Cities XL modes

Okay I'll try now that it's released. However in the Beta test they did not allow us or give us the opportunity to test the solo mode, so I only know what they told us would be in it and even then they kept changing their minds about what would be included in the singleplayer mode.

The Online Mode: Also known as the Planet Offer
1. You pay for this, anywhere between $6.00 and $9.xx per month (like paying a monthly fee for an MMO, although CXL is far from an MMO)
2. Your cities (I believe you can have up to 5 or maybe it's been raised to 10 cities) are stored on the server.
3. There are features that they stripped out of (or will not include) the solo player mode like "Mass Transportation". Originally they were going to include at least buses in the solo mode and leave trains, and all other forms of mass transportation for the planet offer, now however they've removed all forms of mass transportation out of the solo mode and it will only be included in the Planet offer.
4. When playing in the online mode you can trade with other players or with "omni corp" the AI player. So if your city needs fuel and your city only has access to water, then you can try to trade other players online your water for their fuel, or you can try to sell your water for tokens and then buy the fuel from omni corp or other players with those tokens. However the whole trading system is seriously waiting for people to abuse it by griefing other players. How? Pretty simple really. A player makes a contract with you to buy your water at 5 tokens for the next 3 months real time. However in about 7 to 14 days after your city is stabilized, the other player cancels the contract leaving you high and dry and now short those 5 tokens. Since your city is now short those 5 tokens and you're surely running on a shoe string budget, your other contracts with other players get cancelled because you don't have enough tokens to pay for them. See how it could be really easy to grief another player in the trading system?
5. There will be updates that are for online play only, however only Montecristo knows what those will be, but it's quite apparent by all the statments they've made that the planet offer is what will keep the game improving (for the online players) and keep MonteCristo in business aparently. An update is due out around Christmas of this year that will bring buses in as the first form of mass transportation, but it will only be available for the online players. Trains and all the rest of mass transportation will come even later (like trains, subways, taxi's etc)
6. You have a chat window in the online portion of the game so that you can talk to other players that are online at the same time you are.
7. You can take your "avatar" and visit other players cities in onlne mode.

Solo:
Hmmm, how to best describe this.... Well, basically it's sounding like it's a completely watered down and feature stripped version of the online game. There is no chat (obviousy), you can have an unlimited amount of cities however there is only something like 5 maps to play on, where as online mode has something like 25 or 50 in the full version of the game.

Updates will likely be simple bug fixes for the solo players.

The trade system people are still wondering about, some folks say that there is no trade system in the solo mode, and others say there is. My gut feeling is that if there is, you'll be trading with Omnicorp who will be ripping you off right and left with the amount of tokens it is setup to pay for your products.

Wow, just too much detail. Just in it's basics,
Online, your cities are stored online, you have up to 5 ot 10 cities that you can create, you have trade with other players and omni corp, and you have a basic chat window.

Solo, your cities are stored on your own computer, you can have as many cities as you like, but only have about 5 maps you can play on, trade may be missing, and obviously there would be no chat.

Last thing: User created content.
Montecristo has sat silent about what this will entail, they have not said just how much users will be able to create, nor have they said whether it will be for online players only or for both. Rumor has it that it will be for online players only and all items will have to be inspected by Montecristo before they allow users to include it in their games, they will likely hold the keys to the repository where people will be able to upload whatever content they are allowed to create. Speculation is that the user created content will not be all that much, not only is there not much of a community backing the game, but it seems that it would behoove MC to hold all the keys so that they can continue to put out updates with new content that they create. If they allow users to create content for the solo mode game then that is one more reason that people would not want to pay to play the planet offer, so it's speculated that if there does turn out to be user created content, it will be very minimal in what the users will be able to create, possibly simply allowing them to create lots like they did with City Life world edition, where you selected a building from a list, and the ammenities (trees, cars, sidewalks etc) and placed them on a lot that you could share with others. It was a bit more involved than that, but that was it's essence.

Hope this helps. Personally, I wouldn't even give a copy of this game to my enemies. But that's just my opinion, please try the demo and see if you like it.

To me because the cities are so static (they are plopped, they don't "grow" like the cities in SimCity 4 grow), once you've built one city, it's pretty much just rinse and repeat and be bored silly until new content comes out from the planet offer for online players probably. But if you like your cities to be well manicured (i.e. you place a building and don't want it to change) then this could be your type of game. I like city building plopper games when I want to crete a city that is to my exact specifications on where each building will be, and I like games like SimCity 4 where I can watch cause and effect and watch my city grow on it's own. It's only sad that SimCity 4 graphics are so dated at this point that it's hard for me to get into it anymore.