Do YOU really want 3D??

[brutus the duck 0]

I'm wondering what people think about the 3D, I think it isn't really good, Rollercoaster tycoon 1 was much better than Rollercoaster tycoon 3 (My opinion)

[autoVino 26]

Well, first off, based on how simcity 4 works it is "3d"... but you con only view it at 4 angles, which doesn't count
But really, making simcity 3d will take away alot of detail and quality there is in the game right now.  I'd rather stick with simcity 4 rather than have a low poly 3d version.  Besides, I get enough 3d in max these days

[John-SJ 13]

I'm ready for a change from the traditional SimCity formula.

Will this change to 3d and all the other changes be for the better?  IMO, it's looking good, or at least interesting.  Too early to know for sure, but I voted yes, provisionally.

[jarnomiedema 52]

Well, I'm split on the issue.. When you look at a game like Civilization IV, which stems from a line of games that were isometric, I was hesitant when they announced they were going with a 3D engine.. To be fair, it did turn out amazing and much better than the pixely goodness of the previous installments of the game..

I thought Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was pretty good, though in this case I somehow also preferred the old look. With Simcity, I'm even more hesitant.. One of the great pleasures was just pauzing the game, roaming through the city and admiring the creation.. If the buildings will no longer be that appealing and it'll all have to depend on fans to create smashing looking buildings, I'm pretty sure I'll loose interest quickly..

As it stands now, I have no intention to buy Simcity: Societies, but rather go with Cities: Unlimited. Graphics are very important though, so it'll all depend on how well either of the two games implement 3d graphics. I tried the demo of Tilted Mill's Caesar IV and it ran so slowly on my otherwise reasonable computer that I game up very, very quickly..

[masochist 111]

I do.

One thing I've always hoped to do in SimCity is just walk (or drive) the streets.  To be able to go at ground level and look straight up the wall of a skyscraper and take a picture...or terraform a cliff and make a sea-side road.  Something like that...I've always been looking forward to that particular feature of the games.  I mean...it really does no good if the city itself doesn't look realistic in the first place, but I look forward to the SC (or other urban simulation) game that looks realistic and gives me 360 degrees to view that realism.  Whenever that happens, I will rejoice.

[MrCinatit 30]

Actually, I do like the idea of 3D graphics - as long as they look good, and there are enough extra features in the game to keep me occupied and give me the ability to create cities I wish.

And while I do plan on getting both SimCity: Societies and Cities: Unlimited, which of those games provides to me the most in my personal tastes will be decided in the future. You know - like after I have actually played the games (I am always leery of screenshots and videos - no matter how good or bad).

[siso43 13]

3D is only a graphic, is it so better with him, but sometime need great games it.

[Tocheb73 0]

I'm quite keen on the move to 3-D. However I hope they try and keep the graphics based on real life. Instead of making what turn out to be childish looking 3-D graphics and move more in the line of, say the The Sims 2.

[EgoBruiser 0]

At the moment I have no intention of purchasing Societies, but I do want full 3D in future versions of SimCity and I would be willing to sacrifice some of the intricate building details in order to achieve full 3D. There have been many occasions when I've wished I had full 3D in SC4. Sometimes the four locked camera angles available in the game just aren't sufficient to get a good view of the city. When I have a city that has a number of tall buildings, some of the smaller buildings like bus stops and subway stations are almost impossible to see and locate. I'd like to have the freedom to view the city from a top-down perspective as well as other angles.

If EA does produce a new SimCity in the mould of previous versions, it will be several years before it's released. By that time the typical home computer will be better able to handle highly-detailed 3D objects and graphical engines in games will continue to improve.

[ADG 0]

If the 3D graphic can be just as detailed and good as SimCity 4, then yes I would want it to be 3D, but when the graphics a of low detail and overall much worse looking than most other games, then no. I would love to see a game like SimCity 4 in 3D, but I guess we'll have to wait till 2012 before that'll be possible

[mayorbk 66]

3d is good but the pics of societies looks like a childrens tv show or movie! 3D is good if it's done right! I like SC4 and think the graphics are still really good. hopefully in a few years EA will make SC5!

[UltraGIR XL 3]

Yes.

[Ntq€310 1]

i would say simcity 5 was ready to be 3d, you can have an ok amount of detail in 3d, but sc:s just pulled it off badly, they most likly thought 3d was too complicated, lol

[waway625 72]

3D is good, i think most of us (well i hope so) have computers that can handle it

if the next SimCity (read: not SCS as its a big joke not worthy of the SC name) can be as good looking as say Test Drive unlimited then id be happy

on that note, maybe Atari/Eden Games can make a city builder out of the Test Drive Unlimited Engine

[Edude7 1]

3D is one of the ways in which SC4 can be improved, and despite many people's reservations which are essentially knee-jerk reactions and fiercely possessive emotions towards SC4, I think a move to 3D is the best thing the game platform can do. The fact that this move has coincided with a move to a different style of game-play in what is looking to be a stand-alone series alongside the original SimCity series, has meant many SC fans have cowered and backed away from the 3D. What everyone must keep in mind is in order to get that great SC in a 3D world, functional testing must be done, and I applaud EA and TM for testing out these functions in something they can easily bill as being a 'spin-off' or stand-alone series in order to allow the functions to be refined for an absolutely awesome official SC5. I, personally, am sick of reading the same arguments over the supposed deficiencies of 3D technology and business mind-sets, and would like to see some of the more relevant details to start being discussed in these threads, such as how those elements can be evolved in the next iteration from the lessons provided by SC:S  - those who fight progress are those whose cities stagnate.

[GMT 389]

hm... depends on how the 3d turns out.

the city live works, it's cool.

really.

I mean, you certainly have to sacrifice some quality to make it still possible to show for current midclass pcs (because not everyone can affort a high-end machine with state of the art equipment, and this is the difficult balance every game developper has to do, keep the visual content high and interesting but still available to those with slower pcs).

It's a difference if you make static 3d environments, like in almost all other games, which might look breathtakingly real, or you create a vivid, constantly and everywhere changing 3d environment like a real 3d sim city would be, which would really come with a serious visual sacrifice, unless you own a supercomputer like IBMs eServer BlueGene

EDIT: or any other engine with more than 1TFlops (highend pcs today have 0.02-0.03 Tflops if you put a hell of a money in it)

[Spinmaster 75]

I'd actually like to see both.

"Wha????"

If I must choose full 3D but reduced detail vs. highly detailed 4-angled isometric ... I choose the latter.

But I wish both were possible.

A fully-3D mode, let me walk around the streets of my city, look up, maybe even fly... a "birds view" perhaps. Maybe it's even limited to only viewing, i.e. no building anything. Lower details? Sure. How much lower? Depends on my hardware and how much lag I'm willing to suffer in this view - so let me choose (with a hardware-based "optimum" recommendation). Probably nobody's computer could handle fully-detailed, fully-3D "Sim City"... now ... but going down the road, the gap will almost certainly narrow, only question is by how much.

Regular 4-way isometric views, like we have with SC4 now for all other modes. Maybe deeper zooming. Maybe full pan & tilt features i.e. no fixed angles, like moving around in Google maps. But with all the wonderful details a person can put into it. Almost every time I look at a building or other thing in SC4 I see some tiny little detail I never noticed before. The detail itself may or may not impress me. That I can enjoy so many "little details" does. I'd hate to give that up.

Unfortunately all this is moot with SC:S. Even if they did something like this, well they've already confessed to removing many of the things I enjoy about Sim City. Enough to know that it won't hold my attention long enough to justify spending more than $10 on it. Maybe they'll even pull off high-detail 3D. Doubtful, but yes, let them wave their wand and we'll see. But for me personally, it won't matter. I don't really care how pretty the liver is. It's still liver.

[chocolate_city 93]

i have to agree with some of the people here.... the idea of pausing the city and taking a stroll down the sidewalks and taking I drive down a seaside road has to have its apeal with almost everyone... but to trust that idea to SimCity Societies .... i not sure i want to do that, but i will wait till the game comes out for my final decision

[Intrepid 20]

I definately want 3d to be fully integrated in the next true sim city (or a similar type of game from another developer) game, but not just for purely aesthetic reasons. The major constraint of SC4 and its predecessors has allways been the grid and if sim city truly is to jump to the next level it will need to move away from a purely grid based game into a more open type of game that allows buildings to grow in lots of different directions as well as giving the player more freedom to place transit in whatever direction they wish.

Even if the first proper sim city that comes out in 3d isn't perfect in the graphics department it can allways be improved upon by modders and in time, newer iterations of the game will improve on that. 2.5 D needs to be consigned to history, otherwise it will be SC4 with an overhaul with not too much difference in gameplay.