinds to a halt due to the calculation limits of the sim than to force me to accept less than I would want.
Maybe I am outside the ordinary, but I spent 90% of my time in SC4 working on cities on the largest maps. The remaining 10% was spent building suburbs for my big cities. In a Simcity game, I want to build Chicago, not Peoria.
i really hope after the game is released they work at getting us a 64bit patch for larger cities. they know how much everyone wants it so its upto to EA to make he right decision here.
EA can only make so many mistakes before they figure out there is a reason they won the Worst company award in 2012. maybe they will come through for gamers with simcity down the road.
forums have been ablaze at EA and other places with people asking for larger cities and probably alot more vocal than any other major release EA has had in awhile. they have heard our cries for larger cities its just a question if they will do something about it.
i dont expect it to happen over night tho maybe with the first major expansion/DLC pack 6 months to a year from now we might hear more about if its possible or not.
until then tho im hoping someone mods the zombie disaster so they dont die when the sun comes up and you can see a zombie outbreak take over the whole city long term. would be awsome to see cops rush in from neighboring cities and choppers flying over to try and help but be helpless from the over whelming number of zombies.
EA can only make so many mistakes before they figure out there is a reason they won the Worst company award in 2012. maybe they will come through for gamers with simcity down the road.
forums have been ablaze at EA and other places with people asking for larger cities and probably alot more vocal than any other major release EA has had in awhile. they have heard our cries for larger cities its just a question if they will do something about it.
i dont expect it to happen over night tho maybe with the first major expansion/DLC pack 6 months to a year from now we might hear more about if its possible or not.
until then tho im hoping someone mods the zombie disaster so they dont die when the sun comes up and you can see a zombie outbreak take over the whole city long term. would be awsome to see cops rush in from neighboring cities and choppers flying over to try and help but be helpless from the over whelming number of zombies.
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Isnt that the point of the regions system though?
You may only get a 2kmx2km map, but your region is 16kmx16km, isnt it?
You get between 4 and 16 city plots per region yes,
And there's much more interaction between cities than in Sim City 4, in addition to just buying selling power & garbage, people actually commute back and forth, government services like schools and police can work for different cities ect.
Still no where near as neat as seeing the massive metropolis of a large SC4 city but it's apparently what they can do - at least for a while.
Drakenfeng
Gawd
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On the topic of income - I always felt that money was always too easy to get even in SC4 (even playing on hard). Pretty simple really - fill the map with low density / medium industry and ignore any complaints about services. Don't build a fire station until a fire occurs, then plop a station next to the first fire and it goes out automatically. Police and water can be ignored until upgrading to commercial / medium density residential. Start off by introducing a few schools then wait several years before building a high school (the education level wouldn't be high enough to make use of it yet anyway).
On a medium size map you'll end up with 500-1000 dollar surplus a month doing this very quickly.
Once you build a neighboring city a demand multiplier goes into effect making it extremely easy to upgrade density. The only real challenge after this point is keeping people employed. Quite frequently I'd have groups of apartments that have decent commute times and jobs available nearby but they simply wouldn't go to them.
Also I tended to avoid playing Large cities in SC4 because it makes the simulation rather unresponsive even on a modern computer. Changes to the transportation network usually take a couple months to go into effect. The small cities were basically useless though.
On a medium size map you'll end up with 500-1000 dollar surplus a month doing this very quickly.
Once you build a neighboring city a demand multiplier goes into effect making it extremely easy to upgrade density. The only real challenge after this point is keeping people employed. Quite frequently I'd have groups of apartments that have decent commute times and jobs available nearby but they simply wouldn't go to them.
Also I tended to avoid playing Large cities in SC4 because it makes the simulation rather unresponsive even on a modern computer. Changes to the transportation network usually take a couple months to go into effect. The small cities were basically useless though.
Not really for me. Instead of building Chicago, I can build a bunch of Peorias next to one another? That doesn't sound like a good exchange. Is the transition from one city to another seemless? Can you see the neighbor cities changing as you work on a specific city and then jump over to a different one? Or is it that you have to exit out of one city to load another? If you can see the neighbor cities as you work on one city and transition over without loading screens, that might work.
Maybe they can make it work, but I have my doubts. And if it's really a technical issue like people are saying, I question the idea it's going to be fixed somehow after launch. Might be wrong, but I don't have a lot of faith in EA making that kind of call. Maybe as DLC...
EDIT: spelling
its pretty seemless.
you hit a region button, and the game zooms out from the city to the region and you select the other city and it zooms in on that one. im pretty sure there is no load time between cities that was done when you do the first loading of the region.
if you are playing single player there are a few limitations like the city you stop working on gets saved into a point in time where you left it so the place wont fall apart and run out of money ect while you build up stuff in another area.
but if you play multi player and have a friend or 2 building up some of the cities every 3 minutes or so their city should update for you as their end syncs up with the main cloud server.
so you will see their city expanding and they will see the progress of yours and you can give and swap control of those cities to each other, the ownership isnt locked in. if your friends stops playing he can choose to give you control of what hes worked on, and if it was your region to begin with you can take control of it your self.
im pretty sure who ever creates the region becomes the "admin" of that region.
you can gift money and resources to other cities so money you make in one area can be moved to assist in building up another area. and major buildings work region wide. so you only need 1 town hall to be upgraded to make use of special buildings in other cities, like i can have a department of safety on my town hall, and it would unlock the large advanced police hospital and fire stations for the other cities in the region without them needing the department of safety
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Honestly its more of a $30 game than a $60 game.
i hope thats not what she said
by left me wanting more, i ment more play time, the 1 hour they gave you wasnt really enough. and some more space to build on also, like the rest of the region ect. and about 85-90% of the buildings were not included in the beta.
it was short and fun to play with but it felt like you were just playing slap and tickle. they would tickle you for an hour then slap you and make you start your city over.
new blog up explaining sandbox mode
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-sandbox-mode
"Hello, Mayors! I’m Lead Gameplay Scripter Guillaume Pierre, also known as MaxisGuillaume on the forums, and I’m here today to talk about an often requested feature by fans: sandbox mode.
Choosing to set a new region in sandbox mode is like entering a gentler version of SimCity. Each city starts with a truck-load of Simoleons, with the possibility to add more via a key press, and although the simulation functions just like in the regular game, certain “pushback” systems can be toggled on and off at any time. Say you don’t want fires to burn down your beautifully-planned suburb? It’s as easy as hitting “Alt F” on your keyboard to eliminate all fires. Don’t want earthquakes or meteors to strike in the middle of your downtown? Just press “Alt D” and you’ll be safe from all disasters!
Of course, when you’re being granted such great powers, you’re also opting out of the competitive aspects of SimCity: You can’t earn achievements, participate in challenges or the leaderboards, and all your trades to the global market don’t count towards setting the prices of goods.
On the other hand, all the cooperative and creative aspects of the game still shine: Region play and chat with friends for the social players, screenshot and video capture for the story-tellers, and a remarkable learning opportunity for beginning players. With all the buildings in the game unlocked from the get-go, sandbox mode is going to be a terrific way to explore the content the game has to offer, study the best way to lay out your city in a care-free environment, and test out strategies before applying them for a challenge or to climb up the leaderboards in the regular game.
Don’t hesitate to ask me or Designer Dan Kline (otherwise known as MaxisSparks) if you have any question on sandbox mode in the forums!"
i dont know if anyone noticed or its just my mind playing tricks or the picture isnt accurate, but look at the region, is it me or are the cities not square... meaning cities arnt just blocks in certain regions? but have unique shapes to fit the land? i find that to be really nice if true.
it looks like the city limits in a city with alot of water/cliffs is much much larger than a city with no water giving you roughly the same amount of zoning area. and the cities arnt just a square with no flare. this gets me more excited for the game knowing each city in a region would have its own unique layout and design and not just be square blocks with a river cutting through it.
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-sandbox-mode
"Hello, Mayors! I’m Lead Gameplay Scripter Guillaume Pierre, also known as MaxisGuillaume on the forums, and I’m here today to talk about an often requested feature by fans: sandbox mode.
Choosing to set a new region in sandbox mode is like entering a gentler version of SimCity. Each city starts with a truck-load of Simoleons, with the possibility to add more via a key press, and although the simulation functions just like in the regular game, certain “pushback” systems can be toggled on and off at any time. Say you don’t want fires to burn down your beautifully-planned suburb? It’s as easy as hitting “Alt F” on your keyboard to eliminate all fires. Don’t want earthquakes or meteors to strike in the middle of your downtown? Just press “Alt D” and you’ll be safe from all disasters!
Of course, when you’re being granted such great powers, you’re also opting out of the competitive aspects of SimCity: You can’t earn achievements, participate in challenges or the leaderboards, and all your trades to the global market don’t count towards setting the prices of goods.
On the other hand, all the cooperative and creative aspects of the game still shine: Region play and chat with friends for the social players, screenshot and video capture for the story-tellers, and a remarkable learning opportunity for beginning players. With all the buildings in the game unlocked from the get-go, sandbox mode is going to be a terrific way to explore the content the game has to offer, study the best way to lay out your city in a care-free environment, and test out strategies before applying them for a challenge or to climb up the leaderboards in the regular game.
Don’t hesitate to ask me or Designer Dan Kline (otherwise known as MaxisSparks) if you have any question on sandbox mode in the forums!"
i dont know if anyone noticed or its just my mind playing tricks or the picture isnt accurate, but look at the region, is it me or are the cities not square... meaning cities arnt just blocks in certain regions? but have unique shapes to fit the land? i find that to be really nice if true.
it looks like the city limits in a city with alot of water/cliffs is much much larger than a city with no water giving you roughly the same amount of zoning area. and the cities arnt just a square with no flare. this gets me more excited for the game knowing each city in a region would have its own unique layout and design and not just be square blocks with a river cutting through it.
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Yeah, I could see that. I am still pretty disappointed that you can't have humongous cities on a single map - it's a big deal for me - but there's probably creative ways to get around that, and maybe they figured them out. I guess I'll wait and see. There aren't many video game franchises that I liked more than Simcity, but I guess I am just not sold yet.
What I see is too much focus on current video game trends (online multiplayer, social aspects, cutesy artwork) and too little focus on what made Simcity amazing for me - massive detail and scale and attempts at realism of the city simulation. I worry that this reminds me more of Simcity Societies 2 (full disclosure - never played Societies but know what the reaction was to it) than Simcity 5. I guess I would have wanted Simcity 5 (basically SC4 with bigger maps, more building options, better simulation, and taking advantage of new hardware), but that doesn't seem to me like the game they made.
Oh well, I'll probably pick it up at some point on a Steam sale
.Yeah, I could see that. I am still pretty disappointed that you can't have humongous cities on a single map - it's a big deal for me - but there's probably creative ways to get around that, and maybe they figured them out. I guess I'll wait and see. There aren't many video game franchises that I liked more than Simcity, but I guess I am just not sold yet.
What I see is too much focus on current video game trends (online multiplayer, social aspects, cutesy artwork) and too little focus on what made Simcity amazing for me - massive detail and scale and attempts at realism of the city simulation. I worry that this reminds me more of Simcity Societies 2 (full disclosure - never played Societies but know what the reaction was to it) than Simcity 5. I guess I would have wanted Simcity 5 (basically SC4 with bigger maps, more building options, better simulation, and taking advantage of new hardware), but that doesn't seem to me like the game they made.
Oh well, I'll probably pick it up at some point on a Steam sale
dang you can buy EA games on steam now?! ;D
I bet people are going to use sandbox mode a lot more than anything else.Does anyone really care about the achievements?
i wont be using sandbox mode until mods come out, while i dont care so much about the achievements (im not and achievement whore) i do like buildling up a city that has nothing and unlocking buildings as i go so it feels like some progression.
and any city you start after the first one will almost feel like a sandbox because youll have the foundation some where else to make you money to gift over and other main buildings that unlock buildings region wide like department of safety and other specialized buildings that unlock things region wide.
i also like random disasters from the ones ive seen none of them are too destructive and dont alter the terrain (imo a meteor should make a crator in your city but be a super rare hardly ever happen type of thing and if it does only once in a region type of event.) at worst it looks like you get some destroyed and abandon building when things are all said and done you just bulldoze them and dont even have to rezone and the stuff just rebuilds. ploppables need to be replaced manually tho.
i also wouldnt mind taking part in the global trade market and seeing how prices fluctuate.
once good mods start coming out ill be all over the sandbox mode tho. i want a national guard base with troops and apc's/tanks and i want the zombie disaster to not end when the sun comes up and kills them i want them immune to sunlight and watch my whole city turn to a zombie wasteland and see if the police and national guard can put a stop to it before it gets out of hand or at worst have to quarantine off the whole city. would be funny to see if zombies will try to commute to other cities when they run out of brains in the origin city.
sirmonkey1985
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - July 2010
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the thing i'm more interested in is the interactions between the cities.. sure building a big ass city in SC4 was cool and all but it got boring pretty fast. and while sure you could buy/sell electricity, or pay to have a region take your garbage, there was no real negative effect for the regions around that city.. you could exploit the system way to much since that region was basically paused while you were in another region. so as long as you never went back to that region after building it up you were perfectly fine.