Anybody afraid?

[chaplainDMK 0]

Seriously, its been 7 years since a sucessful city building game came out (Sim City 4).

Evreything after that has been prety much a disaster (Sim City Societies, Cities XL etc.). I'm kinda  afraid since i grew up with Sim City =(

[joshriddle 29]

CXL wasn't a disaster. Oh and I aint afraid. Why would I be?

[Biriali 58]

Well, first and foremost there's more to life than computer games... Secondly, I believe that some day someone is gonna make a new sim city-ish game. There is a market for it, after all, and if there's a market there's a chance of profit, and if there's a chance of profit there's someone who's willing to make a go at it.

[nycsc4 5,250]

I don't even think there is a need for another Sim City. The custom content that you can download here pretty much provides you with unlimited expansion packs. No need to be afraid when you can get pretty much everything you need fron this site and SC4D. Cities XL isn't bad either, it will get better just like SC4 gradualy got better as they made different versions. Cities XL is FARRRRRRRRRRR from a disaster. Infact in terms of views and graphics I would say its a step up from SC4, especially in realism. As far as what came with the game, you can do way more with Cities XL then SC4.

Biriali, very astute observation. I don't know if your from the US but in America, anywhere there is money to be made, some joker will try to manuiplate it, usually making things worse off then before.

[DCMetro34 576]

I would agree with nycsc4,with custom content SC4 is in my opinion, the most enjoyable PC game out there (although I don't play a lot of PC games). We have made so many mods and downloadable lots many people are content with our game now.....

Biriali is also 100% correct, it's a game, and someone will eventually make a new one. If I was going to be afraid, I would be more afraid that someone would make another bad city simulation game.....even though in reality that doesn't scare me either.

I believe once that legendary SC4 player "Z" ("z1" at Simtropolis) said that: "this game is a hobby...it shouldn't be a chore" (or something along those lines, you get the idea).

-DC

[Oohforf 19]

Yeah, us modders created Sc5, I would say.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Originally posted by: nycsc4

I don't even think there is a need for another Sim City. The custom content that you can download here pretty much provides you with unlimited expansion packs. No need to be afraid when you can get pretty much everything you need fron this site and SC4D. quote>

Couldn't have put it better than that

[Tarkus 6,932]

I'm not the least bit afraid here.  We're 7 years into SC4, and we're still finding ways to expand it through modding.  Having some knowledge of the technical capabilities of the game, we could probably keep going at least a few more years and still be able to find stuff.

As far as the elusive "next generation city simulator" (hencefort, NGCS, since I like acronyms ), there's two reasons why we haven't really seen it yet.  The first being the success of SC4--it's hard to top, particularly with all the content that's been produced.  The second is perhaps a bigger limitation, however: hardware.  The market will undoubtedly demand that the NGCS be full-3D, rather than fixed-angle orthographic projection as SC4 uses, which, given the dynamic nature of a city simulator game, would be very, very system intensive.  We're just getting to the point at which system specs at the very high end of consumer PCs would be able to support that sort of experience, and I don't think it'll really be feasible for another couple years.  CXL jumped the gun, and that's at least part of the reason it didn't take off.  I think the "2011 edition" is still pushing it a bit. 

The graphical engine that SC4 (and SC3000) used is actually capable of supporting full-3D, but the computer systems at the time it came out (2003, 2004 for Rush Hour) were nowhere near that.  I'm sure EA's watching things carefully, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they may eventually return to the city-sim market.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[Decaf Table 0]

Thank you for all the feedback everyone. I think it's interesting to hear everyone's opinion on the state of the game and where it may lead in the future. Honestly I'm telling all my friends that i'm really into this 7 year old game right now and they just look at me with a weird look. I did get my roomate to buy it though! If it wasn't for everyone still playing this game and this forum I may not have kept my interest. I guess what i'm saying is that as long as so many people still have fun playing this game and sharing stories, i'll enjoy playing the game as well. I enjoy playing games everyone else is playing, even if we aren't playing online together, at least it feels like it!

[joshriddle 29]

I still don't see what there is to be afraid of. There are still other city building games coming soon. Why I was looking on a list at About.com and there were around 100 that we haven't even heard of or they aren't making anymore. With all the custom content all we need in SC is a 360 arc rotate view and better graphics and it would be just like CXL!

[tkuelker 2]

SC4.........hard to beat. We've made it perfect.

[un1 40]

I'm sure with enough begging and patience we could get EA's permission to open source SC4.. that might take many years but its a hope that could be in the future.

SC4 has its limitation but where it stands now its gone pretty far and how far this community has gone since 2003 is amazing. A community I would've thought was dead, isn't and is still thriving with new members and new discoveries. I think theres still a bright future ahead of SC4, all you have to do is wait.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy.  You will be able to run Simcity 4 (RH or D) until the sun explodes.  You may not always be able to run it on the latest and greatest Microsoft abortion Operating System, but you will be able to run it on a co-loaded Linux machine using the wine co-routines.

[Dizastrow 4]

I am constantly playing Simcity, even without being in front of a computer.  I see the world we live in, and think, "I wouldnt have put that exit there, or this area needs a park, or I would develop this area.  The game will always appeal to me.  I just go with whats made.  SC4 until the next one!!

[joshriddle 29]

Originally posted by: Dizastrow

I am constantly playing Simcity, even without being in front of a computer.  I see the world we live in, and think, "I wouldnt have put that exit there, or this area needs a park, or I would develop this area.  The game will always appeal to me.  I just go with whats made.  SC4 until the next one!!quote>

I do just that. Except I base everything off of real life. Avenue roads have commercial, streets and roads have houses. Highways have lots and lots of cars. It turns up like that every time.

[chaplainDMK 0]

I'm not saying that SC4 is bad or that all the work modders put into it is not making it even better but the game engine has some realy bad flaws like extremley stupid sims that won't want to work on the other end of the town, yet alone in a city a few miles away...

And then there's the leveling system where sims will make buildings on freaking cliff's so the whole town looks wierd.

There's also no way to make multi level water (so you could have waterfalls, actual rivers, waterfalls), the terraforming tools are quite broken, no way to randomly generate a region, and all kinds of improvements that the engine just won't allow with Sim City 4 or Cities XL.

And i didn't mean that Cities XL was a bad game, just that it was a disaster sales wise. This means that devs will think that we don't wan't another City builder and just ignore the genre.

etc. etc. etc.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: chaplainDMK

I'm not saying that SC4 is bad or that all the work modders put into it is not making it even better but the game engine has some really bad flaws like extremely stupid Sims that won't want to work on the other end of the town, yet alone in a city a few miles away...

And then there's the leveling system where Sims will make buildings on freaking cliff's so the whole town looks weird.

There's also no way to make multi level water (so you could have waterfalls, actual rivers, waterfalls), the terraforming tools are quite broken, no way to randomly generate a region, and all kinds of improvements that the engine just won't allow with Sim City 4 or Cities XL.

And i didn't mean that Cities XL was a bad game, just that it was a disaster sales wise. This means that devs will think that we don't want another City builder and just ignore the genre.

etc. etc. etc.quote>

There have been several rewrite projects over the years, but most of them died of lack of either money or volunteer workers.  EA isn't listening or don't want to make the investment in what they consider to be a dinosaur.  They are only interested in the quick buck.  They are still getting a trickle of milk from the old cow, so they won't release the bones until it is damned well dead.

The game should be reimplimented in something very portable, like Java.  This has the potential for making the game slow, so a fast processor set will be required, and it should be made to multi-process if this is available.  It probably means an automatic configurator on installation that behaves more like an operating system than an application.  DirectX will have to be abandoned, so the next best thing is probably OpenGL.  The nice thing about this is that most GPU's, even my old slug of a NVIDIA chip, recognize OpenGL calls without interpretation, so the graphics can be really nice.  Getting rid of DirectX also gets rid of the Microsoft lockin.

Now, all you need is an army of Internet-based volunteer software people, and a good system/programming specification (an RFC if you like).  Meanwhile, with all its faults, we love this game, and will play it until something much, much better comes out.  Maxis and Wright had a great idea, but never really got to make it happen properly.  EA forced them on the market before they were ready, but like all programming groups, they never would have been quite ready.

[joshriddle 29]

ChaplainDMK? Pretty much some of that stuff can be accomplished by what the modders have modded for us. Waterfalls can be accomplished with the PPond kit, or ploppable water.

What I am getting at is does it really matter right at this point in time if there is stuff lacking in the game cause 99.9% of what I thought was lacking in the game when I first got it has been successfully modded. Also I don't really think the world is all about nothing but computer games anyway.

[Aktof 2]

I think if anything a small group of dedicated simcity fans will likely go and try to create the next "Simcity". The great part about this genre is that much development and improvement is made by the community ;if the developer allows it. The problem with the last few city games is that they have stifled such interaction. Hopefully the next game will not make a similar mistake. Seven years is quite a long time, but I'm sure something will surface soon.