In one of the early videos the zoning system showed the full depth of the lot, I sent in some feedback saying I want that back, you should probably do the same. The square system was extremely limited, this one would be better if it was a bit more informative.
I found that in an hour I had exhausted all the available building types, so the time limit was absolutely fine. Airports are in the game - you get to build a local one in your city, or you can build a regional one in the Region Mode, where all the region cities contribute to it running. There's a range of big projects that can go in that slot, but an airport is definitely one. Yes the maps are smaller than previous games, but I'm treating the 'region' as a single city entity due to the huge amount of resource sharing that can go on. As such, it's still a massive scope. The zones look messy until they fill in with big buildings, then they look fine.
I downloaded the game last night but just now got a chance to play. I felt the map size was very small; I filled it up in no time. Also, it crashed my entire computer, TWICE. Computer completely shut off with no warning for a couple seconds before restarting itself. Case lights went off and everything. Was like no restart my comp has done before.
Enjoyed what I have played, although that arbitrary 1 hour time limit seems pointless to me! Performance was fine for me to, outside of the log on issues. The need to be on-line all the time though.... very off putting.
I don't think it'll be an online at all times requirement when the final game is released. I'd imagine they made it active like this for the servers to get guaranteed communication at the one hour point so it knows to lock the game at the end of play.
No, the final game will require you to be online to log in and play, EA have been clear on this fact. However, I noticed during my hour play of the Beta that I was getting regular messages in the top left of the screen that I wasn't connected to the server - it let me carry on playing. As such, losing the internet connection mid-game doesn't seem to impact on the game.
Ah... why would it do that? It just looks at the system clock, it would be pointless to rely on an external Internet connection to verify your time. You can stop the one hour limit by freezing your clock.
The server was down for the majority of my session, including at the end of the hour. Nevertheless it still knocked me out of the game, so it would seem that you just need to be online to get on and to save maybe. As to the actual game, I liked everything except the zoning... having to guess the size of houses is pretty annoying and once some of my flats started to develop they were all over the place. The game does seem... easier than previous installments so far though.
My whole system still crashes from the game so I've yet to get more than 30 mins into a session. Has anyone been able to make the roads curve?
Yes, you use the curved roads tool. There's a bunch of buttons in the bottom left of the UI when you're in the bit with the roads, each of them has a shift modifier.
That's a bit better, but I'd still like to see the plots like before, and also have a RCI data layer where you can just see all of the plot outlines clearly. I realise that isn't so simple though as a working class low density home takes up less space than a middle/upper class low density home :/
I was thinking about not getting this straight away, it's a bit pricey, but since I played the beta, all I want to play is more SimCity
Jester was saying that they're in the process of getting it listed on the gamestore and I would imagine it would be a lot cheaper than 65 sterling.... I'll let you guys know in any case.
Got a invite to another beta test last weekend, did not check my email till monday and i just got a email thanking me for participating in the beta, pretty enoyed as i dont know if the game is worth buying or not- the price is pretty steep.
If anyone happens to get an invite that they dont want then please consider me!! I would to get a sneak peak at this game
