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SimCity News

Please note I'm currently working on the new site. I didn't want to take the site offline though, so you can still visit it. However me working on the site while it's still online means a lot of the pages will appear wonky. But not to worry, it won't take too long. Happy
Origin's Weekly Giveaway: Simtastic Summer Edition
Friday, July 12, 2013 - 20:58

Welcome to our weekly prize giveaway. Leave us a comment for a chance to win free game codes and other cool prizes while celebrating your favorite games. We do this every week—to stay in touch with these giveaways, like us on Facebook.

One of the most Iconic images in gaming is the PlumbBob (the green diamond-like symbol) from The Sims. Creating your own world and then proceeding to mess around with anything and anyone within it is one of the greatest gaming feelings out there. In what other game can you make friends with only ghosts? Where else can you have a big party and then proceed to lock every guest in the bathroom? At least without serious repercussions…

My favorite thing to do in The Sims is to steal everything not nailed down. The greatness of the game is that you can play it however you want to!

So what is your favorite thing to do in The Sims?

Do you like to make a version of yourself? Or perhaps create a version of your worst enemy and then mess with them—the possibilities are endless. For your chance to win a Maxis T-shirt (sizes: women’s M or L, men’s L or XXL) or a fun The Sims 17" decal, comment below and tell us about your favorite thing to do in The Sims. We love creativity!

Like, Comment on, or Share the official Facebook post for this giveaway to boost your chances to win. Entries must be posted by July 14th at 11:59pm PT to be considered.

The Origin team will pick five (5) random commenters to win this week’s prize. Please note, only one entry per person is permitted for each giveaway, and only residents of North America, aged 18 and older, who are not EA employees or affiliated with an EA employee, are eligible. Winners will be contacted via email on their registered Origin/EA email address to claim their prize.  Good luck!

It's US-only. I wish I could participate! Never got the chance to get myself some of these Sims prints. Oh well...

Visit the Origin News website to participate!

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SimCity iBook now available
Friday, July 12, 2013 - 20:38

 

Prima Games just sent out a tweet about the SimCity Prima Games guide available as iBook!

This book is available for download on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes. Books must be read on an iOS device.

The SimCity Prima Official Game Guide key features:

  • iBook Features
    Features like built-in bookmarking, adjust your screen brightness, locate a word, character, or phrase anywhere in the iBook with the built-in search feature.
  • Know Your City Specializations
    Optimize every city in your region with different specializations and work together to complete Great Works.
  • Be the Best Mayor!
    Expert strategies on how to manage income and expenses while expanding utilities and city services to meet the demands of your growing population.
  • Business Strategies
    Learn how to identify and extract natural resources to reap enormous profits from various business opportunities.
  • Unlock Achievements
    Obtain every achievement...even the secret ones!
  • Quick Reference Tables
    Content listing costs, prerequisites, and upgrades for all buildings and their modules.

The iBook costs $9.99 and is available on iPhone, iPad and iPad Touch.

View / buy the SimCity iBook

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Win a Sims room! (Dutch/Belgian people only)
Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - 20:08

The Dutch Sims page on Facebook has a cool contest going on. Dutch/Belgian Sims fans can win a dorm room in Sims style! I'm posting this here in case some of our Dutch/Belgian visitors are visiting the English site and we wouldn't want them to miss this!

Is jouw kamer wel toe een een make-over? Doe dan mee en win een echte Sims 3 (studenten)kamer inrichting. Like en deel de post op onze pagina en vul onderstaand formulier in om kans te maken!

Dutch/Belgian people can go to this post on De Sims Facebook page and click like and share the post. They also need to fill out this form!

I would definitely participate if I had a dorm room lol. Does a living room count as well? :P

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Build the Best Green City contest
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 00:15

Show us your city's true colors by entering our Build the Best Green City contest. Tweet your pics to #SimCityBTB.

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SimCity Update 5 available on Tuesday
Sunday, June 16, 2013 - 21:35

Mayors! SimCity Update 5, which focuses on multiplayer and multi-city fixes and improvements, releases this Tuesday:

Hi Mayors – below you'll find the notes that are in development for Update 5.0.

Update 5 is focused on improvements to Multiplayer and Multi-city Play
• New: Historic Price charts for Global Market resources are available from the SimCity World button on the main menu.
• New: The Region Wall chat has been completely updated with a new look and new functionality! Chat functions more efficiently and it’s much easier to communicate with other players. Time stamps show on chat messages on rollover. Regional events are easier to read and can be toggled on and off.
• New: Added a filter for friends’ regions in the join region section.
• New: Trading control. Added feature to give players more control over their utilities. Players can now choose whether or not to keep their power, water, or sewage local. This setting can be found on the information panel accessible by clicking on the power plant, water tower, or sewage pipe or plant. Sharing with the region is on by default.
• New: Regional Missions: Added seven new regional missions: Drink It Up!, Plug In, So Stoked, The Wheels on the Bus, Ferry Dust, Station to Station, and Riding Coach.
• New: Regional Achievement: Added a new regional achievement, Field Trip!
• Gifting Improvements: Cash gifts are now delivered electronically, not by truck. This should improve the efficiency of gifting.
• Resource gifts: Resource gifts will happen more reliably. Multiple trucks can make deliveries at once if they are available in the sending city and the truck capacities have been increased.
• Great Works Improvements: Delivery trucks will mark their resources as dropped off as soon as they reach the Great Works, instead of when they arrive back in the city. This will make tracking time more reliable.
• Great Works Improvements: Update to have all resources at Great Works handled at the regional level. This will address players in different cities seeing different resources once the server has processed the region and cities.
• Great Works Improvements: Fixed an issue where an Arcology would maintain power from the region and fixed an issue where shoppers would not increase at the Arcology as it was leveled up. This will update in both existing and new Arcologies.
• Great Works Improvements: Tuned the Solar Farm.
• Regional Unlocks: The advanced coal mine unlocks regionally. Fixed issue where the Trade HQ sometimes did not unlock.
• Fire Advisor Trading clarity: Tuned the Fire advisor so they do not tell you that neighbors are sending fire trucks when your neighbor has no fire stations.
• Trading: School buses that travel from a neighbor’s city will show that city’s avatar.
• Regional Commuting: Fixed an issue where Sims would not be able to take transit out of cities with lots of streetcars or shuttle buses. This could cause some cases where commuting Sims could not return home and their homes would go abandoned.
• Garbage Trucks and Recycling Trucks: Fixed an issue that some cities experienced where garbage and recycling trucks do not leave their buildings or disappeared when trading service with neighbors. Existing cities who have trucks that have disappeared will have to demolish their missing trucks’ garages and plop new garages.
• Text Clarification: The “Out of Money” message now says “Can’t find work” when appropriate in rollover feedback and the approval rating UI. This is to clarify your Sims’ actual need. 

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Goodbye The Sims Social and SimCity Social!
Friday, June 14, 2013 - 01:03

Well that's it. In a few hours EA will shutdown The Sims Social and SimCity Social. Are you going to miss it? I have to admit I haven't played it in quite some time. Mostly due to lack of time. But also because I could only complete quests if I added a bunch of people I didn't know or if I spend real money on it. I will admit I have had some fun times with both games. And I will definitely miss it. But on the bright side, more time to spend on other things!

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SimCity for Mac delayed
Thursday, June 6, 2013 - 21:07

Mayors – today we are announcing the Mac version of SimCity has moved its release date from June 11 and will now be available digitally worldwide in August.

Learn more about the Mac version and future PC updates from Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis: http://bit.ly/11vb6yg

That is quite a delay. I guess I should be happy I run Bootcamp as well.

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Maxis deploys SimCity 4.0
Sunday, May 26, 2013 - 02:03

Maxis has rolled out SimCity patch 4.0 this week. This enables a few of the SimCity World features that were announced prior to release, most importantly global markets and leaderboards. The patch also provides new content in the form of a SimCity Launch Park (for early adopters of the game only) and a new region of 7 cities in one cluster. Commercial zones will now also play a more important role in Sims' happiness. Read below for the full notes and check out the accompanying blog post. The patch will automatically be installed when you next launch the game; the next big patch will be rolled out after the Mac launch at June 11th.

  • New: SimCity Launch Park, an exclusive new park just for our dedicated fans who were early adopters.
  • New: Region: Edgewater Bay. Seven city sites in one cluster around a beautiful bay with one great work site.
  • New: Your current server will now be shown in the options menu.
  • New: More detailed rollover information on buildings telling player’s if their Sims received happiness from a park or from shopping. Previous to this fix, this information was generic.
  • Re-Enabled Feature: Global Market prices now dynamically change during gameplay.
  • Re-Enabled Feature: Leaderboards will be active on EU West 3, Pacific 1 and Pacific 2 at the release. We will enable them on additional servers throughout the day.
  • Re-Enabled Feature: Region filters are now enabled on all SimCity servers. Players will be able to search for open games by Map Name, Sandbox Mode, and Abandoned Cities.
  • Rain Clouds: Fixed an issue where some cities would not have rain clouds to replenish their water table. If you had a city with this issue, you will start seeing clouds again within a game day.
  • Fire: Improved response time of fire trucks to fires. Improved the time it takes for a fire signal to reach a fire station.
  • Mission updates: Tuned Metals HQ and Community College missions. These were appearing too early, making them difficult to complete. They now appear later in a city’s development.
  • Solar Farm Great Work: Reduced fire risk at the Solar Farm Great work. Local fire engines were spending too much time at the Solar Farm.
  • Messaging: Improved pre-requisite messaging for Trade Port, Casinos, Smelting Factory and Oil Refinery. It should be clearer on how to unlock these buildings.
  • Graphics: Fix for flickering low wealth buildings on NVIDIA graphics cards.
  • Education: Fix for an issue some cities experienced where commuting students did not return from a neighbor’s city. This was causing a problem where students would disappear from a city in some cases.
  • Tuning: Sims will lose a small amount of happiness if they don’t have a place to shop. Cities without places to shop will see complaints and feel the effect of unhappy Sims. This will emphasize the importance of commercial zones
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The forums are back!
Thursday, May 16, 2013 - 23:08

 

Woot, after weeks (and a forced break in between) of working on it, I am happy to announce that our forums are back online! All accounts that were created after August 2012 are gone, so if you signed up between August and January, it's probably a good idea to do that again! Happy

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GamesIndustry International article: Sims on #9
Thursday, May 16, 2013 - 19:43

GamesIndustry International has an article online of the top selling franchises from 2005-2012, with EA listed at #3 (2012), and The Sims is listed at #9 (2005-2012)!

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