Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

by mich_dim
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Original Post

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

[ Edited ]
★★★★★ Novice
This is ridiculous. The Vu tower upgrade has been is place 3 weeks. The trade HQ is overwhelmed with Vu parts, which makes it difficult to find other items. No one is destroying buildings which means there is less demand for other items. Before the upgrade I had no problem selling other items, now I do. I stopped using the disasters because ther is no reward, now I have stopped adding buildings to increase the size of my city because there is no point in trying to find rare items when the only thing you see are Vu items. The only items you can find are those that others are using to raise cash so they have enough money to upgrade roads, which is another stupid upgrade. So no disasters to buy special buildings with keys. No additional buildings to increase population which is dumb even if you do add buildings. After your city becomes large the added tax base a new building provides is so small you will never recupe the investment. It takes weeks to expand land or storage which is no value if you don't need parts to build things. I have hung in there thinking the upgrades would be reworked to fix all the (I hope unintentional) problems that it caused. I have become bored. So while at 1.4 million sims with still room to grow. I'm checking out. You all have lots of fun,wasting your time with this game. Im looking for another game that is FUN wasting my time. Got any suggestions?
Message 41 of 48 (2,645 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★★★★ Apprentice

davej6655 -

Like you I was hoping and waiting for EA to come around. There are a couple of things I would like to discuss including the "incidents" that have occurred in my two cities the last couple of weeks.

 

1) Mysterious concept of lost Simcash. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I started a new city on my Android Tablet just to see if I had "learned" anything with my experiences in my larger city; Beryl Point. That task is going well except that the servers are now losing track of my Simcash in this new city. Like all of you; we are power players. Well I have not "mistakenly" pressed a wrong key or "shutdown????" the game in a wrong way to cause the use of the Simcash units. I was so furious about this that I contacted EA and asked them why they were stealing my Simcash. They told me: "I was shutting the game down incorrectly or there was a hiccup with the servers”.

 

There is a small silver lining here: EA credited my Simcash account with the "lost 78 units" of Simcash and gave me $2,000 Simoleans as well. But they did not give me an explanation as to why this was happening.

 

Their customer service reps; online chat and via email, told me that EA wants to have the players “enjoy the game” and “want the players to have a pleasant user experience”. Have we somehow gotten the attention of EA? Don’t hold your breath. ." HA HA HA HA HA LMAO, now.

2) A while back Dave you commented on how the tax dollars fell to $.02 per person when you get upwards of a million Sims. Like you I was already tracking this stat. And that got me to thinking about tracking “experience points”. I did not do this in my larger city but now have tracked these stats for 7 levels in my new city; CraftBrewers Village. There is a trend here and what I have suspected has come true.

 

a) The experience points required to get to the next level increases by 105-115%.

b) The experience points given per person decreases by 5-11%.

 

What does this mean to all of us? More time spent on a level, more resources spent to obtain the next level and certainly more important is: the new plan of having to spend exponentially higher dollars to upgrade the roads. It does not make me happy that this outcome has become the truth but I probably was not thinking otherwise anyway given EA’s attitude towards this “freemium game” and their concept of perpetual pay to play.

 

3) In my larger city; not as large as yours Dave and BTW kudos to you for reaching that plateau, levels 1-32 - I have spent $105,300 on "Road Upgrades". Now that the "new plan" (EA's greed has been further supplanted in the game), levels 33-35-1/2 - I have spent $265,400 on road upgrades.

 

This is around $3,290 Simoleans per level prior to this new plan - to $106,160 Simoleans per level in the 2-1/2 levels of 33-35-1/2. An increase of over 4,700%.

 

Again this is no surprise. What confuses me however is how can the player who does not have the Simoleans continue to pay this amount of Simoleans for roads. We are doing this just to sustain our current levels of play; it’s obstructing our ability to move the city forward. I have spent the last 10 days just barely making enough new Simoleans to raise my amount from $1,271,496 to $1,340,276 while paying for this absurdity. But I am however paying another price: population is stagnant.

 

4) Ea has now; as you say Dave, shut out the “higher levels of players” ability to sell on the GTHQ. This is where we all can make up needed Simoleans for city advancement. I might have to sit and wait for 12-18 hours now just to sell on this market. The only thing left going for us (this is no consolation prize) is to collect what tax dollars we can. Like you say Dave it’s become boring. Making what little Simoleans we can just to pay for roads.

 

Maybe EA can answer this question: my population before the “new plan” was 341,234 Sims and the roads were sufficient for the then population. My population has increased only 46,748; roughly 13.6%, Sims in the last ten days but have had to spend 4,700% more on roads. What’s up EA?

 

Food for thought: we did some research on the original Simcity, (please excuse the length)

 

Micropolis, The Sims, SimCity

 

All of the above games were developed by Will Wright who eventually co-partnered with Jeff Braun’s company called Maxis in and around 1987. They formed this partnership in order to help distribute the game to the waiting public. The first version known as Micropolis was coded for a Commodore 64 system in 1985. The Simcity version did not come out until 1989 and that could run on Amiga, Macintosh and IBM PC computers. In 1988 Maxis finally convinced Borderbund that these games would sell and soon after that went to market. Today Simcity is one of the best selling computer games of all time.

 

Will Wright’s inspiration to develop these games was brilliant. “Wright cultivated a real love of the intricacies and theories of urban planning”. That is where the attraction is; self gratification of building a successful city where happiness is based on Sim approval that reflect a players decision making process. Mr. Wright’s philosophies in creating the original game were/are in contradiction of most city and state planners, back then and today.

 

As 1997 rolled around EA was eager to acquire Maxis into its portfolio of profitable companies. Once there, Maxis operated on its own but as a subsidiary of EA. Will Wright stayed on with the company and his leadership paved the wave to many subsequent versions of the game. Will Wright left EA in 2009 to work on: “The Stupid Fan Club”. EA has shut down the Maxis division early this year, the article stated March 2015.

EA has a long history of swallowing up viable “gaming” companies. From what the information says; since the early 1990’s they have spent well over 3 billion dollars acquiring other gaming companies. So okay, we know that companies are started and run as “for profit corporations”, we do not deny this. But EA profits this year are projected at $875,000,000. Monopolizing is not a for profit strategy, it’s a deceitful way of doing business.

 

Why am I posting this information? Which BTW, these are not my own thoughts: this information is posted on various web sites for everyone to read.

 

One could say that EA’s interjection of a money making format into the game; a twist on the “freemuim business model”, has tainted Simcity Buildit. Most who have played it can tell you about their frustration, about the difficulty of advancement, the bugs. It’s kind of like Simcity: with its one time purchase fee and you play without regards to company profits but if you look close: it’s more like a perpetual price to play. From reading the online forums about Simcity Buildit – this game does not get any better even of you pay.

 

So why then is the burden of “making money” placed onto this game by EA? If in fact the results are the same if you pay or not: why the complicatedness, the hassle, the aggravation presented on their part.

 

My personal thoughts are – we would be better off paying a minimum charge of say: $0.99 cents for the game. But then EA would have to take out the demands of other money making ideas out of the game. Could they do it and are they willing to keep their hands off at that point? Could they make this a better game? I could be in fact dead wrong….. But it’s more than just my opinion, there are many who think this way. Remember we are just playing a game… something one does for entertainment.

Message 42 of 48 (2,461 Views)
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Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★ Novice
My sugestion is let's everybody put the vu tower itens on the trade marketing costing 1$
Message 43 of 48 (2,457 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★ Apprentice
Vu isn't a problem for me. I'm still doing disasters and leveling up my Vu tower to get a decent amount of keys. Trade is littered with Vu items though and it's hard to find anything else.

Today I started a new city to try to find storage upgrades. My new cities trade is empty. Most of the time there's two or three items total, rarely more than one page full. I have been able to get more storage items than normal but the selection is very, very, very thin for everything in general.
Message 44 of 48 (2,382 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★★★★★ Newbie

Yes, the major problem being that even if you wanted to make a disaster in your city, YOU GET NO KEYS!! from repairing the buildings destroyed. Not cool!!

 

I have just started randomly clicking a city to visit, to see if they have the item I want or not.

Message 45 of 48 (2,244 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★★★★★ Newbie

Wonders will never cease4. I was looking for 1 cheesecake and after 22 consecutive GT HQ screens, 528 item windows, 282 were VuTower items.

That's almost 54% 

 

No choice but to reject a cargo plane and wait ANOTHER 18 hours. 

Message 46 of 48 (2,215 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

[ Edited ]
★★★★★ Newbie

@nw8240bp wrote:

ub2shw,

 

I am really sorry that you got caught up in all of this. So much $'s spent for???? I have not a good word to say about EA. And now with this new update it seems that EA did not listen to us players and now I have discovered their servers "forgot everything" that was saved on the status of ones city let alone the past atrocities.

 

Here is what I have found so far in "City Achievements":

 

1) Even though my city has collected over 1,200,000 in taxes, (I surpassed the million $ level back on 4/27/2015) EA now says that in the category of "Master of Simoleans" that I have only collected $7,078.00 out of $1,500,000 in taxes collected. What a bunch of *. Are you really seriously kidding me EA?

 

2) Spend $500,000 when trading in: "Master Purchaser", EA says I have spent $2,255.00 out of $500,000. I surpassed the $250,000 mark in spending at least, I'm thinking 60 days ago along with the following.

 

3) Earn $500,000 in "Master Trader", really this is where I make my SImoleans at. I am at what EA says now; $16,735.00. Again I surpassed the $250,000 mark - 6 weeks ago.

 

My Simoleans account balance is at $1,276,206 and rising fast. Who is the master of Simoleans? EA you have not a clue. I have a master spreadsheet that I keep track of: Population Growth, Building & Roads, Simoleans, Total Assets, Wealth per Citizen, Tax  base, Tax base per person, Cargo and Air Shipments, max price per item, what to sell at and what is the most profitable item to make and on and on. Then I have six other spreadsheets that keep track of other necessary items in order to help me grow my city. All without hacking the game. And I am still handcuffed by EA in order to progress my city by their greed to "steal" resources.

 

Today I encountered a building upgrade that was worth $9,860 in my resources and the rewards were: 152 Sims, $1,780 Simoleans and 97 experience points. Again are you kidding me EA, from a business point of view, who would do this?

 

Incidentally when my population was at 231,000 Sims my tax base was $14,625 per 24 hours. Now that my SIm population is at 341,234 my tax base is at $16,339 per 24 hours. If you calculate this out: that's .0631 per person vs .0479 per person now. That means I am losing over $6,900.00 in a 24 hour period. Has anyone else seen this? Why is the tax base reversing? Need I go on?

 

You really should be ashamed EA. No conscience at all EA. Money is not everything.

 

nw8240bp

 

 

 


nw8240bp - Good and valuable info.

 

As a manufacturing professional, I embraced the factory element within this game and enjoyed managing the delicate balance of item BOM (Bill of Material) and resource demand versus market demand.  

 

Like you I created a spreadsheet to evaluate Trade center (HiLow$$) and average GHQ pricing versus inGame item purchase offers. I then looked deeper into the aggregate 'cost' to make items to try to evaluate just how much an upgrade or new construction project was costing versus the rewards being offered.

 

When I started comparing building  upgrade costs, they didn't seem rational which prompted me to email support and request/demand players have an option to decline upgrades of a specific building since sending them back to planning wasn't very efficient and their solution of moving building around to avoid traffic upgrade costs was a joke.

 

Its encouraging to see an decline upgrade option included in the latest upgrade (several month later). I'll start a discussion thread in the general discussion on spreadsheet use. Please join in. 

 

 

 

I am regretting not tracking my accomplishment statistics a lot closer since it seems its a lot harder to build experience and levels than before. As an early adopter of SCB I've seen many changes and glitches. 

 

 

 We used to buy games for $49.95 and enjoy them. Now they're free and we're taken to the cleaners with InApp purchase which I refuse to include in my real world budget.  

Message 47 of 48 (2,180 Views)

Re: trade depot OVERWHELMED with Vu Tower items!?

★★★ Newbie

Vu items are 5he most valuable items in the game to most ppl..I'd trade Vu for 1 coin burgers to anyone who wants Vu and then sell them at full price...it could make u a bunch of coins

 

Message 48 of 48 (1,428 Views)