SimCity (2013) is AMAZING!!!

(Copied and pasted from a post I made on EA's SimCity forums for your viewing pleasure.)

Wasn't sure where my feedback would be best seen by the developers, but hopefully this gets through.

I'm definitely what you'd call a "hardcore SimCity veteran." Been playing since the first MS-DOS iteration, which changed my little life at the time. I probably played SimCity 4 the most... after getting all I could out of the vanilla game in about six months I set it aside until I stumbled onto SimTropolis and the wealth of mods available online. I probably got a good ten years (!!!) out of that game. It survived three different generations of computers in my family. It was amazing.

I'll admit I was turned off by all the bad press when SimCity (2013) was released. I let it unfairly cloud my intentions. I made up my mind that I wouldn't get wrapped up in a "subpar" SimCity game again, based on the reviews. I couldn't afford to spend another ten years of my life playing and ignoring my other responsibilities. But there was a sale recently, and I bit.

A week later, I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER. Seriously, best $40 I ever spent in my life. What an incredible game. I'm really, REALLY enjoying it. And I felt I should come on here so I could offer just a little bit of positive reinforcement to the game developers who put so much time and effort into this thing. I'm sorry that the gaming press was so harsh in their reviews. Coming from someone who spent so much time with SC4, I can really feel how much love went into this version. You folks seem to have spent a lot of time with SC4, especially with the fan-made-mods, trying out what worked and what didn't, and putting in effort to make SC(5?) so much better. And I'm really, REALLY greatful. I hope that you feel at least a little bit appreciated, because I can't imagine how hard you must've worked.

Some of the things I really LOVE:

Modular buildings! What a great concept. I was really hoping someone would do something like this in SC4, because it seems like such a great idea and very realistic. Adding a new wing onto a school because it's overcrowded seems so natural to me.

School bus stops! Not having a "radius area of effect" for all the city services is a great improvement. It seemed very unrealistic in the last version.

OH MY GOD, THE CITY SPECIALIZATION. I happened onto a few youtube videos detailing how the "guide me" feature works. I had no idea this was there. I love it up and down.

GLOBAL MARKETPLACE. I will admit that having played so very MUCH of SC4, I was absolutely NOT sold on the idea of the new version being all about social play. I couldn't have been more wrong. I love the idea of being able to sell and buy ore and oil on the marketplace, and being able to band six players together to create enough resources to build an arcology is just, I mean... wow, man. Wow.

There's much, much more to love, but I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts about how much I appreciate Maxis and the developers who put so much love into this game. I'm sorry the gaming media chewed you guys out so bad. Playing it now, when the servers work just fine and I have the option to play offline if I so choose, I can't see a single thing you guys did wrong.

I'm very excited to see where the fan community takes things from here. Hopefully the criticism dies down a bit now, so we can all get down to the very important business of making awesome cities. Thanks for reading.

benvoliothefirst