Sim city 2013 beta.

[Dane]

Who's played the beta and what do they think? I can only play it late tonight.

[TruckWEB]

The one hour limit sucks and there is almost no content. Most of the building are not available in this beta. But in one hour, I was able to build a small city and making money. Had a fire and police station, clinic, school.

Much easier to play than say, SimCity 4000. Allot better than Societies.

[Hurmoth]

I really want to try this game, but I've heard so many negative things about EA that I avoid them like the plague. Not here to bash the game, but I don't want to spend $60 on a game for EA to decide a year or two down the road that they're going to shut down the servers, especially if the game turns out to be unpopular.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

I really want to try this game, but I've heard so many negative things about EA that I avoid them like the plague. Not here to bash the game, but I don't want to spend $60 on a game for EA to decide a year or two down the road that they're going to shut down the servers, especially if the game turns out to be unpopular.

by that logic no single player game that can be finished in a day is worth ANYTHING

[Crisp]

I really want to try this game, but I've heard so many negative things about EA that I avoid them like the plague. Not here to bash the game, but I don't want to spend $60 on a game for EA to decide a year or two down the road that they're going to shut down the servers, especially if the game turns out to be unpopular.

Tip, don't buy from Origin... it's a rip off! Origin has SimCity priced for pre-order @ ?65 here in the UK, while Amazon has the exact same copy, which you redeem on Origin for ?30.

Lol EA.

I'm also sure play-sc will have it up just after release for a big discount, as they usually do with EA games.

From what I've seen so far of gameplay, the game itself is dumbed down. I'm personally going to wait on this one, might pirate it first and if I like it I'll buy it.

[PGHammer]

Tip, don't buy from Origin... it's a rip off! Origin has SimCity priced for pre-order @ ?65 here in the UK, while Amazon has the exact same copy, which you redeem on Origin for ?30.

Lol EA.

I'm also sure play-sc will have it up just after release for a big discount, as they usually do with EA games.

From what I've seen so far of gameplay, the game itself is dumbed down. I'm personally going to wait on this one, might pirate it first and if I like it I'll buy it.

Also, what one-hour limit?

The FAQ plainly states NO limit at all. You may have been limited on Friday since the distribution to testers just kicked off that day (Friday was, after all, Day One).

Today is Day Two, and more testers (including Yours Truly) got our redeem codes - mine is installing as I type this. I'll be sharing what I can in a later post.

[ManMountain]

You are only permitted 1 hour construction time, after which your city resets and you have to begin again.

Crisp - I think I need stronger glasses but on Origin, SimCity Limited is ?44.99 and on Amazon it's ?34.99. But the Digital Deluxe version is an eye watering ?64.99 on Origin only, I can't find that on Amazon.

Haven't had the time but my daughter has played the beta and enjoyed it but what's putting me off buying it is the always on DRM.

[Salutary7]

I played and would say the biggest problem is that there's no challenge. For the most part, you add roads and zoning and quickly begin filling up the map. As the city grows, you throw in some other buildings (usually the game indicates which ones you should build). It doesn't seem to matter if you play poorly, since it's not hard to have a profitable city.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

missed out on the beta sign up....been working, so I missed out. :(

[MillionVoltss]

' Play Is Blocked At This Time '

[Crisp]

' Play Is Blocked At This Time '

EA

[SMELTN]

I just seen the email that I was invited to closed beta and downloaded.. Will try this out

[spaceelf]

I played through it. It's pretty decent for a demo (which is probably all this is anyway with all the 'not available in beta' bits.)

Definitely getting the final ver.

[Dane]

I just installed it, it says it put in into low because "depisite my graphics card being newer then what it needs, it will be slow"

well that is going to annoy me if I cant play it nicely. Next year with a new PC i wont have problems.

[PGHammer]

I just installed it, it says it put in into low because "depisite my graphics card being newer then what it needs, it will be slow"

well that is going to annoy me if I cant play it nicely. Next year with a new PC i wont have problems.

I got the same heads-up; however, I jacked the settings up from 1024x768 and medium-low to 1280x720 and all-medium and had no graphical problems (AMD HD5450 with the Catalyst 13.2 beta drivers).

Unless you have a portable PC, there are several GPU options to yank things up to maximize both this game *and* Crysis 3 - my favorite GPUs in this category are HD7850 2 GB (AMD) or GTX650 Ti 2 GB (nVidia), as neither requires more than a single 6-pin power connector in most cases OR costs even $200USD (online or even retail in most cases).

[Dane]

I had it at 1024x 768. Everything on high and it was fine. I'll try bumping up the res later.

[redfish]

It said my graphics card was below minimum specifications too. But,I'm running at 1600?900, with anti-aliasing and with high graphics quality and everything is running smoothly and quickly.

I hope they eventually fix some of the limitations of the game, online only and small maps, and add features like subways, then it would be worth getting.

[PGHammer]

It said my graphics card was below minimum specifications too. But,I'm running at 1600?900, with anti-aliasing and with high graphics quality and everything is running smoothly and quickly.

I hope they eventually fix some of the limitations of the game, online only and small maps, and add features like subways, then it would be worth getting.

As has been the case with most games as of late (even Crysis 2, believe it or not), the settings were conservative.

I kept the same resolution and yanked up the settings to all HIGH detail (from all-Medium); still no problems. And I admit that an AMD HD5450 is almost as hooptie as modern desktop graphics gets.

The small maps are due to the one-hour per session limitation; however, multiple such sessions are not a problem.

And if you think that the one-hour session limit is a problem, then you obvious have never seen recent articles (the vast majority here on Neowin itself pre-NeoGamr) that go into some folks getting so into a game that they will literally play until they croak. Given our sue-happy society, without enforcement that can indeed happen - then the lawyers get involved. (That is why TERA Online - a real MMO - has an explicit alarm at the 30-minute, 45-minute, and one-hour mark - even in the US. The *secondary business* of law firms - and politicians - has become saving us from ourselves while making potfuls of money.)

[spaceelf]

I have no idea what that last bit has to do with anything. I assume the one hour time limit is because its basically a demo. There's only so much you can do in it anyway.

[SharpGreen]

As has been the case with most games as of late (even Crysis 2, believe it or not), the settings were conservative.

I kept the same resolution and yanked up the settings to all HIGH detail (from all-Medium); still no problems. And I admit that an AMD HD5450 is almost as hooptie as modern desktop graphics gets.

The small maps are due to the one-hour per session limitation; however, multiple such sessions are not a problem.

And if you think that the one-hour session limit is a problem, then you obvious have never seen recent articles (the vast majority here on Neowin itself pre-NeoGamr) that go into some folks getting so into a game that they will literally play until they croak. Given our sue-happy society, without enforcement that can indeed happen - then the lawyers get involved. (That is why TERA Online - a real MMO - has an explicit alarm at the 30-minute, 45-minute, and one-hour mark - even in the US. The *secondary business* of law firms - and politicians - has become saving us from ourselves while making potfuls of money.)

Another game that does that alarm crap is Anno 2070, where it will signal when you've played 2, 4, and 6 hrs continuously.

But yea in the SimCity "beta" it will actually cut you off at the hour mark.

[Dane]

Should be interesting when they find cheat codes.

[Boxster17]

The demo has been enjoyable but there's only so much you can do in an hour time frame. I personally find it too easy and can fill up the map and get the population moving up pretty quick without any money problems. Been consistently finishing the hour time frame with a full map and a population of about 50k with about 200k worth of money in the bank and my taxes in around 5% for most classes (could probably drop it further without many problems. They restrict at least 2/3rds of what you can build so you're quite limited in what you can do but there's many things in the game that I really do like over having played Sim City 4 recently. What I like so far:

-Watching and hearing things like water and electricity start to flow and connect to the buildings in the city when you first place them down

-More freedom with roads (though the downside is they don't show the min width to build to maximize the space so sometimes they'll only build facing one street because other street a little further south that's running parallel is a bit too close)

-The way coverage is tracked by highlighting the roads green

-Bus stops no longer take up an actual space on the map, they're just signs you place along the street

-Building upgrades are great, it's an awesome way to expand buildings and increase capacities in places like schools, police stations, hospitals, etc..

[TruckWEB]

Well, 50k population and 200k in money in 1 hour? You're good. I've finished playing a couple of 1 hour games and never was able to get more than 10k population with 50k in money with 8% taxes.

But I keep on playing and that's a good sign. I'm gonna get this game when it ship.

Much better than SC4000.

[MillionVoltss]

Enjoyable, lots of depth and good graphics. 1080p Ultra settings. 560ti, 8gb ram and i5 2500k 3.8ghz..

[Boxster17]

I've pretty much just been trying to make the city as dense as possible so I've just been building a huge grid and generally by the 40-45min mark about half my residential has turned into apartments. I've also been taking out several bonds to get things jump started as I really don't find money to be as much of an issue or as hard to manage as it was in Sim City 4. I just worry about getting power, water and sewage taken care of then I start to build up about half the map at which point I'll start adding schools, garbage pickup, an other services before taking over the rest. I also rarely take it off cheetah speed if ever since I know we only have 1 hour. Also don't forget to add things like parks and such to the neighborhoods.

EDIT: A few quick tips for those who don't already know, CTRL will fill in a whole area when zoning, delete full rows of houses, streets and so on. If you hold SHIFT, that will keep your streets straight or at a 45 degree angle when you're laying them down