SimCity's Empire Has Fallen and Skylines Is Picking Up the Pieces 256
sarahnaomi writes: Colossal Order's SimCity-like game, Cities: Skylines, sold more than half a million copies in its first week. The first 250,000 of those were sold in the first 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling game its publisher, Paradox Interactive, has ever released. Only a week before Skylines was released, game publisher Electronic Arts announced that it was shutting down SimCity developer Maxis' studio in Emeryville, which it acquired in 1997.
"I feel so bad about Maxis closing down," Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said. "The older SimCitys were really the inspiration for us to even consider making a city builder." At the same time, Hallikainen admits SimCity's mistakes were Colossal Order's opportunity. "If SimCity was a huge success, which is what we expected, I don't know if Skylines would have ever happened," she said, explaining that it would have been a harder pitch to sell to Paradox if the new SimCity dominated the market.
"I feel so bad about Maxis closing down," Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said. "The older SimCitys were really the inspiration for us to even consider making a city builder." At the same time, Hallikainen admits SimCity's mistakes were Colossal Order's opportunity. "If SimCity was a huge success, which is what we expected, I don't know if Skylines would have ever happened," she said, explaining that it would have been a harder pitch to sell to Paradox if the new SimCity dominated the market.
EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
Forced to play online. Not enough server support. Too much DLC. Incredibly overpriced DLC.
Goodbye SimCity, you were great long ago.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Informative)
Once upon a time, I worked for EA.
The managers from EA were obsessed with the milestones.
What was important was not the game, but the progress towards its completion, so we had a fixed schedule, and we had to deliver the game at these schedules.
If you screwed your schedule, you were dead, since they paid when a milestone was reached.
It was pretty arbitrary.
The game was cancelled before its end, once they realized that it was not even amusing and probably also because they killed games that had no commercial potential.
I doubt they changed much since this time.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time, I worked for EA.
The managers from EA were obsessed with the milestones.
What was important was not the game, but the progress towards its completion, so we had a fixed schedule, and we had to deliver the game at these schedules.
If you screwed your schedule, you were dead, since they paid when a milestone was reached.
It was pretty arbitrary.
The game was cancelled before its end, once they realized that it was not even amusing and probably also because they killed games that had no commercial potential.
I doubt they changed much since this time.
I remember EA back in the Apple ][ days. They made some awesome games of clearly higher quality than everyone else. I remember reading how they set up to achieve that, because they were dissatisfied with the products they were seeing.
Something changed pretty radically.
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Same thing that always happens once money and greed become the goal instead of the ideals and the art. Anything that gets too big is inevitably affected by this situation, whether it be companies, cities, or governments.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
Something changed pretty radically.
I'll bet that something has an M a B and an A in it somewhere. Trying to turn an unpredictable creative process into a factory that produces widgets.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
Jim Sterling [youtube.com] ranted about this. Basically, at some point the creative types who started a studio start to feel overwhelmed by the managerial aspects of running a company. So they bring in "professional management," many of whom from come industries entirely unlike the games industry. So some CEO who previously ran a shoe manufacturer gets brought on into a game studio and proceeds to enact policies that would, were making games anything like manufacturing, make things more efficient. Instead, these policies completely destroy the creativity of the team, and eventually the people who were making the great games move on to greener (money ain't the only green!) pastures, leaving a desiccated husk of a studio which continues to churn out garbage hoping desperately to move units based solely on the whatever brand recognition remains intact.
Whether or not you consider games to be art, creating games is undeniably a creative endeavor. When the bean counters move in with their metrics and demands for predictable results... well, shit like SimCity 2013 happens. If the new management is lucky enough to have a highly regarded franchise, expect them to churn out yearly increments of whatever they think works. You only have to look at the endless Battlefield and Call of Duty releases to see that reliable sales figures is more important than creating new and interesting games. Like OP said, a factory that produces widgets. Formulaic crap is the order of the day, and despite the fact that we all know it sucks, people still eat it up.
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I remember EA back in the Apple ][ days. They made some awesome games of clearly higher quality than everyone else. I remember reading how they set up to achieve that, because they were dissatisfied with the products they were seeing.
My experience was around 1995, and I was programming a game for the Super Nintendo.
I believe the game was cancelled because the Super Nintendo market was dying, and they wanted to release games on the newly released Playstation.
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I'm referring to the early 80s, with things like Hard Hat Mack, Archon II, Pinball Construction Set, The Bard's Tale. At that age I was a consumer, not a developer. I missed the Nintendo thing, since I had 'real' computers.
So it's safe to say the rot happened sometime between 1985 and 1995.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:4, Informative)
EA's management will just have to console themselves by sleeping on huge piles of money with many beautiful women.
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What's sad is that so many beautiful women are really so shallow they'll throw themselves at men like EA CxOs just because of the bucks.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:4, Interesting)
Teeny-tiny cities, 'agent-based' simulations that purpoted to simulate realistic people and then delivered inchoate little ants that stumbled around randomly filling dwellings and jobs as they bumped into them, cryptic and at times deeply inscrutable simulation behavior.
A pure cash grab would actually have been better: Take a mixture of SC2000 and SC4000, implement in any reasonably contemporary 3d engine, sit back and dribble out new art assets, building types, and assorted other flavor as DLC. That would have been overt creative bankruptcy; but it would have been a basically sound game.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Funny)
The original Sim City
was ahead of its time
not another platform shooter
it was so new and so fine
SimCity 2k
added isometric view,
a larger land area
I bought it too
SimCity 3k
had its own little quirks
with landfills and stuff
but I liked how it works
SimCity 4
16 times the size
and graphics so sweet
you won't believe your eyes
Then came SimCity 5
like a zombie in heat
Screwed everything in sight
It was Maxis defeat
The moral is plain
for all to see
give people more, not less
and they'll pay the fee
But get greedy and gouge
for something smaller? goodbye!
Please shove your DLC
up your a** and die.
R.I.P. the REAL SimCities
they were lost long ago,
Grieve for what could have been,
Curse EAs lack of soul!
Burma Shave
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These Burma Shave
signs have gotten
a lot longer
these days.
Jus' Sayin'
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So, basically, it's no closer to "forced to play online" than any other game, seeing as how Steam games can be played offline without an Internet connection.
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You can connect once, buy the game, put Steam in offline mode and never connect again. It won't stop you from playing.
What's evil about "always online" is that any connection issue or server problem on the vendor's side renders your game unplayable. That is not the case with Steam. It is the case with certain games that are sold over Steam, but that's down to the games' developers, not Steam itself.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
You can connect once, buy the game, put Steam in offline mode and never connect again.
At least if you never ever want to buy a game on Steam again. Otherwise, as soon as you connect again, it will automatically upload to Steam statistics regarding how much you've played the game, what "achievements" you've unlocked etc (even if you disable SteamPlay/auto-synchronisation).
And if you have bad luck, Steam will have blocked your account in the mean time because you haven't logged in for over a year and when the Steam application detects that, it will block all games you have locally because it no longer has valid cached credentials (you can't got back to offline mode). And then you can't play anymore until you've contacted support to have them unblock/reset your account. And yes, that happened to me.
It's true, you don't have to be online all the time. But you better be online either regularly or never again at all.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're that paranoid, run separate instances. One that you use online for purchases and downloads only, then copy the Steamapps subfolder for your game over to your offline-gaming instance. No achievements, no gameplay tracking, etc. An inconvenience, sure, but a fairly minor one.
I do this to keeps games sync'ed between my gaming PC and my laptop for traveling, but IIRC there's nothing that'll prevent you from having two copies of Steam installed on one PC.
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Automatically getting your account blocked and all of your games disabled if you log in again after having been offline for a very long time (regardless of what the reason was) has nothing to do with paranoia.
Apart from that, I just think I should have full control over with whom I want to share when and what I play, without any major or minor inconveniences. Juggling Steam copies and whatnot should not be necessary. Seriously, I already paid for the games.
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As mentioned two levels up, they did lock my account after several years of not logging in, and I had to mail support to get it unlocked again.
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As mentioned two levels up, they did lock my account after several years of not logging in, and I had to mail support to get it unlocked again.
that's because your situation is likely to be a hacked account. let's face it, you're acting extremely paranoid. don't be surprised when you get flagged for that behavior.
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Then harden up and just play them.
Steam is the only digital distributor I'd actually use (and aside from the occasional GoG purchase, I haven't bought from anywhere else in the last 5 years). They're not obnoxious (Uplay, Live Games, Origin), it's a nice lightweight client, they keep everything up-to-date, upload only game-related stats and it's in Valve's best interest to keep the source data to themselves.
I'm not overly concerned with game developers knowing that X people have played Y or more hours of th
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Informative)
I got steam when HL2 came out. I played it for a few years and then graduated and lost my free time. Six years later, I boot steam up and everything worked fine. My anecdote cancels out yours.
And yes, you sound like one of those crazy people that stands on the sidewalk with 500 words written in sharpie on a repurposed pizza box trying to tell everyone how Obama's chemtrails are making your teeth liberal.
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And yes, you sound like one of those crazy people that stands on the sidewalk with 500 words written in sharpie on a repurposed pizza box trying to tell everyone how Obama's chemtrails are making your teeth liberal.
It's true! Gabe N. has a swimming pool filled with the data collected from your game playing. He even drowned some hookers in it. OPEN UP YOUR EYES!
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Requiring steam is requiring a separate application that must be let online,
Only once when purchasing.
that tracks your usage and purchases,
And that's different to any other place you'd buy from, how?
and that is everything evil about "always online" except the relatively minor inconvenience of actually being required to connect.
Yes, only required to connect once. Then you can play offline to your hearts content.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Interesting)
However, as a gamer, and even as someone who is profoundly wary of DRM schemes, I find that Steam at least offers some advantages to me, the user. Once I purchase a game, I can download it to any machine I like, so if I get a new computer, or my old hard drive crashes, I still have all my games. I can even delete games I'm not playing to save disk space, and reload them later if I so feel like it. I can get updates and fixes quickly and seamlessly. It may be relatively minor, but it's something that the service offers me. It's also very easy to find and buy new games, new expansions for ones I have, etc.
In turn, I'm tied to the service for those games, but the restrictions have not proven intrusive to me in my regular playing. I can play offline, and really haven't had any problems with that. About the only thing I've found I can't do is play two online games at once on two computers side by side - but I can play one offline while the other is online.
Now, you may find the tradeoff isn't worth it for you, and that's certainly fair - but at least Steam offers something to the user, where most DRM schemes are solely hassles to the customer for the benefit of the company (Ubisoft, EA, etc).
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As a gamer, with a gamer wife and a gamer son, I LOVE steam. The ability to share game purchases within my family by using the Steam app is just GOLD. The only games that we need to buy multiple copies of are online games we want to play together. Offline games, mostly adventure games, we just take turns and let Steam Family Sharing work it's magic.
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As a gamer, with a gamer wife and a gamer son, I LOVE steam.
Do you only have one computer? Because that's the only scenario where steam family sharing isn't a steaming pile of ass.
The ability to share game purchases within my family by using the Steam app is just GOLD.
The restriction that if one person is playing a game from their library, no one else may use any other game from that library is ASS.
The only games that we need to buy multiple copies of are online games we want to play together.
If I'm playing Wolfenstein New Order -- my son can't play thing in my library.
Dicking around with online/offline mode is a crappy work around; which of course doesn't do anything for multiplayer games.
Steam needs to relax the restrictions on family accounts.
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How is that any different from purchasing something on Amazon.com?
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How is that any different from purchasing something on Amazon.com?
No difference there. However, there's a crapton of difference from when I buy an offline game from my local flea-market. Guess who doesn't get any tracking information from that purchase? Some games I've purchased this way: Doom 3, Diablo II BattleChest (fraction of the cost Wal-fart wants for it), Oblivion, GTA3...etc. Yes they're older. Yes these types of games are getting harder and harder to find as everyone goes to the Online Market. I just find that these older games have so much more to offer
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You're arguing two totally different things: the quality of modern games and the merits of online purchasing. We're talking about online purchasing here; your diatribe about modern games is really irrelevant.
Do you buy anything from Amazon, or Newegg, or any online seller? If you're so paranoid that you're worried about people tracking your game purchases, I don't know what to tell you. This isn't a conspiracy-theorist forum, this is a tech forum, and I imagine most Slashdotters have purchased stuff onli
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If you didn't do the online grind on BattleNet, there was quite the story to follow with D2. Yes, Diablo helped to create the Real Life Work Simulators that we have today by using the grind mechanic on BattleNet. I never played for the epic gear, I played for the quests, puzzles, and story progression.
As another example I watch my roommate play Destiny from time to time, and I just don't get it. He's always playing the same fucking maps over and over just to get achievements and the new shiny armor/gun
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You'd rather just your credit card issuer and the shop you buy the game from track your purchases?
(fyi: steam is just a shop you buy the game from - you're just swapping shop A with shop B)
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It's single player and can be played offline There is no "forced to play online" part of the equation.
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Yeah, because being online once in order to download the game at time of purchase is exactly the same as having to being online every time you even think about playing it.
There are enough legit problems with online content delivery that we don't need to get angry about things that really aren't problems.
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I generally don't mind everything that comes with Steam (it's DRM, but it's got more conveniences than it gets in my way), but their last update to the engine borked something and now several of my games won't launch. I tried the self-help recommendations that didn't fix the issue, then submitted a ticket. 10 days later, they still haven't bothered to respond to me. That's honestly bad enough that I'm starting to reconsider how "safe" their service is.
I haven't tried anything as drastic as reinstalling the
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But I play steam games on an overpowered desktop machine with an overpowered graphics card.
It's not a problem to leave the ethernet plugged in.
Civ V is awesome (Score:2)
The DLC actually made the game better. Now you can get the complete civ v with all the DLC packs for like $50 less if its on sale.
Re:Civ V is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Well yeah, they finally finished writing the game.
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"DLC = unfinished game from price-gouging publisher"
No, not always. I can think of more than a few games where DLC released after the fact added huge value to an already good game. Speaking in absolutes just makes you sound like an idiot.
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"DLC = unfinished game from price-gouging publisher"
No, not always. I can think of more than a few games where DLC released after the fact added huge value to an already good game. Speaking in absolutes just makes you sound like an idiot.
Rocksmith 2014.
Moar DLC! It made me unreasonably happy when they released Motorhead's Ace of Spades as a DLC a few weeks ago. $2.99 well spent.
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Oh bullshit. Some games have ongoing stories that would mean the game is never "finished", which in turn means it would never be released.
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The mere existence of DLC - even day-one DLC - does not mean the content would otherwise have appeared in the base game.
This. So many idiots seem to be under the impression that if the concept of DLC did not exist, developers would just create all the same content, but release it for free. In reality, if the concept of DLC didn't exist, they would not create that content at all, and base games would actually probably be smaller, as the promise of future revenue from higher profit margin DLC will often make publishers more inclined to increase the budget on the base game.
Re:EA got too greedy (as usual) (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a Paradox thing. The games they publish (well, make, really) are well known for having a ton of optional, aesthetic DLCs. These landmarks are a lot pricier than normal, but it sure as hell is optional! I'm hoping that this game will follow the Paradox business model in the future.
Example for Europa Universalis: New units for your conquistadors? Do they change the gameplay? No, not at all, they just make it so if you're Spanish-ish, and fussing around in New World colonies, your unit art is different. Um... great? It's $2.50. Not worth it. Crusader Kings, new character portraits that are more realistic for certain cultures? $2.50...nahhh. Another hour of music that goes into the rotation when playing as certain religions? Also $2.50. Not worth it at all for new players, but if you've already dumped two hundred hours and don't use your own soundtrack, yes it is...and unlike little art or code changes, you know they had to pay some composer a nontrivial amount of money to commission it, so it's all cool. They also like to add expansions for $10, $15 or so that add major new mechanics, but they're always optional--never prerequisites for future DLCs--and they come with free patches that tweak bugs and existing mechanics. I think I own all of the music mods, none of the art mods, and 75% of the gameplay mods for EU4 and CK2, and I'm pretty happy with their a la carte system. Just remember they're supposed to be optional.
Also remember that this game IS NOT CONNECTED to the (terrible) Cities XL series. Different creators, different publishers. I have no idea how they didn't get taken to court for the name because there is massive marketplace confusion here, but they aren't related.
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Yeah I like the CK2 add-ons. I've bought one or two, but only after I played 100 hours on the stock game, so I definitely don't think I bought an unfinished game. I think that a few bucks here or there for some actual game mechanics is worth it. Never really wanted the fluffy stuff like more shield designs or portraits, but the music in the game is pretty decent, was considering picking up more to mix it up a bit, although I probably won't unless I can find the tracks somewhere to hear if it is worth it.
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To be fair, the deluxe edition adds a lot more than just 5 buildings, plus, you can import your own 3D models, and get those buildings for free if you want.
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What else does it add? I was considering it on Steam but the description only seemed to list those buildings. Wondering if I missed out.
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That's the first review of Cities I've seen. I've seen plenty of ads, because they're pushing it hard.
Anyway, I don't usually buy new games for full price. Steam is golden for waiting a few months and buying them when they do a special.
I got FarCry4 this weekend on the weekend special. It'll last me through until Cities is on a special and by then the reviews will be in and I can know if it's worth it.
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DLC literally started out as cosmetic-only. It has become MORE substantial over the years, not less.
They also started out entirely free. Stuff you payed for was called expansions.
DLC only started having a cost after they became available on consoles, from there the DLC for money spread to PC through consolitis.
Good. Fuck EA. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is all.
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They should acquire Ubisoft. Consolidation will fix everything that is wrong with the games industry today! /s
I know we don't like EA... (Score:3)
Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can work around em, but yea... when my trains all get piled up it is a problem...
and cars going to the right lane miles before their exit causing a backup with cars merging on is a problem too...
Realistic Simulation! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like my daily commute. WORKSFORME WONTFIX.
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DOESNTWORKFORME SUFFERTOO?
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That sounds like basically every major urban freeway I've ever driven on. How is this a problem?
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Sounds realistic to me, at least where I drive in the fantasy world known as Florida.
Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can work around em, but yea... when my trains all get piled up it is a problem...
and cars going to the right lane miles before their exit causing a backup with cars merging on is a problem too...
As others have noted, this is realistic. There's also a real-world solution for it - exits should occur before merges. That way, there's an empty lane for cars to merge into. By having a merge before the exit, as highway throughput increases, you experience jams.
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Probably because they're not _that_ bad once you get used to how and why roads are different from SimCity? I mean, sure, I expect that things will get tweaked in future patches. I don't know about this design studio but Paradox loves to change their own games, and fixes (meddles with) mechanics in free patches. Still, it hasn't been a game breaker for me yet by any stretch.
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Huh. Judging by other comments here, maybe I'm wrong about it being livable.
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Here's another awesome feature in Cities: Skylines that EA will never allow : Community Mods. Well ok, EA allow mods but mostly superficial things.
Cities: Skylines come with Steam Workshop and the game can be heavily modded and it's popular enough so you can be sure that if the traffic issue isn't patched, it'll surely be modded quite soon.
One "little" thing that bugs me about modding is the lack of a centralized workplace for all the game available. Sure Steam Workshop is a good start but I'm still using N
Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oh, interesting. Any links about that?
Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:5, Informative)
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I have mixed feelings. On one hand, people shouldn't be able to attach unsandboxed C# code to house assets and stuff where they might not know what they are getting. On the other hand, that's some pretty awesome power to give modders. Minecraft wouldn't be the game it is today if it wasn't for mods written in (presumably) unsandboxed Java, same with Kerbal Space Program, and this mod policy means someone really could write a downloadable fix for the traffic. Making it completely unsandboxed means you co
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The problem is customer expectations. If I'm modding Kerbal Space Program, I'm downloading a file and putting DLLs into my game directories...there's a comprehension that I'm adding code to the game, and I should at least use a little bit of caution. If it's a brand new mod by an unknown user, with no forum thread talking about it, I might wait because I know there's an element of risk--or look at the code on github. If the mod says it's only parts with no code changes, I can glance in the zip file and v
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Ok, I have a question. I haven't played any of these games since "SimCity 2000" back in the early 1990s. With this community mod thing, is it possible to build your own transit system like SkyTran (personal rapid transit) and see how that works in the city?
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Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:4, Informative)
The big lesson is that when a car spawns in Skylines it chooses a path at that very instant and absolutely will not deviate from the path. So all cars will all merge into the same lane because that's the lane that goes to your industrial district if that's how you have your roads laid out. Modders may be able to fix this as well.
One piece of advice is not to use the built-in traffic circles (roundabouts), because they suck. Instead, build your own out of interstate road segments (the kind that don't have buildings next to them) and exit ramps. The reason is that interstates don't have stoplights on every corner so the traffic will flow through them smoothly. Also, don't be afraid to use the big 6 lane roads. Final tip: the "traffic view" in the statistics only measures road use, not congestion. Simply being heavily trafficked will turn it red, even if there is no appreciable congestion.
Re:I know we don't like EA... (Score:4, Interesting)
Believe the hype (Score:5, Informative)
It really is the SimCity everyone wanted. Shame on EA and Maxis for fooling us with their shoddy game.
Mini-review (Score:5, Informative)
Got Cities Skylines a couple nights ago, sinking tons of time into it. It seems...adequate I guess? First one that's been even adequate in well over a decade though. Transportation is a little more like the (confusingly, unrelated) Cities XL series...in that roads actually have lanes that actually matter. Not a perfect implementation, there's quirks like a lack of a way to merge two one-way streets directly onto a two-way street without allowing a u-turn at the intersection, but it's a heck of a lot better than the nightmare that was SimCity 4's road pathing. Also, unlike Cities XL, the city building part is actually a game instead of a micromanagement chore.
Game balance is a little meh, but again--better than any other city builder since SC2k. I'd say it's worth it, especially since it isn't sold for AAA-game price. Of course, people who played SimCity 2000 probably don't have the time to blow on city builders these days. It's published by Paradox (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis) and it shows...none of their games aren't huge enormous time sinks.
Also, if you don't build graveyards after a certain point, people start complaining about the dead bodies stinking up their houses, and that's hilarious.
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Question: Are you German, or not German? If you're German, I'll translate your rating of "adequate" into American as "CLEARLY GAME OF THE YEAR 5* A+++".
Re:Mini-review (Score:4, Informative)
I think this has come from real life examples. Specifically the company that made the game is in my home city of Tampere, and we had a couple of cases about a year ago where a dead person was discovered in their apartment because of the smell coming from their apartment.
Their head designer said that quite a few of their various features were inspired by events in their home city.
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In my city that's happened several times in the past few years, in the same apartment building too.
One of them was dead for a year I think, another for a month, another for a few weeks...
One reason not to pay rent and bills by automatic payment, unless you want to become part of the carpet one day.
So, how about a Sims clone Paradox? (Score:2)
With Steam workshop support?
https://youtu.be/u6u88JeFY9g?t... [youtu.be]
Small things forgiven... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've sunk a bunch of time into it and gotten to 7 tiles so far, feels like a big city and a number of highway entrances, subways, trains etc... feels spacious and i don't have to destroy my early area to keep moving forwards...
But yea, there are some annoyances like the traffic backups here and there and finding ways that shouldn't be needed around them, but they aren't EA, they set the price lower and have been open about what they are doing. They've built up goodwill so I cut them a lot of slack. It's a good game and worth the time and money.
Now they start doing stuff like EA has over the years with madden exclusivity, the sim city stuff and everything else, then I won't even look at games they release.
I didn't know they were coming out with a different Europa Universalis, which is a game I enjoyed many years ago and totally forgot about...
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It's worth noting that dev company has made mainly city traffic sims before, so its understandable that a lot of the city building is based around traffic modelling. It's an area where they have a lot of expertise.
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Eu4 is an amazing game that ive sunk nearly 800hrs into, HOI4 is coming out soon and I don't know about PI as a publisher but as a dev house they always release DLCs with a free update (that is paid for by the DLC buying people). Its a very good system that sees games like Crusader Kings 2 still getting updates about 2yrs after it came out.
Maxis closing? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you cared about Maxis as a game studio that made a lot of classic games, they've been gone for a while. EA has long ago assimilated Maxis into the fold.
If you care about the Maxis name, it is still around. They closed a location in Emeryville, not the entire studio.
Simcity screwed themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
I eventually bought it when they released the offline mode, but I still found it kind of disappointing.
Yep! (Score:4, Informative)
So yeah, someone came along and did SimCity better than EA. Big surprise. Look for EA to acquire the company and turn it into shit within a couple of years.
By the way, if you work for EA and want the company to get back in my good graces, all they have to do is prove that they understand what makes a game "fun" and actually make one that is. I don't think they're capable, though. That would require "risk", and there are plenty of suckers out there who will gladly drop $60 on a "Madden" rehash. More and more people have been burned by AAA titles are are starting to buy indy games, though. I've sunk more time into a single sub-$20 indy game than I have the last three AAA titles combined. And if I drop $5 or $10 on an indy game, I don't have super high expectations for it and can only be happily surprised.
The big publishers talk about how piracy is destroying the industry, but there are plenty of people willing to pay for good games. The big publishers are just incapable of recognizing what makes a game good and expect consumers to just buy into every $60 turd they drop. It's not pirates killing the AAA industry, it's the publishers. And I for one will be happy to see them go.
Re: (Score:2)
Would this be a good game to play with kids? (Score:2)
I have a 9-year old and 11-year old, both into Minecraft, and I thought this might be a fun way to spend a few hours a week together.
Opinions?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The original SimCity was useful bonding for me when I was a bit younger than that age, so I'd guess yes.
Controls are a bit more complicated, roads don't always build the way you'd like them to unless you're obsessively careful, but it's also pretty forgiving about doing crazy stupid sprawling things so probably no harm there.
Thank you for Linux support! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
It was programed with the Unity game engine. So yeah. Porting is probably just clicking a button.
Skylines got right what Simcity got wrong (Score:4, Informative)
For having a vastly inferior collection of window dressing. (I kinda miss the zombie attacks). Lack of a Day Night Cycle(days just go by too fast). The base game of Skylines is rock solid. I'm sure the modders will put some of the stuff I miss back in. In the mean time I'm just having fun making a functional Highway network.
I do miss some of the research unlockables too. Getting unlockables by simply having a large enough population seems unforfilling. I liked having to research the advanced tech at the university.
Love Linux? Love Paradox Interactive (Score:3)
Their Linux support since Steam on Linux became more then a fever induced dream I had once has been excellent. As publishers go theyve been amazing. So yeah, Skylines is on Linux, go grab a copy (if you play games on that platform).
1000hrs and counting for PI games on my steam, not sure if I should hate them or love them.
Awesome game (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a lot of fun and it runs on Linux. For me I've been getting really bad frame rates, particularly when zoomed in. Apparently the developer is working on Linux performance.
native Linux support (Score:4, Informative)
~A long time Sim City fan
Skylines is doing what simcity hasn't done in year (Score:4, Informative)
Skylines is fun. It's approachable. It's easy to pick up, and difficult to master. It has a mod engine that allows players to modify it in many subtle and extreme ways. It would have done well regardless of whether or not Simcity was successful because Skylines places emphasis on fun and not tedium or publisher profit margins.