Sim City V

[Muffins]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Initially, I was alright with the smaller map size, but now it seems to be a major problem as I don't have the real estate to place these huge structures the game demands.

I agree 100%.....the map size is fine until you start advancing your specialization.....then it's just tiny

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Red-Mile-DJ

I've decided that I'll give it another 24 hours, but if it's still like this I'll be asking for a refund.

I should have learned my lesson with Diablo 3.

No you shouldn't have. The effing game devs/publishers should have learned this lesson long ago and yet here we are again. I feel sorry for anyone who's been screwed by yet another botched launch. SC2, D3, SC: Conviction...etc. There have been so many failed examples that this kind of crap shouldn't even exist anymore. I don't care what the excuse is, it is completely unacceptable that people who want to play their game offline cannot.

I saw this #### storm coming from the moment they announced their always online requirement and all of these issues could have been mitigated if they had taken the proper steps to make sure they had the necessary infrastructure to support their player base. They should have enabled pre-loading a week before launch and they should have gotten additional servers to handle the huge flood of users trying to log in. I hope this botched launch forces EA to re-evaluate their DRM policies. As with Diablo 3's launch I originally found it funny but it's totally unacceptable and completely avoidable. Sorry you guys can't play your game.

[PsYcNeT]

Once my city got full, I started another one. And then another one, and I found myself really enjoying swapping back and forth between the areas, managing 3 different economic structures and trying out different methods of power generation, specialization etc.

I think there are far too many treatises being written on this game, and I'd like to remind everyone:

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by Muffins

I agree 100%.....the map size is fine until you start advancing your specialization.....then it's just tiny

No doubt. My people wanted me to build the Eiffel Tower. No problem, I figured, I am super rich. It would have literally taken up close to 10% of the map!

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

Rohitashv
It's really sad that we have to lose one of the elite customer.

Well, Origin/EA thinks I'm elite. That almost makes me feel sad about my refund. Not really though. I'll see if the server issues and glitches iron themselves out, and, if they increase map size by at least 4x. If not, no thanks EA. this game is a massive disappointment.

Some of my thoughts from the brief few hours of play I had:

1) Glassbox is virtually invisible to us as a player. You build, you plop, things either work or dont based on how you plan them. Simming each individual sim one by one really is invisible and only serves to...

2) Insanely stupid map size. It's actually jarring to see how quickly you run out of space on maps. This will cause people to build boring grids no matter what. If you try and be creative and build a fun and interesting city town you wind up running out of space very quickly.

The game is supposedly complex but in a way that's superficial. I want to build a large and complicated metropolis. I don't want to build a city town thats geographically smaller than most SE Calgary neighbourhoods. I'm fairly certain that Cities XL has maps the size of Veridian Woods. I'm not interested in regional play, I want to build a large city if I choose, or, have a huge map and build a town with insane urban sprawl. But nope, can't do this here.

I'm sure people are having fun with it when it works and it's a neat game to play. But origin is a effing nightmare and I won't support it. Maybe if the servers are fixed up. And maybe if maps are made bigger. Maybe.

Ugh. I wasted so much time on this garbage last 24 hours. edit 2: I guess, in short, I can appreciate what they wanted to do. They wanted to build a very detailed and complicated simulation experience. But I'm unconvinced that simming person by person has any tangible benefit vs simming by building. I don't care if Johnny is sick and stupid from school then causes a fire. A well written sim can create an aggregate of a whole building and give me results on that. I can fully understand how simming each person makes a city of 2 million people impossible. But this is a city simulator. If your simulator won't let you create large sprawing cities then you're engine isn't worth anything. Much like EA servers.

This feels like SimOkotoks.

I also agree with your final point - I don't understand why there was so much time / effort put into simming each actual person as it doesn't seem to provide a whole lot of benefit, especially with the amount of limits it has "seemingly" placed on the game.

And you're correct, your example could easily be replaced by a simple formula based city variables as opposed to simming each person.

[temple5]

I got a few hours of interacting with the game last night

My first thoughts

1 - my kingdom for a low density avenue to plan my cities - ugh
2 - maybe 100K to start instead of 50, everything in this game costs 20K

A few things I am still not sure of...

How do I connect a passenger rail?
Are there true traffic circles in this game or just round roads with lights?

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

This feels like SimOkotoks.

I also agree with your final point - I don't understand why there was so much time / effort put into simming each actual person as it doesn't seem to provide a whole lot of benefit, especially with the amount of limits it has "seemingly" placed on the game.

And you're correct, your example could easily be replaced by a simple formula based city variables as opposed to simming each person.

Except Okotoks is almost 10x the size of a SimCity plot.

[BlackArcher101]

I think the people don't know how to drive. They use u-turns at all intersections instead of the usual traffic patterns. I can have one long avenue with casino's on it which lets say has traffic piling up eastbound. They then want to turn around and get to the other side of the street, so they do a u-turn westbound. However, the other two end of the avenues are still being fed by incoming traffic. The end result is a full eastbound and westbound lane, with each wanting to do a u-turn and others wanting to get in as well. Complete log jam. I literally watched traffic not move for full 2 days. I had to delete the road and add it again to clear it up. Casino profit went from 100k/day to -20k/day as a result as well.

That's my only really PITA with the game at the moment. Stupid and unpredictable traffic patterns.

The small city size doesn't get me. It forces me to continually change and update the city as I go, tweak underperforming areas and realign other roads/infrastucture to suit new buildings and industry. Makes you take a more active planned approach to it than just plopping new things to open areas.

[Anduril]

Definitely a bore if you have you create neat boxes since there is no other way of playing to maximize your land.
Will probably be holding off this game until next week. Luckily I'll have PlanetSide 2 and exams to keep me company until then.

[Ashasx]

Yeah, I really like the game, but if the maps were something like twice as big, I'd be much happier.

I don't like how my industrial, commercial, and residential zones converge so much. I don't like having my landfill right next to my arena, etc. And as others have said, you pretty much have to make a grid or you just run out of space too quickly.

[Muffins]

The u-turns really do kill any sort of traffic flow on busy streets.

I watched my fire trucks go 4 blocks past a fire to do a u-turn rather than the block immediately after.

What I wouldn't give to have subways in this game....

[Maccalus]

One thing that annoys me is having 5 fire trucks get sent to one small house fire while there are 2 other fires going on at the same time. The resources could be spread out a little more.

[Brannigans Law]

I think this was a case of developers biting off more than they could could chew. Trying to sim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people; their driving... education... health...spending patterns... it's an insane endeavour. They sacraficed Subways (no big shock, what town the size of Cochrane has a subway where you don't get a sandwich) one way lanes, highways, and most importantly a map of any decent size so they could have this complicated sim engine humming along. And what we get instead is bizare and wild swings in city coffers, nonsensical traffic patterns, and a game that's as mystererious as a womans lady parts. Your economy is now in the toilet? Have fun figuring out why. You made 2,000 simoleons an hour 5 minutes ago and now you're losing 500? Click your heels together twice and pray you figure out why.

I fully hope people do enjoy it but this isn't the Sim City for me. I want a city simulator, not a people simulator located in a town with regional play.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

This feels like SimOkotoks.

I also agree with your final point - I don't understand why there was so much time / effort put into simming each actual person as it doesn't seem to provide a whole lot of benefit, especially with the amount of limits it has "seemingly" placed on the game.

And you're correct, your example could easily be replaced by a simple formula based city variables as opposed to simming each person.

I guess the difference between a formula based city variables like simcity 4 and what they're trying to accomplish here is they don't want you to have the exact formula for building cities. If you look online, Simcity 4 optimum region guides are all over the place. There's an exact 64x64 grid that you need to build to optimize your high tech high class residential. There's formula caps, and "busters" to break through those caps. It became an exercise in spreadsheeting and knowing the exact statistics of each building.

Simcity 5 is trying to be a lot more reactive and "unstable". The region play adds to this unstability - you thought you had the perfect city? Well here comes nuclear fallout from your neighbor! Perfect transportation system? Well, the next city over has a hundred commuters into your city!

I admit that I personally haven't been able to play - couldn't even log on yesterday night, and it's frustrating, but I'm quite experienced when it comes to this type of thing (tons of MMO's, D3, SC2 etc.) so it was not a huge deal. However, I really think people need to evaluate the design from the perspective of the designers. Larger city sizes is a common complaint, and I 100% agree with it - but the whole "simming to a sim level doesn't do anything" complaint doesn't hold as much water.

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by Maccalus

One thing that annoys me is having 5 fire trucks get sent to one small house fire while there are 2 other fires going on at the same time. The resources could be spread out a little more.

This as well. Watched 5 trucks try to (and unsuccessfully) put a fire at one house while 2 others were raging right beside them.

[chummer]

nm

[psicodude]

Does anyone else have an issue with buses and trams all piling up together? I will literally have 8 buses pull up to the same stop at once and follow each other around like a caravan while the rest of the city complains about wait times.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by psicodude

Does anyone else have an issue with buses and trams all piling up together? I will literally have 8 buses pull up to the same stop at once and follow each other around like a caravan while the rest of the city complains about wait times.

Yep. School buses too, not just mass transit. Meanwhile other stops just pile up and some don't even get picked up that day. I'm sure the next the sims then decide to take their cars and that's when my traffic goes to crap.

It would be nice if you could number stops and create routes so they also don't get stuck in traffic jams.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by psicodude

I don't mean to pile on or brag that I got a few hours of play in last night, but here are some observations of playing a larger city (pop. of 125k). It only took me about 5 hours to get to this point, by the way, which is a little depressing.


As my city becomes more dense, I am forced to start plopping the more advanced versions of everything - Hospitals, Smelting factories, high-tech, etc. and these things all take up a lot of room. The computer chip factory is huge. To make room (because every inch of my map is being used) I am forced to bulldoze existing lots which seems to have a massive impact on my budget. At one point, I was making around $8k per hour, then I deleted a bunch of industrial zones to make room for a university. I immediately went down to making about $1k per hour. No problem I thought. Then, all of a sudden, I am losing $2k per hour. WTF!?! I can sit there not touching anything and watch my bottom line swing wildly and have no clue why.

Initially, I was alright with the smaller map size, but now it seems to be a major problem as I don't have the real estate to place these huge structures the game demands.

Sigh...

ya i was actually able to play quite a bit last night and ran into the same issues as you when i got up over 100k population. there just isn't enough room to put down all the services that people are demanding from you. and it's even impossible to juggle the standard RCI when you max out your space. i had my industry complaining that there weren't enough workers, so i bulldozed some industrial zones and remade them residential. then i had citizens complaining that they couldn't find any work, friggen maddening. plus i went bankrupt trying to manage the sewage and trash of my city. added another storage container to my sewage treatment plant (at $40,000 per addon) and it would fill up in minutes. same with my garbage and recycling centers. if you expanded all of those to the size required to sustain a city of over 100k people, they would take up a huge chunk of your available space

i didn't like Maxis' decision to stick with very small city sizes, but i could get over it if they had actually designed the game to operate within that limit

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

ya i was actually able to play quite a bit last night and ran into the same issues as you when i got up over 100k population. there just isn't enough room to put down all the services that people are demanding from you. and it's even impossible to juggle the standard RCI when you max out your space. i had my industry complaining that there weren't enough workers, so i bulldozed some industrial zones and remade them residential. then i had citizens complaining that they couldn't find any work, friggen maddening. plus i went bankrupt trying to manage the sewage and trash of my city. added another storage container to my sewage treatment plant (at $40,000 per addon) and it would fill up in minutes. same with my garbage and recycling centers. if you expanded all of those to the size required to sustain a city of over 100k people, they would take up a huge chunk of your available space

i didn't like Maxis' decision to stick with very small city sizes, but i could get over it if they had actually designed the game to operate within that limit

I think it just really comes down to the fact that not every city is meant to have everything balanced.

The 3 cities I played fit 3 niches: One was a college town with a focus on commercial sites, one was a bedroom community with more residential than anything, and one was an industrial site with a huge oil sector.

I think 3-4 cities are needed to find a balance, and I'm okay with that.