SimCity: I put on my top hat and mayor's sash.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > SimCity: I put on my top hat and mayor's sash.

ExtraNoise: Apr 11, 2007

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME NO MATTER WHAT THE THIS POST SAYS, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. IT IS BROKEN AND WOULD BE A WASTE OF YOUR MONEY.

Join #simcity on irc.synirc.net to play cities with other goons!

Some handy charts and stuff everyone should read!

Please read the FAQ below. If you ask "How do I upgrade roads?" one more time, I'm going to start hitting the report button.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF0ZprCH2g

A new SimCity has been released!

Yes, actually developed by Maxis.

Yes, by quite a few of the same people who made the previous SimCity titles.

But it's not SimCity 5; it's a reboot of the franchise that's more like a twenty-four year successor to the original 1989 SimCity than it is a direct successor to 2003's SimCity 4.

SimCity throws you into a game where you are mayor of a city (non-existent when you start) and you're tasked with building it from the ground up. Create jobs, build a transportation network, lay down neighborhoods for families, and then improve the quality of life for your Sims � the virtual inhabitants of your city � so that they'll continue to keep you in office. On top of this you'll need to balance a budget, find and resell resources to other players, and continue to expand your city's boundaries and improve services offered.

A History of the Franchise

SimCity 4 was released in 2003 and was met with critical acclaim but suffered in sales in the wake of the success that was The Sims. A follow-up title, SimCity Societies (developed by another studio), was released in 2007 but was a commercial flop, and Maxis was restructured and refocused to work almost exclusively on TheSims 2 expansions and TheSims 3 and its later expansions. By 2009, it was believed we may never see another true SimCity title.

The final nail in the coffin was Cities XL which was praised as a successor and then became a disaster (that certainly had some redeeming qualities, but not enough) and was a certain sign that EA would never sign off on another city building simulator because there was no market for them. But apparently the gears were already at work inside of Maxis, who was developing a new game engine called GlassBox that they anticipated to use to redevelop some of their older titles. Their first project? SimCity.

Features people are raving about!

- There are curved roads.

- Each region is multiplayer, allowing you to build cities and trade resources with your friends.

- There is a global market, allowing your cities that specialize in certain resources to distribute those resources to other cities/players for cash.

- Charts/graphs have been replaced in the game with stylized "Infographic" data charts overlayed on the city itself.

- Certain buildings are modular and can be expanded upon to affect the areas of the cities they are placed in differently. These include public buildings, civic buildings, and parks, among others.

- Cars/Sims in the game are persistent Agents and will go about their daily lives instead of fading in and out when they reach a destination. Each Sim that you see represents someone in the city, so if they're late for work (stuck in traffic), the building they work in will produce less and can cause it to shut down. They are all individually named, too!

- The "Agent" system assigns sims their daily housing and working environment. Agents are sent from buildings to meet requirements from other buildings.

- Buildings on-screen will affect the background music to give you an idea a particular area is doing.

- There are mass transit options such as busses, trams, and trains. Rumor has it that more will be added in the future.

- There are no more zone density types. Zones will grow in density as they meet certain conditions including demand and land value. You can limit growth based on road types.

Features people are raving-mad about!

- Forced online connection in order to play the game.

- Cities are saved to the server. There are no local saves. You cannot save, destroy your city with disasters, and then reload from the save.

- Cities are limited to roughly 2 square kilometers. This is about the same size as a "Medium" city in SimCity 4. There are reports that Maxis is looking to expand this in the future, but no information has been released yet with details.

- Modding is unofficially supported. More details to come as people crack open the game.

- There is no terraforming.

- There are no custom regions.

- Regions feature lots of "empty" space between cities, which at this time are big grassy plains. There are auto-generated highways that run between the cities that you cannot control.

- Tilt-shift mode. (I kind of like it.)

- Buildings situated along curved roads are not "wall-to-wall". Buildings are not dynamically shaped, leaving some dead-space between buildings. Right now that dead-space is all patchy grass, but fans are hoping there is a Cities XL-style system to plop in plazas, parking lots, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the game come out?
It is available on March 5, 2013 (US), March 7 worldwide, and March 8 (UK) for PC. Mac will be available soon (Spring 2013). You will be required to use Origin to download and play.

I'm concerned about city size. They seem so small!
That's not really a question, dear reader. But as someone who was upset with small city size initially, let me lessen your fears in saying that the game is very fun, even on a smaller scale, and that I was too busy managing my city to bother with attempting to min-max the game to its borders.

Will city sizes be increased?
Maxis has mentioned a few times that there may be long-term plans to increase the borders of cities, but has them purposefully limited to decrease simulator workload and increase the need for city specializations.

How many cities are there per region?
Regions have between two and sixteen city plots, plus a handful of "Great Works" locations. You can play in up to 10 regions at a time.

Are there seasons?
Yes! Just no snow in winter. Time works differently in this game, based on "hours" that pass during the day that slowly advance each month and year. The game will cycle through each season, however, when it gets to the appropriate month.

Do I have to play the tutorial over again?
You don't. Click on the menu in game and select Main Menu. From there you can play normally.

Do I have to bulldoze all of my roads to upgrade them?
No! There is a small button under the road placement type buttons that allows for you to "Upgrade Roads" by clicking on them and selecting which upgrade or downgrade option you would like.

How do I zone entire blocks without dragging around the edge?
Hold down CTRL and it will "fill in" the block with the selected zone.

Why does transferring simoleans seem to take so long?
It's agent based: A sim gets in their car, suitcase full of money in-hand, and drives to the neighboring city. It can take awhile if you have traffic problems.

I'm being asked to build a Trade Depot. Where are city specialization buildings?
There is a small button (shield icon) in the lower left corner of the user interface that allows you to build city specializations, including the Trade Depot (and Casinos or whatever).

How are Sims named? Can I name my own?
You can't name your own, unfortunately. You can import them, somehow, from TheSims 3 through some trick of magic that I don't fully understand. I believe it involves sacrificing a goat. The names you see in the game are randomly generated from the 1,000 most popular first and last names in the U.S.

How do I disable the blurry effect (Tilt-Shift effect)?
To disable tilt-shift (or at least turn it down), check out the graphics options and select "Less" under the drop-down menu.

How do I change the color of my game? Everything is too bright and colorful and I hate prettiness. (Also maybe I'm colorblind.)
The options to change the camera "filters" are located under the game settings. It's a big drop-down list that includes a bunch of different filters to view your cities in. I prefer "Warmer". There are options for individuals with colorblindness as well, so they can view the information on the screen.

How do I restart my city?
Admit defeat and get the bulldozer warmed up: There's no reset.

I don't really care about cities, but I like zombies. Are there zombies?
One of the disasters is a simulated zombie outbreak that will spread from sim to sim, forcing your police force to kill the infected before it gets out of hand and destroys your entire population.

Can I reticulate splines?
This is actually the first game in the entire series that allows you to do it, because all the roads are real splines now. Reticulate away!

quote:

A park. I blame a park for a city of dead, irradiated, burnt sims.

Here's the story:

My city was doing nicely, earning a decent profit and had good service coverage. High density buildings had started sprouting up in my core downtown area after upgrading my roads, but they werent a huge burden to the city and I was handling things. I built a nuclear power plant and, now supplying the region with lots of power, took down my old windmill. The city was well educated and running smoothly.

I decided that downtown could use a little urban renewal, so I built a plaza.

Immediately the new high-wealth skyscrapers started to spring up. It halfed my total population, as everyone who was living in the buildings that were just there were kicked out in the name of new development. But that was where all the smart sims lived!

The nuclear plant immediately started issuing warnings of a lack of educated workers, and that's when things got hairy. The plant melted down. A wave of radiation washed over my city, killing hundreds.

With the power now out, and no money for a backup, the clinics filled up and then shut down. The schools shut down. Police. The fire departments.

Sims, homeless and without jobs because their factories and offices were closed, began turning to crime. Crime led to arsons. And that's when the great fire broke out, consuming what was left of the city that wasn't completely sick and decayed.

In less than a year, the city went from a thriving metropolis to a burned crater, glowing and full of criminals and fires.

All because of a park.

xzzy posted:

Had a cozy little town going, but the main avenue was getting a lot of traffic backed up during the morning and evening commutes. City was perfectly stable, I was making enough money to experiment with some upgrades and was generally having fun exploring the game. Without thinking I upgraded the avenue. and suddenly a bunch of medium density buildings converted themselves into an unbroken row of skyscrapers. They looked like the magnificent mile in Chicago.

All the sudden I had thousands of unfilled jobs and I wasn't making money any more because the vacant towers weren't generating any taxes. After a few minutes my industrial sector also got pissed off because no one was accepting their freight and then they started shutting down.

Worst part was it didn't do jack poo poo to help the traffic problems.

Badfinger posted:

Making the highway right through town also be a major artery to get to places IN town is horribly dicking me over. Traffic is terrible and it's causing people to miss work, which is causing them to be homeless, which is causing buildings to be abandoned, which is causing crime, which is causing me to spend more money on police infrastructure (but I can't spend it on the really fancy police station because I can't afford it, so I'm band-aiding it over with the cheaper ones which end up costing more overall), but there are homeless people so I'm losing out anyway because I'm not getting enough tax revenue, but the traffic is still so loving bad that my police cars and fire trucks are in horrible traffic jams and can't stop the crimes (example crime: arson). Traffic so bad that the common cry of "why aren't people pulling over? Why aren't the emergency response services using the unused lanes?!" have no merit to me because all the lanes are jammed for HOURS. And guess what? When the skyscraper on the avenue is the one that's catching fire, then the fire trucks are the ones causing the traffic jams. Hooray for me.

quote:

My jerk friend built a nuclear power plant in a neighbouring city but refused to educate workers enough to properly run it. In essence, he had elementary school educated adults running a nuclear reactor. It eventually melted down when they mistook a control button for a soother, and the radiation cloud is going to arrive in my city soon. When I found out this happened, a tornado appeared in my wealthy downtown core and took out about a thousand people. Welp.

Mandalay posted:

To alleviate traffic congestion, I added an extensive streetcar fleet running a perimeter loop around my city, as well as one spur through the central avenue that runs from the highway to the coast. To help circulation, I also added an avenue on the edge as well.

My incoming traffic backed up to the next city over. You know all that green space people are complaining about as empty? Nope. Full of cars. Outgoing traffic was paralyzed too.

Then a taxi stopped on the side of the main avenue for days. And my oil tanker got stuck behind that. My city ran out of power due to lack of oil and negative tailspin bankruptcy hoooo

quote:

I finally got a sweet processor/computer/television industry going, when a giant lizard monster rampages through my nuclear power plant and renders the city uninhabitable due to radiation. All my high-wealth, high-education, high-density stuff turned to mud huts instantly. There's nobody around smart enough to work in my high-tech industry, and nobody even smart enough to recycle things so that I can produce more plastic and alloy for my industry anyway.

BULBASAUR posted:

Remember my hilarious soviet dystopia of coal, oil, zero social services? Monday night I made a mistake. After watching an alarmingly large part of my population die in the streets from pollution I built a school and a clinic. BIG mistake. Suddenly the plebs got dangerous thoughts and started to DEMAND things from the people's mayorship of lowtaxastan. Riots broke out. People packed up and left the city.

I vowed to demolish the troublesome school and clinic when I got home.

Instead I built more schools, clinics, and a ton of parks. My population started to decline even more so I built even more parks and social services before rezoning everything into heavy. The net result basically looks like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxq7U0oNuCE

This thread contains much of the following. You have been warned.

ExtraNoise fucked around with this message at May 2, 2013 around 15:54

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:17

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# ? May 19, 2013 12:42

ExtraNoise: Apr 11, 2007

And now a thing that needs to be read.

Sydney Bottocks posted:

For anyone who's wandered into this thread and wondered if buying SimCity is a good idea, but can't be bothered to read a bunch of pages, let me give you a quick recap:

SimCity gets released to much hoopla after some preview videos and a very short and limited series of closed betas where people get enough time to whet their appetite but not much more.

The release is an absolute disaster because of EA's requirement that the game is "always online" (with the oft-repeated claim that being online is totally necessary because it will offload calculations that would otherwise just absolutely punish gamers' rigs, and absolutely not because it is a form of DRM. No siree bob, nuh uh no way no how); and yet amazingly enough EA, after resounding MMO successes like Warhammer Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic, just completely under-anticipated the need for actual game servers for people to play their "always online" game. This made the game completely unplayable for many people since they couldn't play it offline and they couldn't get onto a server. And even if they did get online, the server was as stable as a tower of Jell-O and would often kick people out or wipe their cities (the latter is still happening for many players).

Finally the server situation is stabilized enough for more people to get to grips with the game, which is revealed to be surprisingly shallow, requiring people to use numerous methods of gameplay that are actually counter-intuitive to city builder games. The game is rife with pathing issues, as vehicles will choose the shortest route every time, even if it's actually slower. Fire trucks and other emergency vehicles dispatch en masse to fires, with all trucks arriving to a single fire (even if other buildings elsewhere in the city are burning). All of this is before you even take into account that the game actually does not allow you to build a city the way you want (both due to the limit on city sizes and the fact that the "always online" "social" component actually forces people to build "specialized" cities instead of the usual traditional R/C/I mixture).

As people get to grips with all this, more enterprising gamers start to delve under the hood, in the hopes that they can find a way to mod the game for offline play (which they do after a fashion, and I believe it was subsequently denounced by EA/Maxis as a "hack" that could cause gamers to get banned). Many of the game's dirty little secrets are discovered: the "always online" component is literally two lines of code that ping the servers and kill the game if there is no response after a period of time. The highly-touted "agents" system is at least partly responsible for all the game's traffic congestion issues, as it merely sends agents to available tasks (houses, jobs, etc.) all at once, with every agent converging on the first place until it is full, then moving on down to the second, and so forth, with the result being that the game's Sims actually just go from random house to random job to another random house to another random job, repeat as necessary. This also has the hilarious unintended side effect of having uneducated Sims actually go work at the nuke power plant (which requires educated Sims), while educated Sims sit at home and lament their unemployment (at least, until the nuke power plant melts down and kills everyone). Speaking of unemployment, it is also discovered that the game actually fudges population numbers, so that the game will literally complain about unemployed Sims that do not even exist. I could go on about many of the game's other horribly broken features but I think you get the point. I should also add that many devs confirmed that a lot of the game's problems were intentional, either by omission or by the fact that many of the broken features were intentionally designed that way. One dev gave a talk where he actually said "you should always be asking 'what can I remove from this game?'"

Oh and it's also discovered that all the offline calculations EA/Maxis claim the game does to their servers is actually complete fiction and there is no actual need for the "always online" requirement beyond saving games in their server cloud. No calculations actually take place on EA's servers and the game is perfectly capable of running offline (apart from the previously mentioned saving of games).

During all this time, EA and Maxis delivered a fascinating example of How Not To Do PR, as they stubbornly refused to accept even a single shred of responsibility. Instead, EA/Maxis blamed everyone from the gamers (who overloaded their servers and don't understand their "vision" for the game) to the games industry media (for either being too negative towards the game, or for hyping it too much, I forget which), with particular bile reserved for the Consumerist. This is because EA managed to handily win their second "Worst Company in America" award in a row from the Consumerist. EA's Peter Moore then claims the reason they won this is because of angry conservatives voting against EA in the Consumerist's poll because of EA's LGBT-friendly policies. Either that or angry sports fans voting against EA in the same poll because they didn't like whatever player/athlete was featured on a given EA Sports game's box. I am not making this up.

Additionally, EA told people they could flat-out get hosed on a refund (even when, depending on the country, there were actually legal protections in place that mandated EA had to issue a refund). In some cases EA begrudgingly issued refunds, in other places people were either forced to seek refunds via the point of purchase for non-Origin-based purchases (Amazon in particular should be commended, as they took most people's requests for refunds cheerfully and quickly), or by issuing a charge-back thru their credit card provider/bank. Incensed by people actually wanting their money back for such a lovely game, EA ran around banning users and game key codes willy-nilly (many of the affected keys were ones issued via Amazon, which in several cases hosed over people who hadn't actually contacted Amazon for a refund). EA finally begrudgingly offered an olive branch to gamers in the form of a "free game". This offer consisted of a bunch of games that generally required paid DLC to play successfully, and Sim City 4. The "free games" were then subsequently highly discounted during a sale on Origin. Again, I am not making this poo poo up.

Oh and somewhere in there EA's CEO finally resigned, and I think one of the top guys at Maxis left. And throughout it all EA and Maxis just kept their heads buried right in the sand, issuing increasingly and condescending press releases about how "millions of people" were still playing SimCity even after it became apparent that they had a huge failure on their hands. After a while, EA/Maxis seemingly went silent and apart from the announcement of the much-vaunted 2.0 patch (which will arrive next Tuesday and looks to be completely underwhelming), they have finally figured out that it's best to keep mum, since every time they open their mouths they have to extract a football team's worth of feet from it.

If you managed to slog your way through all that text and still think SimCity is worth a buy, then by all means do so. I think you'd get more enjoyment out of just setting $60 (or whatever the game costs now, last I knew several US retailers had it at half-price or even possibly less than that) afire and roasting marshmallows over it, but to each their own. vv

Also: Don't buy Cities XL. It sucks.

ExtraNoise fucked around with this message at Apr 22, 2013 around 07:32

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:18

Bar Mitzvah: Feb 24, 2009

Nice OT - putting in my pre-order now. Small cities be damned!

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:23

Le0: Mar 18, 2009; Rotten investigator!

New thread

Can't wait for this game release, sucks I need to wait another day, at least I'm not a Briton

I love this screen, it gives me SC4 vibes

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:24

Eej: Jun 17, 2007; HEAVYARMS

At this ribbon cutting ceremony for the new thread I hope we strive to post with thought and civility, leaving the remnants of the old, decrepit thread in the past where it shall be forgotten.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:25

ExtraNoise: Apr 11, 2007

Eej posted:

At this ribbon cutting ceremony for the new thread I hope we strive to post with thought and civility, leaving the remnants of the old, decrepit thread in the past where it shall be forgotten.

What old thread?

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:28

Chinatown: Sep 11, 2001

Y'all ready to waste poo poo loads of your time playing dis?

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:29

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007; CLAM DOWN EVERYONE!!!!

Nice OP, those screenshots make me super excited for Tuesday. Everyone join IRC and hang out and coordinate your regions!

vvv Origin is not gonna die, so may as well get over your silly hatred and not skip out what is looking to be a very enjoyable game.

CLAM DOWN fucked around with this message at Mar 4, 2013 around 06:39

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:37

hemophilia: Dec 28, 2006; Bloody

I want so badly to be excited by this. It looks fun, but that -con list in the OP reads like a list of everything I hate about the industry, and EA. Plus, the very thought of tainting my precious virginal PC with Origin is pissing me off.

I'll end up buying this anyway, won't I?

My desire to see Origin die will have to be weighted against what could very well be a good game. I guess I'm in wait-and-see mode right now.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:38

Sober: Nov 19, 2011

Sorry for making GBS threads up the first page with preorder nonsense, but anyone get it from GMG? Curious if they are giving their store credit immediately if I buy it from them (forums seem to suggest they have keys). Because in that case I would probably love to drop that 10$ on Chivalry (with the voucher).

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:39

Mandalay: Mar 16, 2007; WoW Forums Refugee

Eej posted:

At this ribbon cutting ceremony for the new thread I hope we strive to post with thought and civility, leaving the remnants of the old, decrepit thread in the past where it shall be forgotten.

Hopefully the awesome OP will help with this.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:40

zxqv8: Oct 21, 2010; Did somebody call about a Ravager problem?

I feel so good that I got this at $40.00.

Looking forward to being bad at mayoring with goons.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:41

DaveKap: Feb 5, 2006; Pickle: Inspected.

Anyone else pre-order with GMG about 2-3 months ago and still not get their key? I'm worried I won't get mine before release, whereas anyone purchasing right now is getting their key.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:42

Kazy: Oct 23, 2006; DON'T TRY THIS, KIDS AT HOME

I preordered this after playing the beta, and seeing the OP made me excited that it was out. Opened Origin only to find out it is still a day away

Anyway, how do I get the SC betas out of my origin list?

(Origin name is KitFm if anyone wants to add me)

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:45

Sankis: Mar 8, 2004; But I remember the fella who told me. Big lad. Arms as thick as oak trees, a stunning collection of scars, nice eye patch. A REAL therapist he was. Er wait. Maybe it was rapist?

That shot in the OP with all of the trees alongside the road almost looks like it's a bunch of miniatures from a train set or something. I'm really digging the look of the game. Can't wait for tuesday.

Kazy posted:

I preordered this after playing the beta, and seeing the OP made me excited that it was out. Opened Origin only to find out it is still a day away

Anyway, how do I get the SC betas out of my origin list?

(Origin name is KitFm if anyone wants to add me)

I don't think you can get rid of it forever (I still have the BF3 beta somewhere) but if you right click and hit "hide" it'll disappear off into another menu.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:45

Comrade Flynn: Jun 1, 2003; Do you not hear that?! That's "Puttin' On The Ritz", man!

I played this at Gamescom in Europe then tried my best to forget about it. It was very fun even then; I can't wait to see how much better it is now.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:46

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fire Sights and LED Lights

ESC 2010 Never Forget

Amazon is still offering a $20 gift card when you buy SimCity.

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Pc/dp/B007FTE2VW/

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:47

TheOrange: Jan 11, 2007; !

Kazy posted:

I preordered this after playing the beta, and seeing the OP made me excited that it was out. Opened Origin only to find out it is still a day away

Anyway, how do I get the SC betas out of my origin list?

(Origin name is KitFm if anyone wants to add me)

I think you can right click and Hide it? I still have the Battlefield 3 beta showing in mine.

Looking forward to this, I missed both betas but watching live streams and seeing feedback has made me feel like its worth getting. Origin name is Jthom252, though I have no idea when I'm going to have time to play this.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:48

Fergus Mac Roich: Nov 5, 2008

Betas and demos stay in your Origin library forever, but unlike Steam, Origin lets you arbitrarily hide anything in your library.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:48

Factum est: Aug 7, 2007; ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

less than three posted:

Amazon is still offering a $20 gift card when you buy SimCity.

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Pc/dp/B007FTE2VW/

Does this apply to the digital version? Or simply the physical version?

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:58

Ray and Shirley: Jan 30, 2003; oh poop

less than three posted:

Amazon is still offering a $20 gift card when you buy SimCity.

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Pc/dp/B007FTE2VW/

And here I was trying to figure out where to pick this up. Thanks!

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:59

Rhontos: Oct 19, 2011

Factum est posted:

Does this apply to the digital version? Or simply the physical version?

Just the physical version from what I can tell

# ? Mar 4, 2013 06:59

Factum est: Aug 7, 2007; ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

Rhontos posted:

Just the physical version from what I can tell

Good to know, thanks! I guess I'll pick this up through Origin for their $20 credit.

I have no Origin friends, so if anyone wants to add me so we can play GoonCity together my Origin name is DrainTheOceans.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:01

Bar Mitzvah: Feb 24, 2009

Factum est posted:

Good to know, thanks! I guess I'll pick this up through Origin for their $20 credit.

I have no Origin friends, so if anyone wants to add me so we can play GoonCity together my Origin name is DrainTheOceans.

It's only 20 dollar credit on their list of redeemable games. Spoiler: The list isn't particularly earth shattering.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:05

Factum est: Aug 7, 2007; ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

Bar Mitzvah posted:

It's only 20 dollar credit on their list of redeemable games. Spoiler: The list isn't particularly earth shattering.

Yeah, saw that right before I checked out, and went with Amazon even if that means waiting an extra two days. Oh EA

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:08

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fire Sights and LED Lights

ESC 2010 Never Forget

Factum est posted:

Yeah, saw that right before I checked out, and went with Amazon even if that means waiting an extra two days. Oh EA

Amazon usually ships preorders the day before, so you get it release day or next day. You also don't fight everyone else to download 12GB from the SimCity servers.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:20

Sober: Nov 19, 2011

If Amazon Canada can get release day shipping even when I order it literally the night before it comes out, then Amazon US should be no problem. (I even picked free shipping)

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:21

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007; CLAM DOWN EVERYONE!!!!

Sober posted:

Amazon Canada

Sober posted:

release day shipping

What the hell is this wizardry

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:23

Sober: Nov 19, 2011

CLAM DOWN posted:

What the hell is this wizardry

I ordered some books. Didn't care when they arrived, so free shipping.

I didn't want to download Max Payne 3, so I decided on buying a hard copy to install instead. Also didn't care when it arrived, so free shipping.

Shows up the next day, both shipments in one box, probably because of release day shipping on Max Payne 3

To be fair, the warehouse is literally like an hour drive away.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:26

Whizbang: Sep 21, 2008

I can't wait to poo poo up your regions with my supervillain and pollution filled city! I'm gonna be the best sim Detroit.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:31

Rand alPaul: Feb 3, 2010; Cody Ross 2.0

Whizbang posted:

I can't wait to poo poo up your regions with my supervillain and pollution filled city! I'm gonna be the best sim Detroit.

I always make an industrial nightmare city in every SimCity. I name mine Dick Cheney's America and turn the rivers and air brown with soot.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:48

Carlos Spicywiener: Sep 8, 2011; Moustache fart.

Le0 posted:

I love this screen, it gives me SC4 vibes

Gave me SC3000 vibes to be honest.

Definitely not a bad thing though.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:49

Tytan: Sep 17, 2011; Som Muay Dtiet

Release dates are based on your current location right, not on where the game was purchased from? My Origin seems to default to Singapore, I guess that means I'll be getting the March 7 release? Probably won't be able to play until the weekend anyway. If any regions are lacking a crime-ridden casino hellhole by that point, shoot me an invite! (I'm in the Google doc)

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:52

WHAT A GOOD DOG: Dec 20, 2012; THAT'S A GOOD DOG

Tytan posted:

Release dates are based on your current location right, not on where the game was purchased from? My Origin seems to default to Singapore, I guess that means I'll be getting the March 7 release? Probably won't be able to play until the weekend anyway. If any regions are lacking a crime-ridden casino hellhole by that point, shoot me an invite! (I'm in the Google doc)

How about a puke and dead-body riddled shithole? I will be toilet king of Titan's Brown and Crusty Gorge.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:54

ndub: Jun 9, 2007

How many DLCs are there going to be? Are they going full retard like BF3 again?

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:57

Sankis: Mar 8, 2004; But I remember the fella who told me. Big lad. Arms as thick as oak trees, a stunning collection of scars, nice eye patch. A REAL therapist he was. Er wait. Maybe it was rapist?

ndub posted:

How many DLCs are there going to be? Are they going full retard like BF3 again?

What was wrong with BF3's dlc? It was 4 mini-expansions for $60.

I'd expect there to be a lot because this is Maxis. Probably a ton of cosmetic stuff along the lines of the digital deluxe city sets with some actual content next year.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 07:59

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007; CLAM DOWN EVERYONE!!!!

ndub posted:

How many DLCs are there going to be? Are they going full retard like BF3 again?

We have no idea what kind of DLC there will be. And what Sankis^^^ said about BF3, what are you talking about. A lot of people even got the first one for free if they bought the special edition at launch. So paid 3 mini-expansions for me personally, that's it. Are you opposed to additional content or something?

# ? Mar 4, 2013 08:01

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012; Groo!

ExtraNoise posted:

I don't really care about cities, but I like zombies. Are there zombies?
One of the disasters is a simulated zombie outbreak that will spread from sim to sim, forcing your police force to kill the infected before it gets out of hand and destroys your entire population.

Screw sim-Detroit, I want sim Left 4 Dead. Too bad I don't get paid this week...

# ? Mar 4, 2013 08:04

PicklesMcGillicuddy: May 28, 2010; I DO NOT EAT HUMAN FOOD; I ONLY EAT
PINE CONES

DaveKap posted:

Anyone else pre-order with GMG about 2-3 months ago and still not get their key? I'm worried I won't get mine before release, whereas anyone purchasing right now is getting their key.

When I preordered Borderlands 2 from them, I got mine pretty much the day before release.

Carlos Spicywiener posted:

Gave me SC3000 vibes to be honest.

Definitely not a bad thing though.

I honest to god thought that was a SC3000 screenshot when I first saw it. Again though, not a bad thing.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 08:05

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 19, 2013 12:42

ndub: Jun 9, 2007

It wasn't my intent to incite an argument with that comment, just thought the parade of map packs was pretty cash grabby - the playerbase for them tends to dry up pretty fast, from my experience.

Appreciate the answer about them not announcing any (yet), where's the best deal to preorder and for how much? Not totally sold, but seeing that they don't have any extra content ready to go at release is kind of unusual for EA, in a good way.

# ? Mar 4, 2013 08:06

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