The way we feel, A view for EA

[Mechalic 26]

Will this post be read by EA, I can only hope.

We all love SImcity 4, because its complex, challenging, and most of us turn away from games that are too easy, without the challenge to get you involved. This new direction, has made the game look like City life, or another childish game without the structure, design and challenges we all love in Simcity 4.

My main post is, what I'm sure most of us would love is, the game to be in full 3D, but on a different level, where as we can view it in as much detail as we can in Simcity 4, with all the detailed streets, transport lines and city design. So imagine the way we currently view our cities, and then making that full 3D with better camera options to view on all angles, whilst maintaining the intricate details of the buildings. This new look seems to limit our love of transport options, such as Light rail, mono-rail, elevated rail, etc, with overhead lines cutting across avenues, surrounded by office buildings, creating a dense complex city  atmosphere. 

It seems this has all been disregarded, against all ideas of us here at Simtropolis. So that it can be made it a simple, easy game, that anyone in the teenage market can pick up and play within 5mins. Taking away the challenges, the time, the effort, and the appreciation that it takes to make a city in Simcity 4 a real city.

[Giligone 10]

As cool as that would be. To be realistic on this issue. Having sc4 like detail in full 3D would mean mega-lag on even the most advanced machines. I don't know of anyone here on SimTrop that doesn't suffer lag even in the orthographic views of sc4. A great idea, but quite unfeasable. I don't think theres anything wrong with the sc4 graphics anyway. We just want more options! haha.

[Goldfish4209 9]

It wouldn't mean mega-lag if they took their time and waited for some next generation computers, when we 8 cores are common and Everyone can afford SLI/Crossfire, which could be only a few years down the road. 20009, anyone? By then we'll all be laughing at the incapability of Core 2 duo processors.

[simzebu 20]

I had thought for a while that SC5 would be in '09. It made a lot more sense in the progression of the game. I don't know that there will be 8-cores then. Certainly 4-cores, which are nearly to market already, and definitely 64-bit processing, since Windows "Vienna" will be the last Windows to offer 32-bit compatibility according to Wikipedia.

I like my idea of an transit networks expansion pack released by Maxis that would give us a few more transit networks to work with. By my calculations it would bring in over two mil in pure profit.

[Spinmaster 75]

From what I've seen, there seems to be even split on this.

3D but realistically willing to sacrifice some detail for it?

Or keep detail, but accept that it cannot be done practically in full 3D (yet)... so stay 2.5?

It is a tough dilemma. Me, I'm not gung-ho that it must become 3D unless it can be done well - i.e. I accept some detail must be sacrificed to do it, but too much, and no thanks. But I don't mind it staying 2.5 as it is, either. So long as they don't change the foundation of the game itself, I'm not terribly worried about the graphics (provided they don't take a quantum leap backwards either).

Oh wait, they are changing the foundation of the game, huh?

[Jetsurf2002 0]

okay, I am really disappointed with the new turnout for Sim City's direction. It is interesting, but I can agree that a new 3d look and how it will lag with our computers today, but did you have to change the way it feels and works. sim city has been a great game the way it's been set up since its been created. I was expecting to see the same view of sc4 but with curved roads instead of the disappointing options of just diagonal roads and not more, so I wanted to see more road options, lots of new buildigs, several options of police, fire, schools, and just more variety in general. they could have put the societies version into this idea. plus, it looks like it's close to City Life, and frankly, I hated City Life. Its not fun. I might just stick to Sim City 4 for a while... sorry, I'm a tough critic. I love my Sim City too much to just let it die off

[Pepper 15]

There are two main reasons why I am wary of full 3D.  The first is of course the lag; no matter how awesome the screenshots look, if it's going to run very poorly on my computer, I'm not going to buy it.  The second reason... well, I've noticed that some game designers tend to spend lots of time working on the graphics, and then the gameplay is neglected.  I don't care how nice the game looks, even if it runs on my computer flawlessly, if it's not any fun I'm not going to want to play it.

[blahdy 21]

one way to easily patch up SC4's quality is to make it so that BAT can store FSH images at, and the game can read the FSH images at, Zoom Level 6 (maximum zoom).

This will make the model details more visible at maximum zoom; currently the game ignores zoom level 6 and simply pixelates the zoom level 5 FSH images of the model to display at that zoom level.

Certain elements though, like highway, etc are native s3d models, which can be visible in any zoom length natively -- these are true 3d models as opposed to Google Earth style like simple box buildings (LODs) with images painted on them, which is how SC4 does currently with most buildings.