Video of SimCity 4 in its beta glory!

[Neil_Fairbanks 11]

Hey guys, look what I've found! Apparently, one of the prominent Maxis art directors, Ocean Quigley,  released an early concept video of how the disaster tool for the tornado works for Simcity 4 in beta. That guy is responsible for the design of several buildings in SC3K and several objects for The Sims franchise.

Take note of the early cul-de-sac idea they had for the streets in beta back then, the flying cow eye-candy thing (like the ones in SC3K, except they are locusts/UFOs) and the classic buildings.

Also check out this post from Ocean's blog: How we trashed buildings in Simcity 4.

[citiesxlfan42 27]

Not a lot of exactly"building" there, but farms don't look anything like the ones now(where ARE the fields?!) the whole Culdesac ending of streets(now a mod) is in there. And the buildings aren't anything like today's. But the flying cows were a nice touch for the game (maybe a mod someday.)

See ya!

[thecross21 3]

Wow the quality doesn't look nearly like it is now...

[AtkinsSJ_ 7]

From the bottom of this post, it looks like at some point they had land bridges in-game, though the road couldn't go under it. And there's a diagram there planning diagonal bridges. It's a pity they couldn't manage to have them in the final game.

[SC4BOY 21]

Notice that also the roads have a "soft s-shape" which didn't make it to the game

[kingdiz_55 12]

From the beta to the official release, there's been a big difference. Something I haven't seen in CXL. The transition from City Life to CXL isn't a very big one unlike the one from SC3K to SC4.

[Adolfff 14]

Decided not to create a new topic.

Recently some guy released a video from E3 2002. He has many more videos about other Maxis games.

 

[asasnat 216]

The video in the original post seems to be gone. 

I do have this though! https://lostmediawiki.com/SimCity_4_(lost_alpha_and_beta_builds_of_simulation_game;_2002) Maybe someone's already seen it, I don't know.

[asasnat 216]

On 7.04.2022 at 6:36 PM, Adolfff said:

 

 

That's interesting! Instead of clicking somewhere and having a geyser of lava burst open, you would instead slowly push up a volcano. I wonder if the game still has unused code for this.

EDIT: WAIT! THERE'S MORE! The airport and seaport (as well as two other icons that are harder do decipher from the poor video quality, although it could possibly be spaceport and military base) are present under the zone menu instead of transportation! No wonder we have an unused airport and seaport zone left in the game.

  Edited July 26, 2022 by Bruh Man  
The rabbit hole keeps going deeper!

[asasnat 216]

11 hours ago, Bruh Man said:

I wonder if the game still has unused code for this.

Can't confirm if the code is still present, but I did find the huge arrow for when you were pushing up a volcano (in 2 colors, since it's orange when idle, and red when holding the mouse button:

_{I did use PNG for these images. To staff: Do these count as "small pics" and thus I'm allowed to use PNG for them? Not that it matters, since it's only 2.5/3 kb in total anyway.}

There's a whole plethora of unused cursors (correction: things) hidden in SimCity_1.dat, but it's waaaaay too much to list here. I'll let you dig into the diamond mine yourself.

[Jackspital 391]

On 4/7/2022 at 5:36 PM, Adolfff said:

Decided not to create a new topic.

Recently some guy released a video from E3 2002. He has many more videos about other Maxis games.

 

 

 

 

From a lot of this I can see that at this time it looked like a more modern and polished SimCity 3000, and its very fun and interesting to see all the stuff that they couldn't include in time or due to hardware limitations etc. In some ways from the other stuff I've seen there is demo stuff that I actually prefer to what we have now for sure.

 

I do also wonder how many other planned features had to be scrapped, and what files remain in the code and are locked in the vaults of EA. The source code is really where a lot of this demo stuff could be finished if EA ever let a team reuse those files and create an update or DLC of sorts. That's all a pipe dream of course, but the building decay in more detail and additions of snow (Maybe real weather?) was potentially DLC ideas that never came to fruition?

I think in some demo screenshots you can really see the ideas for the Sims 2 and its semi-open world, SimCity-like design and engine. (In a parallel universe SimCity made more profits and we got a few DLCs and performance updates) I do often wonder if these developers and creators have a lot to add and talk about if they weren't under NDA, it would definitely be very cool to see more of the game's development and how the engine works fully. Even so, really fascinating stuff to delve into and read about!

[asasnat 216]

Yeah, I've always hated EA for being so closed off when it comes to games, even older ones; like come on, SimCity 4 was released in FREAKING 2003! If anything, being more open about it when it comes to source code and other technical things would renew interest in the game because of the modding possibilities, thus bring in more sales, and with more sales - more money.

Seems pretty well aligned with EA's "maximize profits" agenda.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Just to answer this about PNG images usage...
 

15 hours ago, Bruh Man said:

I did use PNG for these images.

To staff: Do these count as "small pics" and thus I'm allowed to use PNG for them? Not that it matters, since it's only 2.5/3 kb in total anyway.

The way you used them is perfectly acceptable and actually what we encourage.

Being used for graphical UI elements is the ideal use for PNGs with the file size being tiny, and also retaining maximum quality. The trouble is when saving gameplay images or anything containing substantial detail. This can make an image which would otherwise be around ~500 kB end up being 4 MB+ in size. And while this might not sound a lot on paper, for attachment storage quotas it sure mounts up. Also to lengthen page loading times, and then there's server storage which isn't infinite.

 

Back to the topic...

It sure is interesting to see the early foundations of SC4 for how the game was, and the way it developed into what we know. The fog shown in the linked article @Bruh Man posted above seems like evidence of the weather simulation which was planned, but never implemented.

Had EA pushed for further SC4 development instead of The Sims series with its myriad of expansions, it makes one wonder what SC4 could've become. It all comes down to profits of course in the business world. They knew SC4 wasn't as mainstream due to a more niche appeal. At least as a community we've more than expanded the heights of the vanilla SC4 skyline. Also we can be thankful for the foundations Maxis were able to lay, as that's all what we've build upon from modding to enhance the possibilities.

[asasnat 216]

The fire disaster also used to look - in my opinion - a lot more menacing because of how high up the smoke goes. Not entirely doubtful of the fact that the old fire effect might still be hiding somewhere in the game files, especially considering the old waste management tab icon is still present but unused, among some other relics of early development. (Even screenshots, which - while not phenomenal - are way clearer than what we got to see on the E3 2002 footage.)

[Adolfff 14]

 

[asasnat 216]

On 22.06.2023 at 7:48 AM, Adolfff said:

 

Noticed a peculiar detail at 0:24 - you can see the player placing down an above-sea-level body of water, presumably using one of the axed God mode water brushes. Since this is a very late preview, with the game releasing only 2 months after, I'm optimistic that the necessary code for this is still left in the game, but is disabled.

[Adolfff 14]