OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

For the love of god, please do not invest your money into SimCity 4. The game is unplayable on even the best P4 system. It lacks basic features and crashes often.

Regardless of your video card, processor, or memory the game simply begins to lagged and lock up horribly after about 20 minutes of game play.

The random events can not be turned off, and the game has them once every few months causing lock ups, lagges, and other irrating side effects.

The game was released, no surprise, in a buggy state and is in dire need of a patch.

EA and Maxis technical support is a joke beyond my ability to describe. I am telling you stay away from SimCity 4. Let them fix the bugs and make the game stable before you invest any money into it.

This opinion is shared by all reviewing sites, and has been repeatedly voiced by long time fans.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

I am not a simcity fan at all, but I know what you mean about crappy games. My condolences if you are talking about this one from personal experience. Some of the garbage these game companies put on the shelves, is enough to make a Royal Frigate turn pirate.

Did they have a demo? I have noticed lately that "no demo available" games are crap, and those that have a demo are fairly decent.

It's like Civ3. No demo. I DL a hacked Version, and if it was good I would have gone and bought the game. It wasn't, the hack got deleted as planned, and the my money went elsewhere.

The gamers have a lot more power than they realise sometimes. If NO ONE bought a demo-less game, they all would have demos. If they didn't buy subsequent games due to past rip-offs, the industry would start producing quality as the rips would be out of business. granted, that would take time before the effect would be noticable, but ya gotta start somewhere.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

I have no problem with Sim City 4, working just fine under W2k. However, it feels much the same as SC2 and SC3 for me.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

You are lucky Mephisto. Very lucky indeed. I would be greatful if I could get it too run well under any OS.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Sounds like a memory leak. Take a look at memory usage when the game starts to lag.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

I feel bad for you man, I got SC4 the day it came out
Stable as a rock on my P4 1.8 GF4 Ti 4400. As always, you should get the latest drivers (but you probably already have)
If you are using an ATI card then you have to change some options, they are not all there for SC4

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

oh yeah Audigy 1 card in my machine with 512megs ram running WinXP
Your opinion of it being buggy is only for you Atrocities, believe me, I think SC4 kicks major *** and is under-rated. But based on your experiences, you cant say anything but bad stuff.
When I say rock solid, I mean NEVER crashes, and I have played enough to get about 250000 people in about 7 cities

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

My worst experience was Fallout 2. I could forgive bugs in such a complex game, but I can't forgive the sheer amount of terminal bugs. I played half way through the game and ended up with a save game that had a bug which wouldn't let me go any farther.

In a rage I pulled it from my computer and left it. I went back to it few years later and got the final patch for it. Still some minor bugs, but a much more enjoyable experience.

One of the reasons I rarely buy games when they first hit the shelves. A) Price, B) Bugs, and C) Later Versions usually come with more extras, i.e. Gold Versions.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

well, growltigger, MM has made quite a few patches for SEIV.
The thing is, MM actually shipped a complete product instead of some crapware. I usually do not mind downloading a few patches, but only if the game is good in the first place.
Being a programmer (in training) myself, I cannot help but see both sides of the equation though. It is very hard to write 100% bug free (or 100% user friendly) but at the same time you cannot take forever to release software. Most of the time I bet it is the publisher breathing down the necks of the development team to rush a product out the door. EA, to their credit, does have a few good products, but Ive heard a lot of negative too. Part of me wishes that Maxis was never bought out by EA, but at the same time it gives Maxis more marketing capability and resources.

I was at first put off by the inability to turn disasters off. However, you can rest easy knowing that only the mayor can trigger the major disasters. I dont mind the fires too much, but I would rather have it handled automatically. Riots on the other hand only happen if you are a bad mayor.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

I only said the game was unstable and that there have been many complaints by AMD owners. A few intel owners have had problems to. I envy you that you can play the game. I would love to be able to play the game as SC is one of the games in my top five games of all time. I still play SC3k, and was very excited about SC4. I went out and bought it the day it came out. At first I thought the problems were caused by my PC, all drivers up to date, and using a GeForce 4 Ti420 (64megs DDR) when I read a few game reviews. Gamespot.com described it best. And they pointed out that the game has stability problems. I want to play the game, but I also wanted to spare people the cost of buying it now and getting frustrated at it because it won't run properly. Once Maxis comes out with a patch that fixes the memory leaks and other issues, and the game runs, then I will recommend it to god himself.

Don't get me wrong Instar, I think the game looks great, and even though it is missing some features, such as the ability to turn off random events, I hate having to put out a fire every few months, the game has a lot to offer.

The graphics look fantastic, and the controls work much better than in SC3k.

The detail is awsome, and the sound is without equal. The game is a world apart better in many way to SC2k and 3k. (Both of those game kicked *** as well.)

When I complain about performance issues, its not to be mean or evil, its to that lagging issues are a common problem for many people. My specs are above the high end recommendations, but still I get lag and lock ups. There is nothing more frustrating then to wait twenty minutes for a zoom out to cycle. Or to move the mouse and several seconds later the map moves. Very frustrating to say the least.

I also must point out that the game has few starter regions, and the lack of starting difficulty level is missed. The game is hard, but playable.

The one thing that is unforgiveable is EA's technical support. Without a doubt, the worst I have ever experienced and that included Serria. At least I could email Serria.

[ January 24, 2003, 12:17: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

My personal bugbear, games that are released way too early (normally for the Xmas rush) and havnt got all the bugs worked out of them..

Patches? simply a modified form of product recall for the computer game industry

Bastards the lot of them (except Malfador and Shrapnel of course)

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Yep, yep... sounds like the rule still holds. The first release of anything is a public beta. Don't buy until it has been patched. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I just got Civ 3 Last fall when the 1.29f patch came out. It's still got balance problems (as many have complained, the combat system is much too simple and needs to be better designed) but it's playable. Unlike the original release. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I'm considering whether to get PTW with some further changes. I waited for SC 3K Unlimited before upgrading from SC 2k (which I bought on a 'Special Edition' CD after it had been out for years). Now I will plan to get SC 4 sometime next Fall or maybe next Spring. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

And actually, I disagree on SE IV. It was also incomplete when originally released. It was a patch to Gold that finally fixed several interface problems -- like 'escape' and 'enter' working like button clicks, the help said they worked but they did not -- and the ridiculously simple feature of filtering ships without cargo out of the cargo transfer window or ships without unit launch/recover out of the unit launch/recover window. Granted, SE IV didn't have the kind of nasty glaring crash bugs that SC 4 seems to have, but SE IV was also a far less demanding program. No real time, no 3D graphics, etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Since Moo 3 finally has a release date we can now prepare to hear about this public beta... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[ January 25, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

well, I am a serious hardcore SimCity fanatic, so I had to buy it first day. if you can wait, well, that is cool (I usually don't buy games the first day, but for me SC4 is different)

When I say SimCity fanatic, I mean I have played every Version of SimCity (and the streets and copter games too)

Honestly, I feel that SC4 is one of the more complete games that I have played (but I do not experience any crashes at all, my opinion would certainly be different, if say, I was in Atrocities shoes)

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

LOL. I played transport tycoon because in came on a 4-game cd i got. I loved it, I went out and bought 4 different "sim" games, and can't stand the lot of them. Granted, I only paid 10-15 a piece for them, but they became shelf-ware faster than my attempt at a flight sim. I like the 4x TBS genre'. anything else is frown, IMO. Maybe I will give them another look, maybe not. They might not even run on my new computer. lol

Interested in a nearly new sim set? (tower,city,isle,farm)

[ January 25, 2003, 02:57: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Instar what are you PC specs?

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

my full specs:
P4 1.8 ghz
512 MB DDR RAM
GF4 Ti 4400
Audigy 1 Platinum
MSI mobo
80 gig HD
DVD and CDRW drives
WinXP with every patch I can apply
Thats about it, I guess

Edit:
Oh yeah, I get lags as well, but only after a lot of people or more, or if other major events are going on.

[ January 25, 2003, 05:20: Message edited by: Instar ]

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

I installed the game on my other PC, the one that seldom if ever works, and it seems to work fine with minor slow downs. The problem is the PC won't run for more than an hour before making odd silonoid clicking sounds and locking up. (Heat issue I think.)

I may upgrade my ram on this PC, it is SDRam, and not DDR Ram like my other AMD. I can up the SDRam to over a gig, and that should help. Too bad I can not convert it to DDR Ram.

The point is, the game seems to like memory, and lots of it.

[ January 26, 2003, 07:19: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Yeah, I can understand that, there is a TON of data that needs stored and rapidly recalled
Video RAM especially, Ill bet. All of those 3d rendered buildings is hard to keep updated.
My PC has 5 fans in it, so I dont worry about heat too much. May eventually OC the whole rig, but I dont think I will anytime soon

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you play other city building games? I have SC3K, but don't play it anymore. It was fun for awhile, but gets repetitive. For my money, the best city builders are the Impressions city building games (Caesar 3, Pharaoh, Cleopara, Zeus, Poseidon...and Emperor - which I haven't played yet). These games are great because they're strategy games and not just sims. Every building has a purpose and isn't just window dressing, and you really have to put a lot of thought into the design and layout of you city. Same with the people in your city - they're actually doing something that impacts the game. The trade and commerce model in these games is terrific, and I find them to be really challenging most of the time.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Aha! Here you've hit on my pet peeve. We have 'simulations' and we have 'strategy games' and there's not much cross-over. Do any of those 'ruler' series feature actual opponents? I played Ceasar 2 once and though you had to fight the locals to conquer a province there was no organized opposition. That's why I am hoping SE V will move in the direction of 'simulation' by adding lots of environment details (planet features like gravity, radiation levels, etc. More detailed racial characteristics that are retained when conquered. Stars with varying levels of output, etc.)

SimCity is nice but gets boring because there's no possibility of conflict. 4X games are designed for war and nothing else, which also gets boring. The design of MOO 3 was leaning towards simulation but Emrich did it wrong (not allowing the player to control things) and they had to revamp it. I'm anxious to see how much of the 'simulation' aspect has been preserved.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No opponsents in these games - just the occasional invader. But the strategy is in making the city function, attracting new citizens, and growing. Underproduce a certain food item, for example, and your housing starts to devolve. What about the Stronghold series? I haven't played it, but it appears to have a nice balance between building and conquest. I've also heard that Stonghold: Crusader is beter than the original.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

It reminds me of Daggerfall. I haven't play such a buggy game since. It was awefull. Luckily, it's succesor didn't have as much bugs and as playable out of the box.
I find it hard to resist buying a game when it first comes out especially if it's the next in a series you are a long time fan of.
But it's something one shouldn't do.

Re: OT: Do Not Buy Alert
 

Well, you, the mayor, can be the opponent of the city if you want, you can literally drive a massive robot through the city, or drive a tornado too.
Its fun.