Thrik

Sim City V

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Why you no love EA? ;(

While Maxis can probably make an awesome new Sim City, I think EA has the power and desire to ruin everything with their unrelenting desire for revenue, covering the interface in clumsy social friend community notifications and pop-ups telling you that ~\BroheiM/~ just scored a thousand SimPoints™! All your friends have bought the new Fire Station DLC, why haven't you? What are you, poor? Need more SimPoints™? Buy them here just like fucking FarmVille.

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Seriously, fuck you guys.

RPS comments were the same, here's a long-awaited sequel to a critically acclaimed game, and all I hear is whining about "dumbed down for consoles", "DLC", "Origin", and "micro-transactions".

And you know what? All of the above might happen. And that would suck pretty hard. But until then, you guys can take your damn cynicism and shove it. I'm going to be super-excited over this!

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I thought the Iphone SimCity was really good and didn't have any noticeable social media stuff in it; so I don't see the worry with that kind of thing because if they were going to do it, that would be the platform to have it on.

On the plus side, if Maxis prime isn't doing it, maybe they'll have "Bioware" make it since that seems to be their trend lately : )

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Seriously, fuck you guys.

RPS comments were the same, here's a long-awaited sequel to a critically acclaimed game, and all I hear is whining about "dumbed down for consoles", "DLC", "Origin", and "micro-transactions".

And you know what? All of the above might happen. And that would suck pretty hard. But until then, you guys can take your damn cynicism and shove it. I'm going to be super-excited over this!

I pretty much agree. SimCity is EA and always has been EA so obviously this one is also going to be EA and that's just how it is. So either you just don't pay attention to the game because you refuse to support EA, or you come to terms with it, and wait to see if something actually tangibly bad happens or is announced. The game hasn't even been officially unveiled yet.

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I still don't feel slighted by the concept of DLC and the video game industry realizing it is a business, and thus its goal is to make money. EA I don't begrudge at all as a publisher. It kinda takes a lot of -long term- action to make me decide to not support a developer, studio, publisher, whatever.

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I thought the Iphone SimCity was really good and didn't have any noticeable social media stuff in it; so I don't see the worry with that kind of thing because if they were going to do it, that would be the platform to have it on.

On the plus side, if Maxis prime isn't doing it, maybe they'll have "Bioware" make it since that seems to be their trend lately : )

Sim Citadel?

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Seriously, fuck you guys.

RPS comments were the same, here's a long-awaited sequel to a critically acclaimed game, and all I hear is whining about "dumbed down for consoles", "DLC", "Origin", and "micro-transactions".

And you know what? All of the above might happen. And that would suck pretty hard. But until then, you guys can take your damn cynicism and shove it. I'm going to be super-excited over this!

Sure, sure, it's always annoying when entitled gamers start complaining before they know what they're talking about. Sorry for being a negative Nelly. Still, I think it should be possible to make predictions and discuss expectations before all the facts are out. After all it's what we'll be doing even after they've announced it; we'll still only have a marketing/developer spin on what they're aiming for, not knowing what the final product is going to be like.

I wonder if they'll go right out and say something about the target audience. I'm expecting them to say they're aiming directly at everyone, from the Wii family in their weirdly large living room to the sweaty PC sim enthusiast, and reality lean more towards the former. I'll even cynically bet they've decided to make another Sim City to ride the FarmVille wave (if that's still a thing).

Imagine, however, if they're doing the Civ V thing – a proper, dear I say it, hardcore PC game with a slick high-resolution mouse-focused interface, high quality graphics, more of that awesome funky soundtrack (the first thing I bought on iTunes) and those neat curved road things that Cities XL had.

So when is GDC?

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I know it's not Maxis (although I'm guessing a lot of staff transitioned), but for what it's worth I thought The Sims 3 was a fantastic game and while the whole store thing was incredibly extortionate, I was able to completely ignore it with ease and turn off anything that reminded me it was ever there. Apart from that it was a more refined, equally sophisticated, and thoroughly enjoyable game. And above all else, PC was the lead platform because they're not stupid and know that's where 90% of their userbase lies.

I can't actually think of any EA games I've bought that I haven't enjoyed, and I've got a lot of them. I don't know where the impression that the fact it's EA is going to suddenly impact the quality and direction of the game is coming from. I mean, hell, we're talking about the same guys who were actually willing to take on Brutal Legend for pete's sake.

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Brutal Legend was EA?

"Hey what's this? 'Brutal Legend'?"

"But I cancel-"

"This sounds great!"

"NO, YOU CAN'T DO THAT."

"Seeya Bobby!"

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Brutal Legend was a part of EA's Partners program, which means they published it.

The EA Partners co-publishing arm is dedicated to publishing and distributing games developed by third-party developers.

So distributed/published by, not funded or made by. I wouldn't know what EA's terms are, but it's probably useful for privately owned development studios that need to get their game to the masses.

(I'm turning into the EA facts-man!)

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Look, I'm not out-of-hand dismissing Sim City V because it's EA. I just think the enormous potential for it to be microtransactioned to shit is possible because it's EA. If I turn out to be wrong, fantastic! I'll play it to death. But I'll keep my worry, thanks.

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This is very exciting news! I recently looked at SimCity 4 again (after not touching it for a few years) and briefly considered loading it up again with some new mods (though the modding system seemed pretty complicated so I backed out of that plan). I also looked at Cities XL to maybe scratch that city similation itch but decided it wasn't quite what I wanted, so it's great to hear a proper sequel is coming.

The original SimCity was one of those first few games I got to run on my first PC. Not knowing a lot of English at that time I was really just clicking things and watching what happened rather than learning the game properly with a manual. Pretty quickly I knew how to plop some zones, though I didn't yet know how to set up any infrastructure. That was enough to spark my imagination though; I thought the game was totally amazing as this odd abstract thing, even though I was just looking at a landscape with some coloured boxes in it.

Many days later, I accidentally connected my zones to a power station with a power line ... and ACTUAL HOUSES APPEARED. I had no idea this game was in any way capable of rendering REAL BUILDINGS in a LIVING BREATHING CITY. My jaw hit the floor. It was one of the major moments in my gaming life.

This is not the reason I continued to enjoy SimCity, but I'll always remember that one awesome moment.

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Brutal Legend was a part of EA's Partners program, which means they published it.

So distributed/published by, not funded or made by. I wouldn't know what EA's terms are, but it's probably useful for privately owned development studios that need to get their game to the masses.

(I'm turning into the EA facts-man!)

I'm sure EA picked up funding it where Activision left off. Double Fine wouldn't have had that money just lying around.

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That's a fair point. I completely forgot about that debacle. I failed as the EA facts-man. :sad: I hang up my hat and pass it onto you, Chris, you are now the EA facts-man. Make me proud and challenge everything. ;(

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Gentlemen.

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

The game will be worlds different from the Simcity 4. Maxis Senior VP Lucy Bradshaw wants to make one thing absolutely clear. “We are adding curvy roads,” she says. “That’s really important.”

There are other changes coming as well. For the first time in the Simcity franchise, the world will no longer be confined to the borders of your own individual city.

Online and social elements where if you put a lot of polluting power plants near your borders, your friends might start to get some smoke rolling into their suburbs. You might even start to contribute to global CO2 levels.

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So it's out next year, and they can't show what it looks like? Or haven't they really announced it yet? Looking forward to actual screenshots.

And yes, curved roads!

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Some more info is out. Most disconcerting: Super heros and super villains.

Also, I wonder if the multiplayer is asynchronous. Didn't Sim City 4) have a multiplayer thing?

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Well, previous Sim Cities had aliens and such things, so a little bit of silliness is not necessarily a bad thing. Besides, how much influence would that even have on the sim part of your city?

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Well, previous Sim Cities had aliens and such things, so a little bit of silliness is not necessarily a bad thing. Besides, how much influence would that even have on the sim part of your city?

Hopefully it's just a fun little thing, and not indicative of the direction they're taking things. I want a serious game, man.

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Sim City was never that serious. We're talking about a series here that has featured gigantic robots and monsters stamping through its cities.

That trailer has completely exceeded my expectations and gotten me almost wet with excitement. ;( I want a game that has in-depth mechanics, but I'm not looking for a dull simulation — in fact I'd like the series to be even less serious than it was, though superheroes does seem to be going a bit far (unless they're Kick Ass-style). That power plant actually reminded me a lot of the one in Iron Man.

Maxis games have always had a certain amount of fun and silliness to them and I'm pleased that this seems to be embracing that rather than trying to become too cerebral to service the die-hard simulation nuts who've presumably been waiting 10 years for this and want things to be as full of sliders and sophisticated as possible.

Indeed, this game is almost certainly going to embrace what The Sims did for people — arguably Maxis's biggest series — in order to succeed, because I can't imagine the audience for serious business simulators is too big. That's the kind of tone this game is going to have, because that's what Maxis is.

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