City Beautification

[SimBurger 0]

As my city gets bigger and bigger, I find myself wishing I could really start to fine-tune its appearance.  Really make it absolutely beautiful.  I long for buttons that would enable me to place a pond, or a stream.  Or a small Lake.  To build plazas that are unique and beautiful looking.  To really make the city like a work of art. 

This game is amazing in the visual department.  I sometimes feel like its missing some really neat extras though.  They've got the zoning down, and all related structures.  There is a ballpark or soccer field or ... whatever that is.  That's cool.  But I'd really love to have control over all kinds of things.  Statues.  Walkways.  Ornamentation of areas.  City centers, little creeks with arched walkway bridges, windmills, etc etc  etc.  Honestly I can't even think of what I would want  .. lol ... i just know that there are all kinds of things they could do to make it more than just grids of buildings.

I know MC is working on ski resorts and extras like this (those mountain city maps are useless without them) so I wont rush them on it.  They've gotta get some more basics cranked out.  But I'm really looking forward to when they start kicking out some of these things.  The cobblestone street was neat. 

-SB-

[zwr100 2]

When I think of city parks inevitably Central park in NYC comes to mind.  Central park has TONS of stuff in it (do a quick search if you'r unfamiliar).

IMO CXL could really use sculptures and playgrounds.  SC4 had a nice variety of parks, playgrounds, public gardens, grass, ballfields etc that could be used to make beautiful parks.  Additional liesure biuldings could also go nicely with parks (ice rink, carousel).  Some of the existing liesure buildings do blend nicely with the available decorations.  The plaza in the medieval pack was a welcome addition.

The addition of plantable trees will help with customization too.

I'd love to see CXL add those kinds of things whether they be liesure, environmental, decorations or whatever...  It would be nice if they could be placed ON TOP of exisiting woodland parks, and maybe not require roads?  Perhaps the exisiting parks could offer upgrades similar to the town hall or roads?

[bluespottedhorse 49]

When I was beta testing I submitted your concerns relating to parks areas and the short comings of the fill tool. CITIESXL responded and advised me that when the game was released it would have extensive tools for park creation other than the fill tool. This has not happened yet, I hope for those that have already purchased the game that a patch will be released in the near future to give people more variety and realism.

[SimBurger 0]

CITIESXL responded and advised me that when the game was released it would have extensive tools for park creation other than the fill toolquote>

Great. Then that pretty much confirms that it's still in the pipeline, and just needs to be arrived at on the "to do" list.

Good news, thanks for the feedback.

-SB-

[littlesquare.dot 0]

MC should take a page out of Sim City 3000 Unlimited's book.  Maxis had hundreds upon hundreds of ploppable beautification items available if you played in unlocked mode.  You could custom build parks of all shapes and sizes, placing the individual walls, foliage, whatever.

It wasn't just beautification items either.   You could custom build basically anything that you could find in a real city. 

I recognize that the modelling wasn't half as complex as it is today, but the fact remains that for cities XL to remain interesting, it needs at least four or five times the models/options that it has now, and I don't just mean pre-fab lots; let us build things on a smaller scale, right down to fences, walls, etc. 

Cities XL has such potential, but the mountain of bugs and absolute lack of variety is just absurd.  I can't play for longer than a half hour anymore without my eyes glossing-over, because I'd seen everything there was to see after playing the game for a few hours, filling a mere 10% of my map, if that.

[Mermekk 0]

Cities XL has such potential, but the mountain of bugs and absolute lack of variety is just absurd.  I can't play for longer than a half hour anymore without my eyes glossing-over, because I'd seen everything there was to see after playing the game for a few hours, filling a mere 10% of my map, if that.quote>

Well that's maybe a little bit exaggerated. But there is a thruth in that. It would be so nice if we could start adding custom made content. So not all cities will eventualy end up looking like a not to realistic cyber united states city with the same sky scrapers all over the place. The difference now between our cities is mainly found in infrastructure. Though having 5 golden gate bridges is not really cool I think.

About parks. I don't like the random trees on it. I want to have a plaza without trees. And if I want trees I want to be able to place them where I want. It would also be cool if we could place fountains and other ornaments ourself. If that would ever be possible. Also I think manual placed parks and squares should have the same impact as the that official park. Because you can now make as many selfmade parks as you wish, executives and elites will still nag for you to place that 1 pre-chewed park.

[soltangris 42]

I'm copying a previoud post of mine from another thread:

Another idea for a content pack I would like to throw out in the open : Parks and plazas. It may sound a little like a GEM, but what the hell....

Alhtough the current tools allow for creation of some of those, more customisation would bring much more joy to us creative people. I would propose something like a new park-drawing tool:

Step 1: Draw the boundaries. The same way you would do with a free zone.

Step 2: Draw alleys, if it´s a park. You obviously don´t need this in a plaza. 

Step 3: Fill it in. A number of objects should be placeable: trees,  flower beds, fountains, playgrounds, statues of different sizes. Ponds would be nice also.   

Step 4: Fill the remaining spaces in, with the flood-filling tools. You could either use grass (for a park), or a plaza floor, or whatever else they decide to give us

The overall price for construction would depend on the number of things  you placed; so would the maintenance price.

The resulting park/plaza could have more beneficial effect the more things you´ve placed in it.  

Another thing I'd like to see is the option to draw pedestrian only roads, it would fit nicely in hystoric downtown areas.

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Good ideas, but I think we can safely assume that it will be AGES before we see any of it, if ever.

People here have such amazing ideas, but when I look at the contrast between the complexity (lack thereof) of the features in the current game, and that of many of the ideas thrown around Simtropolis, it's difficult for me to remain hopeful that such features will ever be implemented.

Updates thus far have been little more than bug fixes and the odd model, so with a game currently restricted to two sizes of square lots, a handful of buildings, a buggy road/bridge system, limited mass transit, virtually no beautification items or terraforming tools, an absurd lack of variety in nearly every category (power generation?), and that has been over-simplified to the same degree as SCS, how much hope is there?

The simple fact is that there are enough things to worry about fixing as-is without even thinking about implementing moderately complex systems. 

[soltangris 42]

Little dot, you're being very pessimistic

[pete1061 0]

Little dot may be pessimistic, but also realistic.

What little dot stated is just the facts.

Another fact is that MC is not a very large company, they can only do so much.

Probably the best thing they could do is implement the use of custom content.

[Mermekk 0]

Probably the best thing they could do is implement the use of custom content.quote>

Which would not be a smart marketing move for MC. Since 'future' upgrates are mainly available for PO subscribers. Why would we subscribe to PO if we could add our own content. Why wait for 10 midevil english houses and pay for them if we could make a 1000 different of them and share them for free.

But still I'm having fun with the game.

[bluespottedhorse 49]

We already know that there is going to be custom content allowed which is a win win for both customer and company. Let's be honest, most of us don't have the time or even want to venture into the territory of creating custom content. Those that do want to create will have their chance very soon. As far as park creation tools go that should be a core component of the game, not an add on, GEM, or a mod from a player...IMO.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The Big Avatar park has a small lake. A smaller park with a "SimCity 4 Large Park" style (with pond) would be nice. Creating streams was not even possible in SimCity 4 before Pegasus came along. We spoiled players would be better off with custom content.

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: Mermekk

Probably the best thing they could do is implement the use of custom content.quote>

Which would not be a smart marketing move for MC. Since 'future' upgrates are mainly available for PO subscribers. Why would we subscribe to PO if we could add our own content. Why wait for 10 midevil english houses and pay for them if we could make a 1000 different of them and share them for free.

 quote>

As has been said many times - taking a short-term view it may not be smart for them to allow user created content, but long-term if they let the fanbase create the pretty stuff they can concentrate on real features that enhance the mechanics of the game - the stuff people will pay money for - while the stream of custom content keeps the users happy and interested in the game.

If all they do is throw out a few buildings here and there as 'content packs' people are going to lose interest very soon.

Let us create the buildings - MC should be working on trams, trains, weather and enhancing the parks and plazas so that they are flexible enough to allow a real park to be at least approximated.

Three things on parks and plazas that may be doable with only minor coding changes:

First I'd like the parks and plaza fills to be usable  with or without objects and that when you use the plaza with objects it levels the ground first.  

Second that the size limitation is removed from the flood fill - I know there's a mod that increases it, but we should be able to fill any enclosed space

Third that there was a 'road' that was effectively just a marker line to enclose a fill, so that you no longer have to go through the lay down some roads - fill - delete roads process.