The SimCity Thread

[tadada]

Silly question.

Is anything left that could go wrong but didn't, in this game?

-high price (60 euro + 20 euro for european city mod)
-miss-labeled as something it isn't (it's farmville-sims crack rather than city building, hence the shit-storm that happened now but not in SimCity Social)
-the DRM makes the game totally unplayable at launch (server cloud purgatory)
-the DRM makes the game partially unplayable afterwards (so long, cheetah speed, see you in the afterlife, together with the lost cities)
- the game, the actual content, is broken, miss-functional or directly BS (enough links in the past 2 pages for a thorough exemplification)
-the publisher has lied to the customers (the refund link "that wasn't", the broken promises not to fail on launch)
-the publisher has lied to everyone (the perma-online is not actually technically necessary, good job, RPS, for the inside info)
- the publisher gives no real technical and bug support to the customers ( Ulukai's link above)

Did I forgot something ?
Was there something that could go wrong and didn't?
It's amazing how much stuff one could get for 60 (or 80) euros, nowadays, isn't it ?

[jnx]

Am I the only one that finds it a bit odd that 69 of this guys 72 posts are on this thread? You're oddly dedicated to slandering the game considering that you didn't even buy and get burned by it.

[Jesus_Phish]

I think SimCity may have slept around on him.

[Nalano]

Am I the only one that finds it a bit odd that 69 of this guys 72 posts are on this thread? You're oddly dedicated to slandering the game considering that you didn't even buy and get burned by it.

I'd be more interested in tradaa's 3 posts, all of which are attempts to undermine tadada.

[Ulukai]

A quick question. If I abandon a city and then reclaim will it restart it?

I don't think so. I've claimed abandoned cities left by others and you inherit it in the state they abandoned it.

[tadada]

Am I the only one that finds it a bit odd that 69 of this guys 72 posts are on this thread? You're oddly dedicated to slandering the game considering that you didn't even buy and get burned by it.

Yes, I'm a "dude" and gamer who came on this site / forum to read and talk about a city building game that was about to appear (hence my specific interest for this tread only, and now I realize I shouldn't have been so straight forward about me and my profession because guys like you could read it).

The other thread I posted in was the "let's make a RPS community game together", a try at interacting with this jolly community I found, meaning you too (or so I thought).

Strange beyond belief, I suppose.
I'm guilty as charged, officer.

Attack me, not what I'm saying, it's your prerogative as an established "poster" around here, unlike me. I could never be right against you, even if I speak in english (at least I try to), with arguments.

[Moraven]

I'm not surprised when a developer blatantly ignores the reason a franchise is popular and applies stuff that goes against the very spirit of the game in the name of broader appeal, but I too still think it's stupid (the existence the Elder Scrolls MMO still blows my mind). Usually the best you can hope for is alienating the original fanbase and throwing yourself at the mercy of a fickle new crowd.

Now Enemy Unknown, that was a good game. The devs were clearly aware of why the series was popular and stayed true to that.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013...axis-sid-meier

Gives a good story how EU became how it was. He wanted a to implement as many as the original features as possible, but their first prototype was not fun. They struck a good balance and the game had a successful launch and post launch, getting lots of recognition. SimCity will get it, but not the kind they like, at the end of the year.

[Kiril]

I don't think so. I've claimed abandoned cities left by others and you inherit it in the state they abandoned it.

Thats annoying

[jnx]

Yes, I'm a "dude" and gamer who came on this site / forum to read and talk about a city building game that was about to appear (hence my specific interest for this tread only, and now I realize I shouldn't have been so straight forward about me and my profession because guys like you could read it).

I'm interested in hearing more about what kind of a guy I am. Please continue.

The other thread I posted in was the "let's make a RPS community game together", a try at interacting with this jolly community I found, meaning you too (or so I thought).

Eh, what?

Strange beyond belief, I suppose.
I'm guilty as charged, officer.

Attack me, not what I'm saying, it's your prerogative as an established "poster" around here, unlike me. I could never be right against you, even if I speak in english (at least I try to), with arguments.

I wasn't aware I was attacking anyone.

[Nalano]

Thats annoying

Doesn't seem to be any incentive in claiming abandoned cities instead of starting new ones except for the blackmail: "fix this city or your region will suck"

[Kiril]

Doesn't seem to be any incentive in claiming abandoned cities instead of starting new ones except for the blackmail: "fix this city or your region will suck"

There is no free city solts. There are 16 of us playing the region. I have an awful ground pollution problem, and can't do anything with it. No having a way to reset your city is very silly

[gundato]

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013...axis-sid-meier

Gives a good story how EU became how it was. He wanted a to implement as many as the original features as possible, but their first prototype was not fun. They struck a good balance and the game had a successful launch and post launch, getting lots of recognition. SimCity will get it, but not the kind they like, at the end of the year.

Yeah, the thing to remember is that a lot of times these changes to the classics are being made to make them more "accessible".

Sometimes that is good (I think EU did a really good job), sometimes it is "Okay, but different" (JA: BIA comes to mind), and sometimes it is downright moronic (Syndicate...).

I know, I know. We all LOVED the old games and they were perfect.

Go take a look at GoG, the bastion for super-positive gamers worshipping old games. In a large number of the game specific subforums, you'll see more than a few posts about how the hell to play a game.

As an example: I positively LOVED Darklands and probably clocked over a thousand hours in it growing up. That game's approachability is only a few steps better than Dwarf Fortress. As much as I would love a remake, I also suspect that anyone doing a proper remake will need to make many changes to make it more accessible (even if it is just a very very good UI).

Of course, I also loved Syndicate (the good one) and think a faithful remake could have been done that was still in the same genre. So... yeah.

[tadada]

I'm interested in hearing more about what kind of a guy I am. Please continue.

In this case you were a person who went against me, not against what I was saying (my number of posts mattered, not what's in them).
From all your posts in this thread before I started posting (yes, read it all), I didn't expected that from you, really :) But it happened.*

Eh, what?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/foru...l=1#post270445

I wasn't aware I was attacking anyone.
*idem
If you are not going against me, but against my point then maybe you could bother answering to that post u blew into sideways discussions.:) Copy/paste aaaaaand start!

-high price (60 euro + 20 euro for european city mod)
-miss-labeled as something it isn't (it's farmville-sims crack rather than city building, hence the shit-storm that happened now but not in SimCity Social)
-the DRM makes the game totally unplayable at launch (server cloud purgatory)
-the DRM makes the game partially unplayable afterwards (so long, cheetah speed, see you in the afterlife, together with the lost cities)
- the game, the actual content, is broken, miss-functional or directly BS (enough links in the past 2 pages for a thorough exemplification)
-the publisher has lied to the customers (the refund link "that wasn't", the broken promises not to fail on launch)
-the publisher has lied to everyone (the perma-online is not actually technically necessary, good job, RPS, for the inside info)
- the publisher gives no real technical and bug support to the customers ( Ulukai's link above)

Did I forgot something ?
Was there something that could go wrong and didn't?

[Smashbox]

Ghost populations, some analysis.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9359265.page

Basically, the population cap for your cities is 15k. Not 100k. In that the total number of people 'agents' glassbox can deal with is 15k.

As your city grows, the population number increases in exponential proportion to the number of resident agents actually in the game.

This extra popluation does nothing. They do not work, they do not consume, they do not pay taxes. They are merely an additional number ot bulk out the "total popluation" statistic. They do not exist in your city in any meaningful way.

Quoting this because it's actually important. A heinous game breaker that can't be fixed with more server infrastructure (or even offline mode.)

loving the interactions here, btw. Classy.

[Jesus_Phish]

Having seen the information Cooper has brought here, I'm not so pushed about getting this game anymore.

[jnx]

-high price (60 euro + 20 euro for european city mod)

While 60 euros is ten higher than we used to be accustomed to, it's the new big release standard pushed first by Activision, now by EA. So yeah, it's kind'a high, but it doesn't break the new norm. The dlc don't count, they are just vanity stuff and expensive at that.

-miss-labeled as something it isn't (it's farmville-sims crack rather than city building, hence the shit-storm that happened now but not in SimCity Social)

I haven't played these so called cowclickers but seriously, SimCity 5 is a game. Comparing it to Facebook "games" is such an overstatement that it takes credibility from your point.

-the DRM makes the game totally unplayable at launch (server cloud purgatory)

Yeah it did. Think US suffered worse, because I've been able to play with max 20 min wait since day two. With offline mode I could've of course played anytime anywhere, but let's not exaggerate the issue.

-the DRM makes the game partially unplayable afterwards (so long, cheetah speed, see you in the afterlife, together with the lost cities)

The cheetah mode ain't there yet, true. However only thing I would've wanted it for so far, is to actually get something researched in the university. Is this an issue, yes. Partially unplayable though, no.

- the game, the actual content, is broken, miss-functional or directly BS (enough links in the past 2 pages for a thorough exemplification)

Stuff regarding this is interesting, we'll see how it develops. If the true-population cap is as low as rumoured, I'll be disappointed. Still, the game is fun to play.

-the publisher has lied to the customers (the refund link "that wasn't", the broken promises not to fail on launch)

Not sure what this is about. And everyone with the slightest bit of experience from online games and their mother knew that the launch would fail. Does it make it okay? No, but let's not act surprised.

-the publisher has lied to everyone (the perma-online is not actually technically necessary, good job, RPS, for the inside info)

I'm pretty sure no one believed that crap before or after. It was right from the get go obvious that it wasn't necessary because the game let you play while it lost connection to server.

- the publisher gives no real technical and bug support to the customers ( Ulukai's link above)

Didn't bother looking so no comments.

Did I forgot something ?
Was there something that could go wrong and didn't?

Well I've had zero crashes, that's good. The game is actually enjoyable to play. It can easily be considered a complete game in itself and not just a platform for future dlc. There's clearly love for the franchise there, and there's yet hope that Maxis will turn this into something genuinely great.

Replies in the quote.

[Cooper]

Update:

I had a quick look at the stats on pop numbers posted in screenshots and forums (I haven't got the game) in various places.

My initial thought was that the discrepancy could be passed-off as retirees and school-aged people. Basically, not everyone in a real city is employed and pays taxes.

The only way the numbers make sense is that, in a city of 100,000 people (all residences high-density; see below for why) there is an 11% employment rate. Not unemployment rate, but employment.

Moreover: Employed people do not buy anything. Employed people work in shops, but do not shop. You are a worker or a shopper, these are not overlapping roles as far as the simulation is concerned.

Of the posts I've read through to come to this conclusion, this one stands out:

A Low Income - Low Density House has 6 adults, 4 are workers and 2 are shoppers. If you destroy this home, your total population at the bottom center of your screen goes down by 6. Makes sense.

A Low Income - Med Density House has 60 adults, 40 are workers, 20 are shoppers If you destroy this home, your total population at the bottom center of your screen goes down by 60. Makes sense.

A Low Income - High Density House is where things go all whacky... By the pattern above you would assume that a high density home would be 600 adults where 400 are workers and 200 are shoppers, and this is true. If you look at the data layers (at the right times) you will see that there are indeed 600 residents and 400 are workers and 200 are shoppers....

BUT...

If you destroy this High Density house, your population goes down by 5200!!!!! (As well as increasing by 5200 when it gets rebuilt)

So either the worker/shopper count is bugged for high population buildings, OR they are purposefully "padding" the bottom center population numbers to make the city look bigger than it actually is.

[Cooper]

It gets better.

I went to check Reddit and found the same post I found quoted there.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comm...ulation_sizes/

The top comment is astounding. I'll cross-post.

Apparently the SimCity UI code was leaked recently. Can't verify, but if it's fake it's thousands of lines of faked code...

What is interesting is this entry on line 8510
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/51...ityui-js-L8510

The functions is called "GetFudgedPopluation" and comes with the algorithm they use.

From which these two graphs have been created:



The 'sweet spot' seems to be 500. Up to which all the data is accurately represented. Beyond that the UI just churns out a "fudged" (their words. I love that.) number.

I would surmise that the discrepancy seen in one single high-density building in the post I quoted above is because it breaks the "magic 500" barrier.

[Cooper]

More:

When the "magic 500" barrier is broken:


Notice the green "at home" bar. From the looks of things this bar simply represents the difference between the number of active 'agents' (workers and shoppers who pay taxes, move about and actually 'do' stuff) and the fudged number in total pop that is only there for looks.

[Smashbox]

Also worth noting is the fact that they're faking the population stuff in the fucking UI CODE.

That smacks of last-minute, wait-why-are-these-numbers-so-small duct-tape fixing.