Sim City 5

[trip]

haha, water road is ridiculous. they need to patch that

No way man its great...it moves with the tide and all. There are moments where they can breathe real air. I think they just learned how to adapt.

 

It is a new area in town. Trust me - their progress and growth will be monitored closely.

[El Dildo]

So, is this game any good or should I just stick to Sim City 4 and it's mods?

There are Mods for SC4? Where do I find these Mods?

oh.

I dunno.

 

you could try googling "sim city 4 mods" and see what happens

[agent17]

Out of curiosity has anyone heard anything about mod support for SC5? If there is mod support then I might consider getting the game at some point far in the future.

[YukiEiri]

So, is this game any good or should I just stick to Sim City 4 and it's mods?

There are Mods for SC4? Where do I find these Mods?

Try Simtropolis for starters.

NAM (network addon mod) is great for making your road network even better.

Then there are tons of amazing regions to choose from.

Oh and the BAT's and LOT's (user greated buildings and stuff)..

 

SC2013 will not be getting that..

Perhaps some new skins for buildings but..

[kudoboi]

 

the game itself looks great. I don't think the graphics are too "cartoony" as someone else said.

and when you're playing it, it plays pretty well... assuming you don't run into one of those weird bugs where your casinos stop making money or your population stops going to school and education falls, businesses go empty, fires and crime starts ruining your city. so far no one has figured out why that happens exactly.

 

but that's relatively rare.

aside from the small map size, I would still buy this game if they would just get rid of the DRM. I like most things about it.

businesses, fires and crime have to do with the city itself. for school and casinos stop making money its the server hiccup because the simulation part is apparently done by the server

 

 

Out of curiosity has anyone heard anything about mod support for SC5? If there is mod support then I might consider getting the game at some point far in the future.

 

doubt it. what would be the point in having DLCs and micro transactions then. it would also destroy the economy etc. they could do what they did with sims 3 though and allow both user created mods and their own expansion packs and microtransaction stuff

Edited March 11, 2013 by kudoboi

[JayC]

What server is the GTAF region on? I've went through a heap of pages and done a search but failed to find it.

 

Okay I'm an idiot. Just saw the other topic.

[trip]

A few things:

-My underwater house pic is making the rounds about the internet as an example of how f*cked SimCity. And I say that "f*cked" part with love.

-Everyone hip to today's news and discoveries? The whole traffic issue and sims not being what we were told.

 

I'm not giving up yet...but I am half starting to side with some of the more intelligent naysayers.

 

 

[SausageInACan]

One thing that I really hate is when high wealth commercial says they need customers then I view the high wealth residential and they say there are no places to shop

[agent17]

I don't mean to beat a dead horse but this pretty much killed any future possibility of me buying this game:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/sim...mare-escalates/

 

 

'The characters in the game don’t actually have any permanent jobs or homes. They simply walk to the nearest available open job.'

 

Aside from all the server/DRM issues the amount of inherent flaws with the game itself is worrisome. The regional interactions are really nice, one of the best features in the game in my opinion, but the simulation elements seem to suffer.

[trip]

 

I don't mean to beat a dead horse but this pretty much killed any future possibility of me buying this game:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/sim...mare-escalates/

 

 

'The characters in the game don’t actually have any permanent jobs or homes. They simply walk to the nearest available open job.'

 

Aside from all the server/DRM issues the amount of inherent flaws with the game itself is worrisome. The regional interactions are really nice, one of the best features in the game in my opinion, but the simulation elements seem to suffer.

This is the biggest issue. A major flaw to being able to simulate a city.

 

Everything gets thrown off making you think you are failing in your planning.

 

How about all of services going in series. Like you have 10 fire trucks and 4 fire burning. All of your trucks go to the first fire. 10 trucks at one fire while the rest burn.

[Trund]

At least they're patching the game nearly every day at the moment, if it continues like this and they actually manage to fix everything that would clearly be amazing.

 

But I kinda have my doubts that things that might be related to the main engine of the game will ever be fixed, Maxis is under control by EA after all, they'd rather release new DLC for an old engine rather than fixing the obvious.

[trip]

At least they're patching the game nearly every day at the moment, if it continues like this and they actually manage to fix everything that would clearly be amazing.

That is what I hope.

 

@everyone - please excuse my spelling and grammar. I'm on a tablet.

[agent17]

 

I don't mean to beat a dead horse but this pretty much killed any future possibility of me buying this game:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/sim...mare-escalates/

 

 

'The characters in the game don’t actually have any permanent jobs or homes. They simply walk to the nearest available open job.'

 

Aside from all the server/DRM issues the amount of inherent flaws with the game itself is worrisome. The regional interactions are really nice, one of the best features in the game in my opinion, but the simulation elements seem to suffer.

This is the biggest issue. A major flaw to being able to simulate a city.

 

Everything gets thrown off making you think you are failing in your planning.

 

How about all of services going in series. Like you have 10 fire trucks and 4 fire burning. All of your trucks go to the first fire. 10 trucks at one fire while the rest burn.

I'm guessing this is why those single road cities are so efficient.

 

[Trund]

No game is perfect, but SimCity can be a very amazing game if they add/fix these things:

 

1) Bigger maps. These "small" maps take some time to properly get filled and you still spend hours tweaking everything, but what then? With both of my "main" cities I created I ran into the space problem sooner or later. Yes it requires you to think more and plan ahead to not run into trouble at any time, but darn, they put in all these fancy things like curved roads, but if you do use these new features your map gets filled extremely quickly, and then it becomes ridiculously hard to adjust things at a later time. They have to add bigger maps. No not only twice as big, I'm talking about at least 4x the size of the current map, then I'd be happy.

 

2) Traffic and AI. Not much has to be said to that, it's better than in SimCity 4, but it's far from perfect still. Also the game needs more street features, I already mentioned that before though. Things like one-way streets and roundabouts are a MUST have. I also want highways back, but only with BIG maps of course. Also police, firefighters, ambulances etc. need some serious tweaking.

 

3) Better trading. I yet have to figure out how to trade with neighbours? I'm either too stupid to figure this out, or this feature is missing. Also it needs more trading options, they should take a look at Anno, it was done much better there. ALSO trading depot need more trucks that actually deliver/pick-up goods that are traded throughout the region, because so far it seems like a trade depot only has one truck, the ones you can "add" only work within your city.

 

4) More info about buildings. When I plop a building I want to know how much water and power it needs, how much sewage it creates etc. So far the only way to tell is after plopping a building and then go into the data view for each resource, and then see how big the "circle" is.

 

5) Visitors and tourists. I want to control how many visitors I let into my city, it can't be that I have 10x as many visitors as own population, and my streets get filled up with random people that I don't even want in my city. Also, tourists are a weird species in SimCity right now. They come and go without an apparent reason, this definitely needs a separate data view and more info.

 

 

There's probably more, but I'm too lazy to list every minor thing. I wonder if I should post this on the SimCity Forums, but I guess it would be waste of time, maybe.

[trip]

If they fix the current traffic algorithm and actually make the sims 'stick' to their homes and jobs then a ton of sh*t would fix itself. Trading would be better, specializations would work and be better.

 

It is amazing how much a simple rush on a section of code had such a domino effect on everything.

 

 

 

If you notice...it is happening in your cities too.

[Rewas]

These days, developers don't give a sh*t what fans say. They do what they want, they don't listen to fans, which it pisses me off.

 

Either that, or they're just too lazy.

[Pat]

 

 

If you check the description, he's also found a way to disable the time limit for the disconnection indefinitely, more or less making it possible to play the game offline. Which is probably one step closer to the game being cracked entirely, and pirates playing it without any issues while paying customers continue to suffer.

 

Great job, EA. You knocked it out of the park with this one.

[kudoboi]

 

 

If you check the description, he's also found a way to disable the time limit for the disconnection indefinitely, more or less making it possible to play the game offline. Which is probably one step closer to the game being cracked entirely, and pirates playing it without any issues while paying customers continue to suffer.

 

Great job, EA. You knocked it out of the park with this one.

except it also disables save/ load feature and regions. many things also don't seem to simulate properly when using that mod. and lastly using that risks your Origin account

[agent17]

Have any of you heard of ant mills?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill

 

 

I now present to you, Sim mills!

 

 

 

 

If you check the description, he's also found a way to disable the time limit for the disconnection indefinitely, more or less making it possible to play the game offline. Which is probably one step closer to the game being cracked entirely, and pirates playing it without any issues while paying customers continue to suffer.

 

Great job, EA. You knocked it out of the park with this one.

 

You can even destroy other people's cities thanks to that hack:

 

 

This is why we need offline file storage EA. It seems like every decision EA makes ends in failure.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2013 by agent17

[El Dildo]

more evidence that EA is f*cking retarded and this DRM is bullsh*t:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14...remains-silent/

 

they said it's impossible to have Sim City run offline.

but it's actually very possible and very simple to modify. now all we need is offline savegame storage.

 

the guy who modded his game for offline also found a way to bypass the city size limits and build anywhere.

[Trund]

 

they said it's impossible to have Sim City run offline.

but it's actually very possible and very simple to modify. now all we need is offline savegame storage.

No one said it's impossible to do it. Since the game runs still when you disconnect from the servers, it was just a matter of time until there's a timelimit fix.

 

But the main problem is saving/loading etc. I just can't see them being able to crack the game and make this work offline.

Also, this game gets patched nearly every day at the moment, so anyone who pirates it won't be happy anyways, and 99% of the people that bought the game probably don't care anymore about this topic because the servers are working flawless now.

 

I rather want them to improve the game now rather than adding silly things like offline mode, people will always complain anyways no matter what.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Trund

[agent17]

With everything wrong with this game I wouldn't even bother pirating it.

[Crokey]

... silly things like offline mode, ...

I wouldn't call an Offline Mode, "silly", I would actually call it an necessity. This "Ivory Towers" ideal that EA have about everyone having always-on internet is sadly blinkered, they should have learned going as far back as Battlefield 2, when they did the expansion packs "Euro Force" and "Armored Fury", with single player maps that required an online map to play, as far as I can recall these packs didn't sell anywhere near as much as they had hoped, because of that reason.

 

Although you could argue BF2 is a Multiplayer game, but Sim City has always been a solo effort, and a game you can hop in and out of, which I've mentioned before is perfect for laptop gaming.

 

I say good on the modder for doing that, I hope they continue to break the game down and hopefully might make the game worth it, but it still doesn't raise my opinion of EA from an already low ebb.

[Trund]

No game is perfect, most people are just seriously exaggerating. I think the traffic for example is a big problem, and needs a fix. BUT, people keep saying how much better older SimCities were, when SimCity 4 had major traffic problems as well.

 

Name me a game that doesn't have bugs and flaws, and doesn't need patches to fix things? Right, there's none.

But unlike a lot of other games, I actually have hope that they will fix things, because at the moment they seem to actually be working on patches, and as far as I know they are even working on fixing the traffic/public transportations. Considering this game is published by EA it's a surprise indeed, but they have to do something since people are going crazy about this.

 

I fear if this game had an offline mode, we'd be waiting much longer for patches, since less people would have complained. But now since the start of the game extremely failed, they're quite under pressure to get things fixed as soon as possible.

 

Maybe in the end this will turn into an advantage.

 

 

Although you could argue BF2 is a Multiplayer game, but Sim City has always been a solo effort, and a game you can hop in and out of, which I've mentioned before is perfect for laptop gaming.

 

But it was known that this will be online only, and that it was based to be played online. So I don't understand why people buy the game and then complain. No one was forced to buy it.

[El Dildo]

 

No one said it's impossible to do it.

yes they did

EA said it was basically impossible without doing a "significant amount of engineering" on the games core files. that's their words, not mine.

 

and this amateur modder just proved them wrong.

 

 

silly things like offline mode, people will always complain anyways no matter what.

you don't get it.

 

first of all, an offline mode is not silly. you know what's silly? being forced to be CONSTANTLY ONLINE just to play a game you paid for. that's silly.

this is Sim City, not World of Warcraft. asking for an offline mode is completely reasonable and entirely fair.

 

secondly, people do not always complain "no matter what."

people complain when you give them a good reason to complain. and a Sim City that requires a constant internet connection to play is a good reason.

 

no one would be complaining if not for the DRM.

if everything else about Sim City was exactly the same as it is now - except they allowed you to play and save your game offline - then everyone would love it. the only reason why some people don't love it is the DRM. no one is bashing the gameplay itself or the graphics, etc. it's pretty much just the DRM.

[Trund]

I can't recall them ever saying it's impossible, I just remember them saying that this game was meant to be played online anyways. And the modder didn't prove much, really. All he did was bypass the time-limit, well that's great. Now you can play offline and still neither save or load a game, well that's a great progress....

 

And it is silly. Why? Because people KNEW about this, yet they keep complaining. Sorry, but if you buy a game and know you have to be online to play it, but then complain because you can't play it offline, then that's simply ridiculous.

 

This game wasn't aimed to be played offline, so all the complaints are completely non sense. Of course I would also like an offline feature, just in case, but I also don't have a problem with how it is right now.

 

So in the end: It is silly. Because this is just how the game is, if you don't like it don't buy it, it's just SO simple, but people have to act all retarded about it. Half of the people complaining probably don't even own the game and are just sad because they can't pirate it, oh how sad.

 

Besides, most of the people play this game at HOME anyways, on an actual PC, and I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone of them are always connecetd to the internet anyways. Of course there are a few that run the game on a laptop and want to play while they're not at home, but that's just a very little amount of people anyways. Funnily Steam for example isn't better with this, getting the offline mode to run is completely ridiculous, yet more and more people buy games there and don't complain, I wonder why?

 

I just believe fixing bugs and improving the gameplay should be their main priority now since the servers are fixed, because why would you want an offline mode if the game still has some bad flaws in it?

[Cosmic Gypsy]

 

This game wasn't aimed to be played offline, so all the complaints are completely non sense. Of course I would also like an offline feature, just in case, but I also don't have a problem with how it is right now.

The complaints aren't nonsense in any way, DRM being forced upon us in the first place is nonsense. The complaints are completely justified.

 

DRM, small plots of land, lack of worldwide architecture, lack of development options when it comes to designing the city (such as individual zoning of certain buildings models of my choosing, alley ways, car parks, gardens etc) and now it seems the ridiculous way the actual simulation of people works in the game is why i'm not even the slightest bit interested in a game i have been looking forward to for many years.

 

EDIT : I can already tell if i did pick this game up i'd end up making a huge list of everything i dislike/am disappointed by/hate in the game.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Cosmic Gypsy

[Trund]

This game wasn't aimed to be played offline, so all the complaints are completely non sense. Of course I would also like an offline feature, just in case, but I also don't have a problem with how it is right now.

The complaints aren't nonsense in any way, DRM being forced upon us in the first place is nonsense. The complaints are completely justified.

 

DRM, small plots of land, lack of worldwide architecture, lack of development options when it comes to designing the city (such as individual zoning of certain buildings models of my choosing, alley ways, car parks, gardens etc) and now it seems the ridiculous way the actual simulation of people works in the game is why i'm not even the slightest bit interested in a game i have been looking forward to for many years.

You should thank the piracy then that these things get forced upon us nowadays. Without millions of people pirating games every year we wouldn't have this problem now. All you can do as a developer is either put DRM into your game or release the game on a safe console.

 

And that's your right to not buy the game. But trust me, when people say "SimCity 4 is better" that's not a very good statement. SimCity 4 has tons of flaws and bugs, some things improved now, some things didn't. They are two completely different games.

 

To me all that needs a fix is 1) traffic and 2) city sizes. If these two things get fixed it would definitely be a lot better than SC4.

[Crokey]

Although you could argue BF2 is a Multiplayer game, but Sim City has always been a solo effort, and a game you can hop in and out of, which I've mentioned before is perfect for laptop gaming.

But it was known that this will be online only, and that it was based to be played online. So I don't understand why people buy the game and then complain. No one was forced to buy it.

Yeah, we all knew it was 'Online Only', but the ones who are complaining are people like myself, who haven't bought the game for that very reason. I do have an internet connection now, but in the past few months there has been times where it's been up and down like a prostitutes knickers, playing this game would be limited then. The economy is still in the crapper for most places in the world, anyone could lose their job and not be able to find one for months, internet is still a luxury, to cut costs that goes as you'd rather not starve than look a lolcats, that goes so does your game, what else can you do when you've exhausted your job search for the week. Usage caps, faulty modem/router equipment, faulty lines, no or limited access to internet etc etc etc, a huge global market have been totally missed by EA on this one

 

 

Besides, most of the people play this game at HOME anyways, on an actual PC, and I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone of them are always connecetd to the internet anyways. Of course there are a few that run the game on a laptop and want to play while they're not at home, but that's just a very little amount of people anyways. Funnily Steam for example isn't better with this, getting the offline mode to run is completely ridiculous, yet more and more people buy games there and don't complain, I wonder why? 

Don't want to p*ss on your chips there, but I've done a fair bit of traveling, and I have seen quite a few people sat in airport lounges, on buses, trains and cafes sitting there playing away with its predecessor Sim City 4 building away on their Laptops/Tablets PC's. Simply because it is a great game to just pause, save and carry on later, unlike some games where you have missions or levels to finish.

 

 

I just believe fixing bugs and improving the gameplay should be their main priority now since the servers are fixed, because why would you want an offline mode if the game still has some bad flaws in it?

This could start me on a whole other rant about manufacturers not soak testing games properly before release and being buggy, and this isn't limited to PC's now either, but these bugs will be fixed in time and people understand this is par for the course these days, but I'd expect to be able to play a game where I want, when I want, not stuck connected to the internet, only when their servers say yes, that isn't too much to ask for.

 

EDIT: ^^, I've already mentioned other ways around the whole piracy issue, Publishers can't be arsed to listen to people about it

[Pat]

but people have to act all retarded about it. Half of the people complaining probably don't even own the game and are just sad because they can't pirate it, oh how sad.

It never fails that people will defend always-online DRM by saying "people only hate it because they want to pirate the game!" Who needs a legitimate argument in favor of it when you can just blame piracy?

 

Games adapt all the time. That's why we have patching, that's why we have DLC; very few modern games will be released and still remain exactly the same several months later. Arguing against changing a game because "well, this is how the game was designed!" is a flawed argument. I've seen you use it multiple times, but you never back it up with anything, you just keep saying "it's how it was designed, you can't complain." Yes, I can complain. I am a consumer, EA is trying to earn my purchase, but if I do not like the product I am free to criticize it as much as I damn well please. If EA is smart, they will take the criticisms and use it to improve the product, leading to more purchases. Even Ubisoft, one of the most aggressive proponents of always-online DRM, have removed it from titles because of consumer backlash. Why is it silly to ask EA to do the same?

 

A modder has already proven you can run the game offline (contrary to EA's statements that the game needs to communicate with their servers in real time), the only thing that remains would be to code local saves, which is an incredibly simple task if you have access to the developer kit. That wouldn't break anything - you could still play online if you wanted to - it would just open more options for more people to play. Opening more options means more people will buy it. The only reason to avoid it is because they stubbornly cling onto the belief that piracy directly equates to lost sales, which is incredibly far from being true, and will remain so until you can prove that every person - hell, even a majority of the people - that pirated it would have bought it if piracy was not an option. Publishers like EA don't realize that most pirates would not buy the game if they could not pirate it.

 

I want to see an opposal to the removal of the DRM that does not involve "it's how the game was designed," or "you just want to pirate it."