To the point of reserving the right to ban you from all of your purchased EA products...The beta EULA says if you're caught not reporting a bug you will be treated like you were exploiting that bug. A bit excessive...
EA retardation, the gift that keeps giving?It is understood and agreed that, as part of your participation in the Beta Program, it is your responsibility to report all known bugs, abuse of ?bugs?, ?undocumented features? or other defects and problems related to the Game and Beta Software to EA as soon as they are found (?Bugs?). If you know about a Bug or have heard about a Bug and fail to report the Bug to EA, we reserve the right to treat you no differently from someone who abuses the Bug. You acknowledge that EA reserve the right to lock anyone caught abusing a Bug out of all EA products.?
I bet you a dollar that the average desktop pc would handle all of the necessary calculations just fine, even if the cities were still SC4 sized. I agree that it does sound like it could potentially be a more interesting simulation if the discrete agents were implemented in the right way. But I think that trying to pass a village simulator off as if it were a city simulator is absolutely not the right way.The end result should (no guarantees mind you) be a much more robust and genuinely dynamic / interesting simulation experience. The tradeoff is that the cities will need to be much much smaller initially to prevent the game from grinding to a halt as all these seperate calculations are taking place in real time. The danger for Maxis/EA is just as we see here, the average end user doesnt care what is under the hood but rather is only interested in the game they see before them. In order for all this effort to be worthwhile it really does need to manifest in a more robust simulation or else there was no point.
I never looked into mods or custom content for SC4 - any tips to get me started? What's the basics/most required assets?The problem with them trying to make a new Simcity is that Simcity 4 is already basically the ultimate city builder. Really the biggest thing it can't do is real curved roads, where the zones actually line up neatly around the curves. Other than that, once you factor in all the user-made content (I have downloaded 3 GB of custom content) it's really not missing much. Trying to make a fully 3D game like the new Simcity just limits the size of the game too much because computers can't keep up. They should have just remade Simcity 4 with curved roads and called it good. I certainly won't be playing the new one. The maps are humorously tiny. In Simcity 4 you can literally make a city as big as you want, 50x50 miles if you want. In the new Simcity it's like one medium tile, and you can't even connect your cities together because there are gaps between them. They are just trying to appeal too much to kids and not the hardcore crowd.
For years, people have used Beta as a free trial and/or to get a leg up when the game goes live. I'm ok with this provided it's not used for stupid stuff like typos. If there's evidence you're just there to find exploits to use for your benefit when it goes live, then I'm ok with this policy. Your responsibility, as a beta tester and not a paying customer, is to report any bugs that you find. I actually hope this becomes more common.The beta EULA says if you're caught not reporting a bug you will be treated like you were exploiting that bug. A bit excessive...
It doesn't matter if they actually give a shit or not. What matters is what's in the EULA. To just hope that the clauses in a contract won't be used is foolish, and most certainly should be considered when evaluating whether or not you want to take part in the product.Come on guys, you think EA gives a shit if you dupe yourself the ultimate city?
Here is a good start for mods:http://community.simtropolis.com/top...d-suggestions/I never looked into mods or custom content for SC4 - any tips to get me started? What's the basics/most required assets?
This is part of the amazon email that I received this morning.The Amazon Video Games team thanks you for pre-ordering "SimCity" for PC / Mac. Your purchase has entitled you to access the SimCity beta for PC, available from 9:00am PST 1/25/13 until 12:01am PST 1/28/13.
See "Your promotional code" above.
1) Install the latest version of Origin (www.origin.com/download).
2) Launch and log in to Origin. If you do not have an Origin account, click the "Create an Account" link on the login screen.
3) Once you've logged in, select the "Origin" tab. Click "Redeem Product Code" and enter your promotional code.
4) Beginning January 25 at 9:00am PST, go to "My Games" to download and install the SimCity beta.
5) When the installation is complete, press "Play" to launch SimCity. The beta ends at 12:01am PST on January 28.
Yeah I don't get it either but I bet a lot of their target demographic does.I believe EA is still entrenched in this idea that people are willing/wanting to follow the everyday activities of the individual inhabitants of the city. You can pick a sim and see their home, follow them to work, catch their mood, help them find a new home, a good place to eat.....but who gives a fuck? I want to build a city! Not make sure johnny gets to school on time. All of that agent stuff is fine and dandy but i, as a gamer, don't care. And i for sure won't see it since i'll spend 90% of the time scrolled way the fuck out thinking of the big picture and trying to cram thousands into skyscrapers since my arcologies were taken away.
That is to say i refuse to play this game on the premise of this being The SIMS scrolled out to encompass four neighborhoods instead of one. Now where's my SC2000 installer....