3 ms·

The servers have gotten a lot more stable and I've been able to play consistently. The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first thou

by datalus 14y ago

The servers have gotten a lot more stable and I've been able to play consistently. The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first thought it was. Not sure if I'll buy the inevitable DLCs to make it more fleshed out. In offline mode, since it doesn't save my city... maybe it'll offer a different way of playing. Sort of like old school games that didn't have any save points :)

skore 14y ago
> The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first thought it was. Interesting! So you're saying the lack of fixing problems appears to be a nice cover for a the lack of an interesting game?
- johnward 14y ago
  There are some major issues. One of them being the traffic problems that were posted on HN yesterday. Traffic is supposed to be somewhat challenging, but there is really no way to fix it unless you remove all intersections. There are also other bugs such as not being able to plop the sign for the trade HQ. Also I built the trade building with the rail road tracks (forgot the name) and it will take deliveries of items like oil but it will never hold the oil or ship it out. It just disappears. The budget controls don't go as deep as SimCity3000/4. In the past I could shave a couple dollars of the road budget, but that would result in pot holes and less repairs. Can't do that now. The cities are also very small. I'm waiting for EA to release some "awesome" DLC that gives you a decent sized city. The more I play this game the more I like SC4.
  - skore 14y ago
    > The cities are also very small. That was also my impression. I think that, more than anything else, is the reason why deep gameplay has a hard time developing. Ironically, I also have a hunch they did it in order to prevent overload issues. Which they're currently experiencing regardless of the limit. I only played SC2k, but even back then I wished you could have much larger cities - which is why the "more than one city on the map" feature intrigued me. But seeing how limited that is and how limited the cities themselves are... Quite a shame.
  - rdl 14y ago
    The cities are just small enough that doing anything to get the high-level trade buildings requires 100% dedicating your city to that purpose. e.g. oil/refining, etc.
    - skore 14y ago
      Now that's just silly. I totally understand their reasoning behind this, but it just doesn't make for an enjoyable game. I suppose you could call it compartmentalization[0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psycholog...
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Sim City 4 leaned towards this as well. You certainly didn't have to do it, but it was a major boost to have a city dedicated to just trash and heavy industry and a city dedicated to making power and a city dedicated to high tech jobs and a city dedicated to living. Cities XL is another game between Sim City 4 and SimCity where the land your city is build on will not have all of the resources your town needs, forcing you to juggle two or more towns. Some locations in that game are only good for resorts, some are only good for oil, etc.

by datalus 14y ago

skore 14y ago

> The new problem is: I'm bored already. The game isn't as deep as I first thought it was. Interesting! So you're saying the lack of fixing problems appears to be a nice cover for a the lack of an interesting game?

johnward 14y ago
There are some major issues. One of them being the traffic problems that were posted on HN yesterday. Traffic is supposed to be somewhat challenging, but there is really no way to fix it unless you remove all intersections. There are also other bugs such as not being able to plop the sign for the trade HQ. Also I built the trade building with the rail road tracks (forgot the name) and it will take deliveries of items like oil but it will never hold the oil or ship it out. It just disappears. The budget controls don't go as deep as SimCity3000/4. In the past I could shave a couple dollars of the road budget, but that would result in pot holes and less repairs. Can't do that now. The cities are also very small. I'm waiting for EA to release some "awesome" DLC that gives you a decent sized city. The more I play this game the more I like SC4.
- skore 14y ago
  > The cities are also very small. That was also my impression. I think that, more than anything else, is the reason why deep gameplay has a hard time developing. Ironically, I also have a hunch they did it in order to prevent overload issues. Which they're currently experiencing regardless of the limit. I only played SC2k, but even back then I wished you could have much larger cities - which is why the "more than one city on the map" feature intrigued me. But seeing how limited that is and how limited the cities themselves are... Quite a shame.
- rdl 14y ago
  The cities are just small enough that doing anything to get the high-level trade buildings requires 100% dedicating your city to that purpose. e.g. oil/refining, etc.
  - skore 14y ago
    Now that's just silly. I totally understand their reasoning behind this, but it just doesn't make for an enjoyable game. I suppose you could call it compartmentalization[0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psycholog...
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Sim City 4 leaned towards this as well. You certainly didn't have to do it, but it was a major boost to have a city dedicated to just trash and heavy industry and a city dedicated to making power and a city dedicated to high tech jobs and a city dedicated to living. Cities XL is another game between Sim City 4 and SimCity where the land your city is build on will not have all of the resources your town needs, forcing you to juggle two or more towns. Some locations in that game are only good for resorts, some are only good for oil, etc.