So I calculated it out that I can net almost $20m per real time playing hour (at llama speed) with 3 processor factories and 2 consumer electronics factories making TVs. I'm sure I could add more and make more...but what's the point, it would just take up a bunch of space.

Wow, server issues aside, it seems like this game is being exposed for being a complete disaster more and more every day.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary/


It's been said that part of the reason this game needs the online connectivity is that many of these simulation calculations are made in the cloud. Apparently, according to the "insider" quoted by RPS, that is complete BS.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060?ClickID=dthrkonwtnynbyssrhs0rst20tncnhrrwyxk

Traffic and Sim agent systems are completely broken. Apparently Sims just go to the first job they get to in the morning and the first house they get to at night. They take the shortest route. A low wealth industrial worker might be a high wealth commercial worker the next day. This completely breaks how you can design your city and explains why after about 100k-150k all hell breaks loose.

Also, apparently fire/police only can fight one problem at a time no matter how many trucks/police cars you have.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9359265.page

This link shows there is apparently padding on population numbers, specifically when you look at high density residential.

Honestly I'm at a loss at this point.

It is a POS game put out by a POS company.

to ccaggie above. I think most people knew the online only DRM was contrived at best. They tried to use 3 or 4 elements (read: arithmatic calculations) of the game to "make online seem like a rational need" which failed horribly....The only reason you need "online only" is to make sure no one is pirating your game. Just come out and say it. Out of all of the bull**** "online needs" they listed, none of them work, even a week after launch. Cheetah speed doesn't even work for ****s sake. If MMO's can handle hundreds of millions of (damage) calculations per second across 50 servers, why cant a SimCity?

This should be a single player game.

The city size is embarrassing compared to Sim City 4. I cant expand my city for **** after 2 or 3 hours, I can only take out a bond, demolish half of it, and fix my mistakes after that.

Give it a rest with "we wanted anyone with an older computer to access our game"...Get an Xbox or STFU. This game is much worse than simcity 4 was from a pure simulation point of view.

Ridiculous...my last ever EA game. Period. I cant support this **** any longer.

I tried to give it a bad launch window. Longer than most. Ive been patient. Now that it all "works", it's just a broken game. Simple as that.

[This message has been edited by BadMoonRisin (edited 3/13/2013 1:13a).]

It is a fun game but it gets be very annoying after a while. The traffic into my city makes me lose out on millions trying to ship out goods and get my trucks back into the city. I even have a rail connection but it is like none of the goods leave by rail on my trade port....

Firefighting, policework, and health care are all pretty maddening. Mass transit is brutally expensive and ineffective even with a billion buses and streetcars.

For all of my complaints it is still strangely addicting. While it is fun, I feel that the AI involved in this game is very poor all around. Basically anything involving the roads ruins part of this game.

tv1113 - check out some of the links I posted above. It basically explains what seems to be the fundamental issue with this game, the traffic and agent systems are completely broken. Unless you game the system by building one big winding road etc...the game will break at some point

Wow, this is the best example of the broken traffic system I've seen yet. They just mindless take the shortest route.

Amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g418BSF6XBQ

I've built and bulldozed a train station three times because it wont connect to the road... What a mess.

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This link shows there is apparently padding on population numbers, specifically when you look at high density residential.

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I'm not seeing the complaint here. when you factor all of the people on unemployment/foodstamps/other forms of welfare and the true unemployment rate its probably pretty close to our society now.

So that explains everything. Lazy half-assed programming at its finest. No wonder the furthest point away from my garbage never gets its trash picked up, no matter how many garbage areas I have.

Unless they pull their heads out of their collective asses and re-code how pathing works, the only way you will succeed is to have multiple points connecting to the region, but never with each other, and then give each one it's own services.

This game is trash unless they fix these problems.

It gets even better CC:

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what makes it worse: Once sims are walking, they will not use masstransit. Even when their direction changes because jobs in a building are fullfilled, they will not use mass transit again. what makes it even more worse: Shopping people behave the same way. They will leave the house as walkers because you placed a park there for landvalue. 5 people will use the park. Then the other 100 change target to a shop. But they will not use masstransit, they will walk since they spawned this way. They will walk and probably not reach the destination.

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Utility sharing between cities seems to be a crapshoot as well... I have 2 cities I'm playing. One is supposed to be providing power, water, sewage to the other. Power and water seem to be working fine but I had to build a sewage plant in both cities because it wouldn't share even though I had it set to buy on the region screen.

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Ridiculous...my last ever EA game. Period. I cant support this **** any longer.

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I'd make the same pledge but I can't quit FIFA. Ha.

I even have two sewage treatment plants. All the poo water goes to the nearest one and then spills all over the damn ground, while the other one that is placed directly adjacent to it is NOT USED at all.

Yep. Definitely last EA game.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcEaHT9mt-Y

My favorite part of all this is that you can tell which video game reviewers are little more than shills for publishers.

You have to play the game for a good while to pick up all the faults, and there is fun to be had even after you notice the idiotic stuff. A reviewer who is just in it for some fun time wasting and looking at art and visuals will like it, once they get past the server blast that everyone has. Someone who was a fan of Sim City 2000 through 4 probably has more reservations after a while playing.

I was starting to pick up on some of these issues after my city got larger than 100k. After reading some of this it makes a lot more sense. The strategy seems to be that you should keep your city small but not too small. Pretty disappointing considering I like making my cities large. Which is the other issue with the game that I have - small map sizes.

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Yep. Definitely last EA game.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcEaHT9mt-Y

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That's pretty funny. Hopefully once we get done alpha testing the game and they patch is up it will be more than just fun for a few hours and be a good simulation!

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You have to play the game for a good while to pick up all the faults, and there is fun to be had even after you notice the idiotic stuff. A reviewer who is just in it for some fun time wasting and looking at art and visuals will like it, once they get past the server blast that everyone has. Someone who was a fan of Sim City 2000 through 4 probably has more reservations after a while playing.

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Read Polygon's review. It's a joke. You don't have to play ridiculous number of hours before you realize there are major issues with the AI. The pawn this thing off as a near masterpiece.

Yeah, the Polygon reviews (for just about any game) haven't been what I would call reliable up to this point.

So damn glad I didn't buy this and got Tomb Raider instead.

Will play HOTS for the foreseeable future until the **** gets fixed.

Thanks for beta testing.

Is it true that if you spectate in another player's city you can build parks in their city where ever you want? I haven't got a chance to test this, but I watched a video that claimed you could destroy another person's city with parks.

[This message has been edited by dietcola84 (edited 3/13/2013 12:26p).]

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Is it true that if you spectate in another player's city you can build parks in their city where ever you want? I haven't got a chance to test this, but I watched a video that claimed you could destroy another person's city with parks.

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I just confirmed that you can place parks and destroy buildings in spectator mode.

Another thing I'm curious about. It basically continues the activity of the city, but you don't get control over anything (aside from parks). So what happens if you go to be a spectator on a city and leave it on for a few hours. I know I've made the mistake of doing that for my own cities and have come back to a population of 0 and a city burnt to the ground.

I can basically grief someone by observing their city for long periods of time and let the bugs destroy it.

It gets even better.

Watch out, I might come grief y'all in the near future.

OMFG

LOLOL. I'm totally going on pub servers and doing that to people later.

What a piece of trash.

Can confirm... just plopped a few parks in the old Aggieland - sorry 04Texag, but that fire station was looking at me funny.

But does it save it?

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But does it save it?

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Interesting question...

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But does it save it?

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Didn't think about that; it doesn't sync when you exit. I went back and checked and there was no more park. I guess it runs locally on your computer, which isn't able to handle the complex calculations that have to be done on the servers which is why we require constant online connection.

Looks like you can also plop transportation items. Anything from a multi-tier menu.

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But does it save it?

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Didn't think about that; it doesn't sync when you exit. I went back and checked and there was no more park. I guess it runs locally on your computer, which isn't able to handle the complex calculations that have to be done on the servers which is why we require constant online connection.

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