Jait
Molten Core Raider
- 5,035
- 5,317
SimCity
- Thread starter Araxen
- Start date
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
- 49,501
- 88,255
I know these guys are professionals but when I read shit like
It makes me wonder wtf they were thinking. Cost-based pathing is graph theory 101. I've literally never seen a real pathing algorithm that doesn't take cost into account and I have no idea how one could ever implement a city simulator with shortest distance pathing.article_sl said:
Cantatus
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,437
- 79
That's not the part that gets me. The thing that gets me: No one noticed this prior to launch? No one spoke up and said, "Hey, having cars always take the shortest route means a lot of roads will be unused and therefore pointless. That's sort of a problem"? Did they not do any internal testing or did they just not think it was an issue?
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
- 49,501
- 88,255
I can only assume that the massive marketing campaign in the last month demanded they not do the delay they should have. Either way they fucked up and it's ridiculous the game is in the state it is.
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 2,149
- 4
I can only assume they don't have a consultant on their staff who has real life expertise planing and building cities. While I don't know everything that goes into the mathematics of creating a city I assume there are engineers, architects or whatever they are called out there who do.
Hell it wouldn't surprise me if there are quite a few out there who played Simcity as teenagers.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
- 38,640
- 16,689
Lithose
Buzzfeed Editor
- 25,946
- 113,041
All I gathered from that article is that they not only underestimate their audiences intelligence (Which is hard to do with gamers), but they also hold it in contempt. I love how he explains glass box as an agent simulator which supplies needs--completely contradicting all the advertising that this was a total simulation.
I've never written a code before--but it seems pretty obvious that Distance>Traffic>Lanes>Intersections, should all be taken into account when plotting a path, right? (With those relative weights.)
Also--does this really help with any core issues? "Agents" will still mindlessly go to the first sink, even if it's filled, until they attempt to fill it and get a failure. Unless that's addressed, the game will remain fundamentally broken it seems like.
Thats great , on the video of the traffic. Funny , it looks like this patch was ready to go they just wanted more feedback prior to releasing it so they can get as many fixes as possible to coincide with the free game info on the 18th. I bet thats when the patch will be released. That way they squash all the bad PR or at least a majority of it in one fell swoop. Smart , very smart....they knew they released a bug ridden mess and thats why they had that 18th set in stone and just had to deal with the backlash till then. Maxis is at least trying to salvage a mess that was forced by EA from the looks of it. But then again this will all come down to how much this patch fixes , wouldn't be surprised if it fixed almost all the most glaring issues.
I mean think about it , you know your shit is fucked and you have a date to releases and you start to plan for that mess. Only logical thing would be give some info on pleasing the masses with something of a im sorry gift all the while use that time till then to fix as much shit as possible. You use that time frame to see what the most complaints are and fix accordingly while all the small complaints can wait till a later patch. Not gonna lie , I would be pleased if a mojority of shit is fixed along with a nice free game , and i mean not some 20 dollar bullshit , a choice from triple AAA titles would lull me into a fanboi.
I mean think about it , you know your shit is fucked and you have a date to releases and you start to plan for that mess. Only logical thing would be give some info on pleasing the masses with something of a im sorry gift all the while use that time till then to fix as much shit as possible. You use that time frame to see what the most complaints are and fix accordingly while all the small complaints can wait till a later patch. Not gonna lie , I would be pleased if a mojority of shit is fixed along with a nice free game , and i mean not some 20 dollar bullshit , a choice from triple AAA titles would lull me into a fanboi.
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 2,149
- 4
The thing is Simcity should not be an online only game. When my Internet goes down or I'm on a laptop out of town simcity is exactly the type of game I would play.
I don't see how anyone could try to apologize for the Maxis devs for this gigantic mess. There seem to be an utter fuck load of basic fundamental game design flaws and lots of general idiocy completely outside of the Online Only debacle nonsense. I'm glad I decided to not buy this. It looks like the efforts of a team behind asloppilyput together 10 dollar game rather than the kind of people who should be behind a 60 dollar title.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
- 49,501
- 88,255
Basically the first few path search algorithms a CS student learns are more advanced than what is in simcity. A typical algorithm would assign cost to each block of road (from intersection to intersection) and the agent would search through the paths to find the lowest cost.
This is like, week 2 of Discrete Mathematics in a freshmen CS course.
And lithose, for the core issue the way to solve it (and in the ppt that described their simulation they claimed to solve it) is to have agents be able to claim sink-positions whilst en-route. My only guess is that this extra complication is algorithimically or computationally too hard for them but now that I see they just used shortest path everywhere I have no confidence in them.
And you're right, I don't see how they can have a reasonable system without changing that.
Hachima
Molten Core Raider
- 884
- 638
Their response to the pathing issue is 'An algorithm like A* is very expensive once you consider how many times you have to build the graphs (100s of them, literally)' and they are using a D* approach. Basically starting from the goal and working towards the start. It is often the algorithm used for traffic navigation because of its support for dynamic re-planing. Basically the cost for the graph edges can change durring traversal and you need to recalculate a route. Or like you are driving your car and miss a turn and your route has to be replanned. Or some mega god just magically bulldozed the road on your way to work =)
No idea what the problem is with their implementation. Maybe not taking congested roads into consideration for cost? It sounds like they are at least on the right track for using the right algorithm to do the pathing though.
No idea what the problem is with their implementation. Maybe not taking congested roads into consideration for cost? It sounds like they are at least on the right track for using the right algorithm to do the pathing though.
Jait
Molten Core Raider
- 5,035
- 5,317
No that's your job....
You spent a week in that thread whining and calling everyone cunts for calling out these companies for exactly this bullshit.
edit: PS Sean, most of us don't play 40 games a month on disability. We buy 1 game. Like Mass Effect 3, or SimCity. So when we get fucked, we cant use some random JRPG as an excuse for why the industry is so good.