SimCity V (2013) - screens/artwork and information

I still have Cheetah speed though, so unless they just made it so it doesn't actually run faster than medium...
 
I succeeded in playing last night for ~45 minutes. I only played in one city, so haven't had the "opportunity" to see all the inter-region sharing bugs yet. While playing everything actually seemed normal -- I didn't observe anything too stupid.
 
Honestly this is just sad. I spend $60 on a game that I cant even play. I have tried three days in a row. Time to file some complaints (add one to the million out there already).
 
Yup and guess what? I still cannot connect to the servers. JFC...
 
You guys can't play now? I'm afraid I will not be able to play again tonight when I get home. :(
 
odditory said:
I'm embarrassed to admit - despite my better judgment and that of others - I still want to buy this game and build some effing cities :)
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I'd love to too, but unless they do a severe overhaul then I'm not buying (maybe 6 months later when the game is better and $10 in the bargain bin).
 
darkstarcow said:
So basically EA fucked the SimCity franchise in the ass with a pineapple, then beat it to death with a rubber dildo. The whole time telling everyone how great getting fucked with a pineapple and being beat with a dildo is and how it is the "future" of gaming.
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LOL. Great quote.
 
It looks like I've saved myself a lot of headaches here. Despite putting 100's of hours into Simcity 4, I'm still a little bitter over how it was handled (features shown in the beta stage pulled for release, so they can be bundled into a expansion set a short time later... resulting in early adopters shelling out $60 and then $40 a few months later... and a deluxe edition with both for $60 coming right away as well).

Of course, last night I wanted to city build. Luckily I remembered I picked up Cities XL during the last steam sale, but never played it. It might not be Simcity, and might have it's own slew of issues... but hey, at least it lets me actually play, and it's scratching that itch for me.
 
darkstarcow said:
The game in its current state is basically broken, so how does it suck that people are expressing their displeasure? You dont even know IF or WHEN the game is going to be fixed. What sucks is that once again EA has fucked with gamers and some of those gamers, like you, are willing to take it like a 120lb inmate at a maximum security prison.
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Apparently you missed the whole point of what I was saying. Did I say it sucked that people expressing their displeasure, no. Did I say that the people expressing their displeasure shouldn't, no. Did I say that the game wasn't broken, no. Let's try again and see if we can use our logic:

USMCGrunt said:
Ya know, what really sucks here is that all of us that enjoy the game are gonna get screwed once more once they stabilize the server load issues and (hopefully) return the features they took out. All these bad reviews and of course the warranted community lashing is gonna make this game a ghost town so we wont have many people to play with and EA will cut server support more quickly.
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Notice the bold underlined word? That shows that I agree with the community's reaction. What im saying is the people that want to play the game and enjoy the game are getting hammered now because they can't play it. Once the issues get ironed out, a lot of people aren't going to be around to play anymore AND all the bad reviews are going to scare away potential buyers, both now and in the future. This "butterfly effect" is going to further reduce the ability for the community to grow and further punish the people that DO stick around to play the game.

The game is not fundamentally broken either. What's broken here is the human beings responsible for handling the server infrastructure, who most likely, are being gimped by the people who authorize the use of money. I've played the game...a lot...and when you take out the damn DRM issues, it's just like pretty much every other game that is released nowadays, 90% of it works as intended and the other 10% will get patched in over the coming months.

Now, please stop reading into what im saying looking for the "hidden truth" in my words, because there isn't. Take the words for face value and understand the WHOLE post, not just a sentence or two out of context.
 
My main question is why was this game released like it was. I mean someone had to know what was going to happen.
 
The game is not fundamentally broken either.
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Then what is it? If the server infrastructure is completely broke, and that is vital to the game working, and it also effects the simulation aspect, then is it not fundamentally broken? The server aspect is a fundamental part of the game.

And past the server issues, how about the scaling issues? You cannot break 400k residents in a city unless you make one of a few very specific layouts (1-road , perfect grid, etc).

If 100% of players were able to get on and play, I have no doubt bigger core issues / bugs would be sprouting up as well.
-------
Also, I don't think I've had a chance to, but I told you so. That goes out to all the people from a month ago who are suddenly so silent (except for you USMCGrunt, who is at least attempting to make an argument).
 
lilbabycat said:
Then what is it? If the server infrastructure is completely broke, and that is vital to the game working, and it also effects the simulation aspect, then is it not fundamentally broken? The server aspect is a fundamental part of the game.

And past the server issues, how about the scaling issues? You cannot break 400k residents in a city unless you make one of a few very specific layouts (1-road , perfect grid, etc).

If 100% of players were able to get on and play, I have no doubt bigger core issues / bugs would be sprouting up as well.
-------
Also, I don't think I've had a chance to, but I told you so. That goes out to all the people from a month ago who are suddenly so silent (except for you USMCGrunt, who is at least attempting to make an argument).
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I agree game is at the current moment broken. No achievements, leaderboards etc. Server syncing issues, crashes, weird AI bugs, cant create cities and constant dcs not to mention people cant even get on. I mean I played quite a bit but I do notice the amount of technical issues that it has, the game if really fun but the technical issues are completely marring the otherwise great game. Specifically since EA touted that they made online a CORE feature and built the game around it and the CORE function fluctuates from completely not working to barely working. The game is fundamentally broken until they fix it. Its like saying WoW servers are down for 75% of the day and when it works you cant raid or pvp. Would you say that WoW is not broken then? If developer says its core function and doesnt work and affects game experience is a big way then game is broken.

Also JFC I guess would mean Jesus Fing Christ?
 
I almost bought this...so glad I waited....

The reason I waited is, is because I know EA said it was going to have always-on DRM....and so I made myself wait. And guess what happened again? :p

Screw off EA. Only reason you're even around is is because you have good IP's under your belt. And your demise is going to be that you keep fucking them up.
 
I know at this point a bad review is like pissing in an ocean of piss but here goes:


I played using a friend's copy of the game while he was gone for the week. This game is bad. When you can actually login there are serious AI issues with how it responds to fire/crime and also how traffic works. How bad? I built my best city making ONE. ROAD. that snakes through the town (similar to this http://imgur.com/a/gVKs3 rather than multiple roads . It is stupid and counter-intuitive. Rivers are supposed to be infinite water replacing the water table but wait, they don't and the developers just NOW realized that. So everyone does the stupid sewage plant exit +waterpump with filters which is such a ugly implementation.

When I played at a friends house we lost a city just because of a server hiccup. A WHOLE CITY TO A SERVER HICCUP!! Do you know how MADDENING that is? You can't even reload my cities etc when you want to try out new things. The multiplayer interaction is WEAK. Full stop. The whole idea behind this game is to make it interactive with your neighbors but unless you do a private region with friends, good luck.

>edit because I was incorrect<

Somewhere in development Simcity went from building the city you want to building the city the game wants you to build. It sucks, it has graphical errors and issues galore, the AI is pretty bad, the server backend is ruinous, the multiplayer interaction is weak and not well thought out, you are forced to rely too much on strangers unless you make a private region, and above all else..

THIS GAME IS NOT FUN! It just isn't. The city sizes are SO SMALL and you feel forced into gameplay that feels constrained by more than pitiful city size.
 
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chockomonkey said:
Man that's sad. Why don't developers code AI anymore? It's not that fucking hard christ. rabble rabble

Also, question--is the city size really that small???
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i think the cities should be bigger, maybe not infinite but bigger definitely. i have like 110k pop and i find myself out of room just to maintain like my sewage treatment plant etc. there is literally no room to put another one down.
 
castun said:
I still have Cheetah speed though, so unless they just made it so it doesn't actually run faster than medium...
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It looks like Cheetah speed is an unlock at some point - I was playing and got a message, speed controls now available, and then I could use Cheetah. Seemed to be working for me, the traffic and time went much faster in Cheetah than in LLama.

darrpara said:
EVEN THEN..You can't just say "i'll make the dirty coal and mining city for you guys" because you can't really view a city spot easily to find out if it even has oil/coal etc without claiming it and abandoning it is buggy half the time.
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Umm, when you first click on the city square it pops up a box about the region that shows how much water, ore, coal, oil, and wind there are in the area - those green bars. You won't know where it is, but you'll know it's there.
 
As far as city size, I think this version relies more on building vertically instead of urban sprawl. That said, it seems pretty difficult, especially early on to get your sims to build vertically...definitely be nice to have a larger area to play in that's for sure.
 
USMCGrunt said:
As far as city size, I think this version relies more on building vertically instead of urban sprawl. That said, it seems pretty difficult, especially early on to get your sims to build vertically...definitely be nice to have a larger area to play in that's for sure.
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its not hard once you realize all thats required of you is upgrading the roads. and mixing avenues and streets
 
USMCGrunt said:
As far as city size, I think this version relies more on building vertically instead of urban sprawl. That said, it seems pretty difficult, especially early on to get your sims to build vertically...definitely be nice to have a larger area to play in that's for sure.
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That, and... if you are the only city in your region, you might as well forget about your city being around long. As soon as density increases, you need to keep upgrading your town hall and other things. If someone in the region has already done this, this makes everything else doable.
 
Forceman said:
Umm, when you first click on the city square it pops up a box about the region that shows how much water, ore, coal, oil, and wind there are in the area - those green bars. You won't know where it is, but you'll know it's there.
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Yeah I was about to point that out hah...
 
Was going to get this, but after reading about how they've destroyed the core game mechanics and basically made it into a Facebook style gimped game, there's no reason to, even if it didn't have DRM.

I wonder if Maxis were planning this direction or were forced to by EA, which is more likely. Anyone know what the early plans/info for the game looked like?
 
MrCrispy said:
Was going to get this, but after reading about how they've destroyed the core game mechanics and basically made it into a Facebook style gimped game, there's no reason to, even if it didn't have DRM.

I wonder if Maxis were planning this direction or were forced to by EA, which is more likely. Anyone know what the early plans/info for the game looked like?
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I wouldn't go that far. It's rather realistic in the way that the activity in your neighboring towns affects what happens in your town. Note I'm saying town, not city because you will run out of space.

For example, if you have a university in your city, it's a university of the region - anything you research is usable for the rest of the people in the region. Also, the materials and resources you manufacture are usable by your neighbors for for the Great Works. I do the University gig so my city is fairly high tech and an educational center for neighboring cities.

That is great - if only the servers could handle it.
 
darrpara said:
I know at this point a bad review is like pissing in an ocean of piss but here goes:


I played using a friend's copy of the game while he was gone for the week. This game is bad. When you can actually login there are serious AI issues with how it responds to fire/crime and also how traffic works. How bad? I built my best city making ONE. ROAD. that snakes through the town (similar to this http://imgur.com/a/gVKs3 rather than multiple roads . It is stupid and counter-intuitive. Rivers are supposed to be infinite water replacing the water table but wait, they don't and the developers just NOW realized that. So everyone does the stupid sewage plant exit +waterpump with filters which is such a ugly implementation.

When I played at a friends house we lost a city just because of a server hiccup. A WHOLE CITY TO A SERVER HICCUP!! Do you know how MADDENING that is? You can't even reload my cities etc when you want to try out new things. The multiplayer interaction is WEAK. Full stop. The whole idea behind this game is to make it interactive with your neighbors but unless you do a private region with friends, good luck.

EVEN THEN..You can't just say "i'll make the dirty coal and mining city for you guys" because you can't really view a city spot easily to find out if it even has oil/coal etc without claiming it and abandoning it is buggy half the time.

Somewhere in development Simcity went from building the city you want to building the city the game wants you to build. It sucks, it has graphical errors and issues galore, the AI is pretty bad, the server backend is ruinous, the multiplayer interaction is weak and not well thought out, you are forced to rely too much on strangers unless you make a private region, and above all else..

THIS GAME IS NOT FUN! It just isn't. The city sizes are SO SMALL and you feel forced into gameplay that feels constrained by more than pitiful city size.
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I disagree with you on the gameplay. The smaller size really makes you think and make hard choices about what you want and what direction you want to go with your city. You have to be efficient.

That said, they really need to make some kind of option for terrain smoothing so you can maximize the amount of land used. In hilly regions there is just so much unusable space.

I found the game to be fun and addictive when it's working properly. The server issues are a real shame.
 
big_aug said:
That said, they really need to make some kind of option for terrain smoothing so you can maximize the amount of land used. In hilly regions there is just so much unusable space.
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You can't flatten hilly land or build on it? wtf?
 
chockomonkey said:
You can't flatten hilly land or build on it? wtf?
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Apparently terrain modification was removed because they "wanted you to play as mayor, not as god."

Of course, map packs will be available for purchase in the future...
 
Tiny cities. No transportation. No terrain. No experimentation/save/reload. This is not SimCity.
 
drako said:
Apparently terrain modification was removed because they "wanted you to play as mayor, not as god."

Of course, map packs will be available for purchase in the future...
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wow... i don't even know what to say other than... i guess there are quite a few gods on this earth.
 
Stayed away with a 200 foot pole. Still glad I made that decision. Sim City 4 has been great since I started it up again. : )
 
dremic said:
not offering refunds. that is bullshit. blizzard refunded anybody
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Yeah, people say what they will about D3, but you really can't fault Blizzard's customer service (other than getting flooded with calls occasionally).

I see that Amazon is willing to refund both physical and digital copies...wonder if I should take them up on that offer. I actually enjoyed the game during the beta's, but the total screwup that they've had with the servers is total crap.
 
castun said:
Yeah I was about to point that out hah...
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You are both correct. I think the original point I was making before I was interrupted writing that was in regards to interacting between towns. I'll edit it out because it is just plain incorrect.
 
btw, isn't this illegal in Europe? You know, the place where they have actual consumer protection laws instead of the 'corps are king' attitude we have in the US.

I believe in EU you get a no questions asked refund for any goods or service within the first 1/2 weeks.
 
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