SimCity

This was on the Facebook page last night. :P
As long as we have some offline mode I guess I'll still buy the game.

Then there are those of us who have friends that dont play this game.

This game seems to be made to made me feel like an outsider, like it's not for me -.- Usually when devs talk about games being so heavily with friends, it usually means"Get your frends to buy this game to! Make us money!"

Then there are those of us who have friends that dont play this game.

This game seems to be made to made me feel like an outsider, like it's not for me -.- Usually when devs talk about games being so heavily with friends, it usually means"Get your frends to buy this game to! Make us money!"

sweet i hope to see a gameplay demo :D

This is the kind of deep economic simulation I had always dreamed of in a SimCity game. Even as interconnected as the cities seemed in 4, I was always disappointed that they never had a real direct relationship with one another. Every city in a region could be an independent entity with the region's size acting more as a multiplier effect on growth and development. If real regional interconnection is the end product, the decade-long wait will have been entirely worthwhile.

I think the multiplayer is an awesome idea, but must be an option :D

And PLEASE! UPLOAD MORE VIDEOS :D !

Maybe we don't want the game to be THAT realistic. There are a number of us that just want to build a city without money worries so we really can build the city of our dreams. Plus, there are going to be many "stuff up" cities which could really bring down the global game economy. Maxis, please make this whole thing an option and allow people to not depend on the global market and use cheats. Although Sim City should be realistic, it shouldn't be that realistic.

I think taking the step to implement a real global economic environment is very progressive, and naturally I welcome such news. However I believe the main negative commentary has been from those wishing to have a sandbox mode in which they create a city privately, or at least disconnected from the SimWorld economy.

Personally I have nothing against playing in a world economy, but I daresay that others may react negatively if a offline or single player mode disconnected from it entirely is not included as an option- although this raises the whole question of cheats, mods, time etc that will no doubt have to be tackled.

Good luck to Maxis and hopefully all these issues will find answers.

I get it. Really, I do. Just please bear the following details in mind. (Yes, these are related to all the noise on the forums about this feature, but I'll try not be noisy, if a little long-winded.)

First, simple logistics. This is clearly not going to need (and it's been stated that it won't require) a constant Internet connection. Periodic updates will easily provide for this. By the same token, the game should run if an Internet connection is unavailable at startup. I'm talking about this feature, not about DRM. I've used Steam and know it has an offline mode; I haven't yet used Origin so don't know about it. If they decide to add obnoxious DRM, that's a separate issue, but this feature should be able to just update when it can, and run on its most-recent data if it can't. If this isn't done, it'll be hard for people to believe it's not just been added as DRM-in-disguise.

Second, if we're allowed to have private regions - that *are* still regions, with interacting cities - I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have a private "world". This could be a world where only the regions one selects can influence its economy, or if that would never be enough cities for the model, it could be a world where the global economy is purely simulated. SimCity has always been purely single-player (with the slight exception of cities in a region on a shared PC), and obviously big fans like that. I play mostly single-player video games, and only do multiplayer with friends. Also in the new SimCity, I'm likely to play regions either alone or with friends, and will avoid "public" regions. Players like me probably worry that being "forced" to play it as a sort of MMO will open it up to obnoxious other players making it a worse experience.

I could see how that might be hard, if all we're talking about is demand levels in an aggregated economy, but that being the case begs another question: What's to be gained? How do you make it so that the human input adds something to the experience, without allowing it to detract from the experience? How do you prevent people from perpetrating pump-and-dump commodity trading schemes, while still getting something out of the fact that you have real human players driving it - something that you couldn't get from a pure simulation model with a few random inputs added in? (Some people might like the idea of trying to pull off a commodity-trading scheme in the virtual world, but those people can keep playing Eve Online. :P )

I hope there's an answer for that, and I look forward to more info here and at E3. Honestly, everything else you've shown about the game - especially the GlassBox demo - I've found really impressive. I hope to feel the same about this feature once more details are revealed. Just please understand why long-time fans are a bit skeptical here.

I really enjoyed BenHead comment above.
I've been playing SimCity for almost 20 years now. Always single player.
I would love to see the SimWorld, but remember that it has always been a single player game.

And sometimes we travel to the country with no internet connection and I take my computer just to play...

"Real cities don't live in bubbles, real cities are connected to each other."

I'm sorry to point something out here, but... these -are not- real cities!! It's a GAME!

I want realism, yes. I do -not- want REALITY when I'm playing a GAME. Not one tiny shred of it. There is a big difference here. I play games to escape reality. I play SC4 a lot for its realism. I was looking forward to more realism in the reboot. But what I won't stand for is a game that, in the sometimes days or even weeks when I can't or don't play it, is mysteriously transformed - even if only a little - by what I'm trying to escape: reality. If this is the future of SimCity, I'll stick with SC4. There's reality for ya. And I have a feeling I'm not alone. With all the custom content out there, 95% of which I don't have (if I did, my plugins folder would be in the TB range I think)... SC4 might even outlive me, even if no new content is ever created from this day forward.

While I commend the idea for multiplayer, the idea of a "global" economy that affects individuals needs to stay a 100% multiplayer feature. I can see multiplayer with -one- player who wants his/her region to be influenced by other "at large" regions, or that one player getting together with friends in a region that's also influenced by neighbors and the whole world. That's fine and good - for anyone who wants this, and I'm sure it will attract many players who like to interact in a game with friends and strangers alike. I think it's a great idea to make it available - but only as an option.

I'll admit, if it were optional, I might try it from time to time. But I can pretty much guarantee I would scrap or abandon any such cities I make between sessions, much like I abandon every "online character" I've ever made in other multiplayer online games (e.g. Diablo). Now if every city I make *has* to be in this "global economy" then I'll end up scrapping every city I make, too. That will make it impossible for me to build out a full region as I can do now with SC4. That in turn tells me it would be a waste if I spend even one red cent on this game.

Bottom-line: if there is no "bubble" aka "sandbox" environment available, where there are NO external influences to my cities, then count me out. I'm not even saying this as some kind of silly threat, you're not going to lose anything from one customer. And in your overall scheme of things, I'm "nobody" and I know it. If your marketing research says you'll make more new fans than the ones like me that you'll lose, then you're doing the right thing. Business is business, I don't take it personally. But I'm still out if can't escape reality and climb into a bubble to play a game. Maybe I'm just gettin' too old for this ... stuff.

Remember though Simcity development team, as any of your counterparts in the FPS business who are worth anything would say, "Just because it works that way in the real world, doesn't mean it works with a game." Thus you should remember [b]offline[/b] single-player is important too!

I don't want my choices to be dictated to me. I don't wan't my cities to 'specialise', based on the choices of people I've never met, and don't (forgive me) care about. I just want to build an awesome city. Just me.

Is this mandatory?

I think this will b a fun aspect to the new game! I have freinds that SimCity from my childhood and college; that would love to build some regions together. I just hope that it takes on city expansion realistically and it doesnt come in a pre-formed box of various sizes. It should b organic and cities would have to prtition or purchase land as they grew. This should lead to dispute of land between cities as thier boarders come to meet for the first time. That would b FUN!!!

lol at the html in the page head

Dear Ocean,
the online functionality is simply amazing, and we are glad that you add it to the game :)

I have been playing sim city since the first one and have played all of them including the spnes one and the 64 version on DD.

I have see your maturity through the ages and how you handle this massive game core, and the online functionality where you could finally share your ressrouces and workforce is the preominent part of a persitant game in this genre.

People who complain about online connection and about being connected at simworld, are missing a point of being progressist.
And this is the ultimate feature, and should NOT be just an Option, I wish you MAXIS would make this feature an important par tof the gameplay including real simulation between cities.
By that i mean i can know that my trains can deserves other cities and see other sims going to mine, that in my airport i can see my planes actually go somewhere with agents that have a goal in my game. that my aiport is recognised through the online region. This is just amazing to be able to create your railway station and connect it to other cities and see it as it fluctuates.

This feature, is a great idea, and i can't wait to play your game that was long awaited by us, your fans.

And for the others, there will be a mode where you can control your own region, Even if it requires an internet connection to contribute to simworld (which is amazing) Maxis will have time to evaluate it as its best. The game is still not out people, and guys at Maxis knows what they do, so let them speak out and do what is the best for their community.

Cheers.

Hi im a uged fan of this serie i have them all included expansions. I´ll used to when i played, create a realistic town as possible, and under the years with Sim City 4 it became an artwork thrugh the game. I wonder if the creators of the new Sim City could put in things that was missing in Sim City 4

As follows: 1. A real big trainstation that you can conect with a larger nr of tracks like in new york.

2. A bigger harbor for luxury cruisers/oil tanks and private yatchs. And you can put it anywhere near the water, in Simcity 4 you wasn´t free to put it that you wanted it.

3. A new bigger beach.

4. Better connection with the bridges and the lands for example in sim city 4 when you connected a bridge in NY with the land, often it become a downhill instead of a straight road.

5. Bigger parks so that you can create your own through that park( central park in new york for example) and others.

6.More diffirent buildings of high scools.

7. Wally world or Disney land.

8. Maps so that you could builed Miami/ L.A/ Chicago/Tokyo/Hong Kong/Stockholm etc more citys then in Sim City 4.

9.Bigger maps when you build for example in sim city 4 when you had created a big city like N.Y and started a new and tried to conect them like a big NY it didn´t really work, it felt like you builded diffrent towns and didn´t conected them at a good way.

10. And if you builted a boluevarde road in NY you goted palmtrees automatically instead of ordianary trees like it should be in NY, but that is nothing really.

very greatfull if the creators read this.

Sorry for my bad english i´ll hope they still can read it.

Best regards from Sweden and Karl-Johan Schreiber

Wow... all this DOES sound interesting, but -- I do kinda share some of the concerns of having to play online. I totally appreciate that your servers can generate some very cool game content, but here's my concern ... I live in the boonies and don't have the luxury of a DSL connection, so am wondering how much bandwidth the game might require; my limit is 5GB/ mo. and trust me on this, AT&T is pretty insistent on it. So... do I carry my laptop into town and look for a free WiFi hotspot when I want to play?

The need to make cities speciliasing in different resources or needing to trade resources online was the main reson that cities xl had all the fun sucked out of it. I just want to make a city with an intersting idea I have at that time. Then when I'm bored with it or I think I've developed it to my liking I want to start a new city. Totally independent from the ones I've built before. I want my cities to be limited by my imagination, not the amount of resources I can obtain from the "market" be that online friends or my other cities or a default exchange rate used when playing offline.
The other idea from cities xl I hope you ignore is the mayor zoning where wealthy and low income residences should be. Please stick with the traditional sim city way of having the simulation work out where the rich and the poor move to depending on services, pollution, etc.
I LOVE sim city. Im so excited there's a new one on the way, but scared it won't live up to my expectations. I know you're all doing your best. ;)

What a load of baloney. Even if EA's servers had some integral function to the game, having to log in relies on the servers being there. I suppose I don't have a problem with needing an Internet connection, but what happens in 10 months after I purchase the game - nevermind ten years. Can I trust that the game will be available even if Maxis/EA doesn't suport it? Perhaps a better model would be something like peer to peer, rather than a centralized server akin to the bad old days of AOL and Compuserve.

The problem is that if all our cities are are subject to forces in the SimWorld or whatever, then someone with a radical mod could massively distort the demand or supply of things that would totally distort things and potentially wreck what is going on in our own cities.

Please, please please. This is a design flaw. You can not have everyone's cities dependent on the world conditions an allow modding. Someone somewhere may make a radical mod that explodes their supply of industry or their demand for offices or something and suddenly there is a ripple effect that will be impossible to compete with unless everyone uses that radical mod.

Not to mention that you Maxis years ago shut down your own support of SC4 leaving it to third party sites to distribute the patches and updates. If I can't open my cities without accessing your server then in five or ten years no one will be able to play it anymore. Your games have amazing shelf life, do not make them contingent on your server!

PLEASE MAKE THIS AN OPTION ONLY!

I have been a big fan of SimCity even before I had a computer - my friend had it!

I love single-player and Sim City 4. The regional play is good. I would like to see neighbouring cities - thinking of say London made of of boroughs, the boroughs of New York - but also Sim Nation Cities connected via road, rail, river airport. This would be like connecting London and Birmingham, or New York city and Chicargo. And as the player i get to build all of them myself - with no outside help.

This brings me onto the would-be 'successor ' to the Sim City brand - Cities XL. Although the game is ok, it misses vital components like railways.

Under Monti Cristo they tried making it online despite thousands of protestations from fans - many of them Sim City fans how at the time were giving up hope on Sim City 5. What happened? Disaster - not enough players wanted it and eventually Monti Cristo closed the MML and eventually the company went bust and sold Cities XL to Focus Home Interactive. We are now looking at having to buy 2012 version, which means since launch, fans would have had 3 versions to buy, none of which is a full version.

So a word of warning - Sim City and city building fans have already voted with their money and helped distroy Monti Cristo and Focus haven't helped. Therefore be very cautious about producing an MML city builder - player want single player. Why do you think Sim City 4 is still going strong?

And as for the trading system on Cities XL - what a joke.

1) It is overly complex
2) It doesnt work wonderfully well and you end up having to trade with the 'in-game' company rather than your own build cities

But more importantly

3) Since when do cities trade with eachother?

Cities, as in the city administration/council, are public sector bodies and although they promote trade from their city companies around the world to business, they dont actually trade. Trading is left to the companies within a city and has nothing to do with the mayor. A mayor would attract companies to its city to set up and create jobs.

Now if demand for an industry is low, as Mayor, i would try and help promote my city businesses but also try to get other industries to come and set up. My aim being to keep and attract jobs for my people, and business rates/taxes for my bank balance.

Of course in the real world, manufacturing in UK cities has declined due to costs and low cost economies, like China, have filled the gap. High-end business are where UK cities are at. But in Sim City terms - you wouldnt expect me to get involved in wage costs for private business and that sort of thing (compare with Tropico where you do set wages). And a real world model would be far too complex.

If i am to micro manage - which i think Sim City should offer especially as an option to turn on so i can still play when i have finished building - then i would manager city administration things like the number of teachers in city schools, number of nurses and doctors (this assumes a Sim National Health services exists otherwise that too is private business), number of council workers in various departments, how to spend city funds etc. If i am struggling with funds, i might like to mothball a city administration building rather than demolish it so reopening is cheaper, perhaps i could sell off the building to private companies. What about social or council housing?

I sometimes wonder if city game developers actually look at what city administrators in the real work do. They certainly dont trade goods and services.

Agggh. This is sounding like Citesxl(though better). Not everyone wants to play muti-player games. Yes, it's says you will be able to play one person but will that effect the game play or will it be the same as mutil-play. The always on internet connection will be troubling. I have said before, give use a new graphics engine, clean up SC4 program and we're good to go. I'm like alot of people who just want to build citys-give me a sandbox to play in and I'll be fine. I have no need or desire to play with 16 other people-could care less. Please, please, please let us play on our own computer without having to hook up to a server!

Agggh. This is sounding like Citesxl(though better). Not everyone wants to play muti-player games. Yes, it's says you will be able to play one person but will that effect the game play or will it be the same as mutil-play. The always on internet connection will be troubling. I have said before, give use a new graphics engine, clean up SC4 program and we're good to go. I'm like alot of people who just want to build citys-give me a sandbox to play in and I'll be fine. I have no need or desire to play with 16 other people-could care less. Please, please, please let us play on our own computer without having to hook up to a server!

Must buy the game! I've been waiting for this for a so long time. SimCity 4 is the best city emulator ever made, and I think this will be as good as SC4, even better! I hope in this game we have to do the same: a colorful city! In this game I want to be the mayor again!

This might be a big fail if you have to be connected to the internet all the time there should be an offline mode if there is not then i am not buying this i want to play it when i visit my family in a small town with no internet they only have 1,000 people i will tell my friends not to buy this game

Hmmm.

I played SC Classic until I bought Sc2000. I played SC2000 until I bought SC3000. And I played SC3000 untill I bought Sc4 which was the first (and last) game ever that I bought on the very first release date.

SC4 gave me a lot of joy during the last 10(!) years. And I became a little bit well known in the SC4 community with my Nick Nardo69 (which was unfortunately not available while registering here).

I was disappointed when SC:S was released, I tried Citylife but came back to SC4 but wasn't able to play CXL due to my poor PC. And due to its "resource market" and online necessarity.

That's why I really do advise you not to leave out a pure Single-Player - OFFLINE - mod! I am sure that this would deter not only me but also a lot of other SC4 players. And SC4 players are usually playing the game for a long time.

However in general I appreciate the idea of interacting cities (as long as I can decide if I control them or give the control away to other players I might know or not know) as long as it is sharing infrastructure like schools, hospitals, police & prison, ports and airports etc. with all the problem that comes along with them to the local traffic network(s).

Because THIS made out a large part of the success of Simcity. I do not want to sell or buy things to other cities and players but I do want to manage my cities, metropols and villages or more precisely the infrastructure of them like mayors and town councils do IRL.

This is what made the difference between SC4 and its competers, this what made SC4 so successful until today even though EA abandoned us after an EP /Rush hour) that was 75% a bugfix for the initial release, even though EA abandoned us after promising us at least one more EP that might have used at least some of all the püossibilities especially in region play that EA never used at all.

I think I can speak for a lot of long term SC players that even most of us are feeling quite enthusiastic that finally EA works on SC5 we have not forgotten how we were abandoned by EA, how we were disappointed by all those "SC4 successors" that were released by now.

Please do not repeat all the mistakes made by EA and others during the last 10 years. We have been disappointed enough, if you want our money then consider listening to the community, listening to us. Otherwise lots of us will stick to the Nr. CITY simulation called SimCity 4 and all the stuff that were made by the community since 2003.

Yours sincerely

Nardo1569 AKA Nardo69 on simtropolis & SC4Devotion.

Couldnt we play with random people online like Ea war games like C&C generals because none of my friends play simcity!

NOT ALLOWING PLAYERS TO SELECT REGION CONNECTIONS SUCH AS TRAINS AND ROADS WILL RUIN THE GAME!

I WILL NOT BUY!

SHOW EA WE ARE SERIOUS...
CANCEL YOUR PREORDER TODAY!

No one wants this game. I have hardly seen a positive comment. I never buy games and I was so ready to get my money out for a new sim city. No chance. I now expect it to be rubbish. Maybe , just maybe they know what they were doing and it somehow becomes awesome. I just can't see it.

PLEASE FIX!!!
1- Despawning vehicles and characters (if this does occur at all, dont do it)
2- Unrealistic building construction (i actually dont like plobables, but as it adds depth to the games its ok), dont make the buildings stretch, they are not elastic bands, they need to build stage by stage as in real life
3- Long Term support, if you want an online only game (which i intend to play outside of internet/ or wireless telephone coverage areas, and on my 1gb a month plan) it would be a complete waste. And what happens once there is no longer any servers to play your game off in many years time, i think if you want this, make an additional option of having a local server (LAN) or an offline mode (or tell me that once the official servers switch off you will implement this), i want to, if i buy your game, be able to revisit it and play it many years on like i still do with Sim City 4 and Sim City 3000

I appreciate the coders clarifying that "it's an online game." It must be really nice to be that trusting in the goodness of human nature.

So you have clearly never lived in a city like Sydney which has everything.

To be honest I don't even want regions like SC4! I just want to control my city and have connections as per SC2/3.

I realize that some people do want this, but it's not hard to make this an option!

I feel there should be an option between multi player and single player.

Even though I've been happy with SC4 Deluxe for many years, the release of SC5 should stick with the original "build your own city" but have more options, realism, and details than SC4 Deluxe.

Options I could see on SC5 that aren't on SC4 Deluxe have to do with zoning. For instance, instead of regular low, middle, and high commercial, I could see the choices of commercial service and commercial office zoning. Same thing for industrial where you can choose either dirty, moderate, warehouse, or high tech. Other options I could see would have to do with highways, roads, terrain, and a bigger variety of buildings of all types. Highways and roads would be junctions, intersections, angles, ramps, and lane widening.

Realism would be like what I've been seeing as for how it's going so far with the new game. City traffic, neighbor connections, neighbor communications, land, traveling, tourism, commute, metro transit, pedestrians, and more are what I can see. A combination of traffic, commute, and transit are problems I've always had with SC4 Deluxe when it comes to the routes Sims take and not using highways as heavily as they should for commute. Difference in traffic density between city borders have always puzzled me. I've never been too impressed with the looks and graphics of land where there's no zoning or buildings in SC4 Deluxe.

And as for details, I like how there's better graphics and 3D in the new game. Also, getting a better view of your city from all angles is what I'm also seeing, including walking in your own city and getting a look of your city right from behind the wheel of the car of your choice.

But as I said, keep it an original "build your own city" game with your choice of single or multi player. If there's no single player mode and if it's not an "original", then I'm not buying it.

I have to be online to start a city and I have to be online to save it??? ala Diablows 3?? noooo thank you

Great Work is Broken