Gorrath said:
Is anyone who is familiar with teh current state of the game able to let me in on whether or not the other problems have been addressed? It was my understanding that the game was broken on a fundamental level due to the way things like traffic worked. Is the actual game play now up to snuff to be worth the purchase? Thanks in advance for any information.
The core problem with SimCity was that the intention of Maxis was to simulate the actual complete traffic in the city, while at the same time keep it visible and real to the player.
So the premise is: within a set amount of time all the traffic in the city (say: a person going to work) must have completed its movements (after all, they have to get to work on time), but at the same time, the traffic has to be slow enough to be visible and interactive to the player.
Now the consequence of this is, traffic does not move fast enough for it to effectively flow through the city (otherwise it wouldn't be visible to the player). Result: as the city grows bigger, the traffic jams grow exponentially, basically blocking everything. And 'everything' includes services like the fire department, police, ambulances, garbage disposal and school buses. So yeah, the whole town goes to shit.
As far as I know, this has not been fixed (it wasn't when I checked on it last week) and I doubt that it will be fixed.