State of SimCity
Oct 03, 2013
It’s been seven months since we released SimCity and I wanted to take stock of where we are, respond to some questions and talk about the future.
We’re Listening
First, I want you to know that we are listening to your feedback. We dig deep into the forums, Facebook posts, and Twitter feeds every day to see what players are talking about. There is a lot of feedback and there is a clear passion for SimCity. That’s great to see. And while we appreciate positive feedback, we take very seriously the players who have criticisms. Players have high expectations of what goes into our games and we have an obligation to deliver.
Seven Months, Seven Major Updates
We’ve released seven major updates in the last seven months, which have evolved the gameplay experience and the core of our simulation. GlassBox powered our first agent based simulation and this system created depth and complexity like we’ve never had before. This opened up a whole new world of tuning and we’ve spent our time making sure that all players, whatever track they take their cities through, are getting a challenging experience. I encourage you to watch Dan’s great talk from GDC 2013 to give you an idea of just how complex SimCity’s system really is.
Traffic was always meant to be a challenge; in fact, many of our team considered traffic to be a strategy game all on its own. But, in reality, traffic was behaving irrationally. We got the player feedback and fixed it. Cars are smarter, buses are more intelligent in their routing, and the new raise/lower tool brought new ways to route traffic throughout the city. Tuning is the life blood of the simulation and we continue to monitor and make enhancements to the way GlassBox responds to our players. Stability and performance increases are also a constant area of focus for us; servers are stable and performance continues to improve on lower spec machines.
Maxis has a long tradition of supporting User Generated Content (UGC) and the UGC community. We have begun a discussion with our players with the ultimate goal of giving you space to mod while assuring all our players that the multiplayer gameplay experience is safe and has integrity. It’s difficult to determine what makes a “good” or safe mod and what mods cross the line. Clarifying guidelines for UGC will help players understand where that line is. We want to have an open discussion with our community about what you want out of SimCity and hear your thoughts about UGC guidelines. To join the discussion go here.
Exploration for Offline Mode is Happening
Right now we have a team specifically focused on exploring the possibility of an offline mode. I can’t make any promises on when we will have more information, but we know this is something that many of our players have been asking for. While the server connectivity issues are behind us, we would like to give our players the ability to play even if they choose not to connect. An offline mode would have the additional benefit of providing room to the modding community to experiment without interfering or breaking the multiplayer experience.
Bigger Cities
City sizes have been a constant point of conversation among our players since we released the game. The game’s original design focused on the density of an intimate urban environment. It was about intercity connectivity and the challenge of managing a region of cities instead of one metropolis in isolation. However, we recognize that many players have expressed the desire to build up one big city rather than manage the interrelationship of multiple smaller cities.
We’ve put months of investigation into making larger city sizes, reworking the terrain maps, changing the routing algorithms of our agent-based system and altering the way that GlassBox processes the data in a larger space.
After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn’t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities. We’ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn’t achieve it within the confines of the engine. We’ve chosen to cease work on bigger city sizes and put that effort into continuing to evolve the core game and explore an offline mode. Some of the experiments we conducted to improve performance on bigger cities will be rolled into future updates to improve overall game performance.
Cities of Tomorrow
Thank You
Our launch wasn’t what anyone on the team hoped for. We think about this every single day, but we’re proud of how far we’ve come over the past few months.
Like you, I’m a SimCity fan and a passionate gamer. That passion for the original SimCity was one of the influences that led me to study Government in college and to work on Capitol Hill. But my love of gaming drove me from Washington DC to California to join Will Wright’s studio 17 years ago. SimCity is in my blood and if there’s one thing I know about Maxis is that it attracts a certain kind of game maker, those who love simulations and take personal joy in bringing these worlds to life. We’re all passionate about SimCity and we want to make it better.
So that’s the state of SimCity right now and we feel that it’s improving every day. Agree or disagree, tweet me at @EAGamer and let’s get the conversation going.
Comments
Thank you so much for all the
Thank you so much for all the feedback you guys are giving us about the game development. Other than croud funded games I've never felt so involved :)
On the subject of larger maps, I understand the limitations and even the decision Maxis has made, I'm curious whether it might be possible to move the city tiles closer together and allow user laid connections in the style of SimCity 4. This would allow for smaller individual city tiles but more compact regions, in the style of burrough development. It would also allow greater user freedom in intercity connections.
Keep up the good work.
yep exactly what is needed.
yep exactly what is needed. the smaller map sizes wouldn't be as much of a problem if the maps were right next to each other like SC4 and you could make your own connections. How about investigating that MAXIS? and you might just be able to save this game.
It is actually still a
It is actually still a problem. We just need bigger cities. My pc has NO problem what so ever to run the game. And my PC is 5 years old! How the hell can a new pc not run this game?
Also, we need to be able to create new entrances to the city and connections to other cities. Do the devs even play this game? Or are they just retarded?
Is it a desktop or laptop,
Is it a desktop or laptop, because I have a laptop that is 4 years old and it dies when I play the game. I also think the game could use bigger city plots and maby we should be able to make more entrances to our cities and Mabe they're (them being EA) running their simcity5 game on laptops.
sorry if i sound hostile but
sorry if i sound hostile but I'm just ranting
But, but, but, Maxis said the
But, but, but, Maxis said the connection was cos all of our PC's sucked and are too slow to do any calculation. Do you mean EA and MAXIS have been lying to us? Can't be, they are only voted worse company in the world for a few times!
Does great works snyc right?
Does great works snyc right?
...and why can't the maps be
...and why can't the maps be a different shape other than perfectly square? A more organic shape to the city boundary would go a long way to allowing the inter-connected cities feeling more like they are part of a large urban area.
I strongly agree on this..
I strongly agree on this...SIM CITY 4 has larger maps and connected right away to the next city..hence issues of lag is there but still SC4 can manage.
The none-functional space within the region should have near proximity wherein if the player choose to claim another city then he can still manage to play multi-city at once and can peek somehow what is going on to his other city by notifying (pop-up message) so he can easily switch and play the other city that he claims.
Through this you will experience a true synchronized simulation with your claimed city.
The Date is not synchronized as well...your city dated as November 2000 then the other city you claim is December 1999..
what is the heck out of this game play? This is the reason why the other transactions are pending and put to halt i think.
Do your homework please.
"We’ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn’t achieve it within the confines of the engine." = Your PC might have no problems with loading at all, But the engine wil, and don't forget about the server load too ;). You're not the only one playing with bigger maps you know. If all will do this, then they might also wind up with server-side issues.
Ummm, what's your point?
You do realize this is coming from the top right? The top management wants online DRM. The game could run offline and have bigger cities, but like you said, the servers wont support it, so... we all suffer. You're looking at this completely opposite. You're actually arguing for online DRM and shittier games that have to be confined to the capability of servers, not your computer. You do your homework.
Do your homework please.
"We’ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn’t achieve it within the confines of the engine." = Your PC might have no problems with loading at all, But the engine wil, and don't forget about the server load too ;). You're not the only one playing with bigger maps you know. If all will do this, then they might also wind up with server-side issues.
larger maps
Why cant they just make the option on the main menu. "large maps for good pc's". "small maps for slow pc's". Did no one think of that?
+1 to this.
+1 to this.
They may be communicating,
They may be communicating, but there are still major issues.
Bigger maps, just because if Dubai International Airport were a scaled item in the game, it would take up 6 whole cities.
Offline is a good start though, I'll give 'em that.
I would really love to be
I would really love to be able to give you my feedback. It seems as though your blog is as useful as your game is to me. Never mind, scratch that. I can use the box to hold down some papers by my open window. The game inside it is good added weight. The blog isn't to useful seeing as I can't post concerns or issues in a new comment, I don't even know if this reply will show up. Good day, I'm done with EA and MAXIS forever. Poor customer service is something I never expected I'd see from MAXIS, but I guess I should have known when you joined with EA that buying a game with EA on it, meant I was buying a paperweight that would never even work. (*hint* the game doesn't work, 2nd time I've bought it, your help staff are as helpful as a blind, deaf, and scent impaired hunting dog)
Sounds like a user error ...
Sounds like a user error ...
I still think the maps are to
I still think the maps are to little. There are lots of people with computers who can compute bigger maps. So why don't you offer us the choice between, small, medium and big maps? It's not so hard to make that happen. I play also CitiesXL and there I can make my cities much bigger without any problem. Industry far away from the housing areas etc. This should also be possible in SimCity. Now everything has to be put in a small 2x2 km squere with is rather unrealistic.
The rest of the game is great, so give us bigger maps and keep on the good work.
Madfox
Well... "I don't even know if
Well... "I don't even know if this reply will show up." --- I see your little rant, it posted even with all the negative slurs you tossed in.
You said, "(*hint* the game doesn't work, 2nd time I've bought it,..." --- Why would you buy the game twice because the first purchase didn't work?
Classic case of whining brat that makes no sense at all.
Mr. Buechner, THANK YOU for
Mr. Buechner, THANK YOU for indicating that an offline mode will become available in the (hopefully near) future. I pre-ordered this game and was so disappointed that I have not played it since March. I am excited about this news much less for the prospect of simply being able to play without a broadband connection, as I am for the unrestricted enhancements which will inevitably pour out of the modding community. This will finally allow me to build "My City, My Way", as the slogan goes...until this point it has largely felt like "My City, Somebody Whom I Disagree With About How To Do Things' Way". While I strongly disagree with your line of reasoning behind continuing to restrict city sizes (computers become increasingly powerful...even the users with weaker hardware can stick to the smaller sizes, and can play the larger ones the next time they upgrade), by opening the game to an offline mode, you have (very thankfully) allowed for the possibility for this type of mod to emerge from the community.
Although I am once again disappointed in what I feel is a short-sighted decision to restrict city size, the offline mode is an ENORMOUS step in the right direction and I very sincerely thank you for listening to the community and taking ownership of this particular issue. Once implemented, I look forward to returning to SimCity and exploring the rest of the hard work that has gone in to the game. Once again, big thanks to you and to all others who took part in promoting the implementation of offline mode.
Hi,
Hi,
Thank you for your post. It's really unfortunate about the bigger maps. Even if the cities could be made 4 by 2 would be wonderful. I guess that it can't be helped. Looking forward to the new content. :)
Dan my guess is can't
Dan my guess is can't currently "git er done" to moving them closer so that user connections can be made: that would be very little difference in what they were trying to do ... and if are NOT inside of a city map (above the regional map): then you cannot built anything. It would have to be like a separate city (outside all cities - city ...that you could send a gift to ...or WHERE? did the money come from to build said EXENSIVE connections.) I mean no people live out there so ...
And the entire purpose of connecting cities yourself would be what? to make a connection between 2 cities not currently connected? And then ...that might screw up all the travel for GREAT WORKS ...your new "Highway" just by-passed all the workers to the great work: and then those same said people would blame Maxis (my Great Work is Glitched).
And if you just made MORE road connections between 2 already connected cities ... that is splitting the baby in the middle just to have to reconnect it at the cities entryway (causing an even larger traffice jam, than if there were just 1 Highway. Or if your now making more highway entry ways to your city ...your killing more space for hardly more benefit.
I am running on the
I am running on the assumption that the limitation is in simulating 1 large city at a time in Glassbox and that there is no real issue with simulating region level interaction even in regions with 16 cities and a couple great works.
By moving the city plots so their borders actually touch each other you could lay roads, streets or avenues between them or even rail and walking paths. This means immediately adjacent cites would be able to share resources without moving through a single point in or out and it would allow for congruous urban areas. Major interconnection such as Highways and rail would continue to be preplaced by the Maxis team but cities would be able to add new connections at the city level. Of course these would all have to be surface connections and if the neighbouring city has a different mayor it would require permission. "Would you like to create a connection to your neighbour?"
A good analogy would be Cities and States. The State is responible for connecting cities throughout the State by the use of highways but cities can connect to each other as they see fit. This could open up many interesting gameplay scenarios, such as a cluster of cities which would encourage the payer to build their urban centre there, but with massive resources underground. Clusters could also have satalite cities that would truly look and feel like bedroom communities and suburbs.
I would also like to see the integration of Agricultural production into the specialization mix. One of my greatest accomplishments in SimCity 4 was making a completely Agricultural city. It was difficult to balance the property values and the needs of your Sims but if you hit the balance you'd get a beautiful town. I think the SimCity 4 model would be a good way to compromise between the desire for larger cities and the limitations of GlassBox.
What we really want is our cities and regions to look and feel like large urban centres. Closer plots that we can connect would accomplish that, I mean that's how most big cities started anyway.
THIS... This would solve 90%
THIS... This would solve 90% of what we really want with this game. True interconnected cities, and a massive scope, without the need to have a huge city plot that would be technically impossible to handle by Glassbox engine. I am extremely disappointed that they will just abandon the idea altogether.
Maxis,
Maxis,
You messed up big time. I feel cheated. Before the initial release you all kept saying we will look at it down the road, we will look at it down the road (regarding map sizes) and I feel it is a big blow in the face.
I'm not your average SimCity fan, nor am I one of those hardcore SimCity fans that complain all the time...... but this was a blow. SimCity was released in 1989 (I was 6 at the time), I grew up with the game and have followed every series; after SimCity Societies I thought things couldn't get worse...... it did. SimCity 4 was the best incarnation of the game..... detailed through and through..... options were endless (well minor things irritated me, but it was the best incarnation of the series.) Why was SC4 so great??? -- detail and built around Will Wrights basic formula (Single Player Sandbox Game).
I didn't care for the opening comments on how you have claimed to continually update the game. The updates...... first of all should have been included with the intial release..... if we went back to 1989 Will Wright released the first version...... unfinished.... the game would have had no momentum or sequels..... and back then internet wasn't available it had to be a finished product....... Shame on you for making your customers beta testers.. Your updates are no more than bug fixes because of a rushed, incomplete project.
Bigger Maps..... sorry the game is too limited with the small map size..... I'll be waiting for SimCity 6........ if Maxis can get out of the grave they put it in.
I agree 100% with Dan, I am
I agree 100% with Dan, I am very glad that the community is working together to improve this great game.
I really like the idea of cities being closer together instead of cities just suddenly ending and having large gaps between them to make them look more natural.
I also hope that in the future the regions will allow all cities to be directly or indirectly linked to each other even if it is just a smaller number. I dislike how some cities on some maps can not have any transportation links it seems to other cities within a zone of the region.
I also hope that the great works can be fully buildable in sandbox mode such as the space launch center which I can never build in sandbox. I like the free range that sandbox mode gives players in creating more realistic cities in a few hours as opposed to the few days in regular mode and I dislike being able only to build the international airport in that mode.
Over all I hope in the long one more realism can be done with the city space, and that more landmarks and cultural buildings are added.
Long live simcity :)
maps
I waited tEN YEARS TO PLAY THIS GAME AND U WOULD THINK IT WOULD HAVE EVERYTHING BUT IT ALMOST DOES BUT THESE TINY CITIES DONT CUT IT
maps
Its simple we want bigger city sizes not small city lands like we gor its not what we waited for as u can tell from the thousands that tell you every day very simple get us bigger city sizes
cities closer together
Just wanted to say that I completely agree with this comment; it would actually completely solve the problem for me, in this sense: with connecting cities next to each other you could look out on your whole region as one massive metropolis, each with different areas controlling their needs and specializations and connections, it would be amazing, imagine a region with 16 cities all right next to each other, we would have truly epic cities then, even if it was just the illusion of one city. Surely, this would be possible Maxis ?? Nothing would have to be changed game wise, other than the connection points of each city. Please please please consider this, I think if you found a way to implement it, you would have one of the finest games of all time, born out of the ashes of one of the most disappointing, through a process of listening to what customers want. It would be a coup-de-theatre. Thanks for the game, there is much I love about it.
You had me at "Bigger Cities"
You had me at "Bigger Cities", I was hoping to read we would finally get bigger cities in the expansion - prepping myself to go immediately buy it. annnnd then you say you have given up on the idea as players with low end hardware cant play... well I guess ill just wait untill cities of tomorrow comes down in price. Oh wait its on Origin it will always be at a premium price.
Same thing here. They had me
Same thing here. They had me at "Bigger Cities" and also hoping to read that we would FINALLY get bigger cities! So this news is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING! I'd rather play without that freakin' glassbox system and just have cars drive around the city and being able to build gigantic cities. And.... I am not interested AT ALL in that DLC.
IKR! i cant believe that of
IKR! i cant believe that of all things that have been asked for, they've decided they cant do bigger maps.... so devastated. ....The blog should state at the very start that there wont be bigger maps, instead of giving false hope :(
Devastated? You all act like
Devastated? You all act like aliens just abducted your Grandmothers ... The map size isn't the problem ...it's that people try and play S5 as if it were S4 ... and they OVERBUILD on that small map way too soon. They don't mine the "gold" under their cities then wonder why they can't make any money (because in SC4 ...it was too easy - you basically could not fail at that game): here YOU CAN FAIL: and people are then they blame the small map ...instead of their small ability.
Not personally directed to you ... but no one states why it is so important to have a larger map (you can't manage) outside of they want to recreate IOWA and place farms. Of course your high wealth green city would be better on a huge map (so you can fail of 75% of it) ....
Why?
Why?
Because. That should be good enough. What happened to, "The customer is always right"?
Why not? You got a problem with people wanting to do more? Who are you? The product manager, angry because people aren't happy with your delivery?
Longevity. Eventually, even if you run at turtle speed and zone one block at a time, each city will stagnate unless you bulldoze and rebuild it in a different pattern, function, design, direction, etc...
Yeah, there's ample evidence that many many players are incapable of building a successful "city" in the 4 square kilometer box they have been given. But there's also those of us that can not only take a new square and make 100M simoleons using any of the specializations but that we can take the disasterous, rotting messes others abandon and do the same thing - even in nuked cities. In fact, I don't NEED the gold under my city to make plenty of cash and build whatever design I want.
If someone wants to build an entire region as one city, what of it?
There, does that answer your question? :)
I have no connection to Maxis
I have no connection to Maxis ... just a player like yourself: hey ...I sat on the sidelines of chat and waiting for you who wanted to get bigger maps ...to get them or get the official answer NO. I myself was always hoping NOT. And that is because so many do suck (certainly not you) and if you just give them more space, they will just screw up more. Do I want CRIME CENTRAL parked next to me?
The "customer is always right" (and I was a retail manager for over 20 years) is a stupid saying that was never true. There are many different kinds of people and you "can't satisfy everyone" no matter what.
I think you see Maxis is moving the game forward, with or without you who claim that if they can't have bigger maps, they won't play the game.
Well if could affect leaderboards ... I mean your ENTIRE CITY IS (all 16 spaces would be making money at once) ...me ...I'm lucky when me and 2 others are building in a region
THAT's WHAT OF IT! Does that answer your question ... The larger map issue of the size you wanted (or any increase maybe ever) is a dead issue ...
and my friend ..WHEN you do any of the specializations ...U are mining the gold under your city. There is only 1 specialization that doesn't require RAW MATERIALS which is gambling of course (sure you import them rather than mine them - is that really different? my point U play SC 2013 as it's supposed to be, MOST DO NOT) They throw up 1 mine ...or just export coal ... that's not doing what U can do it this game.
and on that point: I'd like to see the 1 billion dollar casino city ...because it does not exist! 100m in gambling, I shake your hand because you played MANY YEARS to get that much money.
and I do not understand your longevity issue comment ... just unclear what your point is there with how you zone then stahl? Yeah, don't play that way? I've got cities into year 60 ... NO POLLUTION ...a billion in the bank. Yes, cities stagnate, and you must make adjustments that are costly ...but I always get the money flowing in my grinding range rate / hour running the game. Once I achieve the amount of money I want to hold in the bank for looks and regional ranking ...THEN I start to play the game and fill up the city ect.
It's a fine game when all you
It's a fine game when all you want to do is to achieve tops at the leaderboards, but for players who are more artistic they feel the crunch of the smaller city size much greater than other players who only "rather there was more space to make money out of".
It's sad to know that while all the concepts put into making this game were undeniably brilliant and innovative concepts, some limiting aspects of the game resulted in the loss of (at least a part of) the meaning behind playing the game. Sim City 2013, for most, seems to be more of a game of total "strategic placement" than balancing this strategic placement with aesthetic pleasantness.
It has probably become impossible for 2013 to see cities such as those mimicking real cities, or custom cities which actually had neighborhoods, commercial districts and the like. It's now more of "who can make the most money in a city?" or "who can make the most resources?" or "the perfect city without crime, disease and with high education rates." I mean, it's fun in itself, but it's also a little disappointing to know that what was sought after from before is not what is being sought after now.
I think that was the point he was trying to drive at when he talked about stagnation. Once you zoned your zones, you can't move them because it would be disastrously economically inefficient. In SC4, you could, for example, place a certain building in place of zones because "it compromises a little bit of revenue, but it's worth it as its visually pleasing". In SC2013, that is no longer possible, and one of the reasons is the smaller map size.
It's still a fun game, of course -- I still enjoy looking at cars zooming around knowing they're *actually* there zooming around -- a phenomenon that is not possible in SC4 -- but it's now a game mainly for a slightly different group. And that's a little saddening.
A true artist can make the
A true artist can make the most of what they have to work with. Not complain and ask for more.
ooooh! That last part you
ooooh! That last part you said about a city the size of a region got me! That would totally be cool! Imagine it, you could make a real life city like los angeles or new york city! Wait, we cant even build a city with these hella small maps! What are the maps made for? the people of the 1800s?
what are you talking about?
what are you talking about? Think this through, why would ALL these people want larger maps? Because it is too EASY to fill up the current sized maps!! I have endless cities RAKING in cash, just wishing i could spend all my wealth on building out... maybe you're failing to build cities in this version of Sim City, but i sure am not. I'm just failing to have fun with my "City" (or town) when i have so many things i want to do, and no space to do it in. Try buliding a wind generator farm. Oh wait you won't because it takes up a quarter (or even an eighth, still too much space) of your map. The current city size doesn't make sense scale-wise.
I have the achievement, place
I have the achievement, place 24 windmills (and by pride ...24 all are the Turbines ...placed on the Granite Lake map ... ALL....ALL but 5 are on mountain terrain ...only avail to wind turbines. I placed the highest possible Windmill, and Turbines on the Granite Lake Make ... meaning I have placed them on the highest peaks in simcity map history. By the way that area has a constant wind speed of 17 to 19 mpr winds ... and guess what ...I STILL HAD TO BUILD A POWER PLANT of coal ... so Wind power is just a space nightmare totally agree. Now that being said ...I've been banging the drum .... the map size is too small ... but it might not be IF THEY WOULD MAKE CRAP SMALLER ...the wind turbine should of been the size of the standard windmill (which is still too big ...you should get to place 6 ...and with those get all the power you do when you place 24 ...
I never ever said they had this game on lock down perfection. But all I hear is Billy Bob's making 1 line statements "I want a big map".
If the game was big maps, I'd be all over them ... it's not going to be.
I wish they were giving us all the modern day building ... I want to recreate real city skylines: but that is not the game either. None of us are going to get the perfect SC we want ...if we designed it outselves ...
I mean some people want to farm? What? and wait for 6 months for a crop to grow? Farming should come with a "watching Grass grow" park .....(not that kind of grass ...all U homeless sims can turn around and get back to murdering someone in broad daylight while my Police eat donuts) ...
You keep saying all these
You keep saying all these things you want but aren't getting. You are just accepting the garbage they gave you. 99% of the people want bigger maps. In fact, has anyone ever said they DONT want bigger maps???? Yes make things smaller, to give the allusion of a bigger map, that would help. If you could do that, why not just make the map footprint bigger??
You're whole theory here is just deal with what they give you. It doesn't matter that we spent our hard earned money on this game and don't get what we expect. Just take what they give you and shut up. I would be glad to shut up if they give me my money back. I assume you are no longer a retail manager with that attitude. I haven't played this game in a long time, but I kept watching and hoping.
In the blog it says that bigger plots are not possible with the engine. Whose decision was it to go with an engine incapable of providing the experience that has made this series successful up till this title??? I really hope that person or group of persons are no longer with the company. Who asked for a mmo style Sim City? And at the cost of paying customer satisfaction!!!!
Word brother, took the words
Word brother, took the words right outta my mouth.
They never said the engine
They never said the engine wouldn't run bigger maps, it is actually quite easy to make it run an entire region at once if you want it to. The thing is that they tested cities in computers, probably with the minimun recommended specs for the game, and they found out the specs where too little to run the big maps and for saving them from complaints against performance problems they just took the small map complaints, which seems as dumb as it might actually be.
Also, you're right, sometimes I feel like getting my money back, but I'd rather pay them twice the game price just to see them give their source code away for the TRUE DEVELOPERS, not those controlled by some fancy designer, make the game interresting as Sim City used to be.
PS: farms? they'd be possible with bigger maps. Suburban towns? They'd be possible too. How about highways? Just let we place the cities connection instead of fixed ones, that and bigger maps'd cure most of the traffics probablems.
PSS: have everyone forgot one-way roads? They are like a must for you to do any real dense city, two-way street is just dumb, too many lights, too many places to stop and get struck, one way would basically solve most of my cities from traffic too.
I for one stopped playing
I for one stopped playing because my cities were filled. No fun if I can't expand. The other problem I have is that one city is not next to another. It is unrealistic to have to ride on the highway to get to another town. All cities (not small towns) that I know of have other cities towns and villages that support the larger whole. Used to do this all the time in SC4. 2km is what the current scale is. That is a small town in most aspects. Make all the add ons and changes to UI you want and I still am not playing—not until the cities expand in size.
No people want bigger maps so
No people want bigger maps so they can actually build a city. Not a village (extreme sarcasm I know). But seriously I want to build a city with millions of people in it. Not a few hundred thousand. And I want it to be realistic looking. I don't want a square full of nothing but sky scrappers.
"After months of testing, I
"After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes."
You also realize that decision will mean lost customres and a good bit of anger on the forums for some time to come.
I recognize that this new version of Simcity approaches the Simcity world from a different philosophy, however, this is a significant failure in the Simcity community as the current plot size is just way too small, forcing mayors to compromise their plans and dreams.
You will most likely retain many basic players and people who have gotten used to playing simplified, almost nonsensical games on Facebook. However, the enormous and dedicated longterm community of players looking for an up-to-date challenge this could have delivered has just been told to abandon their dreams.
Okay, they've given you a
Okay, they've given you a clear reason now. Imagine what would happen if they just say "screw it" and enlarge the city sizes...there would be an uproar even worse then with the city size issue and the forums would be completely bombarded with "Ohhh why won't my game run smooth? Awww damn this games' performance sucks!" It is an obvious trade-off.
In my opinion, they should have used Simcity 4 as a template, made it fully 3D and modernized it instead of opting for this new engine. I honestly feel like a new game engine should have not limited the game as much as it did, but this is what we have. They tried. Perhaps, and this is me keeping my fingers crossed and hoping, just perhaps...a new and improved version of Glassbox will be created that will breathe life into SimCity.
There reason is bullshit.
There reason is bullshit. They can easily expand the map, they are just being idiots and they don't want to since there servers can't handle it. But... if there was an offline mode, that wouldn't be necessary.
implementation of bigger maps
implementation of bigger maps is very difficult not just because of their servers but because of game mechanics. at the moment it takes about several mins real time, several hours game time for a worker agent to travel from one side of the map to another (only 2 km) at a heavy traffic. if maps were enlarged to 2x width 2x lenght, same agent would travel from one side of the map to another (only 4 km)in half a day game time. which would seriously hurt the game.
one solution would be slowing down game clock without slowing agent speed, which would bring the game closer to reality but it would also slow down the pace of the game to unbearable levels.
even if this was solved, comes the problem of agents and im not talking about the 4x number of agents that servers need to handle but im talking about mindless agents. it is already a problem that worker agents doesnt have a fix destination or starting point but this problem would become expotentially more severe with more agents.
IM NOT SAYING ANY OF THIS IS OK. im just saying why it is unfeasible. if the game was developed properly to start with we wouldnt have any of this problems. but the game was rushed with a flawed game design and now we are stuck with it.
if offline play is activated and UGC support is good, some day ppl with good computers may be able to play on bigger maps with huge restructure to game which is applied by mods. til then there isnt much to do and qq wont solve this problem.
Trust me dude... once the
Trust me dude... once the offline version is available and unlinked from the EA servers, people will start modding it more and we will get bigger maps. Hell they'll probably fix the bugs that EA / Maxis are incompetent to fix, like the agents. lol. All you really got to do with that is convert SC4 agents to the new SC5 format and you got yourself a fix.
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