...will be available in February 2012. I know it's not for everyone, but the graphics are rather stunning for a simulation as complex as this.
Ready for pre-order (http://www.simcity.com/en_US/buy/simcity)
I used to play SimCity and SimCity2000 and SimCopter.. hehe :) Good find, PZ :)
And actually ETA is Feb 2013 :-D
SimCity E3 Gameplay Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQNagqH6mO4#ws)
SimCity Announce Trailer Insider's Look (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IimX3qqCNQ#ws)
SimCity Gameplay Demo - E3 2012 - IGN Live (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRIH6t__kk#ws)
That all looks pretty cool :-X I'm not one of the every who the game isn't for so I'm definitely interested in it
I missed the boat on the earlier SimCity games and only got into SimCity 3000 when it came out. As the name of this series suggests, they're not really games so much as simulations, i.e. you don't ever actually win anything, you just see how big and profitable a city you can grow. As such I used to get sick of it after a while. It would hook me in for a few weeks, then all of a sudden I'd lose interest and move on to something else - then about a year or so later I'd rediscover it and get hooked again for another few weeks, then get sick of it again. I went through that cycle three times. I've still got that game somewhere actually but I doubt it would run under Win 7 - not that I'm terribly interested in finding out.
This new version looks pretty slick though. I could probably be talked into it :-()
ah, 3000 -- I wrote 2k because I was thinking of the year as it is about 10 years now we haven't heard anything from Maxis and like you I have stashed it away somewhere without actually checking it for a long time. :)
Man, the first version got me hooked pretty good, I spent months with it until I got sick of it. When SimCopter came out I was very interested in flying over and through my old cities but that game never really convinced me so it went into the garbage bin not long thereafter.
Next thing was SimTower. Oh gosh, that one sucked me in pretty badly :-D I used to mark several people who lived in that tower and assign them names and I would spend days observing what they were doing and where they were going. Really cool :)
Of course TheSims was the next thing I just had to play and it was fun for quite a while but I never got any of the sequels and all the crap they released around that game.
And there was SimCity3000, it was more complicated than the first one, with underground railways and water pipes and whatnot it was a bigger challenge and for some reason I never reached the same addiction level as with the predecessor.
Now SimCity "2013" looks interesting as you can see a lot of people and tiny individual cars and so forth, loads of detail. I might be getting it eventually :-()
Your history with the Maxis games sounds similar to mine, Art, only I went on to Simcity 4 plus Rush hour. Much like all of you, I would become immersed and then tire of it after a few weeks. While in it, the fun was in creating the new cities, using imagine much like I did when I was a kid playing with trucks in the dirt creating roads, gravel pits, etc.
As goofy as it was, I actually liked Simcopter, mostly because of the traffic sounds and music. I wish they had continued with it in the later games because the graphics in the original were truly ugly.
I'm sure I'll get the game even if it only occupies me for a month at a time; the developers have made great improvements over time.
I thought this series had ended with the last iteration, and am pleased that it did not.
Delayed until March 2013, the game looks great!
Simcity 5 game play demonstration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqUCmlbkkS0#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqUCmlbkkS0#ws)
Simcity comes out March 5th. I was actually chosen to be a beta tester and was sent the unlock code, but neglected to do so on time! Oh well, my bad. :-()
The Limited Edition comes with a heroes and villains set which allows you to place organized crime and super heroes into your creations.
There is also a multi-player component that looks interesting. There are regions with different city locations. Your online collaborators each take a city region and develop it. The sims will even commute between the cities for jobs and homes. The cities can interact with each other. For instance, one city can be focused on gambling Las Vegas style while another city can be the industrial branch that supplies the gambling city. Of course, the games can be asynchronous - the members need not be online at the same time.
Here's a video of multi-player - looks like my kind of collaboration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uactovanJvQ#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uactovanJvQ#ws)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_ZMb5uODE#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_ZMb5uODE#ws)
:)
Any idea of the required system specs?
Doesn't seem like it is too demanding - here is a link: https://help.ea.com/article/simcity-system-requirements
Watching more videos last night has me really excited about the game - you can drill all the way down to street level and even click to follow individual sims to w@&k. The street level is highly detailed.
The new Glass box simulation engine allows for almost complete graphic visualization of the behind the scenes simulation rather than the spreadsheet method of data presentation in prior iterations of the game.
nice and thanks for the link.
I liked to follow individuals (was able to tag them) when playing SimTower. You could even assign them names :)
That's cool :-X I kind of remember playing SimTower, but that was a long time ago.
I think I'll start a region with the thought in mind of creating several cities each with a singular purpose. For instance, one that is heavily industrialized with coal and nuclear power aplenty - enough to send to another city. Then another city that is "green" with no factories, but tourism instead - casinos of course.
One of the interesting actions is that you can create a factory then go into street level detail and watch the goods being manufactured, then put onto delivery trucks. You can then watch as the boxes of goods are delivered to one of your retail establishments.
Another interesting detail is that if you have lots of crime in one city, the criminals will travel to another city and rob banks, etc.
The bottom line is that there will be much in the way experimentation - a game just the way I like it. ^-^
I know that I used to suck when it came to make a beautiful-looking city become self-sufficient. It tended to take forever until a city worked and looked the way I wanted and I wanted it quickly.. so I used to cheat money in order to completely remodel a city over and over again.. it is so time-consuming building large cities.. in other words: bloody addictive :-D
Quote from: Art Blade on March 04, 2013, 03:14:25 PM
... in other words: bloody addictive :-D
It sure is; I too have used money cheats so I could immediately construct all I wanted without having to wait until the city had earned enough money. One of the other things I like about this version is that you do not need to lay underground water pipes nor power wires. As long as your building and utilities like power, water, and sewer abuts a road, the utilities are automatically installed.
It is also kind of fun seeing garbage trucks driving the neighborhoods and then returning to the dump.
I'm getting the Limited Edition so I can have the mafia plugin and see what they do with my casinos. Although I have never used (nor have I liked) the idea of natural disasters, I might just throw a meteor shower or two at the gangsters if they get out of hand. >:D
I hated that then new feature regarding underground infrastructure. Good they removed it :-X
Did you ever play SimAnt? That was kind of fun as well.
Bad news about the new Simcity - it requires using the front end, Origin (like Steam and Uplay) and it also requires a persistent internet connection.
Never played SimAnt.
And great, now they start to do what other companies meanwhile learned was a bad idea and ceased it, like Ubi.
Quote from: PZ on March 04, 2013, 10:17:42 PM
Bad news about the new Simcity - it requires using the front end, Origin (like Steam and Uplay) and it also requires a persistent internet connection.
Aw, crumbs... That rules out that one for me then. Bugger ::)
Yeah, I was thinking about you when I read that one fragger. Although it is not necessary to have a blazingly fast connection, it needs to be better than dialup.
Quote from: EATo experience SimCity, players will need an Internet connection of at least 256 kbps download and 64kbps upload or faster.
However I noticed in one of the videos that you have an option of starting a region as public or as private only. I'm hoping that when I do a private region I will not need to consume much of my bandwidth. I'll experiment and see how it goes because I just checked availability at my local Gamestop and it is in stock. Will pick it up later today.
I think Maxis has circumvented the computer performance potential issue by decreasing the maximum city size. In prior games you could create massive cities whereas in this version you are limited to 4 square miles of city. This size limit is likely what allows even marginal PCs to experience reasonable play performance.
well, I just picked up the game, but it will be a while before I can even begin to install it. I'm a bit worried that the Simcity servers will be overloaded. EA is really stupid for requiring a persistent online connection.
EA and UBI are going to w@&k together.. says it all.
QuoteUbisoft recently expanded their Uplay Store catalogue to include third-party publishers like EA
OMG the install went flawlessly! After making sure I was logged in as an administrator I popped in the disc and away it went. The firs thing it did was install Origin which is the EA version of Uplay or Steam. After doing it's update which was quite fast, the game install started. Of course, after the main file install came the requisite update, but all in all not too bad - less than 30 minutes later and I'm ready to play.
Interestingly, the American servers are all really busy so it is logging me into a European server. Unfortunately, it requires that I be online.
Well, I have to say after a couple of hours of game play that this game is amazing. For anyone that has enjoyed any of the Simcity versions before this one, you would love the newest iteration. The graphics are stunning, and even on my old rig with a GTX 295 I can run it on the highest settings with absolutely no stutter - evidently the developers method of restricting the city size has made quite a difference.
Cool, hope you continue to enjoy it :-X
I may look into it as I really enjoyed SimCity 3000 and this one does look terrific. I'll have to psyche myself up for potentially wasting my dough though :-() 256 kbps is something I experience very rarely outside of my dreams. If I can get it over 100 kbps I consider it a pretty good day :-D
Thanks; I'm really having a good time. For example, I just created a mining town in which I have an ore mine. You can see the wheels turning and ore accumulating. However, after a short while the mine stopped running and after examination of it's properties I discovered that the bins were full and I had to add another bin or do something with the ore. My choices of things to do are use the ore in the same city, or export it for profit (I chose the later and started making money).
Intrigued about how to use the ore in the same city, I found a smelter and started it up. Then I had to go into the mine properties and choose the option to use the ore in the same city, and now I could watch my little trucks transporting the ore to the smelter. Eventually the smelter filled it's bins and also stopped working. The new prompt instructed me to create a trade center where I could export the refined metal or use it internally; I chose the former and was making a much better profit than by exporting the raw ore. Now I watched as trucks carrying refined metal went to the trade center. It is cool watching the ore being mined and loaded into storage bins, then transported to the smelter where it is refined into the final metal, then being again transported to the trade center.
Now I need to find out how to use the refined metal internally - I found something that looks intriguing - a computer factory.
The detain in the game is simply amazing and highly satisfying.
very nice.. I can imagine that spending time watching details easily prevents one from focussing on the big picture :-D
It's not bad at all because once you set the parameters you can let the thing run for the most part. Also, because the cities start out small, it takes a while before you get big enough for the job to become demanding. In fact, my extra large cities in Simcity4 felt like more of a challenge than these new ones because of their limited size.
It looks like EA and Maxis pulled another stupid idea in requiring a persistent internet connection because thousands of users worldwide are experiencing significant problems such as not being able to log in, losing hours of w@&k because of a lost connection. Evidently EA doesn't have enough servers to handle the demand.
Quote from: EAWe have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours
"Support and enthusiasm"? come on; unless I have been unlucky enough to read only negative articles, I don't think there is a gamer out there that is offering "support and enthusiasm" to those bozos at EA.
My own experience has been slow to log on, but I have been able to play. The only problem is that if you are on one server today, and a different server tomorrow, your game is on the wrong server and you have to start over. How stupid is that - they call it their "cloud", but the servers do not save the game files to a common area!
It will be fun to see how it shakes out. In the meantime, I'll simply play AC:B and FC3 when the EA servers are being annoying.
I'd not recommend purchasing this title until EA pulls their collective heads out of their asses.
EA must have learned that from UBI.
They obviously did not learn anything from the Diablo III fiasco. They are really stupid to require persistent online; now due to the extreme server demand they are losing millions to fix their issues as well as countless $ to potential fans afraid of wasting their money on a game they cannot play.
I wonder if this expenditure (and bad press) outweighs the loss they would have experienced via piracy.
Good point PZ. A debacle like this could hurt them more than piracy would.
From what you've reported, I'll be one of those potential fans who won't be wasting his money. If people in places with otherwise stable internet connections are having probs, what hope have I got?
Sounds like a great game, but I can see myself doing a lot of swearing at it so think I'll be staying away from it.
I'd agree fragger; you'd have an awful time trying to get (and stay) online with the fiasco they have created.
Interestingly IGN is actually telling gamers not to purchase the game, and another online review site had changed their rating from 9.5 to 4.0, all due to EA's foolish decision to control DRM with persistent connection.
On the positive side, I'm experiencing mostly luck when trying to get on and play for extended time. However, I'm using an eastern European server - it is rather funny; the sims are speaking in a foreign language!. The game is really marvelous and each time new features reveal themselves as I build my city.
Here are a few pics:
[smg id=5675 align=center width=400]
[smg id=5676 align=center width=400]
[smg id=5677 align=center width=400]
Here are a few images more illustrating the region nature of the game. You can have up to 16 cities in a region (depending on the region).
The brightly lit city is my original city, and the bare bones one to the right is a new city that I intend to specialize in mining
[smg id=5678 width=400 align=center]
Here is a daylight view
[smg id=5679 width=400 align=center]
... and yet from another perspective. The beauty of the game is that the resources can be shared between the cities. For example, I have a nuclear power plant in the big city that is supplying power to the small city, which means that I can devote my precious few dollars to other endeavors.
[smg id=5680 width=400 align=center]
It is really too bad that EA sucks so bad fragger, I think you would have really enjoyed this game considering how much you enjoy Civ V
looks nice, PZ :)
I'm sure you're right PZ, it looks terrific and from what you've reported, I'm sure I'd get right into it. Maybe EA will wake up, smell the coffee and change their ways. I can but hope.
I hope so, but I doubt it. EA will spend ten times the amount that they save from piracy just so they don't look stupid by retracting their ridiculous online requirement. The funny thing is that they are so stupid they don't even realize how much they would gain by taking the online requirement off of single player.
EA/Maxis reports that the reason that the persistent online connection is required is that the game offloads many of the city computations to their servers so that the gamer's PC doesn't need to w@&k so hard.
However, when one of the tech companies tested this theory, they reported that you can disconnect your router and the game continues to play fine. I can confirm this myself because my PC reported that my internet connection had been dropped and yet Simcity was still running fine on my computer.
I guess the people at EA think that gamers are a particularly stupid bunch. I guess that it won't be long until an offline crack is developed.
If so, it'll serve them right for insulting their customers' intelligence \:/
Well, it's official. The first crack to run Simcity offline has been released. While not fully complete, the mod does allow you to play offline for as long as you like. The functions that need to be fleshed out are the ability to save the game locally (right now you need to log in after you play to sync the game with the server), and to play more than one city. However, the modder was able to demonstrate that you can build functional roads outside of the current small cities.
Evidently much of the Simcity code is in javascript, and the always online DRM was "hastily thrown together" which suggests that it was more EA than Maxis in the decision to require always online.
You can read about it here (http://gamersaurs.com/index.php/article/item/714-voice-of-dissidence-simcity-modded-to-run-offline).
I found this article (http://gamersaurs.com/index.php/article/item/688-voice-of-dissidence-eating-my-words) of interest as well, from the same site.
I definitely won't be buying this game, and I'd think twice before buying any future EA titles purely on principle :angry-new:
I read that article as well. It's really too bad that EA is so foolish. I do not think the always on DRM was Maxis' idea because the code to play offline was well established in the game, and the always online code was hastily added at the last moment. In fact, I read somewhere that the code was still embedded in the script.
It's a shame because the game is really marvelous, and the only issues I had were the small city size (as indicated in the article), and the always on DRM. However, I believe that game modders will eventually circumvent both issues. Evidently Maxis developed the small city size toward the lowest common PC denominator because they were afraid that gamers would complain about poor performance, and their sales would be lower because of high horsepower requirements. All in all, just about every marketing decision they made was stupid.
we used to build cities until they grew so big that the PC turned the game into a slide show. It was still fun. We used to zoom in a lot until the graphics card could handle it again :)
Yes, that was what I did as well; zoom in far enough and just about any PC can handle it. :-()
In this game there are regions of various size with city plots of varying number, so you can choose what style you like best. It seems to me that the developers could have easily created at least a few regions with much larger cities for those that have fast machines. I'm sure it is already possible in the game because one of the modders has already proven that he can create roads in between cities, which is not possible in the vanilla game.
Just discovered that the gamer that found a way to play offline does so by starting in developer mode. Evidently even the coders at Maxis didn't want to be annoyed by being online.
In the vanilla game you have to rely on a single highway connecting the cities in a region - this gamer simply changed a toggle from 0 to 1 and he was able to activate the ability to create multiple roads between cities - and they w@&k (traffic uses them)
He posted his discoveries on the Simcity forum, and EA deleted it.
EA is offering the angry mob of Simcity purchasers a token - one of their games for free, downloadable from Origin. Among them are Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, and Medal of Honor Warfighter.
Quote from: PZ on March 22, 2013, 11:18:29 AMdownloadable from Origin
so much for UBI's efforts of getting EA on board of their U-Play platform and EA's loyalty to their new partner. The only thing UBI and EA have in common is a solid, heartfelt stupidity.
They are evidently going in different directions. Ubi still allows offline game play while EA with their online DRM wants sunset their game servers so they force you to purchase something new in the future. EA holds you hostage; you can play as long as they let you.
Despite the online annoyances when Simcity released, I must admit that I'm quite immersed in the game. Although the city size limit is small as many have complained about, it is much fun to have the cities specialize and assist each other. For instance, I puck up recycling materials from neighboring cities so my CPU processor factory has the raw materials to make the expensive chips.
Once I fire up the game, it is difficult to leave even though the hour is late. ^-^
:)
Cool :-X :)
Quote from: PZ on March 29, 2013, 02:24:05 PM
Once I fire up the game, it is difficult to leave even though the hour is late. ^-^
I get that :-D
Interestingly, the Origin client (which starts the game) keeps track of the time one spends in the game. Initially I thought I was simply forgetting the amount of time I have spent in the game, but after at least 10-12 times of the client reporting what I thought was more than I actually spent, I checked last night.
When i shut down the game I was at marked as having spent 72 hours in the game. Tonight I fired it up, and lo and behold - somehow I has spent an additional 8 hours in the game that are unaccounted for - the client now reports 80 hours in-game when last night I was at 72 hours
Those liars at EA are not only fools at business, they are lying when it comes to reporting the amount of time gamers spend in the game. Of course, they are then lying at all of the other stats they are reporting.
How does the proverb go.. "never trust a statistics you didn't forge yourself." :-D
Indeed; as the old saying goes "there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics"
Last night I checked my game time and it was reported as 82 hours as I shut off my system. I'm interested to check today to see where it is.
Someone's playing your game when you're not looking, apparently :-()
:laugh:
Yeah, I guess so. Because I know my sweetie doesn't like video games, it must be the poodle. ????
maybe it's just someone who hacked into your account. :-D
:laugh: You never know!
:-D I dunno - never underestimate a poodle!
:laugh: nice one, fragger :-D
:laugh: :-X indeed; excellent one fragger! +1
I fired up Simcity again just for kicks, and despite the online requirement, the game is still lots of fun. Because it is a simulation, there are literally endless combinations of ways to do business so to speak. Talk about open world - this is the ultimate. I just hope the developers get all the bugs worked out so that the simulation works as it was intended.
Well, it's about time - Maxis/EA released offline mode for Simcity. Now modders can do all kinds of things including digging into the UI to modify the simulation
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-offline-play-now-available-for-pc-and-mac (http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-offline-play-now-available-for-pc-and-mac)
:-X :)
... and they did it for free. I did the update today, didn't cost me a cent, and it actually works.
:-X