CitiesXL Demo Available Now

[FrostyBoy]

http://www.citiesxl.com/share/newsletter/090908/newsletteren.html

Downloading as I type.

[FrostyBoy]

They're gonna make me pay to play this game!?!

[Asher]

Are you really that frickin stupid? "I HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY GAMES?????????????????"

It's a MMO. I was in the beta, it sucks.

[FrostyBoy]

There is a solo game, I am hoping that means offline.

[Guynemer]

Are you really that frickin stupid? "I HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY GAMES?????????????????"

It's a MMO. I was in the beta, it sucks.

Really? That's a shame. It looked pretty good in the previews, I've been dying for a good city builder after the botched abortion that was SimCity: Societies.

What are the problems with it?

[Asher]

It's just boring. Basically the "MMO" aspect of it simply was you needed to trade with other people to get specific resources to help continue your growth. The "social" aspect was incredibly limited, otherwise it felt just like a SimCity knockoff.

It also took 5 to 10 minutes to "save" your game. Because you don't exactly play online, when you log in and log out it synchronises/contacts the server only. This process was INSANELY slow, at least in the beta. Hilariously slow, perhaps.

[Guynemer]

So, just as a city builder, how is it?

[Jonny]

I've been playing with the demo for a few days now... as a city-builder, I think it's fairly good. Solid, but not necessarily earth-shattering. (Though I warn that my expectations might have slipped a little since the horrible joke that was Societies.)

I'm not going to rush to buy it... I'll let others see how the SP aspect of it compares first, since I don't plan to pay for this monthly.

[Adagio]

The demo was as far as I could see only one week, I stopped playing after two days (of maybe playing 30 minutes each day)

The game felt like their last city builder (City Life I believe it was called), which was a big letdown (but at least they got rid of the annoying "red hates blue", etc)
I don't like that you have to say "Here is where the poor people lives and here is where the rich people will live. Also here is where the poor people works and here is where the rich people works". I just want to zone residential and the surroundings will decide who will live here (like being close to the beach will increase house prices, while being close to dirty industry will decrease house prices, like it does in real life)

The MMO part of this game means nothing to me. I don't want to trade with other people, I want to play my own game, I don't want to bother with other people when playing a SP game

I also don't like the "The game ships with X maps". I want to make my own maps, like I did in ALL SimCity games (or at least download other peoples maps, if someone else has created an awesome map)

The game will ship with those mini-tycoon games, but I believe I'll stay away from those, sounds very boring

I do like that you can shape the road how you want it to, but the roads does have a huge problem: First you build a small road a have some houses go along the road. Some years later you decide to upgrade the road to a tiny bit bigger (the road in the game will still stay the same width...), but you will have to destroy all your houses along the road to do that small upgrade
They just "upgraded" the road here next to the building where I live... according to the game, the building I live in should have been completely destroyed

Considering that they are saying that the offline version will not have all the functionality of the full game, I seriously doubt I'm ever going to buy it. I would NEVER pay monthly to play a SP game... I wouldn't even do that for a MP game

[Guynemer]

Mini-tycoon games?

[Adagio]

Yeah, they have added some mini-tycoon games. One where you have a ski-resort and such
And they will make more to buy later...

[Guynemer]

Pfffft. Had high hopes for this.

Oh well. At least Tropico 3 looks awesome.