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[Djohaal]

SOOO another always online game where you will be able to play only if they say you can even tho you bought the game.... I wonder what would happen if a car company were to seel a car but the car would be working only if THEIR hardware in THEIR factory can still contact them.... Would be a buzz killer, can i know why we are accepting that new trend?

Also no-sp? again? So far i cant see a single game coming out that is ONLY SP or has SP on it unless its an indie game... Call me old-timer but man i miss the old days...

It has been stated many times in many different places that there is a single player mode.  It's also not always online drm, it only checks your connection when launching the game (which still sucks for those poor sods without decent web connections).  Fail hyperbole is fail.

I recall reading on rock paper shotgun that an maxis employee stated that the whole game is built around a client server architecture, and that playing without an Internet connection is not possible. You can insulate yourself from oter players cities, but not of the overall meta-economy.

[Jopax]

I think that Dirk dude nailed the one big thing that's bugging me about the game and why I think the scale of it is off and wrong. It's the building size and spacing. Like he nicely puts it, it all just feels like a big toybox.

The style (while it's early to tell, but it could stay the same for all we know) is very annoying, that bad mix of realism and cartoony that's just done wrongly.

But it's wait and see I guess, SC4 is still fun with some addons so there won't be much loss if this turns out crap.

[timferius]

yeah the implementation of the concept looks awesome.

I wonder why everything looks so generic, maybe they still lacks lot of the assets.

I've a question however: wasn't the traffic implementation of simcity 4 rush hours following at least partially the same rules?
you could see car originating from houses and moving to the factories and vice versa and querying the road status gave a neat representation of all the traffic moving:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/SimCity4_Rush_Hour_screenshot.jpg

granted, they had not the agent based rendering neither the agent base resources. and they lack the neato freeform roads.

It looked that way, but if a car moved just off screen, and you refocused on where it should be, all the cars would be different. It was just a clever graphical illusion, to make it look like it was all tracked, but based on the same congestion data they used in previous games. The exception would be if you placed a sim in the game to follow.

[alway]

I think that Dirk dude nailed the one big thing that's bugging me about the game and why I think the scale of it is off and wrong. It's the building size and spacing. Like he nicely puts it, it all just feels like a big toybox.

The style (while it's early to tell, but it could stay the same for all we know) is very annoying, that bad mix of realism and cartoony that's just done wrongly.

As for the assets, those aren't the final ones. However, the style will stay somewhat the same. They are going for the 'miniatures' look; hence the tilt-shifted camera. Feeling 'like a big toybox' is precisely the look they are going for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking

[Bluerobin]

I quite like the style, but I've always played Sim City with the focus on the game aspects instead of the simulation ones, so maybe that helps. Plus I'm just a fan of the art style in general. I can see why people would like the style from past games, though.

On one hand I like the agents-style simulation method, on the other hand it was super frustrating in the Caesar games to periodically see three or four employment barkers in a row turn left at an intersection and end up not finding employees instead of turning right to a neighborhood full of unemployed people. I haven't looked too closely at the Sim City version of it, though, so maybe it'll fix some of those issues. Or maybe I'll just actually have to learn how to effectively set up my road connections.

[BigD145]

SOOO another always online game where you will be able to play only if they say you can even tho you bought the game.... I wonder what would happen if a car company were to seel a car but the car would be working only if THEIR hardware in THEIR factory can still contact them.... Would be a buzz killer, can i know why we are accepting that new trend?

Also no-sp? again? So far i cant see a single game coming out that is ONLY SP or has SP on it unless its an indie game... Call me old-timer but man i miss the old days...

I recall reading on rock paper shotgun that an maxis employee stated that the whole game is built around a client server architecture, and that playing without an Internet connection is not possible. You can insulate yourself from oter players cities, but not of the overall meta-economy.

It has been stated many times in many different places that there is a single player mode.  It's also not always online drm, it only checks your connection when launching the game (which still sucks for those poor sods without decent web connections).  Fail hyperbole is fail.

Hurricane Sandy hates EA and all online DRM.

[lordcooper]

Currently downloading the beta.  Hopefully it is not shit.

[Comp112]

Played for a good chunk of time. In short, Upgraded Sim City Societies. Still fun though.

[dennislp3]

So far its a little better than I expected...haven't played enough to tell yet...its not simplified as much as I initially thought it was (I think) so time will tell...still skeptical but slightly relieved by what I have seen so far...

[lordcooper]

The option to cap the framerate at 30 or 60fps (can be turned off) seems a bit pointless.

[Ozyton]

I found that capping your framerate to the refresh rate of your monitor can prevent your graphics card from working too hard/overheating unnecessarily in some games, if overheating is an issue for you. Also, if you can't get a constant 60fps and it jumps around a lot between 30 and 60 it may be best just to keep it at a steady 30fps. Framerate jumping around is much worse than having a steady framerate.

[peskyninja]

Well. I think it's... meh. Must be online to play. The scenarios looked very very small and the buildings too big on the gameplay video. Haven't you seen the pics released in the time when Will was still there? They were nothing compared to this. Clearly there where some very big chances.

[lordcooper]

While still a bit smaller than I'd have liked, the available areas are a lot bigger than the videos made them appear.  It's kinda hard to judge the game properly due to the currently restricted features and one hour time limit (plus it remains to be seen just how well the (optional) multiplayer aspects play out), but I enjoyed myself while playing.  The agent driven systems make for a lot of easily accessed data, it's reasonably gorgeous to look at, and there are actually a few more aspects to keep an eye on than in previous games.  It's definitely a lot closer to the proper Sim City games than Societies.  I'll be grabbing a copy, just not for the exorbitant asking price.  £30 or under sounds about right.

E: I forgot to check the mass transit options, they weren't really necessary to the point I got to.

[forsaken1111]

I had a lot of fun with it. You're time limited to 1 hour though, and most things are locked.

E: I forgot to check the mass transit options, they weren't really necessary to the point I got to.

IIRC only bus stops are unlocked.

[yarr]

The game is decent, I had some fun with it during that one hour.
Won't pick it up at 60€ tho, that's far too expensive for this kind of a game.