SimCity Demands Nine Minutes of Your Time

Definitely liking the look of this, just a shame we have to wait until next year.

I could watch this guy play SimCity all day, cannot wait for this game!

I am so excited for this game. I will play Cities XL in the meantime!

This game does look really great. So glad they streamlined the water to the roads too. No more building pipes underground. I might just have to preorder this one.

I was fascinated the whole time I watched the video.

Interesting what they're doing with the scope and focus. This definitely feels like a cross between classic Sim City and The Sims. I'm looking forward to it.

@Olqavtoras: I preordered based on this video. I don't care about origin, I don't care about DRM. I want to play this.

@Uberdubie said:

As much as I want this game, there are far too many glaring problems keeping me from purchasing it. Hands-down the biggest thing keeping me from getting this game is forced-online and forced-cloud saves. This means none of your cities will actually be on your own computer, and far more importantly, you cannot even re-load incase you make any mistakes, purposely cause disasters, or even want to test something and revert back to a previous state. Whatever you do is perminent; you're forced to live with the consequences. Kinda defeats the purpose of playing a Simcity game IMO.

And as highly popular as multiplayer is in most games these days, very few Simcity players are clamoring for it, especially since we don't get a choice. I don't think I could ever imagine Simity being anything other than a solo experience. I'd much prefer having a region of multiple towns looking and acting just as I see fit. Being forced to rely on other players also doesn't appeal to me at all. Not to mention you'll very likely be forced to use EA's horrifying "Origin" service whenever you're playing.

As mentioned above, small city size is also a concern of mine. I understand if many computers can't handle a very large city with this engine, but at least give the option. Also, for some reason you can no longer do most forms of terraforming (aka edit the land how ever you see fit). If they can manage to come to their senses and remedy many of these issues, this game will sell FAR better. But sadly I wouldn't count on it, and it's frustrating to see what they're doing with this franchise.

I couldn't agree more. And having an unstable internet connection I will not be buying this game until a offline mode (or equivalent is made.

If I had a computer that could run this well, I would be super excited for this game.

I want Vinny and Dave to build a city together.

@SamDrugbringer: True - i suppose it was short-sighted of me to pass judgement without considering the impact of editing. One can only hope it isn't simply wishful thinking on your part! All will be revealed (or not) in time.

I never got into any of the old Sim games for whatever reason, but I really want to play this.

But ... I want to watch MORE.

OMG, I need this game. NEED!

This will be great! Cant wait.

@MonkeyKing1969 said:

I'll be honest I haven't play SimCity since SimCity 2000 on my blazing fast 486DX machine. This looks like so much fun and I like they they have done away with the bane of past games - placing water piles and electrical wires. This just looks streamlined so you can worry more about your city and less about the un-fun stuff.

Man I love water pipes...I wonder where I can get a copy of sc2k.

I can't wait for this game to come out!

@skelington_: This could be wishful thinking but I think it might take more then just having a train next to it to get so many people. A few times he skipped over some of the mechanics. It could have been more complicated then that but not elaborated on.

I do wonder how it handles tourism, exactly.

It came upon me earlier why the gameplay footage i've seen so far has been so off putting; everything seems over-simplified. The idea of 'put the train station next to the casino and all the sims will gamble themselves into oblivion' is really... boring. I don't know - it just seems like you have so little to do. Water routes itself, so does electricity... there isn't any meat 'n' bones stuff, or minor infrastructure challenges to overcome - a lot of the intricacies appear to be handled for you. There's hardly anything to attract tourists to the town the developer built, yet the train has a MILLION people on it right off the bat. Eh, seems essentially like the same Sim City. Perhaps that's what people want, but i was hoping for more. It comes across like this is the easy, basic, primary colours mode where the AI does the hard work for you. I'm hoping there's more.

Now this is how you market a game EA. 10 minutes of gameplay sans dubstep.

Wait, so this isn't a social media game? I'm on board.

It's amazing what a UI can do for a game. When I looked at old SimCity games, my thoughts were basically "arcane" and "impenetrable." This looks like something I can play.

@ArmedBear said:

You seen this Simcity game? It's got curved roads. Curved. Roads.

!

Wow, it only took a few comments before someone issued a worry about it being dumbed down. Heh. :)

It's impossible to know one way or the other yet, but I'm not sure smaller city sizes would equate to "dumbed down." And I'm more interested in complexity than size when it comes to cities--I never found large cities all that fun in SimCity. But that's a gameplay preference I know not everyone shares. I am impressed by the added complexity of the resource system. I'm not sure anyone can say it's dumbed down after seeing that, even if we're no longer required to place water networks anymore.

I also like the more realistic and interesting zoning choices, the addition of upgradable buildings, etc. There's quite a bit there that's new and interesting. If they're going with small map sizes, they can adjust by giving us more control and finer detail at that level. I'm not sure if that's what they're doing--they may have just been showing us a smaller map (there were different sized maps in earlier games as well). And I imagine a large map with that much data might be difficult on system requirements.

So I'm torn over it, but overall I like the look and I could be convinced by the direction as well.

Love the day night cycle, I'm going to make a Las Vegas for sims

I NEED this!

I'll be honest I haven't play SimCity since SimCity 2000 on my blazing fast 486DX machine. This looks like so much fun and I like they they have done away with the bane of past games - placing water piles and electrical wires. This just looks streamlined so you can worry more about your city and less about the un-fun stuff.

I need this in my life. Right now.

Looks good. Why does management appeal to me?

My heart sank when I read Feburary for this one.... Can't wait

This is going to be my first Sim City game. It's so exciting.

Watching this plus Ryan Davis play SimCity gives me the biggest urge to buy every Sim game.

I have a copy of SimAnt laying around that I would want to play...except for those goddamn spiders.

Just checked Origin and they're charging 80 dollars for an edition that comes with the day 1 dlc. This is why everybody hates you E.A. I can deal with day one dlc as a preorder bonus, but charging 20 more dollars for a completely digital version of the game that comes with content that should already be in the regular product? It's insulting.

Can't wait to build Weaselopolis!

Just think if Will Wright was still at Maxis and they were still in cahoots with Firaxis. X-COM style disasters for your city, anyone?

This game looks fantastic!

man this looks so awesome! such great memories of the other sim city games

@chan05: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/08/14/simcity-coming-to-mac

@Xpgamer7 said:

I Really liked how easy it looked. But what I loved about past Sim games was their attention to detail. Seeing little things like the Garbageman not picking up garbage bins or people having super standardized stories kinda made me sad. I know such attention to detail is a lot to expect in a modern game with all the other things they put in their games, but it's the main draw for me at least.

Look again the garbage man totally grabbed the dumpster.

I will be surprised if he does not expand into brothels and race tracks later on in this city

@Uberdubie said:

As much as I want this game, there are far too many glaring problems keeping me from purchasing it. Hands-down the biggest thing keeping me from getting this game is forced-online and forced-cloud saves. This means none of your cities will actually be on your own computer, and far more importantly, you cannot even re-load incase you make any mistakes, purposely cause disasters, or even want to test something and revert back to a previous state. Whatever you do is perminent; you're forced to live with the consequences. Kinda defeats the purpose of playing a Simcity game IMO.

And as highly popular as multiplayer is in most games these days, very few Simcity players are clamoring for it, especially since we don't get a choice. I don't think I could ever imagine Simity being anything other than a solo experience. I'd much prefer having a region of multiple towns looking and acting just as I see fit. Being forced to rely on other players also doesn't appeal to me at all. Not to mention you'll very likely be forced to use EA's horrifying "Origin" service whenever you're playing.

As mentioned above, small city size is also a concern of mine. I understand if many computers can't handle a very large city with this engine, but at least give the option. Also, for some reason you can no longer do most forms of terraforming (aka edit the land how ever you see fit). If they can manage to come to their senses and remedy many of these issues, this game will sell FAR better. But sadly I wouldn't count on it, and it's frustrating to see what they're doing with this franchise.

This is depressing.

The best part of this game is going to be how every little sim in your town is going to have their own personality and wants. It will be sweet to experiment with this new feature!

Looks......... GOOD?!?!?

*Optimism kicks in...*

At first I was mildly shocked by the whole "money buys happiness" and "just dump your shit where no one will notice" thing and then I remembered "oh yeah, EA"

looks Great ! 

Biting social commentary at 2:53 in the video: "Once they get their paychecks, they'll try to spend their hard-earned money to buy happiness."

Simcity, without Will Wright. Optimistic, cautiously.

@Zaccheus said:

@Dredlockz said:

wow, this guy is such a dirtbag,

"lets give em jobs and then a way to buy happiness in some stores"

"lets just dump all the shit and trash over here and hope they don't notice"

"I want these turists spending all their money in my casino"

couple more minutes and he'd start with the sim genocide

That's... That's how the modern world works.

Could've eased him into that a bit more. Now he's gonna be depressed all day :D

@Dredlockz said:

wow, this guy is such a dirtbag,

"lets give em jobs and then a way to buy happiness in some stores"

"lets just dump all the shit and trash over here and hope they don't notice"

"I want these turists spending all their money in my casino"

couple more minutes and he'd start with the sim genocide

That's... That's how the modern world works.

That looks very good. Such a shame that it's not coming to mac :(