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[Rentahamster]

That's not controlling zoning density. Some of the absolute busiest, densest neighborhoods around where I live are the smallest streets, due to their proximity to mixed use zoning and mass transit.

There are narrow high density streets in SC5.

Sometimes you want larger streets to use as thoroughfares to high density areas, but don't want high density zoning around them. It's a bad model.

This is something that I complained about too when I first played the game. Limiting the density of a high capacity road is something that is easy in SC4, but you can still do it in SC5. You just need to dezone the area when you don't want the buildings to upgrade anymore. It's more of a hassle and requires more micromanagement.

Anyway, maybe you're not discounting the issues, but saying "the devs want to fix them" or "they're not feasible right now" doesn't make the game better for it.

This is my argument:

The underlying engine, in going from spreadsheet approximations to hundreds of thousands of individual agents working together in their own self interest on a micro scale to create emergent macro behavior is a huge increase in complexity.

This required a reduction in city size due to not wanting to increase the min specs too much.

While the size has decreased, the complexity density increased (the game is much more complex per unit of space), and IMO, the overall complexity has increased as a result. I can attest to this from my experiences playing the game and seeing how all the elements interact with each other.

SimCity 4 was a cakewalk for me. No mods, hard difficulty, 1 million sim population in a medium tile no problem.

SC5 required a lot more planning and thought from me in order to maximize efficiency. Yes, part of that was due to the game being new, but I could tell that I was juggling many more variables in my brain when playing SC5 than when playing SC4.

I find the additional complexity and challenge to be very fun. Others might not feel the same, and that's their prerogative.

 

[epmode]

People are so opposed to always online requirements. I guess I can understand why that would be a problem for those who like to play on the go with a laptop, but for anyone with a desktop gaming PC I don't see how it matters. Must be a principal-based thing.

On the off-chance that you're looking for a real answer, here you go:

I don't resent online-only single-player games because I'm worried that I won't have an internet connection. The real problem is with the server on the other end, and the question is how long will it take before the company decides that it isn't worth the cost to keep the game running? Because it's only a matter of time. Games with cdkey installation checks can be easily cracked but something like Diablo 3 and SimCity will probably never be the same even with "private servers".

I play old games all the time. Lots of great releases I've found in the last few years would have been taken down ages ago.

 

[Mii]

I never thought people could get this bitter over SimCity.

I plan to embrace region play until an expansion/patch comes out increasing city size for those with systems capable of supporting larger cities. I enjoyed the region aspects of SC4 and SC13 looks to expand on it significantly. I see SC13 as a chance to break old habits of focusing too much time on one city. How many of you achieved cities larger than 200k in SC4 anyhow? The real secret to getting to insane numbers in SC4 was region play. I would gamble the same is true for SC13 too. You probably won't see 2million people in a single city anymore (especially without CAM), but you'll probably see 500k-1M. If it means I have to deal with more diverse issues for different cities and I get to have a more advanced simulation, I'm all for the change.

We've yet to see how moddable things will be. The ability to create your own buildings was only made possible by Maxis a year into SC4's existence. Stuff like NAM and CAM came even later. I'm sure that with the existing modding community, alot of this material would develop faster, but it would still take time. Someone can claim moddability should be available Day 1, but how much longer from March 5th would we be waiting then? The option for moddability will come down to a battle between Maxis and EA, and no one knows the result of this yet. However, I do have faith in Ocean Quigley.

As far as DLC, currently for launch there are a few random pieces of extra content that do not add functionality and are primarily cosmectic. If subways were a DLC at launch, I could understand the anger. Instead, all we have are some balloons, a park, a Roman casino, and some generic country materials. There has been far worse abuse of DLC by other developers and publishers. This isn't a SimCity on iOS. This isn't that different from any other modern day game.

We've also yet to see how reliable the servers are for retail. There can't really be discussion on this yet other than worrying whether what happened to a few reviewers will happen on the normal server. We've seen its pretty normal for any game for the launch to be bumpy, and I'm confident problems will be smoothed out in quick fashion. I wouldn't consider this a reason to not support the game - I can understand not supporting it at launch over something like this, though.

I could understand the anger at always-on online if we were in the year 2000, but we're not. If you disconnect randomly in 2013, you either need a new router, modem, or ISP. Always-online prevents piracy and it allows new gameplay options. The new gameplay options aren't entirely forced on you either. Play alone if you want. Play together if you want. The inability to reverse some fun with disasters through save and load is a drawback definitely which I'm upset about, but not a deal breaker. I find the added realism of every decision mattering and not being reversible to be interesting. If they patch in the ability to load into sandbox any city you already have, I would consider this problem a moot point.

Some day in the future, EA will shut down these servers and the game will be unplayable. I'm pretty sure I will consider my $60 well spent by then. If we're lucky, Maxis will give users the ability to host their own servers some years into the future. All of these problems are way too far into the future to worry about.

The limitations in transportation is the only item that truly bothers me right now, but I've been spoiled with NAM. I am sure they'll milk things with a transportation expansion pack, but this is run of the mill for Maxis. If anyone wants to point me at the GAF thread where we collectively raged over the Rush Hour expansion, I'll eat crow.

None of these problems sound damning to me. Maybe I just have low standards. Maybe people on this forum are making mountains over mole hills. I just know by almost all accounts:

1) the gameplay is just as fun and addicting as ever.
2) the option for specialized cities is a fun addition but not forced.
3) Regions are even more important than before, and you can get the added benefit or detriment of them faster with online play.
4) Small cities makes for sad puppies, but most of those sad puppies weren't the type to break 50k population. The developers are basically forcing players to realize they need to expand into region play to grow their original cities, just like SC4.
5) Sims finally matter in Sim City.
6) Having your city realized in full 3D is fucking amazing.

Holding a new simulation engine to the same standards as one that has matured over 10 years does seem unfair though.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Glad to see it's getting good reviews.

It pains me to see that people keep blasting Maxis for "always-online DRM" though... I've said this before, but I think people are failing to understand why the constant internet connection is necessary, and Maxis has also done a terrible job of explaining it. I've only seen them explain it well in one interview from months ago ( http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/The-Benefits-of-Live-Service ).

Short answer: cloud computing

Longer answer: The inter-region simulation is done on EA's servers, not locally. Your PC is only simulating the individual city that you're in (the article I linked ). This is why the time it takes for your changes you make to your inter-region trades (such as additional ambulances, trade agreements, etc) can take a few seconds or up to a minute or two. This is because it's talking with EA's servers to update the simulation. It's also what allows the multiplayer to function. If you and your buddy are building two cities within the same region, neither of you have to do anything besides focus on your cities, and EA's servers will take care of all of the things you can buy/rent from each others cities, as well as utilities like firetrucks that you could send to other peoples cities.

Because the inter-region trading and simulation is a core aspect of the game (you couldn't just remove that feature), this is why you can't be offline.

However, since you will always be online, EA can then have all saves be stored in the cloud, and of course, since you're talking with their servers, they can do license checks to make sure you're playing a valid copy. Those are merely side-effects to cloud computing, and not the main reason why you have to be online.

Could they have done all of this locally instead of in the cloud? Yes, but with sacrifices in the complexity of the simulation, the ability to play multiplayer easily with your friends and it would mean the min specs would likely be higher. Off loading a lot of that work to the cloud allows your local resources to be spent on other important tasks for the simulation.

Call bullshit all you want, but it seems like Maxis has a legitimate reason to require you to be always online. Cloud computing, especially in simulation games such as this, is going to become more widespread quickly.

Yes, there is lots of potential for things to get fucked up. Servers can go down meaning you can't play (strong possibility for launch day) or EA could decide to throw everyone the finger in 5 years and turn off the servers. Hopefully EA/Maxis has been preparing for launch day and things can go fairly smoothly. I still expect there to be some launch day hiccups for sure, but within a few days of launch, I'm sure everything will have been sorted.

Back to the game though... Very excited to play it. The two beta's I played were addictive as hell. Can't wait to see how the multiplayer is going to work out too since I don't think that was enabled in the beta.

 

[TriniTrin]

So I guess SimCity will become the next game with the "If you like it, you aren't a true fan of the series" slogan eh?

 

[QaaQer]

We've yet to see how moddable things will be.

Please show me a quote where anyone from ea has commented on a creation kit or whether mods will be allowed. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but I'm pretty sure this game is going to be like diablo 3 in terms of mod-ability.

 

[stufte]

Please show me a quote where anyone from ea has commented on a creation kit or whether mods will be allowed. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but I'm pretty sure this game is going to be like diablo 3 in terms of mod-ability.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/28/simcity-will-not-support-mods-at-launch/

specifically:

"Right now we've got our work cut out for us to build the product up to the quality level it deserves as a SimCity," Quigley said. "Then after we ship, we'll make decisions about how we can and when exactly we'll support mods. But it's worth pointing out that the reason people are still playing SimCity 4 almost ten years later is because the modding community essentially re-created it and filled it with new content and fixed bugs and made it as much of a hobby as it is a game.

"We're very cognizant of that -- we're not idiots."

 

[sp3000]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/28/simcity-will-not-support-mods-at-launch/

specifically:

I'm pretty sure that will turn out to be about as true as this http://bf3blog.com/2011/08/dice-were-considering-mod-tools/

If mod tools ever release for a game, then they are usually committed to from release, even if they are not out the first day. See Skyrim. See Crysis 2.

EA has a history of blocking mods in games. Can anyone even name the last EA made game that supported mods?

2) the option for specialized cities is a fun addition but not forced.

How is it not forced? You are pretty much forced into playing multiple cities and specializing them if you want to advance in the game.

 

[DrFunk]

Where are my SC3000 / SC4 discs?

:/

 

[Mii]

How is it not forced? You are pretty much forced into playing multiple cities and specializing them if you want to advance in the game.

There have been videos of people who have played with and without specializations, and those without aren't given a difficulty much different from that of SC4.

As for mods, it comes down to whether you think Maxis still has teeth. If they do, they have again and again indicated they want mods as they love what the mod community does. They bring it up practically in every interview, and they know their core base. I definitely do see how it is not in EA's interest though. Making SimCity anything more than an iOS FarmVille-style game isn't in EA's interest either though, and Ocean was primarily the guy who petitioned for a new SimCity. If there is one person I'd believe had the chance to convince EA, it'd be Ocean.

 

[eznark]

Why are we positive that they will be able to expand city sizes? Based on some reviewer comments the game struggles as it is performance wise.

I'm sure I've Ben overly negative precisely because I haven't yet played it, but I'm just trying to get some questions answered because I haven't paid attention to the PR prerelease. I had no idea you couldn't save and load for example. And I have no clue why I would ever care what the thousands of people are doing on the day to day. I don't want that micro level personally and I don't at all see what it adds.

That said, I'm staying up all night to download and play it so we'll see!

 

[QaaQer]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/28/simcity-will-not-support-mods-at-launch/

specifically:

thanks.

I'm pretty sure that will turn out to be about as true as this http://bf3blog.com/2011/08/dice-were-considering-mod-tools/

If mod tools ever release for a game, then they are usually committed to from release, even if they are not out the first day. See Skyrim. See Crysis 2.

EA has a history of blocking mods in games. Can anyone even name the last EA made game that supported mods?

nice follow up answer, thanks

 

[Paches]

Giant Bomb quick look pretty much shitted all over it.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Giant Bomb quick look pretty much shitted all over it.

ah I was hoping to watch a good QL of this :|

edit: lol at the crap city no wonder they did not like it. I seen a youtube using that same map and the guy had a very successful city he ignored industrial demands

 

[ekim]

Why does everybody want large dull looking cities? SC5 is much more complex than any other sim city game. (I've played all of them except SimCity 1)
The real fun is to optimize your city and not to grow a beast by placing patterns of areas/buildings over and over again. If you want to do that, go and play Cities XL 2012 or SC4... They are both out.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Giant Bomb quick look pretty much shitted all over it.

I don't know... watching that just made me think that Jeff was hellbent on playing the game one particular way and when he didn't get the results he wanted he just kept doing the same things. He was definitely trying to "game" it, which is fine, but I didn't see the game causing his frustrations so much as his own approach.

 

[georgc]

Played all three betas and spent countless of hours in sc4. Besides the size everything else felt like a good progression of sim city.

 

[Delusibeta]

Can't help but feel that the SimCity review is another strike against Polygon's reputation. "Yeah, so I had to buy a new router to play this game, and the servers crapped out during the press beta when EA knows exactly how many people are playing the game, but I'm going to ignore those game-breaking faults and award it a 9.5!"

I'm sorry, Polygon, but by your own guidelines all games with always-on DRM has a maximum review score of seven. There is no way "your game can be interrupted if your internet connection drops or the servers go down" isn't at the very least a big "but".

 

[BearPawB]

Can't help but feel that the SimCity review is another strike against Polygon's reputation. "Yeah, so I had to buy a new router to play this game, and the servers crapped out during the press beta when EA knows exactly how many people are playing the game, but I'm going to ignore those game-breaking faults and award it a 9.5!"

I'm sorry, Polygon, but by your own guidelines all games with always-on DRM has a maximum review score of seven. There is no way "your game can be interrupted if your internet connection drops or the servers go down" isn't at the very least a big "but".

This may be wrong but i heard that if you get DC'ed the game doesn't quit. You can keep playing. can anyone verify?

 

[sado]

This may be wrong but i heard that if you get DC'ed the game doesn't quit. You can keep playing. can anyone verify?

I believe I remember there being an interview somewhere that stated that as long as you reconnect within 30 minutes, it would keep you in game. Could be wrong.

 

[DEO3]

I don't know... watching that just made me think that Jeff was hellbent on playing the game one particular way and when he didn't get the results he wanted he just kept doing the same things. He was definitely trying to "game" it, which is fine, but I didn't see the game causing his frustrations so much as his own approach.

Yeah I was thinking that too, he flat out said anyone who doesn't make their cities in the most efficient way possible (covering the map in grids) is doing it wrong, and trashed Alex's city because he at least attempted to be creative. This is the first SimCity with curved roads, a feature fans have been clamoring for for decades, and Jeff flat out refused to use them.

I guess different people play these games for different reasons. I've never been one to set out to 'beat' SimCity, instead I've always treated them like they were my own little model railroad/zen garden/bonzai tree. I like spending hours agonizing over the smallest of details in order to create tiny little natural looking towns. Because of that I've never been one to fill up large sized city tiles in SC4, and it's why I'm not concerned with the size of SC5's.

With SC5's greater focus on the micro, and the ability to lay out your city is so many more creative ways, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

 

[Paches]

Yeah I was thinking that too, he flat out said anyone who doesn't make their cities in the most efficient way possible (covering the map in grids) is doing it wrong, and trashed Alex's city because he at least attempted to be creative. This is the first SimCity with curved roads, a feature fans have been clamoring for for decades, and Jeff flat out refused to use them.

I guess different people play these games for different reasons. I've never been one to set out to 'beat' SimCity, instead I've always treated them like they were my own little model railroad/zen garden/bonzai tree. I like spending hours agonizing over the smallest of details in order to create tiny little natural looking towns. Because of that I've never been one to fill up large sized city tiles in SC4, and it's why I'm not concerned with the size of SC5's.

With SC5's greater focus on the micro, and the ability to lay out your city is so many more creative ways, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

He said that because everyone is contributing to the region. If you aren't making it as efficient as possible, you are potentially harming your neighboring cities. I think that was the complaint more than "playing it wrong".

 

[Brinbe]

wrong thread.

 

[malingenie]

He said that because everyone is contributing to the region. If you aren't making it as efficient as possible, you are potentially harming your neighboring cities. I think that was the complaint more than "playing it wrong".

And this is why I prefer single player games sometimes. Now I have to worry if my playstyle affects others?

 

[BearPawB]

And this is why I prefer single player games sometimes. Now I have to worry if my playstyle affects others?

you can still play singleplayer

 

[Intru]

I don't know... watching that just made me think that Jeff was hellbent on playing the game one particular way and when he didn't get the results he wanted he just kept doing the same things. He was definitely trying to "game" it, which is fine, but I didn't see the game causing his frustrations so much as his own approach.

I'm with you there. He actually did the exact same thing in the Guild Wars 2 Quick Look. He tried to play it like a standard mmo and died repeatedly because of it. All while complaining that the game was the same as all the other games on the market and failing to see why he needed to look at the game a little differently. If I remember right he only got to level 8 or 9 before giving up entirely. Personally I thought the game introduced a lot of new and fun ideas and had a blast with it, however it didn't have much longevity for me.

It seems to be a similar case here where he is missing the fundamentals of the game because it doesn't play the way he expects it to and it is therefore a bad game.

 

[BruiserBear]

Can't help but feel that the SimCity review is another strike against Polygon's reputation. "Yeah, so I had to buy a new router to play this game, and the servers crapped out during the press beta when EA knows exactly how many people are playing the game, but I'm going to ignore those game-breaking faults and award it a 9.5!"

I'm sorry, Polygon, but by your own guidelines all games with always-on DRM has a maximum review score of seven. There is no way "your game can be interrupted if your internet connection drops or the servers go down" isn't at the very least a big "but".

This

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

Curse of the reboots?

Rebooted franchise games that have released this year (DmC and Tomb Raider) have gotten incredibly high review scores despite being controversial to hardcore fans due to certain design choices.

 

[JABEE]

This

It's kind of funny how their updating review score policy has become this. There is no doubt that they rushed this review out to get the hits as an early review. Saying you'll amend the score tomorrow if things turn to shit is kind of a cop out. People are making their preorder and purchasing decisions right now on this game. EA and Polygon know it too. 9.5 will be on Metacritic. 9.5 will be the score for anyone who has read the review today and probably for a large part of tomorrow. I don't think you should publish a review at all for an Always-Online or multiplayer-centric game until you have tested out multiplayer in real world conditions.

Publishing early reviews instead of waiting for a non-publisher guided and insured experience tells you everything you need to know about policies at their site. "Publish a review we know is probably inaccurate so that we can change it tomorrow. We want to have our cake and eat it too."

 

[maniac-kun]

Metacritic user score is falling rapidly:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity/user-reviews

 

[graywolf323]

you can still play singleplayer

based on this user review on Metacritic I'd have to disagree with you

"Server reached maximum capacity and so I was placed in a queue and was not allowed to play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME because it forces me to constantly be online."

 

[ekim]

Rebooted franchise games that have released this year (DmC and Tomb Raider) have gotten incredibly high review scores despite being controversial to hardcore fans due to certain design choices.

Metacritic user score is falling rapidly:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity/user-reviews

yupp

 

[Metalmurphy]

Metacritic user score is falling rapidly:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity/user-reviews

Ofcourse it is. It's an EA game. Just read a couple of them...

 

[MThanded]

Ofcourse it is. It's an EA game. Just read a couple of them...

A lot of server capacity comments. Those are warranted. If you are going to force players to connect to your servers to play the game then you damn sure better get the load balancing right. It's 2013. It can be done and time and time again we have seen big companies get it wrong.

Some of the other comments are clearly from people who do not own the game though.

 

[GetemMa]

Has anyone on here actually played it?

I've pre-ordered this game and I haven't gone to pick it up and after reading some of the reviews and user comments I am seriously contemplating switching my money to something else.

Server issues, postage stamp sized lots and no subways is really putting me off.

 

[Metalmurphy]

A lot of server capacity comments. Those are warranted. If you are going to force players to connect to your servers to play the game then you damn sure better get the load balancing right. It's 2013. It can be done and time and time again we have seen big companies get it wrong.

Some of the other comments are clearly from people who do not own the game though.

How hard can it be to set up new servers? I remember MMO launches that did that in a question of minutes.

Are they holding up at least? How

 

[Hasney]

How hard can it be to set up new servers? I remember MMO launches that did that in a question of minutes.

Are they holding up at least? How

The servers are "holding up", probably because they have hard limits on the number of users that can be online at once.

The twitch.tv streamers are pretty hilarious right now. Hoping to show an early playthrough and are just waiting in a queue. Can't even upgrade your router or ISP like that ridiculous Polygon review suggests to get around that one.

 

[Burbank_]

The servers are "holding up", probably because they have hard limits on the number of users that can be online at once.

The twitch.tv streamers are pretty hilarious right now. Hoping to show an early playthrough and are just waiting in a queue. Can't even upgrade your router or ISP like that ridiculous Polygon review suggests to get around that one.

: /
Shove always online down peoples throat -> servers fail on release. Good start.
Wasn't the beta done to prepare servers? How can they mess this up?
IIRC Spore was also difficult to play on release because of their servers (and shipped with some really questionable DRM).

 

[Zemm]

So are Polygon going to lower the score from their PR laden "review" now people can't even play the game they bought?

 

[Xater]

The small cities and always online bullshit are really huge drawbacks for me. I was planing to get the Mac version but now not so much. Maybe it it is heavily discounted down the line.

 

[Dead Man]

ah I was hoping to watch a good QL of this :|

edit: lol at the crap city no wonder they did not like it. I seen a youtube using that same map and the guy had a very successful city he ignored industrial demands

Do you not think that might be indicating a problem with the game?

Can't help but feel that the SimCity review is another strike against Polygon's reputation. "Yeah, so I had to buy a new router to play this game, and the servers crapped out during the press beta when EA knows exactly how many people are playing the game, but I'm going to ignore those game-breaking faults and award it a 9.5!"

I'm sorry, Polygon, but by your own guidelines all games with always-on DRM has a maximum review score of seven. There is no way "your game can be interrupted if your internet connection drops or the servers go down" isn't at the very least a big "but".

Well said.

 

[Spookie]

: /
Shove always online down peoples throat -> servers fail on release. Good start.
Wasn't the beta done to prepare servers? How can they mess this up?
IIRC Spore was also difficult to play on release because of their servers (and shipped with some really questionable DRM).

They are doing what every MMO developer/Blizzard have done in the past. Put in enough servers for a stable community and not give a shit about launch demand as those figures will drop off quickly. Outcry will die down next week when everyone can play fine.

Edit: I should say I'm not trying to make out this is acceptable but it's certainly the way of things to come by the looks of it.

 

[Margalis]

Rebooted franchise games that have released this year (DmC and Tomb Raider) have gotten incredibly high review scores despite being controversial to hardcore fans due to certain design choices.

Competently made AAA games that check the right boxes almost all score in the same very narrow review range. It means nothing.

As far as Polygon reviews go, all their high-scoring reviews are downright painful to read. It seems like once they decide to give a game a 9+ they flip the switch and go into full-on hyperbolic PR mode.

 

[Mihos]

The small cities and always online bullshit are really huge drawbacks for me. I was planing to get the Mac version but now not so much. Maybe it it is heavily discounted down the line.

Don't feel bad, the whole 'region' thing kills it for me as well. I want a huge metropolis where poor planning can make it collapse under it's own weight. Not this Facebook game crap where if someone (or myself) decide to make a small quiet resort hippy town it screws up the whole region. I by default buy sim city games at release, so I can only blame myself for not following it closer in the previews. I am sure this kind of game is great for some people, but for me personally, it is just not my thing.

 

[Juice]

Don't feel bad, the whole 'region' thing kills it for me as well. I want a huge metropolis where poor planning can make it collapse under it's own weight. Not this Facebook game crap where if someone (or myself) decide to make a small quiet resort hippy town it screws up the whole region. I by default buy sim city games at release, so I can only blame myself for not following it closer in the previews. I am sure this kind of game is great for some people, but for me personally, it is just not my thing.

Seems like these are the two camps the reviews fall in. Thankfully I'm in the camp that's excited by all the things you dislike. But I'm sorry to hear it's not your cup of tea.

The last time I had fun with a SimCity game was SimCity 2000, and even then only for the first few hours of each city. Once it became too large to keep in my head, I didn't have any emotional investment in the city and it just started to feel like work. 3000 & 4 compounded this problem.

I've always wanted an experience at roughly this level of granularity. Bigger, customizable buildings; neighborhoods you can curate a bit; more dynamic simulation for interesting interop between parts of the city rather than the rules-based nature of past games.

Online only is a bit of a bummer, but I've come to expect it since I'm always online and it increases the barrier of entry to piracy (as much as NeoGAF hates to admit it, some members *on this very board* will buy this thing instead of pirating it just because pirating it will be made more inconvenient than a typical release).

It's a bummer city size is capped so low as it is. Period. I guess I'll just have to own a whole region.

 

[Mihos]

It's a bummer city size is capped so low as it is. Period. I guess I'll just have to own a whole region.

They said something about increasing city size at some point, but it seems like everything is 'balanced' towards things being this size. The whole thing seems like an iPad game more than a PC game to me. Some people like that stuff.

I am more upset about the trend to try to monetize everything in every game with micro transactions than I am about always on DRM. This reminds me of Diablo 3 and RMAH more than anything else. I thing think the always on DRM is more to protect the revenue stream of micro transactions and preventing mods that do the same service, than it is about piracy.

 

[syllogism]

They just need to add a disclaimer stating that during the first few days following the release your play experience may be affected adversely due to the high demand; make it a soft launch of sorts. Don't buy the game at release if you have a problem with the completely expected capacity problems. If these issues were unforeseeable the complaints would be more rational. All you have to do is wait a day or two to see if the issues get resolved. If not, don't buy the product.

 

[Fezzan]

Unless it's a Mario game, right?

Didn't see anything wrong with the Polygon review. Guy just really liked the game.

I wouldn't listen to gaf honestly, hardly anyone here even enjoys games

 

[Dead Man]

Seems like these are the two camps the reviews fall in. Thankfully I'm in the camp that's excited by all the things you dislike. But I'm sorry to hear it's not your cup of tea.

The last time I had fun with a SimCity game was SimCity 2000, and even then only for the first few hours of each city. Once it became too large to keep in my head, I didn't have any emotional investment in the city and it just started to feel like work. 3000 & 4 compounded this problem.

I've always wanted an experience at roughly this level of granularity. Bigger, customizable buildings; neighborhoods you can curate a bit; more dynamic simulation for interesting interop between parts of the city rather than the rules-based nature of past games.

Online only is a bit of a bummer, but I've come to expect it since I'm always online and it increases the barrier of entry to piracy (as much as NeoGAF hates to admit it, some members *on this very board* will buy this thing instead of pirating it just because pirating it will be made more inconvenient than a typical release).

It's a bummer city size is capped so low as it is. Period. I guess I'll just have to own a whole region.

I don't wnat to get into the morality debate, but I do wonder if it is enough to offset those who won't buy it because of the always online stuff.

 

[JDSN]

You can almost hear the Polygon guy weezing with excitement as he wrote that PReview.