3/22/2013 Patch Notes! 1.8

Greetings Mayors! Our governmental body (EA) has passed a bit of legislation in attempt to make our lives easier. 

General 
Police station can no longer hold more prisoners than the capacity.
Added missing roof texture for certain commercial building.
Added completion moment cinematic for Great Works.
Visiting police cars have avatar of neighbor above them.
Arcology Population reflects the population of the Arcology, not the city.
Fixed a clog in the pipes where sewage would sometimes get backed up and act jittery.
Region Wall will pop up when a new chat message has been received.


Road Improvements 
Improvements to cases when connecting a new road to an existing road that goes over uneven terrain.
Tuned some of the road snapping priorities to address some edge cases where it wasn’t behaving as desired
Fixed a case where a new road would sometimes cause an existing road to change its shape drastically.
Made Upgrade Roads mini-tutorial appear at appropriate time.
Fix to four lane bridge to improve divider line placement.


Text Improvements 
Clarified alerts about residents not moving in because of high taxes to state if it is residents, commercial businesses, or Industry that won't move in because of high taxes.
Improved text and icons on cities in region view.
Updated text for "Become a Suburban City" mission to improve clarity.
Updated requirements text for HazMat garage for clarity.

Frenzytoast's Thoughts
The EA Government is definitely trying to improve the way our cities function but there are still a few issues that need addressed to allow certain city specializations to function better. There is a major issue with Recycling Plants. It seems that if they reach 20/20 tons of recyclables they will freeze up and stop processing recyclables altogether. 

What results from this is a plant costing 2,900/hr (fully upgraded) and a city complaining about trash/recyclables piling up. It also causes a major break in production of processors/televisions/computers unless the city map has an abundance of oil/ore/coal. 

Traffic is also still behaving irrationally. I've watched a car change lanes 4 times before going straight through the intersection. 

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the changes that are being worked on and I do want to praise EA for frequent patching.
They have been releasing patches every 2-4 days which shows they are diligently working at improving our world.

Keep it up EA, we can't wait to see what you do next. 

Detailed Building Info: Jobs and Other Bonuses

Many Mayors don't realize that the different buildings provide not only public services but they also create jobs and in some cases provide housing and freight orders.

Remember, with freight orders your industry creates the freight and your commercial/placed buildings will consume the freight.
Something to consider: If your commercial is complaining about not having enough shoppers, it may be that there are plenty of shoppers available.

Instead of generating more shoppers, try to make sure that all the freight orders for your city are being fulfilled.
This theory is based off of the question, "How can a shop have shoppers if they have nothing to sell?"

Below is a list of the SimCity buildings that provide jobs:
The numbers inside the *( )* correspond to wealth levels
(Low wealth/Mid wealth/High wealth)

Unless Mentioned Otherwise, any extra addons for buildings (Buses, Departments, Extra Classrooms etc) Do Not provide additional Jobs.

Power Plants:
Wind Power plant: (20/6/0)
Coal Power Plant: (20/6/0) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Oil Power Plant: (40/12/4) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Solar Power: (20/4/0/)
Nuclear Power Plant: (200/600/240) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Water Utilities:
Water Towers: (0/0/0)
Water Pumping Station: (80/40/12)

Sewage:
Sewage Outflow Pipe: (0/0/0)
Sewage Treatment Plant: (140/20/12)

Government:
City Hall: (40/20/8)
Mayors House: (6/4/2)
Mayors Mansion (15/10/2)

Waste Disposal:
Garbage Dump:(20/6/0)
Recycling Plant: (100/40/12)

Fire:
Fire Station: (20/6/0)
Large Fire Station: (140/20/12)

Health: Clinic: (12/8/4)
Hospital: (40/20/8)

Police:
Police Station: (10/4/0)
Police Precinct: (60/16/0/)

Education:
Grade School (40/10/0)
Bus Stops: (0/0/0)
High School: (320/100/40)
Public Library (10/3/0)
Community College (40/10/0)
University (320/100/40)

Transportation:

Buses: Shuttle Bus Depot: (20/4/0)
Park and Ride (0/0/0)
Bus Terminal: (60/16/0)

Streetcars:
Streetcar Depot: (60/16/0)
Passenger Train Station: (40/20/8)
Ferry Terminal: (60/16/0)
Municipal Airport: (40/20/8) Each Cargo Terminal generates 1080 freight orders

Parks:
All Parks provide (5/2/0)

Specializations:

Mining:
Coal Mine (140/20/12)Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Ore Mine (140/20/12) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Metals HQ (600/100/10)
Smelting Factory (1400/200/20) Creates 4320 Freight Orders
Advanced Coal Mine (1400/200/20) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Drilling:
Oil Well: (80/40/12)
Petroleum HQ: (400/200/70)
Oil Refinery: (800/400/130) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Trading:
Trade Depot: (20/6/0)
Creates 1080 Freight Orders with the Freight Shipping Warehouse it comes with
*Additional Freight Shipping Warehouses will create an additional 1080 Freight Orders EACH*
Trade HQ: (400/200/70)
Trade Port: (40/12/4)
Creates 4320 Freight Orders with the Freight Shipping Warehouse it comes with
*Additional Freight Shipping Warehouses will create an additional 4320 Freight Orders EACH*

Electronics:
Processor Factory: (20/60/12) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Electronics HQ (200/300/120)
Consumer Electronics Factory: (200/600/240) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Culture:
Expo Center: (40/20/80) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Pro Stadium: (400/200/70) Creates 4320 Freight Orders
Arc De Triumphe: (20/0/0)
Cinquantenaire: (40/20/0)
Dutch Windmill (10/4/0)
Edificio Copan (0/0/0) No jobs but provides housing for 2,650 population
Empire State Building: (400/200/70) [u]1440 Freight Orders
Giralda: (40/20/0)
Globe Theatre: (40/20/8) Creates 24 Freight Orders
Kolner Dom: (10/4/0)
Leaning tower of Pisa (10/4/0)
Oslo Opera: (40/20/8) Creates 24 Freight Orders
Rundentarn: (40/20/8)
Statue of Liberty: (40/20/0)
Basil's Cathedral: (10/4/0)
Stockholm City Hall: (26/24/16) Creates 1440 Freight Orders
Sidneys Opera House: (40/20/8)
Tokyo Tower: (40/20/0)
Washington Monument: (10/4/0)
Zamek Krolewski w Warzanie: (10/4/0)
Willis Tower (300/300/120) Creates 1440 Freight Orders

Gambling:
Gambling House: (120/32/0)
Gambling HQ: (200/300/120)
Sci-Fi Casino: (600/100/10)
Sleek Casino: (400/200/70)
Elegant Casino: (200/300/120)

RCI Gauges Explained!

Hello, I am frenzytoast, co-author to this blog :)

It seems many SimCity players are trying to find a balance between RCI. Unfortunately its NOT so simple to say take 3 parts residential, 2 parts commercial and 1 parts industry for a balanced city.

SimCity 2013's use of street density and wealth levels can make balancing a city difficult. Below are the conclusions I've come to based on experimenting in sandbox mode.

  **RCI Gage Explained** 

The RCI gauges will rise and fall depending on the information that is present under the Population Panel.
The Residential gauge will increase if there are jobs available for those wealth levels.
The Commercial gauge will increase if there are shoppers of that wealth class that are unsatisfied.
The Industrial gauge will increase if there are unfilled freight orders coming from the commercial zones.

***Be aware that there are certain buildings (Example: Power Plants and Specialization Buildings) that also create freight orders***

A note on the Details Panel found under the population Panel: Many SimCity players have been wondering what the Total Freight Orders and Unfulfilled Freight Orders relate to as its not really explained. Basically, commercial zones are what causes the Total Freight Orders number to rise. The Unfulfilled Freight orders is then the amount of commercial buildings that are not receiving freight.

***These two numbers are what causes the Industrial Demand gauge to rise.***

 A final note on RCI Gauges. The amount that each individual bar increases for wealth levels is a bit off. With 6 standard city blocks of dirt road zoned with commercial, I have 290 low wealth jobs, 116 mid wealth jobs and 0 high wealth jobs. Yet when I look at the gauges, they are filled with the exact amount despite the difference of actual demand for low and mid wealth workers.
These seem to be the only factors that affect these gauges. Beyond that, it seems that they can generally be ignored for the duration of any game.

If Residential demand is high, either cut back on commercial/industry to reduce the number of available jobs or provide more residential zones/workers.
If Commercial is high, provide more shops for your residents or remove residential zones.
If Industrial is high, provide more Industry to fulfill the freight orders from present commercial or cut back on commercial.

**The Industrial gauge will generally be full if there are 1000+ unfulfilled freight orders**

 ~Frenzytoast

Sandbox Mode - An issue

Greetings Mayors!
I'd like to share with you all an issue I have found with sandbox mode. A lot of you probably already have thought about this issue, but I'm just going to highlight it and why it's an issue for me.

I was doing some design maintenance on this blog and thinking of some cool ideas that would make this blog worth coming back to each day. Then I was thinking about things that could get users of the community involved more! Well, I then came up with the idea of contests! It was a total win in my eyes. Until I thought about the process to which the contests would work, then I hit this sandbox mode issue.

The issue
Well, if I were to host a SimCity contest, how would I determine if that city were legit or not? Even if they had to make a video of their city, they could still fake it in sandbox mode with ease.

Here's a comedy strip I made for you all, to explain what I mean. ;) (click for a larger image)

My 'solution'
I'd have to visit the cities entered in the contest 1-by-1 which would be extremely inefficient  Also bare in mind that if the server which their city is on, is full I'd have to wait a good 20 minutes just to judge their city. Let alone, how hard it would be to find their city in the first place. It's not a good solution and it still gives me issues, like the ones I've stated above. But if I host a contest, it's really my only hope to knowing if a city is legit or not.


What there could be to solve this
An official screenshot uploader to an official simcity sub domain (E.g http://www.shots.simcity.com), where images cannot be tampered with and a watermark is placed over it if the city was created in sandbox mode. Not only would this make the game more competitive  but it would allow me to create contests which would make the game more fun!

Anyway, I highly doubt that this would be in Maxis' to-do list, but if it was... I'd be very pleased.
Thanks for reading!

Post your opinion in the comments and/or in this thread: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/9356855.page#27577414

Why you get banned for chargebacks on origin

Hey Mayors!

Today I was strolling along the forums when I came across a thread that stood out to me: Gamezone article on EA threatening bans.  After reading this I was shocked by that article by Gamezone. Their lack of knowledge of EA's reasoning really made their article quite the slander-type.

If you read it at first, like me and thought "Hey that's dumb, banned for a chargeback? That's NOT FAIR!" Then this article here, is perfect for you. As you'll soon realize EA's reasoning behind chargeback bans.

Firstly though, I would like to comment that: You are NOT wrong for wanting a chargeback, I totally understand why you would want one, having been given what you call a 'broken product'. The ban system when getting a chargeback is purely because of people who ruin it for YOU. That's right, if no one abused the refund system, EA would be handing out refunds with no bans!

Anyway, now that that is covered lets take a dive into the depths of why EA have decided to ban users who get a chargeback.

Having done research into selling online goods. I have been enlightened by how this system works, I am also working on my own kids website, which on there - I will be selling online goods. I will try not to make this too hard to understand, so I'll put it into simple terms.

First, think of a restaurant. Okay, now think of their sauces that they provide free of charge. If someone abuses that and takes, for example 30 tomato sauce from the trey, the restaurant now has to refill the tray, eating into profits. Because of this, they would have to resolve this issue. There is no way they could tell when someone is going to abuse the system, so they have to put LIMITS in to place. (So for a restaurant, they'd charge __ per each tomato sauce.)

Okay now think of this from the selling online goods perspective. When you sell online goods, there is NOTHING YOU CAN FULLY DO, TO PROVE THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN THE CUSTOMER THE GOODS THAT THEY HAVE PAYED FOR. So, keeping this bold fact in mind, anyone can go to paypal, or the service used to do the billing and say 'Excuse me, I have not received my online goods from EA, I would like my money back.' By law, they would have to get the money back & although EA knows for definite that they got they're goods (whatever game they purchased) and they could show for example - paypal they're origin account with the game they bought. For all paypal knows, they could of added that game to the account AFTER the requested money-back. Now then, think what would happen if you didn't get banned for money back on online goods. Someone could easily get every origin game for free, whilst people like me have payed a lot of money. THIS is what you call unfair and that is why EA bans every account that has had money back. Yes, they could just remove the game from the origin account, but for all they know, that person may be trying to steal games from origin, so this is just a 'just incase ban'. Which I think is pretty sensible.

I hope you now have a more clear understanding on EA's reasoning. I know I do and I see why they have done it. People have ruined it for you, if you wanted a chargeback it's not EA's fault that people abuse the system. So if you are looking for someone to blame, blame the system abusers! :D

I do however, see this has a very nasty situation for people who really want a chargeback for their broken goods. I do see how it can seem unfair, but that's just how it HAS to be. You should of expected issues with the launch before you bought it and also read origin's terms of use policies. You agreed that you read them, that's your fault if you lied.

Please do not slander EA for banning users for chargebacks, they just have to do it. It's the only solution to preventing users doing this time and time again. Staff at EA have to monitor these things, without a ban, wasted time and energy on the staff with a person who keeps trying to get games for free.

Thanks for reading mayors, link anyone on the forum to this post if they have doubts about EA's reasoning on the ban.

~JMR (Origin:jordan-m-richards, twitter:@JordanMRichards)