Cities Unlimited

[joeynymets 19]

I have a question about the transportation system in CU, is it going to be the same as in CL, just roads?

[yoshikoroyimara 5]

That is a good question joeynymets...I was going to ask that, too...

...another question of mine is the variety of the structures...in other words, how often will a single type of building be shown? I don't want three of the same building all lined in a row...I want variety...

also...in SC4, we are able to create our own buildings and regions with BAT programs...(such as the ST-EXchange above ^)...is it possible to do this with CU?

[Elaclairee 0]

As has been said... none of those questions can be answered yet. Although it may look like the game is nearly complete, it isn't anywheres close. Give them some time and space, but be sure to express your ideas, concerns, and comments. What information we have is all we're getting until the site comes up. Just the way the cooperate game runs. Don't forget that these are professionals doing this for money, not freelancing moders doing it for fun.

[dasilva 3]

Hi Joeynimets,

I cannot give you the details of the transport system we'll put in CU now but waht I can tell you is that it will have much, much more than what was present in CityLife. ;-)

And based on the discussions we have right now internally and with the community, it should be really fun to play with...

Hi Yoshi (do you mind I call you Yoshi ;-) )

We hear from you and CityLife players that this was something important to you and we will put in place multiple things in place so that you get as much building diversity as possible.

And Elaclairee, thanks for understanding we are in early stages of development and that we cannot answer all your questions right away.

However, I am here to vehicle a simple message: give us your ideas, your comments on what we will be doing when the official website will be live as we will use your feedback to make a realistic modern city builder game :-)

[mightygoose 92]

meaning realistically we are looking at Q3/Q4 2008 as an earliest actual release date.

[Elaclairee 0]

All I can say is this... Make us proud and our pockets will loosen.

Also, this world-type spin on region building seems interesting. It may be a sad departure from the custom maps we've gotten used to, but its different and worth a shot. I'm just making assumptions that I know cannot be proven or disproved right now, but eh.

Remember this fact too... SC4, the game we all love so much and basically wish to be rehashed in a next-gen style, was hideous with system requirements when it came out. If you guys at MC manage to do the same... so be it. A great game should not be limited by those few without the means of using it. From what I've seen so far... I don't think many people would mind sinking a bit of money into their pc to run this game.

[rctshack 182]

Ok Philippe, I have to say that the world idea looks AMAZING. I have no idea how it works, but i can take a geuss (kind of like google earth), but graphically it looks outstanding and it is SO much better than having a huge square. Hopefully it will be customizable... i'm sure. This brings up some great questions though that you don't need to answer, but I want to throw them out to all the other people in here.

Does this mean the cities are curved because of the round earth? I see clouds everywhere... so will weather be a feature? Will other cities around the world grow on their own? And how do you outline the cities? Will there even be outlines to cities or is it free for all building? Will there be Long haul transportation like electric trains and maglevs going across the continents? This opens up the possiblity to choosing areas to build based on coasts for tourism, or farming land, or mountains? Will the game be based around resources like water and gold and so on, that will be traded between cities??? How will this worlds history be told, like do you start out in a world that's just empty, or is there inhabitants already and a long past that is dependant on where you build your city??? Does this game have differeing religions and governments and will it depend on where you build on this world? Is this world avaliable the whole game, or only to choose where to build the city/cities? The game is Called Cities Unlimited so will there be a lot of cities you are building at once?

On that note... I am guess the game is Officially called Cities Unlimited since it is printed on everything including your avatar? I love the name it works well.

I am soooo happy with these new screenshots of the world, I think they are the best thing you have shown so far. Maybe some more can leak.........?

BTW... Philippe how is life? I feel like all I do is bring up the game with you. I hope life outside of this game (if there is one) is going well.

[City2TheMax 3]

Wow, I am very impressed with the graphics level (especially in the globe). I will try not to make any assumptions since you're so early on in your development, but I can tell that this game will definetely have value.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

*gets teary* I think what you are asking is what SC fans were BEGGING for with SC:S. Honestly, I smile every time I see "give us your ideas, your comments on what we will be doing when the official website will be live as we will use your feedback to make a realistic modern city builder game". You have your own ST account AND YOU COMMUNICATE (in other words thats nice to see)!!! Yeah... I think has the potential to pick up where SC4 left off and SC:S didn't. I cant wait for the site to open. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I know that I love this already.

Thank you dasilva and friends.

-Todd

[Sim shady 12]

ah this game brings tears to my eyes thinking of the potential I can tell its going to be a great game!!! Don't stop dropping teasers for us

[Kevin 101]

Originally posted by: SimHoTToDDy I think has the potential to pick up where SC4 left off and SC:S didn't.quote>

I doubt that the folks at Monte Cristo want their game to be viewed as Simcity 5... and instead as a whole new series in the City Simulation genre. And from what I can tell about SCS, it isn't Sc5, and doesn't pretend to be.

but I know that I love this alreadyquote>

I'm with you on this... I'm totally looking forward to finding out more about CU and I have high hopes that it will bring the genre to new heights.

[ardecila 124]

Since you asked me to use your first name - Philippe:

The two things most important to me are 1) proper scale and 2) ability to add custom content.

1) Proper scale.

SimCity 4 looks beautiful compared to all released city simulators so far, but the visible people are 3 meters tall, the roads are twice as large as they would be in real life, and all the buildings are at different scales. Especially in a 3d game, the buildings and roads need to be in proper scale with the people and vehicles.

2) Ability to add custom content.

This is important because it means that communities like Simtropolis can continue to thrive, even 4-5 years after the initial game was released. It also puts less strain on you to constantly provide new content and keep the game fresh.

[6underground 11]

I hope those worlds are customizable/moddable I would love to plan out my continents and islands for my world.

Is it like an extended/updated region play? 1 pixel = 1 SC4 medium map?

*interesting*

[WackoJak 0]

If the globe is the only option for map-picking, you'd be hard pressed to find terrain exactly right if you have it in your head. But for city recreators, it's a dream come true!

[Nevets13 27]

I have a hard time believing that the terrain will be exactly like it is in real life. What is more likely is the terrain/climate is similar to what it is where you want to build your city, but not exactly. That way you are still able to edit the landscape, and saves a lot of programing.

Example: If you click on arizona you get desert...switzerland, mountains...Serberia, tundra...Kenya, Savanna......

[rctshack 182]

Originally posted by: ardecila 1) Proper scale.

SimCity 4 looks beautiful compared to all released city simulators so far, but the visible people are 3 meters tall, the roads are twice as large as they would be in real life, and all the buildings are at different scales. Especially in a 3d game, the buildings and roads need to be in proper scale with the people and vehicles.quote>

Scale was a big issue, I agree. It killed me that a 1 story house equaled 4 staries on a downtown skyscraper. And that roads were wildly mis-sized. From the first two screenshots we have seen though it seems it's not that much of an issue. I hope distance is correct though. SC4 mad you pack everything together and things were not right at all. I would love if 1 mile was equal to 1 mile in this game... in referance to the size of the structures within the game.

The same goes with things like airports, and parks, and suburban neighborhoods. I grew up next to Dallas Ft. Worth Airport and that thing is HUGE... massive. But even when you go to smaller towns... their airports are at least 1 to 2 miles long to support a runway. I think DFW's are 4 or 5... I don't know... but lets make stuff like that realistic. Same with transportation... subways and busses don't need to be on every block... maybe busses downtown, but even here in San Francisco, they stop every other block and like every 5 blocks in the outer regions. Subways can go MUCH greater distances. downtown here they stop every 10 or so blocks, but neighboring cities get 1 or 2 stops at the most. People in SC4 never wanted to commute, I hope this issue is not a problem either. People are willing to drive 2 hours from over 60 miles away to work here, why is 4 blocks in SC4 a problem?

Also I know a lot of other people may object to this, but I would love to see realistic construction time. It kind of made it too "sandbox mode" to know that you can lay structures down and within a few seconds it's usable. Even in SC4's time change.... 2 seconds for a peice of highway was not real. The only real thing seemed to be the airport, which was the only thing that took that long. If there was a cool animation or actual constuction of all the structures, it would cause real life issues like traffic and having to sync things... maybe I just like the idea of absolute realism. This possiblt could be a bad idea.... hmm.

[cammo2003 20]

Just read the progress report and saw the pictures... My first thought was **holy [self-censored]**...

[dasilva 3]

Hey guys,

As I slept over night, you came with a lot of questions and really good points so I won't have the time to answer them all right away.

However, I read all of them and I can tell you that what has been said since my last post is definitivelly taken into consideration right from the start of the development.

Talk to you soon,

P.S: The CU logo was made to identify the game currently in development. It may change or not, we still don't know but, really, it's not our main concern right now: we'll take care of marketing questions later ;-)

P.S.2: I do have a life, rctshack ;-) but, you know, when you love what you're doing, work can be enjoyable... :-)

[Blacksunaeon 0]

Zoning? I hope roads are not drawn automatically when we zone (if you plan on including zoning). That annoys the crap out of me. Could we look at multi level highways/interchanges as a transport idea? Id love to have some really tall highways weaving in and out through my buildings. (and el trains/ monorails, too!) I also am hoping for a vastly inproved interface over CL. I like a huge city I can micromanage right down to the sidewalk. 

I enjoy the screenshots so far. Between Cities Unlimited and Starcraft II I hope for a blast next year!

[Bergrar 9]

Thx Da Silva

Nice pics is all i dreamed about a new simcity

I have a little developing question

Is possible to insert a routine that change the color and aspect of a building regarding is position in a zone.?

i imagine a random aspect for roof, walls and props at example, and different colors took from a palette so the building don't have always the same color and the clone effect of sc3 will not repeated.

I think that this will give to the game a always different looking, imagine a zone where prevail industrial, the palette will be chosen from gray and black colors, or a residential luxury village where the colors will be bright and more fun.

The program have to look always for repetition so we never have same buildings close.

Anyway grats Philippe for the great works and most of al,l thx to listen to the community, here there are so many dedicated people and they deserve designers attention, they made sc4 a great game a lot better then maxis gave us.

Please give us some more sneak pics we need them a lot

my only hope is that we don't have to wait till mid 2009 let's hurry a little please.

waiting for your new website, [drooling]

[+Guest]

Philippe you are the coolest dude EVER. And even if that is an over exaggeration, the time and effort you have taken with us hardcore SC fans, is just amazing. A BIG thank you on behalf of all of us.

What I love about the screen shots is that the buildings or rather the placement of them, don't look too blocky. I love the grid, but it was too rigid in SC4. Sometimes it feels like the game was an elaborate Lego set as everything was only ever square or rectangle. I love that the screen shots don't have that rigid feel and that all the buildings look as though they are part of the one street or the same area.

[Sap59 3]

having a sandbox mode and regional play would be awesome. :-)

[MrCinatit 30]

Excellent interview, Philippe - the Earth pictures are quite intriguing. While not telling us a whole lot, they do tell us a little bit(which is the way I like it, actually...kind of like watching an excellent story unfold slowly but surely).

It looks like we will have a wide variety of terrains at our choosing - and a neat, unique way of choosing them.

And as a self-proclaimed terra-forming nut, this is a very exciting development.

[KeanoManu 42]

I've liked MonteCristo since Airline Tycoon and the way you are acctually talking and listening to the people who will buy the game are excellent. By the way, i've heard Spellbound have problems finding a publisher for Airline Tycoon 2, maybe MonteCristo should talk to them again?

I know this isn't City Life but i have to say one thing with that. The biggest concern about City Life for me was the lack of depth, there wasn't anything except building the city. In SC4 we have taxes, laws and several graphs and statistics. In CL we have... nothing. I hope Cities Unlimited are better in that way.

Seems like it will be region play, GREAT! Hopefully you'll link the different cities better than in SC4. I would love to be able to play it like a country. And have several different cities linked togheter. The problem with SC4 in this way is that they are ment to be different parts of a city but acctually are different cities. Both should be in CU but better done. We could link a few cities in one world and say those will form the city of "Something city" and then we can link a few cities and say that those will form the country "Something". So we really have have different parts of a city, like Manhattan & Queens. Oh, well. Hopefully you understand what i'm trying to say. English isn't my mothertounge so i have some problems with explaining things.

Another things that i thought was wrong with CL was the the scale. Everything was to big. A one-family house had the same space as a skyscrape and the roads where all in the same size. And please, remove the classes/cultures! But it would be nice to be able to build Chinatowns, old towns and so, but that shouldn't be the main part of the game.

Tourism, i guess that will be in the game? That was one of the things that i liked with CL, but it has much work on to do. And find a good way to build waterfronts, maybe have a waterfront tool that can be build parks/walkingsstips on water to do the fronts nice. And don't remove the custom parks that was in CL. Perfect when there was some space left in such a weird angle that no building fit.

Hm.. Don't think we have to tell everything in this thread, i guess you've looked around Simtropolis and already seen what the gamers want.

EDIT: One more thing, bridges and tunnels should be an own tool that can be dragged everywhere just like roads. So we can have turns in them and have a bridge and tunnel over the citylines.

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

Im very happy that you are actually listening to what the consumers want, its a good business strategy.

Personally, i hope there will be great variation in transport. like the ability to create seperate tube lines and such Though i do understand this may be difficult to implement.

[cirugo 1,889]

From what I've seen so far, this game as definitely captured my interest.  I will definitely be reserving judgement until I've seen a more complete picture...I was really very disappointed with City Life but it appears that you're taking the criticisms of that game to heart so I am definitely encouraged.

[bixel 1,223]

>>> dasilva

something I've always been interested in is characters with some ai, money and strategies. Say we have a small city going up, about 10,000. Along the way a character pops in, Victor Farnell. He buys up some property, you can even see the land he's purchased. He's totally out of your control and depends on his AI personality; he can be good for you, annoying, or getting in the way of your plans.

Later he says he wants to buy a large plot of land for cheap! However in exchange he's going to build an automotive factory and it will draw more people to live in the city. Do you accept? These could be some potential interesting game choices. Of course there are benefits and gain to be had with these characters and maybe some bad stuff too.

Zoning policies, taxing, and other laws ordinanced by you could change the way Victor behaves, he might just leave your city or invite more wealthy friends in. There could be a bunch of interesting characters. Perhaps a famous actor decides to move in and set up an acting studio? Or a educational activist? Giving them resources and money increases specialized education.

Railroad tycoons, gambling casino companies, oil cartels, hospital research. These little perks could make each city you make a little more specialized and different then the last city you made.

I am a script writer and can work in a C build environment or in python/ruby. As long as 'actors' are placed into the game mechanics you can even open up the instances of characters to custom modification or content. Variable for name, ai personalities, strengths and weakness could be edited in xml or python script and tweaked and added to the game. Granted this could cause some 'cheat' issues, like creating a character with a tun of cash and everything he/she does boosts your city stats. But overall this could be a very interesting things added to the game to make the city a little more alive. If not in this version then in an expansion.

[Inspecter 12]

dasilva Will there be famous landmarks like the Empire State building and others?

[Nevets13 27]

Originally posted by: Inspecter dasilva Will there be famous landmarks like the Empire State building and others?quote>

Most definitely, the london eye appeared in one of the first screenshots.

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

Several London landmarks did.