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The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

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Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#61

How big can the city be?

In comparison to Sim City 5 basically huge. I only have 6 or so tiles unlocked (of 25 ?) and it's already bigger than SC5.

By default you can only unlock 9 of the 25 tiles. Largely for performance reasons I think but there is a mod that will enable you to buy all 25 (2km x 2km) squares, giving you a 100 sq km area to build your city.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#62
post #53

I think we are all playing into EA's strategy by calling it Maxis instead of just EA. Simcity 2013 was a failure of EA, but by mentioning Maxis 11 times and EA only once (and in passing), it's as they give EA a carte blanche to fail without the lowered reputation for future games (which means many people will preorder, and so on)

Honestly I think Maxis deserves a ton of blame as well. They operate semi-autonomously for how long and they routinely churned out terrible games. On reddit, I see far more people blame EA than I do Maxis. And while I'm all for EA getting a ton of bad press, I think it's bs that nobody points a finger at Maxis because they're just as guilty, imo. Nostalgia for 90s and early 00s Maxis is blinding people from the reali…

And honestly their strong suit was never the software itself so much as the awesome ideas that came from the Will Wright, Jeff Braun, and their team. For instance, The Sims. Not a great game technically, not much innovation there are far as game play. In fact it's quite generic. But the idea of creating an AI-driven character that has it's own emotions, it's own life? That's legendary stuff. But they've always seemed to try to appeal to the masses, watering down their games to the point that they become boring over the years. Their games went from interesting complex simulations to disney-like worlds where everything is nicely polished, but not very intriguing.

And this doesn't even factor in all the mistakes that EA has made.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#63
post #58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think Maxis deserves a ton of blame as well. They operate semi-autonomously for how long and they routinely churned out terrible games. On reddit, I see far more people blame EA than I do Maxis. And while I'm all for EA getting a ton of bad press, I think it's bs that nobody points a finger at Maxis because they're just as guilty, imo. Nostalgia for 90s and early 00s Maxis is blinding people from the reali…

Yes, but there is a pattern of EA ruining previously good development houses. It's like expression, "The common element of all your failed relationships is you."

I don't really think that's a pattern.

I think it's a result in AAA development in general being in a slump.

If anything, I'd say Ubisoft (outside of one or two lone bright spots like Rayman) has been worse than EA the last few years, with the rotten cherry of Uplay on top.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#64
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Austin, this seems like a fairly realistic problem.

I lived near Austin my whole life and just assumed traffic was that bad everywhere...after I relocated to Portland, I realized how truly miserable driving anywhere in Austin actually is.

Pop up to Seattle if you get homesick.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#65
post #56
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's iterative; it's definitely "picking up the pieces" Do you mind elaborating?

Paradox Interactive also published Crusader Kings 2, which came out in 2012, and its latest free update was Feb. 16. They support their games for a long time.

Another fantastic game. I've sunk a lot of hours into that one.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#66
post #56
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's iterative; it's definitely "picking up the pieces" Do you mind elaborating?

Paradox Interactive also published Crusader Kings 2, which came out in 2012, and its latest free update was Feb. 16. They support their games for a long time.

CK2 is made by a totally different developer.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is encouragement from the game to build alternative transport options like light rail, trams, move jobs closer to residential districts or establish suburbs to lower city population, tax cars more, build bike lanes, build more sidewalks, etc. In real life, there's not usually a solution for traffic. If you build out more streets, people are incentivized to drive more. I'd love this game to be this realisti…

Im hesitant to say that's the intended result but it is what happens. I found myself planning new districts entirely around this problem with bus, metro, and pedestrian walkways (maybe its just me but right now commuter rail seems to be basically unused and doesn't seem to do anything). So it definitely does force you to think about how you're laying out your city and plan things out beyond then just tossing down a g…

A post about this happened to cross /r/all this morning:

http://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/2zfx70/if_yo...

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#68
It's amazing what a small team with a great vision can do. They had the expertise and delivered what customers wanted.

It's also sad how a large company can lose track of what made its previous products so great. EA tried to "innovate" SimCity 5, except they were "innovating" the game for themselves (e.g. get users online to make it easier to buy upgrades), not the end-user. Gamers did not want a multiplayer-based city simulation with limited scale and broken mechanics.

Re: The 'SimCity' Empire Has Fallen and 'Skylines' Is Picking Up the Pieces

#69

Skylines is a great game, with great mod support... ...that retails for $30 (can get it for less on sites like greenmangaming.com). That part blows my mind.

Do you think $30 is cheap or expensive? I, for one, think it's exactly the right price.
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