Maxis are working to fix a number of the bugs so far identified by players, including improving traffic pathfinding in update 1.7, though they’ve still to return Cheetah speed and leaderboards to some servers.
The next update, 2.0, aims to centre on four particular issues: “addressing the Recycling Center bug, fixing the fire engine clumping, improving the efficiency of Street Cars, and increasing the radius of river water.”
The news came from senior producer Kip Katsarelis, who took to the forums to reveal the current state of the game: “We’ve been heads down addressing the key issues we’re seeing reported from our community. This includes city rollbacks, lost progress, and the return of features like Cheetah Speed and Leaderboards. Like you, we want all of these resolved ASAP, which is why they are the top priorities in our studio. Matter of fact, we have all of these in a QA environment, giving them a thorough test before we release them back to you, the fans. “
She doesn’t make clear if these fixes are due to be released in patch 2.0.
The two standouts from the list of 2.0 changes that were revealed, based on my experience of SimCity, is the radius of river water and the Recycling Center bug. They may sound like small things but a major issue with any city that’s begun to expand is the limited availability of water. It’s ridiculous how quickly you use up any clean water reserves.
The recycling center bug is a real pain. For no reason a recycling centre can stop collecting trash and once that happens it will never begin again. The simplest way to fix it is to demolish it and rebuild. That fast becomes a pretty costly fix.
It will be nice to see fire engine clumping and streetcar efficiency improved but these are not major issues in the grand scheme of things. The water system is the major issue I want to see addressed.