Reality vs. Gameplay

[drenda 0]

Sim City has always been one of my favorite simulation games. It started, for me, with SC3000. I anxiously awaited the release of sim city 4. And have bought the deluxe edition 3 times due to reasons no one cares about. Any way, SC4 has grabbed me and won't let go. I now look at SCS and think Edited [Content]. Yea they probably made it to be more arcade-ish. That would be fine if the 1980's arcades were still up and running. But until then let us stick to what we love and know and that is Reality. In todays world everybody wants to be able to control anything and everything. So this all brings me to ask, do you prefer reality or easy arcade style gameplay? The screens don't even get me excited it looks cartoonish and foolish. 

I know i'm rambling on and probably not making any sense, but maxis has really pissed me off this time. And I feel that if we do not speak up, the Sim City that we know and love is over.  

[John-SJ 13]

You might try injecting a little more bias into your phrasing of the question, since it's pretty obvious what answer you're looking for anyway.

/sarcasm off

Sorry to disappoint though, I won't be giving the canned, knee-jerk response you seem to be fishing for.

If the only two choices were the two you gave, realism or easy arcade style, I might be hard pressed to answer.  However, I happen to know that there are many games out there that don't fall into either of those two categories, and SimCity Societies promises to be one of those games.

I started playing simCity with the release of the first title, the original Simcity, or SimCity Classic.  SC Classic wasn't even thought of as a game by its designer, Will Wright, but as a software toy.  SC 2000 expanded on the toy theme IMO, and at the same time added a lot to gameplay complexity.  It still wasn't anything that could be considered realistic, but, Oh God, was it FUN!

Unfortunately, the SC series decided to become more realistic with SC3000, and moreso again with SC4, and, IMO, the fun factor began to fall off with SC3000, and even moreso with SC4.  SC4 is much more realistic, and, IMO, a lot less fun than either SC2000 or SC Classic.

I find myself pretty well immersed in reality during all of my waking hours apart from when I play games, and reality in game play is not a high scoreer on my list of important game features.  Much more important to me is a means of pleasant escape, relaxation after a tenseful day, and, oh yes, FUN!

I cna't know for sure that SIMCity societies will deliver in the fun department, but everything I have read so far makes me believe they are definitely making the effort in the direction of a fun rather than a realistic game.

To that, my answer is, BRAVO!  I can hardly wait to try it!

[xxbydesign 1]

Different strokes for different folks. I prefer realism in games simply because it convinces me that this could actually exist and actually work, and it makes me proud to know I created it. If it's real cartoony, i can't get into it, mainly because cartoons tend to have different styles because they are, afterall, stylized, and those styles risk putting would-be gammers off by the graphics and the look before they even get into how great the gameplay might be. I think realism has a greater potential to bring more people into the fold, but this is not always the case. Those are just my thoughts; I like SC4, i think the greater number of options than in previous versions gives flexiblity to what used to be very rigid (SC classic was fun, I grew up on that, but it was alway orthagonal and blocks were always the same size). I look forward to more, but perhaps not from SCS, because most of what we seen so far is grids, again, and lots of repetitive buildings (although there are those in SC4 too, hmm...) I think we all just need to wait and see.

[dscampbell 181]

I too grew up on SCC and I loved it. I've been playing a SCC/SC2000 hybred on my mobile recently and I get the same feeling from that. I love being able to just plop stuf without all the planning and get a nice little city out of it without much realism. I get the feeling it helps my imagination run wild.

On the other hand I've recently been playng SC4 again. It's a game I keep picking up (like Birth of the Federation i.m.a.) It has so many things to discover and I love the realism off it, I love getting my transportation networks up and I love having all the extra realistic stuff the STEX has to offer.

As for gameplay. Both games have the same gameplay for me. Gameplay is the way the game handels and is inviting me to play it. I love the way all Simcities do that to me.

In the end, I am more of a realism freak I guess, and especially if that realism is suported by gameplay, i.e. the game controlls make it easy for me to make a realistic city. So Eventhou I think that SCS might be a cool game for ppl that want to play a game like it, I don't think I'll like the rewards it'll give me, which are unrealistic cities (accept for that 1 sceenshot from a distance (oi, one sceenshot out of what? 200 allread?)

[ManagerJosh 0]

Is it realistic to always have a city evolve into a fast pace, hussle and bussle, metropolis?

[Mr. Flibble 134]

Based on the not unreasonable assumption that a player's potential city has desireable economic, social, and environmental factors, yes it is. Just take a look at the rural-to-urban shift in virtually every country in the world, especially in the last 30 years. That's why there's nearly 500 urban areas in the world with over a million people, and thousands more with over 100,000 people. Yes there are slow-growing rural towns, and they are perfectly creatable in SC4. I just stop zoning and voila they stop growing :-). I've done massive regions with nothing but little farm towns and one large central city.