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SimCity Update 7

Mar 13, 2013
Live Operations Producer Barrie Tingle

Hello again, Mayors! Live Operations Producer Barrie Tingle here with another SimCity update. Quite a few things happened yesterday. Let’s go over each one:

  1. Server Upgrades: We’ve completed the migration of all our original servers to the new, faster/higher capacity server architecture. We’ll continue to provide ongoing optimizations for our servers.
  2. Server Status Page: Want to check the status of one of our servers? Now you can – the team created a server status page that lives on SimCity.com. You can view it here: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/server-status
  3. Patch 1.5: We’ve deployed a new patch yesterday to address some trade intermittency issues, which should make regional interaction more responsive. We’re going to continue to improve the speed between cities within a region. It should also decrease the chance of losing progress on your city via a rollback. You can view the full patch notes here.

That’s it. We’re continuing to optimize and improve the experience and will keep you informed of our future improvements.

Comments

Would love to see fixes to

Permalink Submitted by mb102_1360363615 on Mar 13, 2013

Would love to see fixes to traffic and mass transit...there has to be a way to prioritize agents to use roads based on occupancy; I.E. use the avenues first, then high, med, low capacity roads. That would solve a LOT of traffic issues. "Most direct route" is usually never the fastest.

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For me part of the fun is to

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

For me part of the fun is to figure out how to optimize my network so sims use what I've decided, and my shortest route is the heaviest avenue with streets on the side to make ramps not too often to canalize them, ... it was the same in the old simcities.

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So if they want to smooth all

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

So if they want to smooth all traffic I'd like to be done in an easy mode, So I can keep having trouble with traffic. It's the main challenge of the game.. they should fix that recycling cars bug tho

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Please stop commenting on

Permalink Submitted by Baleurion on Mar 13, 2013

Please stop commenting on things you have no clue about.
There is a proven flaw in the AI programming. It's technical, you wouldn't understand it.
It has nothing to do with challenge or gameplay design. It has to do with a flaw. Okay?
It has nothing to do with traffic jams becoming a thing of the past.
It has to do with traffic CHOOSING the same exact road everytime they go somewhere, regardless of what road it is or what is already on it.

That's not gameplay design, that's an AI programming flaw. You wouldn't understand.

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no, it"s just the way the D*

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 14, 2013

no, it"s just the way the D* pathfinding algorythm finds its way through a labyrinth but you seems to know better so explain this to me ho I don't have traffic issues on 300k+ towns

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Yeah, neither did a guy with

Permalink Submitted by Drew_Dubious on Mar 14, 2013

Yeah, neither did a guy with 900k people in his region. The "D pathfinding algorythm" is crap or have you not noticed the conga lines of utility vehicles in you HUGE cities?

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It was like that in SimCity 4

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 14, 2013

It was like that in SimCity 4 too, you just dealt with it or installed mods. look up simcity 4 shortest path and you will find the same argument that is made over and over again these last days :)

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It WOULD be fun if the game

Permalink Submitted by mb102_1360363615 on Mar 14, 2013

It WOULD be fun if the game behaved rationally. The AI is broken. The path-finding is ridiculously rudimentary. I take great care in trying to lay out my cities in the most efficient way possible, always thinking of where sims are going, how they will get there, and how they will return. Alas, I tried one city last night with SEVERAL different layouts, demolishing it each time and restarting...regardless of how careful I was, there was immediate gridlock. That's not fun...it's fun to figure out how to fix traffic as your population increases, yes, but not when it doesn't function as real-life traffic does in the slightest. It's a simulation of a city, after all, isn't it?

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funny you say gridlock, i

Permalink Submitted by 1ButtonDash on Mar 14, 2013

funny you say gridlock, i made a city called gridlock, it was pretty much all squares thought a whole flat leveled area. I have no traffic whatsover. Wait time on buses is less than 10 mins

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You just experienced what

Permalink Submitted by TUe_P13 on Mar 14, 2013

You just experienced what scientist are experiencing on a daily basis. The created model doesn't match reality. This is simply because you can not model each individual's decision tree, you can only give each sim a decision tree based on the average tree of a reallife population. So its not a bug, but a choice of the programmers. You can argue if its the correct choice. But consider that even if they program the most optimal decision tree for your city, it will not be the most optimal for your other cities. And the optimal tree is not the same as the most realistic, people in reallife have stupid decision trees all the time. Did you ever experience traffic in India? Btw if you really want to manage reallife traffic, go study for it and apply at your state's civil planning department. That's what i am doing right now.

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With all that said, there is

Permalink Submitted by Questionlol_136... on Mar 14, 2013

With all that said, there is still a huge playability issue. There ARE betting pathing algorithms, and my guess is they chose the one with the least processing required, not necessarily the most optimal. I understand that humans make poor decisions. I understand that traffic exists in real life. The issue at hand is beyond that. The current state of the game is nearly unplayable, and is frequently erratic.

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There is a lot of mod coming

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

There is a lot of mod coming out for the game too there is still hope :)

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oh and there is a mod to

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

oh and there is a mod to activate cheetah speed it seems I'M HAPPY NOW :)

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What are you talking about?

Permalink Submitted by hardcaslte on Mar 13, 2013

What are you talking about? You've mentioned this 3 times in these comments and there are no mods for SimCity

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yes they are popping all over

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 14, 2013

yes they are popping all over reddit, there's an offline mod apparently too

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http://www.pcgamer.com/2012

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 14, 2013

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/08/simcity-is-built-to-be-moddable-say-ma... and they have said they would support the modding community so it's alright :D

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Check youtube. Someone

Permalink Submitted by Drew_Dubious on Mar 14, 2013

Check youtube. Someone already started tuning the code personally. They have disabled several restrictions that EA and Maxis plrgramed into the code.

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All I'm getting is "Unable to

Permalink Submitted by fruv_1362765023 on Mar 13, 2013

All I'm getting is "Unable to load the city at this time. Please try again." Running out of patience...

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I was getting this too and

Permalink Submitted by chiptas on Mar 13, 2013

I was getting this too and got pretty pissed off till i uninstalled my network adapter and reinstalled it now my problem is gone i dont know if thats your problem im no expert and i only found my solution by chance i have a bigfoot networks killer network adapter.

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I want the Cheetah back =(

Permalink Submitted by FallenHero98_13... on Mar 13, 2013

I want the Cheetah back =(

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there seems to be a mod for

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

there seems to be a mod for that :) isn't the world a beautiful place ?

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Ive already lost three citys

Permalink Submitted by prettyei on Mar 13, 2013

Ive already lost three citys to the server downtime and This city Im working on is going ok but Ive been kicked off three times. Not being able to work on my city all day really doesnt help me. When will everything be fixed?

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Can someone please comment on

Permalink Submitted by jesterbryanc on Mar 13, 2013

Can someone please comment on the AI? Forums and youtube are full of terrible AI examples with SIM agents going to the first available job and house and not even the same one each day. There are also examples of cities running successfully with only residential and no functioning neighboring cities. There is also a pic of a gamer finding a solution to traffic but drawing one road: http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5476/fizzymynizzy.png . Serious players of the franchise would call such AI a train wreck. I don't care if the solution is coming in patch 1.6 or 3.0 but I and thousands of others would like to know if this aspect of the game design is fixable or will stay as is.

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That's just min-maxing, you

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

That's just min-maxing, you can exploit sims in a lot of ways to make a lot of money and part of the fun is to figure out ways to do so.

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Can you stop commenting on

Permalink Submitted by Baleurion on Mar 13, 2013

Can you stop commenting on every single comment here with your ridiculous counter-arguments?
The traffic AI is FLAWED, it's not an opinion, it's a proven fact.
It has nothing to do with "min-maxing" or gameplay challenge. It has to do with FLAWED PROGRAMMING.

I can make a challenging min-max game for you. What if we tune industry so their trucks CAN'T get to the map border or anywhere to drop of goods? That'll just be a fun challenge, right? What if we tune sims walking on foot so they CAN'T get to the shops, hence all become abandoned due to no customers. Because that's a fun challenge right??

No. Don't excuse flaws for gameplay design. You have no clue about game design, obviously.

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I don't mind exploiting sims

Permalink Submitted by jesterbryanc on Mar 13, 2013

I don't mind exploiting sims but I want to do that in a simulated city environment and not necessarily in a manner that is based on poor AI or game design. That would be more like a puzzle game rather than a simulation.

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Sims are that, SIMulation,

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

Sims are that, SIMulation, there isn't as much sims as there are actual ppl in your city, they are models to represent a stream of ppl walking and driving at the same time, well that's how I understand it anyway

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Do you mean to say that I'm

Permalink Submitted by Lutranereis_135... on Mar 13, 2013

Do you mean to say that I'm not supposed to just drive to the first available job in the morning, complete my work and drive to the nearest available house in the evening? That's absurd!

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Hey, if it comes with a

Permalink Submitted by jesterbryanc on Mar 13, 2013

Hey, if it comes with a company car and a hot wife when you get home, I will move to that city too!

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Hey be reasonable now, the

Permalink Submitted by Baleurion on Mar 13, 2013

Hey be reasonable now, the game has to run on uncle bob's grandmothers laptop from 1998 (even though she doesn't even play games at all).
Right? Right Maxis? That was the excuse you gave for the sacrifices? That it had to run perfect on old laptops?

Sigh. Guess we'll never get traffic AI (at all, now there is no AI, it's just a random flow towards the shortest route).
Restriction progress based on old technology NEVER leads to good progress. In any walks of life / technology.

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Anyway you can fix the bug

Permalink Submitted by merc32099_1357139600 on Mar 13, 2013

Anyway you can fix the bug that occurs with Recycling Centers. Where they stop processing material during operation hours and fills up and stops.

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Did you try to exit to menu

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

Did you try to exit to menu then get back to your city ? I had other bugs but they seemed to smooth out when reloading the city

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Good good... I just a had

Permalink Submitted by BlackDragonAJ89... on Mar 13, 2013

Good good... I just a had rollback today and lost my manufacturing industries for a bit... But all is well now!

Next thing you know we'll get custom servers that allow for mods! SERVER SIDE MODS WILL BE AWESOME!

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well at least there is

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 13, 2013

well at least there is already a mod for cheetah that works apparently :)

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Can we just allow saving to

Permalink Submitted by stargateheaven2... on Mar 13, 2013

Can we just allow saving to our own computers? this cloud business feels so risky everytime i quit the game..

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I would not trust the cloud!

Permalink Submitted by Movieman5000 on Mar 14, 2013

I would not trust the cloud! If you have continuous connection let it run. If you want to Minimize just hit the win logo key if you have one if not Control+escape also works

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Can we just allow saving to

Permalink Submitted by stargateheaven2... on Mar 13, 2013

Can we just allow saving to our own computers? this cloud business feels so risky everytime i quit the game..

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This stuff is all nice, but I

Permalink Submitted by Mjollnira on Mar 13, 2013

This stuff is all nice, but I have a humble question to ask of you people on high at EA. When are you going to stop lying to us about offline mode, it has been made insanely evident that it would not be as hard as you claim, you are just using that as an excuse to ignore us. If you think we are bying it, i would just suggest googling "simcity offline" Even the news isn't buying your crap. STOP LYING AND GIVE US OFFLINE!!!

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Stop being an idiot about

Permalink Submitted by hardcaslte on Mar 13, 2013

Stop being an idiot about offline mode, it's not going to happen so stop posting about it. You just look worse every time you do

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I would love offline mode but

Permalink Submitted by jesterbryanc on Mar 13, 2013

I would love offline mode but I knew what I was buying before hand so I cannot complain about that. Having said that always-online is NOT fine if they cannot maintain a stable environment. This was their week one disaster but they will certainly have that part fix if not already. The bigger issues remain the AI and countless gameplay bugs. That will be their next series of patches for months to come. Translation: they rushed (or were forced to rush) the game to market and are paying the price through servers, lost sales and staff overtime.

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there's an offline mod being

Permalink Submitted by cubbase_1357136257 on Mar 14, 2013

there's an offline mod being worked on apparently, still no saves at the time but highway building inside and outside boundaries

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I would love to know just why

Permalink Submitted by bakerbuddy on Mar 13, 2013

I would love to know just why any and all emergency traffic does not just drive arround at least some of it with streetcar roads this should be even easier instead of waiting till everyone is dead or burnt down. Whatabout more forms of mass transit? subway, L trains, monorail.... get it?

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Well, I would like to see

Permalink Submitted by Darkpeddel on Mar 13, 2013

Well, I would like to see that ambulances, policecars and firetrucks to go trough traffic like in real life and not wait for the light to go green or wait in the heavy traffic to get to a building and also that they can make a u-turn on the road. I would also like to see the option to only see regions that you can join and not go trough 400 pages of full regions! I want to play with other fans and try stuff out but because of those pages it seems like it is impossible. Please make this an option!

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Yesterday (13 March) I was

Permalink Submitted by Bad Whippet_136... on Mar 14, 2013

Yesterday (13 March) I was still being booted off Europe West 5 despite it stating 'available'. I was not able to retrieve my city until 1am CET so the server clearly wasn't available at all. Can you guys check this out? It seems the server listings (both in the launcher and on the new page) are not always correct.

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So if the server upgrades are

Permalink Submitted by PimFlotz on Mar 14, 2013

So if the server upgrades are completed, you will finally enable the features you disabled, like cheeta speed and leaderboards?

Because you gave us a product and the stripped it because you couldn't handle the pressure.

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For you mayors saying there

Permalink Submitted by Donnyp02_1358582904 on Mar 14, 2013

For you mayors saying there is no traffic problem. Maxis came out a few days ago and said there was a traffic problem and that they are working on it, stop being so stuck up and difficult, there is a problem, accept it.

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For you mayors saying there

Permalink Submitted by Donnyp02_1358582904 on Mar 14, 2013

For you mayors saying there is no traffic problem. Maxis came out a few days ago and said there was a traffic problem and that they are working on it, stop being so stuck up and difficult, there is a problem, accept it.

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Would someone from EA address

Permalink Submitted by TIABABA on Mar 14, 2013

Would someone from EA address the issue of possible off-line game play? A blinding glimpse of the obvious issue!

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Will Sim City be released

Permalink Submitted by TIABABA on Mar 14, 2013

Will Sim City be released for the Mac OS?

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