Monster Hunter is more popular for two reasons.  It's the better game and it was already massively popular before other developers started ripping off the concept.  Why bother asking this when I stated it was the better game the post you quoted?  It doesn't change how any of the games mechanics are.

They did think of it, they just thought that they're fanbase had moved on.

As a developer, it's hard to judge whether or not your fanbase still exists, especially for an older game. Most of these people are middle aged and even if they're excited about an idea of a new game, they might not necessarily have the time required to play it (since they have jobs now).

SimCity looked to capture the new "connected audience" but just misjudged their fanbase I feel. I don't think it was a case of forgetting, rather a case of misjudgement

That's just semantics. Regardless, who in their right mind said "the connected audience likes a tenth of what we offered before". It's not just the map. Literally everything in the game has much less. On top of which, there was no reason why they couldn't have a full map, and small maps in tandem. This is typical EA. Releasing a quarter of a game and trying to sell it off like it's new.

But lemme guess, there were at least a dozen planned expansions for it, I bet. SimCity:Huge! (where all the maps are normal size), SimCity:Highways!, SimCity:Subways!. I can almost hear the accountant reaching for his inhaler as this is rattled off in a board meeting.

You want a good example of a company that does connected well? Look at Civilization. Fucking nailed it AND released regular versions at the same time.

The UI is so so so much better and they tried to create a better simulation rather than giving the huge scale. Everything in the old SimCity games was an illusion, real people weren't real people, so this game just tried to map everything better. In the end, we were all happier with the more fake representation of a simulation, but they weren't to know that

Anyway, it's not like the old SimCity did things like metro's that well, I really want a full cities in motion style metro system when they do make their next full sized city game

It's the main reason Dragon's Dogma is good.  The bosses literally make the game.  The exploration and such on Dragon's Dogma is great, but I don't think anything holds a candle to how enjoyable it is fighting the bosses on the game.

This is literally all anyone wants, yet nobody is capable of delivering.

Monster Hunter is more popular for two reasons.  It's the better game and it was already massively popular before other developers started ripping off the concept.  Why bother asking this when I stated it was the better game the post you quoted?  It doesn't change how any of the games mechanics are.

Basically I just got Settlers, the latest one, and I had to build my own roads, and there was no more terrain overlay, and everything was just....bland. All I wanted was a game where my villagers made their own roads. I really really fucking liked that feature.

How do devs fuck up this bad?

You're to young to understand. Settlers was all about building roads. Until Settlers 3 where they fucked this game badly.

Settlers 1 and 2 are more about logistics than war or strategy.

TMNT, PSABR