SimCity 5 - How would you envision it?

[mnmsimmer 0]

Beach Areas:

The Mall:

Tropical Vacation Areas:

Middle Class Suburbs:

Low-End Suburbs:

Affluent Homes:

Townhomes:

Train Station and Highway:

The City:

[JakeMD 107]

Mostly like that, only with lots more automata!

[mnmsimmer 0]

You've gotta give Maxis a hand. The first City picture looks pretty Maxisish to me. Though I think they should have made more buildings and more complex transportation and infrastructure in SC4, their architecture for many buildings is not to bad. What would it take to create near-real graphics? Would it be possible in 2D isometric form? A SC5 like this would be better than SC Societies, in my opinion.

[mnmsimmer 0]

One thing that really ticked me off about SC4 was its lack of attached garages, esp. in the American style homes. I mean, duh, what would an American garage-mahal mcmansion type house be without a cavernous 4-bay attached garage?

[JakeMD 107]

Sc5 would have to be 3d, like most new city-builders.

[mnmsimmer 0]

I think a super-detailed 2d iso is much more appealing than a blocky, thrown-together, poor-excuse-for-a-3d-engine type game. You just can't seem to get the same level of detail, esp. on slightly older cpus.

[Godzillaman 21]

SC5=SC4-3D+a few thousand more buildings...

[Cougar2004 127]

SC5... i envision it just like the SimCity 4 Deluxe SimTourist Expansion Pack Thread thats on here.

[bixel 1,228]

The Next Gen thing in games and video is going to be real-time raytracing. Maybe about 4 years or so after CitiesXL we can get this type of thing going on in games. Modelling will still need to be very professional and optimized but I expect great things in the future.

[awake_78 0]

I don't know if the game should be 2d or 3d but defenitely should have free road, rail etc design and the buildings should be parallel at the road. It is unexeptable that you cannot lay down curved roads. Also I would like to choose if my buildings have a yard or not. Because most of European cities have attached buildings and you dont see in the downtown or old town yards in avenus (I' m talking for the original version of SC4 and not the add ons).

It could be nice to be 3d because you could enter and feel your city. F.e. city life has a poor gameplay but when you zoom in the city you feel like being realy inside a city. You could use car or walk or bicycle or metro or train or anything. Also it could be nice if it had a little more tycoon style. If you could trade things between cities beside electricity water and garbage. And watch theese freights moving.

Also I d like alot if there was gigantic maps so you could create whole countries. And for example fly from one place to another or take the train or bus.

[markolopolos1 0]

When will sim city 5 come out?Did they say it yet?

[TEG24601 32]

I think that EA still considers Societies to be SC5, as I see it referenced all the time as SC5 in Retail systems.

TEG

[Dizastrow 4]

It would be fun to have a SimCity that has themes.  Like you could build an old West town, or an aztec metropolis, or a colonial village.  I dont know, i guess there are other games that can fullfill that need, but just a thought!

[markolopolos1 0]

Still,I've heard some really bad critics on Societes,and it's system to focus on sims relationships,not on the city building.I think it can't be considered heir of such a great game as simcity.

[Muck308 55]

They will have to finally break free of the grid as far as I'm concerned. Curved roads with adaptable lots that can fill in the empty parralellograms left from odd angled roads. Stuff like that. You all rember, I'm sure, sc3k. You just zoned something like a 4x4 and a 2x2 building would grow and the rest of the tiles were random ped malls and such. They could do that just not with squares. I think that aspect would be vital to making SC5 new and exciting.

[loveangel 0]

What muck said (break free of the grid) would be amazing, but I'm sure it would be difficult (maybe not even practical) to actually implement that. But if they could accomplish that, and clean up the z-axis stuff (as much as I like building on varied landscape I think hills, even small ones, turn out ugly more often than not) that would be enough for me to buy sc5.

If I had my say, sc5 would allow more optional control over zoning (I-HT comes to mind), and better transportation/traffic engine. Buses, for example, should just need a few depots here and there and beyond that, you can define the bus routes without needing to build a house-sized bus stop every other block. More buildings would always be nice of course, but what I would really like is mixed used buildings, providing commercial service (and jobs) on ground floor and residential on upper floors.

Also, you would be able to define different districts or neighborhoods within a city tile, to give that area a slight push in the direction you want it to head in, without having to deny services or purposefully make it undesirable. Tech park, office district/CBD, entertainment district, shopping. Slums, projects, trendy neighborhood (not necessarily R$$$). You should have better control over what type of buildings go in what area, otherwise you end up with the same couple buildings all over your map (especially for commercial zones). In sc4 all buildings seem to "want" to upgrade to CO$$$, R$$$ or whatever, this shouldn't happen by default in the future versions imo.

ps:  I think what im trying to say is they shouldn't worry about the graphics, but rather concentrate on the actual gameplay

[jerry101 1]

A few of my desires:

1. remove the square grid system and replace it with an octagonal grid system. It might not allow for perfectly free flowing road and rail design, but it would be a big improvement. You could at least be able to put in better diagonals.

2. A "smart" road/rail building system. If you run a road up a hill that is too steep for the road, then the game will suggest a pattern for the road that works better, by curving the road up the hillside.

3. Smarter sim commuters. Take the fastest commuting trip, not the shortest, including consideration of whether an area is heavily congested and has good public transit access. More realistic trip distance considerations as well. Distances need to be calculated more realistically, and commuting time needs to be better considered.

4. Somebody above said themes. Even if you don't take it to that far (not that they shouldn't), an ability to designate city's with certain themes (residential exurb, high density downtown area) with the buildings reflecting that designation. Furthermore, designating certain neighborhoods with themes would also be cool. Single family home oriented neighborhood, neighborhoods with 2, 3, 4 or even 5 flat walk up apartment buildings and other mid to low density apartment housing.

5. Mixed use development - housing above, commercial on the bottom.

6. The ability to zone airports, seaports, and parkland. Or a mix of zoned and plopped airports, seaports, and parks. You can choose where to drop major buildings/structures and the game will fill in the rest when you zone the area. You can add roads and the like, too.

7. Stackable transit. In Chicago, much of the El runs above streets or on highway medians. It would be nice to do something similar in SC.

8. Improved region play. Even if I can only edit one tile at a time, I should be able to see the tiles that are immediately outside of my city, in order to link up transit networks better. Also, Large airports should be able to serve muliple city tiles up to a certain population.

9. Water above sea level

10. More stuff - RCI buildings/designs (more urban and exurban style housing, rather than the small town/inner ring suburban type single family homes - wall to wall walkups and McMansions; wall to wall commercial shopping designs, big boxes, shopping malls, strip malls, suburban style townhouse/apartment complexes), more designs for Government Services buildings (multiple designs for schools, hospitals, etc), more types of government service buildings and other ploppables

11. A random regional terrain generator, or at least a lot more built in terrains for those of us who are too lazy to design our own.

And a bunch of other stuff that I've cursed about in the past.

[SC4_freak 0]

I think most of you have some very good ideas with better road curving (perhaps a mouse-controlled tool for center, radius and extent of curve), mixed zoning, park, and port plopable/growable, themes, more zoning control, water flowing above sea level (dams, waterfalls, and reservoirs!), and the like, but there are a few features I would really like to see:

- ability to add lanes to existing roads (left/right/center turn, travel, parking, special designation (bike/HOV))

- mechanic for Sims to build subdivisions, business and industrial parks with just a block of zoning

- choice to provide utilities and services (power, water, garbage collection) through the city or privatize it (e.g. Waste Management picking up and disposing of trash if you don't have the money to do it)

- choices for low-density cities (like farming communities) such as volunteer fire departments and sheriff's offices and outposts

- variable sizes of military bases (grow)

- different offices and services for versions in different countries, like RCMP posts for Canadian players

[Cougar2004 127]

I found the link!  (and updated the post above with it)

But here it is.  When I was a SimTropolis "Tourist" on the forums here, I had this idea of the next generate of Sim City.  I wasn't thinking 5 so much as a.... 

..... SimCity 4 Deluxe SimTourist Expansion Pack!  So here is the Thread thats on ST Forums here.  Enjoy~!

[andhow 0]

I like this thread!

Many of my wish list has been covered so I won't repeat them, but overall a mix of graphical improvements and gameplay is required.  This would probably mean limiting the scope in both areas and compromise is not always a good thing, but some tweaks all round would mean the sum total is greater than the parts.

I would particularly love a pan/tilt function that allowed you to zoom right into street level for an eye view from the pedestrian level.  And greater flexibility on the grid system.

I think the quality of buildings on stex from peple like pegasus, simgoober, jenx and many others proves that great looking buildings are possible with the current system, so seeing big changes there are not a priority for me, just more of the stex quality from maxis!

Better zone control would be great, as per an earlier post, in reality areas are zoned as hi tech business parks, distribution centres, low cost housing, retail parks etc not just RCI/density.

An improvement to transport engine as per NAM but even better.

Finally... better stability!  No more CTD, losing cities etc

SC4_freak...re your suggestion for privatised garbage... doesn't that result in the same thing?In that you'd just be paying the private collection co rather than paying to do the service yourself?  That's what happens in reality...when councils contract out garbage collection they pay a contrat co. to do it, and they negotiate on the frequency, volume etc., so as population grows, so does the bill, just as it does in SC4.  It might work for power and water though where the consumer pays the enitre bill themselves.

 

 Raytracing...I'm sure it's very nice and all,, but what the... was he on about in the vid?

Keep the ideas coming, lets hope Maxis are listening in...

[xV.I.N.C.E.N.T.x 0]

I wouldn't invision a SIMCITY 5...Know why? Cus simtropolis.com and its wonderful BATTERS and modders, and members alike...have created ULTIMATE add-ons for SimCity 4.

If there was a SIM CITY 5 in the works....the game would suffer to those like Cities XL, and our current SimCity 4 monopoly. I really think this WISH of a SIMCITY 5 would just go away.

-Vin

[Dizastrow 4]

I hate the fact that when you zone a large area, the game automatically puts in streets!!  Its evil!!

[Cougar2004 127]

Originally posted by: Dizastrow I hate the fact that when you zone a large area, the game automatically puts in streets!!  Its evil!!quote>

 

It doesnt do that if you know the right cheat.

(It doesnt do it for me because I press the shift, control, or alt buttons, sometimes multiples of those at the same time, while using the zoning tools - try it.)

[dogma555 187]

1) Full 3D world.

2) A way of walking around as a sim in first person

3) Cars actually controlled like traditional games. Plus they could add plenty of cool mission type extras here.

2) A more complex way of going through mods.

[Trainmaster423 0]

I think the ULTIMATE SC 5 would be a combination of all the best features from Cities Xl; SC 4; and the 3D engine and feeling of life from SC S. It would have freeform networks, more varied and customizable buildings and better region (or world :-) play. Regional (or world) terraforming would make realistic landscapes a LOT easier. More sensible rewards, like a post office, or a Boy Scout troop would be greatly appreciated too. I guess that's my input for now.

[Chaser182 0]

um yeahh try to imagine the computer your going to need to run something like that...

you'll lag your ass off every 5 mins

i like how it is now.. it's a game not real life