SimCity™

[Kamakazie]

Who's playing? What's your Origin ID? Let's all set up a region together!

I'm Kamakazie27

[James]

I can't justify the price, despite wanting to try it out really badly.

[fastitocalon]

I'm going to wait until they fix the inevitable server-side problems before I jump in.

[Kamakazie]

I can't justify the price, despite wanting to try it out really badly.

I realize it doesn't help you now, but it was $45 (plus $5 voucher) on Amazon just the other day.

These days you can get some good discounts in the weeks leading up to launch; just keep an eye on Slickdeals.

[taggart6]

I'm waiting for a sale. If I had known about the Amazon sale I probably would have jumped.

[Spaceman Spiff]

The DRM and forced "city interconnectivity" crap is making me want to wait.

Sim City 2000, on DOS and a 386, was one of my first beloved PC games. I've been with the series ever since. I hope it's good, but some of the crap EA has implemented totally flies in the face of what made the series so great.

I'll wait.

[Kamakazie]

I think the "city interconnectivity" crap is pretty damn cool, myself. That said, if you don't like it, you are given the option to build in a private region all on your own.

[taggart6]

I've heard interesting things about the inter-connectivity aspect. You can do things like provide resources and industry goods to friends friend. It can also have a DEVASTATING effect if you depend to much on a player that unexpectedly pulls out.

Mike Fahey from Kotaku wrote a piece where he and Stephen Tolito had neighboring cities. Stephen supplied police and water utilities will Mike got his city started. All was well until mike pulled out to start a new city and not realizing that Stephen was heavily dependent on Mike's coal plant. When Mike pulled out, the plant closed and Stephen 's city took a hit. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Kamakazie]

I've heard interesting things about the inter-connectivity aspect. You can do things like provide resources and industry goods to friends friend. It can also have a DEVASTATING effect if you depend to much on a player that unexpectedly pulls out.

Mike Fahey from Kotaku wrote a piece where he and Stephen Tolito had neighboring cities. Stephen supplied police and water utilities will Mike got his city started. All was well until mike pulled out to start a new city and not realizing that Stephen was heavily dependent on Mike's coal plant. When Mike pulled out, the plant closed and Stephen 's city took a hit. Pretty interesting stuff.

From that article, it sounded like Fahey didn't just pull out, but razed his entire city. It looks like if someone does decide to just abandon his city, the city still exists and can be claimed by another player. Likewise, if a player just stops playing entirely, his city still exists and still contributes to the surrounding region.

I played for about an hour last night when it went up and joined a big 16-city region. At that time there were only a handful of other players in there, but already I was seeing things like my Sims going to work in another player's city and another player's Sims coming to shop in mine. I also set up an agreement with one of my neighbors to have them take care of all my city's sewage. All of this happens so smoothly. It is extremely impressive.

This morning before work I logged on briefly to see how the region was doing, this time seeing that it was completely filled. All my neighbors seem to have unlocked certain government departments that have now benefited me. I'm looking forward to getting home tonight to see how the region is doing. I'm sort-of expecting someone to already be starting on building an Arcology or something.

[James]

I realize it doesn't help you now, but it was $45 (plus $5 voucher) on Amazon just the other day.

These days you can get some good discounts in the weeks leading up to launch; just keep an eye on Slickdeals.

That's actually good to know. Recommedations on following slick deals? RSS feed, or just visit the site frequently?

[kpxgq]

yeah im waiting for a sale myself... i think buying a game like this at full price is pretty much telling the publishers that you condone the practice of releasing games that require a constant internet connection with early server side bugs (cough diablo 3 cough)

[Kamakazie]

That's actually good to know. Recommedations on following slick deals? RSS feed, or just visit the site frequently?

I have the RSS feed set up on my iGoogle homepage so that I just see the most recently-posted deals whenever I open the browser. Whenever I'm looking for something specific, I'll use the search feature on the actual website to scour the forums.

[Rolandami]

Form what is on the webz, you should get a achievement for getting on the server

[Timman_24]

Not paying $60. The tiny city size is a killer for me right now. Its not only the size, but the arbitrary square they make you build in. I've seen cities fully built up with skyscrapers and nuke powerplants all retained in a small square with grassy fields right next to the metropolis buildings. It looks strange. I wish I could throw out the regional stuff and just build a big city on the entire map. I like the regional idea, but I'd like the option.

The reasoning the developers gave about the city size was very disappointing too. They said due to having to have the game run "on your dad's PC", they had to limit the size of the simulation. That's only a small side of the story. The real problem is because it is always connected to their servers, so everyone must be using the same city size so some players do not have an unfair advantage. Therefore, my quad-core, 680gtx PC has to play with the same simulation size as an econo-laptop... Another problem with always-online gaming, it must cater to the lowest computer type.

Check out giantbomb's quicklook to get a sense of the small map size, they talk about it right at the beginning of the video: https://www.giantbomb.com/videos/qui...ity/2300-7103/

[James]

I didn't know the city size was limited.... that's a bummer. I wonder how much of it is really "to run on your dad's PC" vs. "run on our servers without us investing money in our infrastructure."