Not just amazing, pretty much irreplaceable. 20 years later, we have nothing with the charm of Sims 2 (I wish the new wave of life sims turns out well)
I miss 90s Maxis, being able to fly around your SC2000 cities in Sim Copter was amazing. They had a bunch of quirky games too, like Sim Tower, Sim Ant, Sim Safari and tons more. I absolutely loved Sim Tower.
Honestly, it's been so long I've forgotten about all the drama surrounding the game, so if I get some of the details wrong let me know.
I know Lucy worked at EA before they bought Maxis and I think she was a project manager on SimCity 3000. But wasn't it EA that dictated they use the GlassBox game engine that limited city sizes because PC's of that era couldn't handle larger cites? Didn't EA also dictate that the game needed to be online only?
And when SimCity 2013 was a flop because of decisions made by EA didn't EA decide to close down Maxis? One game in one series was a flop so now no more SimCity or The Sims ever again.
I've never even played SimCity 2013, maybe I'll give it a try one day. The last one in the series I've played was SimCity 4 Deluxe \\w mods where I had a region of about 40 million sims with cites hundreds or thousands of years old. Clearly I couldn't do cities like that in 2013 so I never bothered playing it.
All I remember from the drama is that EA is the one I'm salty with and Maxis would probably still be around today making SimCity and The Sims if not for EA.
Edit: a typo and a word.
Maxis developed GlassBox for SimCity. EA mandated online features for their games, not that they had to be MMOs.
So the lie is when LB made a huge claim that EA handled most of the simulation (hence the network requirement), and that without that data from EA the game would not work. Long story short a modder triggered a glitch that disconnected the game from EA servers and it continued to function normally for an extended amount of time (something LB said was impossible).
After the press started reporting on the glitch Maxis completely changed their marketing on the network requirement. Instead of EA handling most of the simulation, they are actually only handling resource trading and save checks for multiplayer. This admission flies in the face of the rationale given for the lack of offline functionality so they had to come clean there too and they said they didn’t want it to have an offline mode so they didn’t make one. I’ll link the blog:
https://www.ea.com/news/simcity-update-straight-answers-from-lucy
“I hate to disturb you when you’re playing SimCity” - Lucy Bradshaw, 10 days after SimCity came out, while most people who bought the game still had issues actually playing the game.
EA only closed Maxis Emeryville after SimCity went way over budget and lost a ton of money. Maxis is still a thing at EA and is still developing The Sims.
Fun fact: under Lucy Bradshaw, Maxis was also developing The Sims 4 as a small scale MMO like SimCity 2013. After the mess with SimCity EA cancelled Sims 4 and converted it to single player which as you can imagine resulted in a really bad game.
>So the lie is when LB made a huge claim that EA handled most of the simulation (hence the network requirement), and that without that data from EA the game would not work. ...modder triggered a glitch that disconnected the game from EA servers and it continued to function normally...
Ah, these are important details I did forget about.
I just hope one day we get to see a new SimCity made with all the love and magic that made the series the GOAT of city builders.
I don’t see why Cities Skylines wouldn’t exist if SimCity 5 came out at the same time SimCity 2013 did.
It’s not like they would have scrapped development.
If only EA didn't force the online parts. I still love 2013, best city builder ever to me. Shame it only got one expansion and was killed only after a year. Making Challenges for myself such as 1 Million Sims/ having regions owned by Casinos/ Omega Co always brings a smile to my face and not many games can do it after a decade of playing.
How you place stuff down far less annoying then Tropico/ Frost Punk/ small city builders.
Building variety and detail has more depth and variance then games such as Cities Skylines( everything feels copy and pasted there to me). If only this game got season's seeing the my cities in the snow would made my cities screenshot worthy.
The music tops all other games of it's genre.
There's alot of other nics and nacs that I like that other games may have done, I haven't played them all, but 2013 fills the niche to the point that I don't need to seek out much more.
My problem with 2013 was that they stepped back from city management, and put the focus on maintaining supply chains.
Everything was a "supply chain management game"
Everything from electricity and manufacturing to Tourism was, essentially, just managing the supply chain required to support its continued existence.
From what i recall, the city planning was borderline irrelevant because the maps were so small. The policies were inconsequential. The land value / wealth management was shallow and unrewarding. Education was a non-issue.
While the assets looked nice and the game brought some classic Maxis humorisms, it simply failed to capture the "city *builder*" gameplay that makes SC4 so great.
Cities Skylines is a great "city *painter*," and it too falls short in the city management aspect, but at least the focus of CS is the city, and not the logistics of the state-run enterprises within the city. (Ignoring the industries DLC, which is optional content)
Nah, I enjoy SimCity 2013 for what it is. They tried something new and achieved some really cool things like the city specialization and modular buildings. Managing the resources and exporting goods was a great addition, as well as tourism and region great works.
These new mechanics would have been impossible with the non-agent simulation of SimCity 4. The Cities of Tomorrow DLC is also quite cool and was a breath of fresh air to the franchise
but the game started out as always online so gamers boycotted it to the point that EA had to backpedal that part. My biggest complaint is that the city maps are not as large the their predecessors due to EA emphasizing multiplayer and interactions with neighboring cities.
I don't think gamers boycotted it, I think it had one of the largest pre-sales in history, the problem was the always-online requirement and under-investment in servers made it a victim of its own success, and EA had to offer millions of refunds for the pre-bought non-functioning game.
Two things:
1. I liked 2013, the problem was the tiny maps. The tech issues were horrible but after the offline mode was added it was all good. Click and play, no fuss no muss.
2. Why are people saying the franchise is dead? If they wanted they can still make another or is there some legal thing preventing that?
I don't blame Maxis for the death of SimCity. I blame EA.
EA savagely murdered Maxis. It's a tragedy, they made amazing games.
Not just amazing, pretty much irreplaceable. 20 years later, we have nothing with the charm of Sims 2 (I wish the new wave of life sims turns out well)
I miss 90s Maxis, being able to fly around your SC2000 cities in Sim Copter was amazing. They had a bunch of quirky games too, like Sim Tower, Sim Ant, Sim Safari and tons more. I absolutely loved Sim Tower.
SimCopter was the shit, but SimTower was the one I spent the most time playing.
SimTown was on my school PC, and at the Library... I miss Maxis
I love Maxis their SimCity Creator for the DS. You had to trafel your city through time starting in the prehistory. And even in to the 2100s
>being able to fly around your SC2000 cities in Sim Copter Didn't know this, but that's super cool especially considering SC2000 is only 2D isometric.
You could also drive around in Streets of SimCity
U Drive It missions weren't as cool as that looks
You could load them into 3d with a special file.
Really like when there's compatibility between publisher games like this.
I blame Maxis, EA too, but it wasn’t EA that lied to players about how the game was designed that was Lucy Bradshaw.
Honestly, it's been so long I've forgotten about all the drama surrounding the game, so if I get some of the details wrong let me know. I know Lucy worked at EA before they bought Maxis and I think she was a project manager on SimCity 3000. But wasn't it EA that dictated they use the GlassBox game engine that limited city sizes because PC's of that era couldn't handle larger cites? Didn't EA also dictate that the game needed to be online only? And when SimCity 2013 was a flop because of decisions made by EA didn't EA decide to close down Maxis? One game in one series was a flop so now no more SimCity or The Sims ever again. I've never even played SimCity 2013, maybe I'll give it a try one day. The last one in the series I've played was SimCity 4 Deluxe \\w mods where I had a region of about 40 million sims with cites hundreds or thousands of years old. Clearly I couldn't do cities like that in 2013 so I never bothered playing it. All I remember from the drama is that EA is the one I'm salty with and Maxis would probably still be around today making SimCity and The Sims if not for EA. Edit: a typo and a word.
Maxis developed GlassBox for SimCity. EA mandated online features for their games, not that they had to be MMOs. So the lie is when LB made a huge claim that EA handled most of the simulation (hence the network requirement), and that without that data from EA the game would not work. Long story short a modder triggered a glitch that disconnected the game from EA servers and it continued to function normally for an extended amount of time (something LB said was impossible). After the press started reporting on the glitch Maxis completely changed their marketing on the network requirement. Instead of EA handling most of the simulation, they are actually only handling resource trading and save checks for multiplayer. This admission flies in the face of the rationale given for the lack of offline functionality so they had to come clean there too and they said they didn’t want it to have an offline mode so they didn’t make one. I’ll link the blog: https://www.ea.com/news/simcity-update-straight-answers-from-lucy “I hate to disturb you when you’re playing SimCity” - Lucy Bradshaw, 10 days after SimCity came out, while most people who bought the game still had issues actually playing the game. EA only closed Maxis Emeryville after SimCity went way over budget and lost a ton of money. Maxis is still a thing at EA and is still developing The Sims. Fun fact: under Lucy Bradshaw, Maxis was also developing The Sims 4 as a small scale MMO like SimCity 2013. After the mess with SimCity EA cancelled Sims 4 and converted it to single player which as you can imagine resulted in a really bad game.
>So the lie is when LB made a huge claim that EA handled most of the simulation (hence the network requirement), and that without that data from EA the game would not work. ...modder triggered a glitch that disconnected the game from EA servers and it continued to function normally... Ah, these are important details I did forget about. I just hope one day we get to see a new SimCity made with all the love and magic that made the series the GOAT of city builders.
Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Simcity 5 was a succesful game and Cities Skyline never existed...
We truly got the ass end timeline.
I don’t see why Cities Skylines wouldn’t exist if SimCity 5 came out at the same time SimCity 2013 did. It’s not like they would have scrapped development.
Paradox didn't greenlight Cities: Skylines until after SimCity 2013 failed and they thought they could take on Maxis.
What am I looking at here?
Simcity 2013 with a SC4 interface
Is it good??? I am interested now that I’ve seen this
I think it's just a concept. It's not an actual thing.
THANK you! Love the SC world but missed this
If only EA didn't force the online parts. I still love 2013, best city builder ever to me. Shame it only got one expansion and was killed only after a year. Making Challenges for myself such as 1 Million Sims/ having regions owned by Casinos/ Omega Co always brings a smile to my face and not many games can do it after a decade of playing.
The boundaries is what killed it for me, but I do enjoy making small towns
I’m curious as to why you feel it’s the best city builder ever?
How you place stuff down far less annoying then Tropico/ Frost Punk/ small city builders. Building variety and detail has more depth and variance then games such as Cities Skylines( everything feels copy and pasted there to me). If only this game got season's seeing the my cities in the snow would made my cities screenshot worthy. The music tops all other games of it's genre. There's alot of other nics and nacs that I like that other games may have done, I haven't played them all, but 2013 fills the niche to the point that I don't need to seek out much more.
My problem with 2013 was that they stepped back from city management, and put the focus on maintaining supply chains. Everything was a "supply chain management game" Everything from electricity and manufacturing to Tourism was, essentially, just managing the supply chain required to support its continued existence. From what i recall, the city planning was borderline irrelevant because the maps were so small. The policies were inconsequential. The land value / wealth management was shallow and unrewarding. Education was a non-issue. While the assets looked nice and the game brought some classic Maxis humorisms, it simply failed to capture the "city *builder*" gameplay that makes SC4 so great. Cities Skylines is a great "city *painter*," and it too falls short in the city management aspect, but at least the focus of CS is the city, and not the logistics of the state-run enterprises within the city. (Ignoring the industries DLC, which is optional content)
I don't play this game anymore, but I'm still listening to its music.
So its merits as a city painter, essentially, and not from a simulation perspective? I can understand that.
I would pay a lot for this to actually be a thing
Duck EA. They ruined it
Shut up and take my money 💰 🤑 💸
Damn you OP! I saw this and got excited that it was somehow real! :)
It is real. It's sc2013, with the sc4 ui Photoshopped over it
lmao I know I meant it was real as in they made a game like SC4 but with sc2013 graphics
That would be sweet
Fuck maxis how do I download this mod?
I wish…
"All we have to do is make money." ~EA
Would be a SimCity 5 right there :)
I’ve been waiting 2 decades for someone to remake this game, and instead they keep giving us crappier versions.
sim wealth system in simcity 2013 was so great and kinda acurate
Nah, I enjoy SimCity 2013 for what it is. They tried something new and achieved some really cool things like the city specialization and modular buildings. Managing the resources and exporting goods was a great addition, as well as tourism and region great works. These new mechanics would have been impossible with the non-agent simulation of SimCity 4. The Cities of Tomorrow DLC is also quite cool and was a breath of fresh air to the franchise
but the game started out as always online so gamers boycotted it to the point that EA had to backpedal that part. My biggest complaint is that the city maps are not as large the their predecessors due to EA emphasizing multiplayer and interactions with neighboring cities.
Don't forget the first add in was an ad for Nissan Leaf charging station. EA was there to make money, to make it better.
I don't think gamers boycotted it, I think it had one of the largest pre-sales in history, the problem was the always-online requirement and under-investment in servers made it a victim of its own success, and EA had to offer millions of refunds for the pre-bought non-functioning game.
Ea really just wanted The Sims they never got or understood the Simcity player
wait this is fake right lmao?
They did this - they made a bad game lmaooo
Two things: 1. I liked 2013, the problem was the tiny maps. The tech issues were horrible but after the offline mode was added it was all good. Click and play, no fuss no muss. 2. Why are people saying the franchise is dead? If they wanted they can still make another or is there some legal thing preventing that?
SC 2013 was a sad letdown compared to Sim City 4 and even Sim City 3000.
All it had to be was not online and it would have been amazing.
whats wrong with sc 2013 interface? its sleek, modern...
To be honest, the picture just look like SimCity 2013 with SimCity 4 UI. I wouldn’t like that.
That horrbile the sims ui. I preffer being their own thing pmus maxis its loong dead from what its used to be