What the future holds:

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[City Builder]

I found this over on Cities XL website.  It's reportedly the list from MonteCristo on what the immediate future holds for Cities XL (my comments in red italics)
Link: http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=966&Itemid=128

What the future holds... 
October 9, 2009, 6:10 pm 
Planet Offer brings many benefits to players, and not the least of them are content packs which will be delivered on a regular basis to bring new features and content to the game, based on community feedback. For example, many players have pointed out Cities XL mostly allowed cities with a very modern feel to them, which is why we are preparing a series of medieval buildings that will bring more variety to the game and allow the realisation of a small historical downtown.

Now that the game is officially released, let’s have a quick first look at what the Planet Offer has in store for the future of your cities…

First content pack:

•Medieval pack: 10 residences, a hotel, a shop, a restaurant, a plaza (decoration zone), a church and a 2-lane street.
•The map of Rio de Janeiro featuring the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer.
•Sponsored Content: a Ford dealership producing real Ford cars (Interesting, not only are they getting paid by players, but they're getting Ford's money too)
•3 Megastructures: the ‘Glass Gherkin’ from London, the Tokyo Imperial Palace and Alcatraz.
•A new farm model.

Honestly, it doesn't even titilate me even slightly.  It sounds all so dull and I really would have expected them to do things like make the game perform better, and add more "features" instead of this fluff with their first content patches/packs.  If this is the content that paying subscribers have to look forward to, then theres no way in hell I'll ever buy the game unless I can find it at the local piggly wiggly shop (AKA Big Lots, AKA Pick N' Save) for $4.99 like I've found so many other titles.
AND What the HELL good is this 2-lane street when I can't UPGRADE my streets, instead I've got to demolish them and the buildings along side of them if I want to upgrade to another street that is larger to handle more traffic.  HOW ABOUT WORKING ON THAT SITUATION FIRST MONTECRISTO?

Second content pack:

•Chinatown pack 10 residences, a hotel, a shop, a restaurant, a plaza (decoration zone), a temple and a gate.
•A realistic map of Manhattan featuring the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the road network.
•Blueprints: three new stadiums (football, baseball and American football).
•New maps.
•An animated ferris wheel.

I'll say this for them, they certainly are consistant.  Releasing 10 residences, 1 hotel, 1 shop  ETC.  And best of all (OH BOY) an Animated ferris wheel!  Whoop-de-do!


Third content pack:

•A comprehensive bus system: create your own bus lines and place each bus stop
•A selection of new roads inspired by roads from US, Britain and other European countries
•A selection of different service vehicles from different countries (police , ambulances, fire brigade)
 
OUCH!, Theres that dreaded bus system that they completely disregarded all singleplayers and removed from the singleplayer game in favor of giving it only to paying subscribers who WILL lose it once they stop paying the monthly fee and will be back in the same shape as those that never subscribed.  WOW, Im surprised they even brought this up at this point with how pissed off so many CB players are with them not including even a primary bus system in the singleplayer game.

My opinion is that they should have just done away with singleplayer all together,  made the singleplayer simply nothing more than a tutorial.  This would have shown that they really do have the guts to do an MMO in my opinion.  As it is now, they are all so flippin' wishy washy, they can't make it a pure MMO because they know it won't sell, however the singleplayer that they include is so watered down that it's there only to try to entice people to pay to get the full game in the planet offer.

And again, "new roads".  Great, still can't just upgrade the roads to streets that can accomodate more traffic, nope, gotta demolish the existing road and possibly the buildings around it to accomodate putting in new roads or larger roads since road laying is oh so finiky.

Nope, gotta say, the above list doesn't entice me in the slightest bit.  If this is the content paying players have to look forward to and if I were one of them, this list alone would make me cancel my subscription.

This is just my opinion and if you like the game, then that's great.

[City Builder]

Started new message to get out of the red italics.

So digging further into their site I see on the Planet Offering informaiton page that people can expect new content each month.  This means that it will be 3 months before people get just the bus system, nobody (except maybe MC AND JC) know when the rest of mass transportation will be given to the paying subscribers and to be honest, I'd not be surprised at all if they decide to put the rest of the mass transportation into the GEMS and make their paying subscribers have to pay more to get the rest of the mass transportation.  AND then require not only that they buy the GEMS but that those "hybrid" form of GEMS only work when subscribing to the Planet Offer.   It seems that is the nickle and dime tactics that MC is and has been doing.

But really, that which they list above (each broken down as first, second or third content pack) is only going to be released once per month, so to wait 2 months to get the "Chinatown pack" seems a bit absurd.  And still no mention of the user custom content.  WTH?

Honestly, all of those three listed content packs seems very VERY light on content, and I would not be surprised at all if those buildings were not already created and now they just wait to push them to the subscribers at the right time.

Here, how about some 10 more styles of houses for the regular houses that are in the game now.  Theres so few that everythign looks like housing tracts in Southern California (USA) as it is now.  How about pushing out 50 new styles of regular homes for the game NOW?

What a pity, this game could have been great but instead it's only mediocre as are these content packs in my opinion.

[Khalan]

Wow.  It's like they're putting up a list of reasons to not subscribe, or even buy in the first place.

[pad11]

My bet is that within 12 months of release Monte Cristo may be out of business...mark my words, this is the end for them as a developer.

pat!

[City Builder]

And so 6 months after the game is released, the planet offer dies.  My best guess is that it's an attempt to prevent them from going out of business all together.  Try to save whatever grace Cities XL has left in it by reintroducing it as a single player game named Cities 2011 due out 3/8/2010 (that's march 8)

One thing that's good that is reported to come from this is that the singleplayer maps will have 10 more maps to play on and be structured more like the planets, so I'm guessing that means that we'll have the same amount of maps to play on as they had in the planet offer.  So instead of a total of only 25 maps to play on in 2011, we should be seeing a whole planet that has thousands of possible maps to play on, even though all of those thousands of possible maps will be made up of the original 10 or 20 same maps.

[pad11]

HA!  Are you serious?  You're not punking me?

that's beautiful...what in the HELL were they thinking????

Thanks CB, heading over to their site right now to see all the commotion!

pat!

[City Builder]

Also I mis spoke about the release date of Cities 2011, it's apparently not known what date they will actually release it, although the faq's seem to intimate that it will be available for download from their site come March 8, but their faq's are like everything else that MC has done, wishy washy and not straight forward so I guess we wait and see what they do.

Either I'm out 19.99 for buying CXL when it was half price on Impulse, or I'm in good standing and will get buses and the other content when it's available for download come March or so.

[RhiannOn]

MC should have listened to the folk on their forum when they first mentioned the PO thing and just stayed concentrating on the sp..they have basically gone full circle.  Wonder what cities 2011 is going to be like?  Will it have mass transport included or will it be paid d/l content?

[City Builder]

It should have the bus system at the very least, and I think chances quite high that any other form of mass transit they come up with will likely be in the form of a payed addon or payed gem.

[Khalan]

I still hate the idea of paying for bits and pieces of what should be standard game functionality.  I'm fine with paying for DLC that adds something beyond core gameplay, but surely no transport options fall into that category.

So given their apparently perverse nature so far I'm guessing that MC will be charging for all of it.