the western union ploppable will be DLC

3/12/2013 5:55:46 PM

Anyone else want an invite on NA E 1?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

3/12/2013 6:05:41 PM

krallum, whats your origin id?


i'll take one..

origin id: dz84

3/12/2013 6:12:11 PM

sure, why not

jazonanderson

3/12/2013 6:17:46 PM

A maxis whistle blower

Quote :

"“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”"

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

[Edited on March 12, 2013 at 7:18 PM. Reason : .]

3/12/2013 7:12:52 PM

Well...duh.

Why do you people keep giving EA money?

[Edited on March 12, 2013 at 7:55 PM. Reason : .]

3/12/2013 7:55:36 PM

hahahaha, i cut off a tiny road from all other roads and the cars running around in a circle look like a nascar race

3/12/2013 8:13:23 PM

Imprisoning and torturing people is usually my goal in any Sim/Tycoon game.

3/12/2013 8:16:47 PM

redneck

3/12/2013 8:16:54 PM

Are they at least driving counter-clockwise?

3/12/2013 8:17:39 PM

^ yes

THREE WIDE

HILLBILLY HEAVEN

[Edited on March 12, 2013 at 8:20 PM. Reason : ]

3/12/2013 8:20:38 PM

what's the status of the alloy for the space station? one city said it was full, then halfway, then another city says it has none

trade depots in eff the environment just aren't working - i realize they're not set up that great, but they don't work at all - also, the refinery is full - the trade depot is barely two blocks away...still won't pick it up

[Edited on March 12, 2013 at 8:45 PM. Reason : ]

3/12/2013 8:25:48 PM

ive contributed something like 600 tons of alloy. i'm buying it in my port and i shut down my industry that consumes it

[Edited on March 12, 2013 at 9:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/12/2013 9:00:02 PM

heh, i was trying to contribute from eff the environment and it said it was completed and wouldn't let me contribute any more lol

3/12/2013 9:04:48 PM

it shows youve contributed 20 tons... well someone has.

i looked at your trade depots... the question is how long at a time hveyou played that city. the trade doesnt happen while you're somewhere else. your city pauses. you have to actively play it.

though, i had an issue a couple of days ago where my depots werent exporting shit. but that may have been a bug, there were some resource issues that day

one other option is set up a sea port. the storage bays hold more, and the ships are pretty consistent when tey come in.

3/12/2013 9:08:09 PM

I got pissed at my game because I consistently had like 95/100 raw ore sitting in my trade port and instead of making sure my smelting factories always had raw ore and coal, my trucks were going out of the city to do whatever they were doing even though my imports were pretty much all full. I really wish I had more management over where the trucks go because they are incredibly stupid.

3/12/2013 11:38:57 PM

so what's the verdict on this game now that the servers are stable? would buy again?

3/13/2013 1:20:28 AM

I wish I liked it less because I know they're going to bone us on DLC.

3/13/2013 2:03:34 AM

im really hoping to get this soon

3/13/2013 6:08:12 AM

Now that server connectivity is fixed for the most part, my biggest complaint is traffic flows. Sims appear to take the shortest linear path, and not the path of least resistance. This is causing nasty traffic pile ups, which mean emergency vehicles can't move.

I had tried to use high density streets to funnel people to avenues, and medium density streets to reduce the likely hood that the traffic goes against the grain. Not the case.

The same with street cars. I expected these to work in a loop, but they don't. There's a routing mechanism based on distance and stop congestion. That's kind of frustrating. If the cars don't work in some sort of consistent loop, you should be able to specify operating areas per depot. Ice, this depot will serve this half, this depot will serve this half, and my third will circle the two. Like a subway system. Its all interconnected, but they have defined routes.

It looks like the routing engines are broken across the board. The game is fun enough, but when you get industry set up and have 20 million simoleons and a great work in the area.... And a small space... What else is there to do? Optimize your city, which the game is not lending itself to, at all.

3/13/2013 8:45:05 AM

In that vein, I found this.... Sounds like the resource issues are the same. While you can cluster industry and get it working well in a very localized area, exporting via trade depot sucks much harder than via port. With a port, the ship has to go there.

Looks like issues are possibly with glass box, not a server side problem...

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060#U737060%5B

[Edited on March 13, 2013 at 9:20 AM. Reason : reading more of that link. its good. and affirming suspicions]

3/13/2013 8:56:18 AM

Traffic is a mess. My beautiful city (pictured earlier) is rapidly burning to the ground because fire engines cannot get to any of the fires. Buildings are burning to rubble faster than I can delete them.

Quote :

"The same with street cars. I expected these to work in a loop, but they don't. There's a routing mechanism based on distance and stop congestion. That's kind of frustrating. If the cars don't work in some sort of consistent loop, you should be able to specify operating areas per depot. Ice, this depot will serve this half, this depot will serve this half, and my third will circle the two. Like a subway system. Its all interconnected, but they have defined routes."

This was explained here yesterday: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-update-6-streetcars

Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to log in to that site because I want to comment on the post.

I've been a major apologist for this game, but this absolutely infuriates me. Why the hell is this the way it functions? I mean WTF?! Transit should automatically determine a fixed route and fixed intervals depending on the length of the entire network and the number of vehicles available. You know, like how actual transit works. As it is currently, all public transit functions just like private cars, taxis or jitneys. So dumb.

3/13/2013 9:43:24 AM

adding krallum after i install

3/13/2013 9:50:01 AM

Someone suggested when you zone a block in a 1 by 3 skyscraper configuration, zone just one side of the block. This forces all buildings to be on one side of the street, and you can force Sims into making only right turns.

Also, students have no preference to what school they attend. Have one of each, but expand the community college, because that's commuter based and not bus based.

That makes no sense. I've been scaling my schools as a pyramid... More elementary than college.... But it doesn't matter. I can doze my high schools and eliminate the need for busses.

Also garbage trucks compete over the same trash can, just as a fire truck does over a fire or cops over a criminal. This behavior is OK over a block or two, but the trucks should be distributed by sectors if anything. 1-4 works this half, 5-8 works this half. Then let them.compete it something.

[Edited on March 13, 2013 at 9:55 AM. Reason : .]

3/13/2013 9:51:52 AM

Did anyone at Maxis play this game before it was released? Was this just a case of them being way too ambitious and having no choice but to release what they had?

3/13/2013 9:57:32 AM

They probably did. Which is why the beta stopped you after an hour. Very few people reached the shit storm threshold. And when they did. There wasn't enough time to investigate.

Beta for marketing, not for testing.

I've been an apologist, but I'm starting to turn.

I still think its good for fucking around, but if you legitimately want to nurture your city, or develop it....play it long term, the game is broken.

Another thing. Poop follows the same stupid pattern. You get clogged up if you try to distribute. You're better off expanding to have 4 pools at one facility, than two facilities with 2 pools each. It doesn't favor distributive loading.


Edit: you know.... One way streets would fix a lot of the issues. The exception being one ingress and egress.

[Edited on March 13, 2013 at 10:30 AM. Reason : .]

3/13/2013 10:24:50 AM

anything specific we need in the region ?

3/13/2013 10:34:08 AM

^literally no one is in it yet

Quote :

"Add me that way i don't have to add you, wait for you to accept then you have to wait for me to invite to the game."

I'm Walls1441.

I will add whoever when I get home. The back and forth is too much- they should just let you invite by name

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

3/13/2013 10:36:13 AM

Origin invites aren't really going through, their chat seems to be broken too. People have sent me friend requests and I've sent them... Nobody can see it.

WAY TO GO, AGAIN, EA

3/13/2013 11:00:58 AM

So, if you destroy a building with workers in it, or university with students in it. You population decreases by x workers... But a residence dorsnt reflect it.

If you destroy a police station and 10 workers die. Their houses don't reduce by 10 population. They don't go home either. You still have 100 population and say 10 workers instead of 20. You have to destroy the houses to restore the work force.

The fuck.

3/13/2013 11:19:18 AM

close it before destruction

3/13/2013 2:14:42 PM

Not that they actually have homes to begin with since everyone is going to a new job and a new home every single day. The above post on the EA forums, and this one at Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a75te/how_it_came_to_this/) are extremely revealing. I've been telling people "yeah there are a ton of problems but the game is cool because they've completely revolutionized the simulation engine". Now that turns out to be complete bullshit.

lol: http://youtu.be/WH-CdkSqDSs

[Edited on March 13, 2013 at 2:18 PM. Reason : .]

3/13/2013 2:16:54 PM

^^thats just asinine, though.

^right, but you can effectively bulldoze your entire work force. Basically, you should bulldoze residential blocks semi frequently to refresh the gene pool, is how you need to play the game. So stupid.

3/13/2013 2:42:28 PM

I'm starting to turn as well. This game has so much potential, but once you get so far along it just falls apart.

I really feel like EA pushed Maxis so hard, they just ran out of time. 3 more months of development/play testing and this game would be a home run.

3/13/2013 3:30:45 PM

^more like 3 more months, $30, and a lil DLC

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

3/13/2013 3:35:26 PM

meh so far im really liking it

3/13/2013 3:43:29 PM

On twitter, @maxisguillaume has been acknowledging traffic fuck ups and a litany of other bugs.... Says they're working to patch them.

He also said they never promised Sims would have their own houses. It was never intended to be that way. Stuck with the first available mentality.

3/13/2013 4:22:29 PM

so your entire population is a bunch of squatters?

3/13/2013 5:06:34 PM

I prefer to think of it as a communist utopia. Yeah, this game kind of sucks, as is.

3/13/2013 5:13:38 PM

I guess I don't have a problem with that method of modeling, so long as they don't rush to an open spot, then spill to the next.

If it works as there are ten slots and they get assigned as its en route before 50 people show up. That's better. Assign them a house before they start commuting

3/13/2013 5:33:29 PM

the whole not being able to add friends thing is really aids

3/13/2013 8:42:11 PM

I know it handles a lot fewer Sims, but it does amaze me that Tropico can handle workers actually having a specific job, house, commute to work, etc. They even have a family which grows and ages on your island. And none of that offloading calculations on a damn server.

3/13/2013 8:48:30 PM

^^^ but a model that simple is doomed to failure. if workers simply take the first open slot, then there is no continuity. Commute times don't matter, because you just build house->business->house->business, and it works. It's a giant conga-line. That's why yall have been complaining about the "no educated workers" so much: the guys with the PhDs are working at McD's because it was next in line from the university!

First open slot is a great algorithm for proof-of-concept of the design and as a base test-platform for seeing that everything works fundamentally. But rarely, if ever, is the proof-of-concept design the one that is, or should be, used for the final product. Hell, if they had just kept a link to the previous job and the previous house and the agent considered that one first, it would probably work itself out to a decent steady-state solution. And such an addition would be trivial!

3/13/2013 9:06:55 PM

anyone online ? lobsterzilla ingame

3/13/2013 9:15:45 PM

Forgot I left the game on came back to my city of 130k all dead from pretty much every disaster. Oh well

3/13/2013 11:22:51 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdu1ho2Ic4

What a joke

3/13/2013 11:31:24 PM

My city wouldn't stop burning, so I raised all taxes 20% across the board and turned off all services except transportation, power, water and sewer. City population has dropped from around 113k to 46k, nearly all buildings has been demolished, but my stadium is still rolling in the profits and I've got nearly 800k tourists a month.

Before:



Now:

3/14/2013 12:33:12 AM

^ Is that a homage to Hill Valley I see there?

3/14/2013 1:05:23 AM

wat

3/14/2013 9:40:15 AM

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14/modder-runs-simcity-offline-maxis-remains-silent/


looks like modders may be able to fix the game soon.

The shit about the population being inflated at the UI level and people making cities with nothing but residential is ridiculous and effectively makes the game pointless.

Dammit, why did they have to do this to one of my favorite franchises

3/14/2013 11:02:58 AM