Does anyone still have a key?

I was watching this for a while due to the apparent death of the Simcity franchise, but I'm not sold on paying a subscription for it. How is it if you're just playing offline compared to Simcity 4?

eh i've given up on it, sim city 4 , is just so much more fun to play than cities XL. the whole multiplayer part of this is a waste imho.

the game is out this week, and I forcast fail.

I want to play it but I can barely run it so sad face.

I believe their original stance was you only had to pay if you wanted to participate in online trades (buying and selling water, wee!) but last I checked no subscription, no mass tran either so I am guessing that will be a theme for MC. Sell a stripped game at full price even and then subscriptions for more money for basics of any city builder like mass tran. I didnt' care for the demo either.

When I get my copy of Win7 I can try the demo... but im hearing its just good and its just better than sim society... so ya... was kinda hoping its would replace say Sim City 3000 or 4000....

They shut down the demo before I got a chance to actually play it. So, now its a game with no demo.

Oh well, no money from me.

I have the game, and from what I can tell, so far it is far from a finished game. Online play is slow and laggy, even with setting at low. Solo mode means you can only trade with the AI corporation, pretty much making that aspect of the game useless due to the AI's high selling prices and low buying prices. So in multiplayer, you can't build a big city easily because it slows way down due to lag, and in solo you can't build to big of a city because the maps just don't have the resources required without trading (and of course the AI's restrictive prices mean you can't turn anything near a profit off the AI bought resources).

Oh ya, and I'm not sure why they are charging at all for subscription; after all, there are ads ingame via buildings and billboards from their "sponsors." And another thing: these "sponsor" buildings? Well, at least 1 of them they are actually making you pay to get. http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=966&Itemid=128 Notice item 3 of content pack 1. And apparently you don't even get any mass transit systems until pack 3.

One thing I can say though, is the game progression is very different from that of the SC series. In SC, your normal actions involve doing x, y, z, and then when you finish, in order to make more money, doing actions a, b, and c. I haven't quite decided if it is a positive or not, but cities XL (in solo mode anyway) seems to have a reverse in the way the challenge is spaced out. Early on, you do x, y, and z and manage to get a nice budget surplus. Then you do a, b, and c to grow the city further, and end up finding that your city is indeed larger, but that you really do not benefit from it. In fact, when your city really starts getting large, things get harder and harder, and surpluses seem to dwindle rather than grow. So instead of having a big, profitable city like SC, you end up with a big, non-profit city. It may get easier when the city grows beyond the size mine is now, but if it does, I'm not seeing it.

Cities XL was very disappointing from me. I played the demo. It's kind of a bummer, since I like city builders and Simicty 4 acts wierd on Vista (doesn't display the cars and other stuff)

Yeah, same here. Also why the hell are they taking sub payments for this? Like mentioned, they have adds in the game.

I'll just stick with City Life.

But City Life is horrible... even compared to CitiesXL.

I wouldn't go so far as calling it horrible. It does what I expect from a City Sim. And it's far better than any of the SimCity alternativs, at least in my opinion mind you.

Hey, at least I am not playing Tycoon City New York! Ewwww.....

Anyone knows anything about DRM? The last game(City Life) used StarForce, correct?

I don't think Monte Cristo said anything about the DRM. At the minumum it will be a serial key, at most it will likely be some varient of SecuROM, but with all the backlash DRM is recieving, I doubt they will use SecuROM.

Speaking of DRM, StarForce is trying to make comeback...