SimCity: Gameplay

[Epilef 57]

We have always been a niche market. The problem is that they want easy money now, and that they will only achieve this with a game for those unfamiliar with Simcity.

Right now, please someone who knows and likes this type of game would be too much work for EA / Maxis, apparently.

[Essex 322]

There are still games out there designed for the niche market, like Trainz for example, made by a small but dedicated company with a fantastic community and a ton of free content. I've completely made up my mind and have said goodbye to Simcity. EA is never ever gonna get one more dime from me for the reason that they don't answer any niches. If you think about it; they served a niche that was quite frankly gigantic, SC4 is still selling to this day. They will loose, not us.

[VeritaScientia 150]

There are still games out there designed for the niche market, like Trainz for example, made by a small but dedicated company with a fantastic community and a ton of free content. I've completely made up my mind and have said goodbye to Simcity. EA is never ever gonna get one more dime from me for the reason that they don't answer any niches. If you think about it; they served a niche that was quite frankly gigantic, SC4 is still selling to this day. They will loose, not us.

How many times do people have to say it? The climate of gaming has changed since 2003! EA releases so many titles they could easily write off SimCity, but instead, they're bringing a game to market that can show the Facebook crowd how a city-simulator can be, instead of being hampered by constraints like energy or other things. What isn't in the game at launch can and more than likely easily will beable to mod the game. EA can do without your dollar anyway, Essex, because with the strategy they're trying, there's a good chance there's going to be more people buying this game than have ever bought a game in this series before. It's really funny to me how you are so set against this game before it's even been released, you don't know all the features of the game. Like someone else said, you're just like a Zelda fan, ready to dismiss the game just because its not a clone of the best one. This game is a new game for a new decade.

The Global Market idea that so many people whine about.........heck, that makes it interesting. Whole new challenge each time you get into the game. Would I like a sandbox mode too? Yes. I think they should have a SCURK-like mode. While there will likely be some people who will try to goldfarm and skew the economy, most won't be greatly affected once enough people are involved in the game.

Think of this too: With SimCity online, The Sims 4 might use the SimWorld developed for SimCity, and then EA could revive others, like a new Streets of SimCity, SimCopter, etc.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I will buy this game when it is offered at a sizable discount. Also, Cities XL was overhyped in the beginning, got poor previews, then had sales so low Monte Cristo went out of business but it still got custom content 2 years later. EA is a MegaCorp, SimCity and The Sims are Cash Cows, and the demos received good reviews, I am almost certain SimCity will get custom content, especially since the Glass Box is highly modifiable (mod and plugin friendly). The gameplay is new though not in the familiar territory diehard SimCity 4 fans enjoy. All-in-all I expect moderate success from this reboot of a successor.

--Ocram

[Smokki 54]

How many times do people have to say it? The climate of gaming has changed since 2003! EA releases so many titles they could easily write off SimCity, but instead, they're bringing a game to market that can show the Facebook crowd how a city-simulator can be, instead of being hampered by constraints like energy or other things. What isn't in the game at launch can and more than likely easily will beable to mod the game. EA can do without your dollar anyway, Essex, because with the strategy they're trying, there's a good chance there's going to be more people buying this game than have ever bought a game in this series before. It's really funny to me how you are so set against this game before it's even been released, you don't know all the features of the game. Like someone else said, you're just like a Zelda fan, ready to dismiss the game just because its not a clone of the best one. This game is a new game for a new decade.

The Global Market idea that so many people whine about.........heck, that makes it interesting. Whole new challenge each time you get into the game. Would I like a sandbox mode too? Yes. I think they should have a SCURK-like mode. While there will likely be some people who will try to goldfarm and skew the economy, most won't be greatly affected once enough people are involved in the game.

Think of this too: With SimCity online, The Sims 4 might use the SimWorld developed for SimCity, and then EA could revive others, like a new Streets of SimCity, SimCopter, etc.

Would you enjoy SimCity 2023 if it:

- would cost you 100€ (only digital activation as all game files would be located in EA servers)

- you would have to pay 20€ / month to be able to play it (minimum 24 month subscription)

- the game itself would consist only of plopping buildings in a 500mx500m flat area (all other gameplay features would have been cut because new gamers found SimCity 2013 too hard and complex game)

- the game would be fully integrated in facebook so you could show of your 500x500m "city" with achievements like "going crazy with skyscrapers" or "curved road dominator"

- leaderboards would be THE big thing in SimCity 2023 with categories like "top DLC buyers" or "quickest building ploppers"

- you could unlock new ploppable buildings with only 1,99€/building

That might be the climate in 2023 like it is now much worse than it was back in 2003. If more people would whine and voice their opinions rather than just instabuy everything and trust blindly EA, the climate would not be this bad.

I really hope Maxis will listen to us and bring back gameplay options that were in SC4. I want SimCity 2013 to be the best SimCity ever.

[CaptCity 4,752]

Businesses that produce a product will most often look at the "cash register" before listening to opinions. That's why a high number of purchasers will always out-weigh a "few" negative opinions. It's when opinion becomes public practice (or law) that business will alter their methods.

[Smokki 54]

Businesses that produce a product will most often look at the "cash register" before listening to opinions. That's why a high number of purchasers will always out-weigh a "few" negative opinions. It's when opinion becomes public practice (or law) that business will alter their methods.

Good example of how unsatisfied gamers can influence the outcome of game is Mass Effect 3. Many were angry about the way, they ended the trilogy and the outcry was so bad it was noted even in Forbes and caused prices to drop pretty fast. Outcome was: 3 free multiplayer DLC packs so far and free extended cut ending. They made extending the ending a first priority and postponed other DLC plans.

I myself wasn't that unsatisfied about the ending as I am unsatisfied by the gameplay restrictions and changes planned for SimCity 2013. The problem here is, there are only few longtime SimCity fans voicing their opinions about SC 2013. Most of the "sleeping" fans and new players won't even remember how things were in SC4 and will probably just enjoy SC 2013. I probably can't, because I have always waited for SimCity 5, not a reboot.

  Edited September 2, 2012 by CaptCity  

[Bipin 3,402]

What isn't in the game at launch can and more than likely easily will beable to mod the game. EA can do without your dollar anyway

They can, but they won't. We are talking about EA here; the company that milks out every dollar possible until the figurative "udders" of the fanbase are bone dry. This is in direct relationship with the ability to mod, or lack thereof. I'm sorry to say this, and I hate to do so, but it's the truth; EA won't allow anything close to what we consider "custom content" for SC4. If the consumer can create content better that EA can, EA won't make money, thus it's out of the question.

[Rokugatsu 126]

Small gameplay:

And screenshot:

http://www.simy.pl/n...worzenia-ulicy/

[Rokugatsu 126]

Finally. Maxis started a new series of videos where they show gameplay. Lets put them all here and discuss Here is the first one:

[Vampirovibrio 43]

From the video, it appears that residential doesn't require power initially as they were built and sims move in and went about their business. Seems that they only need power at night? Also, it appears that there are only roads and no streets. Also when laying down roads, you can choose straight road or curvy road. there also appears to have 2 other road icons with big arrow n them which may suggest that roads can be upgraded to higher capacity?

I may have missed it but I don't seem to find the demand bars like in previous versions of Simcity. So if demand bars are no longer present, how does the player know which zone is in demand? It appears also that you can earn quite a good income with the small town shown in the video as it was shown that the cry can earn between $3000-5000/hr, though I'm not sure if the per hour refers to gameplay hour or real time hour. It also appears that tourists are a good way to earn income for your city.

[MarjaSpaceOddity 14]

Official gameplay video:

[BurroDiablo 222]

Let the nitpicking commence!

'Town name'? That's funny, I mean, in a game called SimCity I would have guessed we'd be building... well, you know... cities? Rail tracks connect at 90 degree angles *cringe*. I really dislike that zoning types are dictated by what roads they're joined to, it's highly unrealistic. no city has it's growth dictated by this rule, it's ridiculous. PERHAPS their growth it's more to do with accessibility, but certainly not the capacity of the adjoining streets, and I certainly know of large residential buildings built, not just along 2 lane roads, but nowhere near an avenue/dual carriageway. Personally, I'd remove the RCI indicator and place it beside the 'Return to City/Region' button, and put zoning density in place of the demand indicator next to the zone types.

Despite my misgivings, the game graphically is looking quite nice, and the tilt-shift thing isn't particularly invasive. Road options are welcome (straight, bendy or grid (I guess)) and all the little details (like the trash guys going out and collecting bins) do makes the game feel more 'alive'.

I may have missed it but I don't seem to find the demand bars like in previous versions of Simcity. So if demand bars are no longer present, how does the player know which zone is in demand?

Yeah, demand indicator was in the Zone menu 'Houses Demand' Shops Demand' 'Factory Demand', with wealth indicated too.

  Edited October 4, 2012 by BurroDiablo  

[Terring 6,473]

I'll make some comments about the current stage of the game, at least what I can see in the video.

I don't agree with the already placed transit systems and the need of building the city next to them. What if I want to build a small village far away from the highway, just like in Greece? Many villages here are connected by small roads, not necessary by avenues and railroads. Sure it can be useful for some players, but it will be more interesting to let them build their own transit system. Perhaps an on/off option could work

The user interface is finally smaller!!! I never liked the idea to hide the tool bar to enjoy my city. The new tool bar it's also more elegant and can even warn you for serious situations like power shortage

No streets? Even in the zones themselves? Looks like Simcity 3000 (1999) and not Simcity (2013)

The demand bar moved to the zoning tools, just to let you know if you really need to zone more homes. And why not just having it directly to the tool bar, just like in the previous games?

No farms?

No extra sizes of the zones?

Tram lines!

Commercial zones are finally useful and more realistic. I mean, you don't need to zone them just for the jobs.

I like the idea of customising your buildings, like the small wind farm, especially if you use the extra parts not only for decorations.

Just like in the real world, you just can't place a water tower everywhere you want. It make sense. Having resources makes the game more challenging. But we're talking about a game, not reality. I think it will be better an option about sandbox version, where you can build anything you want anywhere you want. And by the way, what if the underground water drained?

Bringing tourists finally isn't something that you should imagine anymore. I mean, actual tourists with actual benefits!

I'm the only one who notice that the Simcity 3000 version of connecting the railroads in back?

[Gn_leugim 853]

wird way to connect a rail to other rail :| but on the overall it loks good. shame it looks so dam american =(

[flyer2359 92]

Seems like it was really, really easy to make money.

[K-os 30]

To me the region view seemed to be roughly comparable to a large, maybe slightly less. So within that we can already see room allocated to build on at least 7 sites. These cities are definitely small size, maybe even less because of bigger building scale. But I think most of us suspected it would be anyways, so nothing new.

So it looks like road size will really determine building density? Kind of sucks for more creative layouts. Being able to explicity create a 2x2, 2x1, 3x3, 4x4 zone to determine building type was really, really useful.

  Edited October 4, 2012 by K-os  

[baertooth 330]

At 0:50 he indicates he might build a city in a certain area if he were doing an industrial city. At 1:02 he activates a button that shows the city "slots" that are available and clearly there isn't one where he selected. Being the lead designer, I would think he would know to explain that you need to pick a city "slot" instead of looking for a desirable area on the region map you would like to play yet he presents it completely wrong. Weird.

[Wiimeiser 444]

At 0:50 he indicates he might build a city in a certain area if he were doing an industrial city. At 1:02 he activates a button that shows the city "slots" that are available and clearly there isn't one where he selected. Being the lead designer, I would think he would know to explain that you need to pick a city "slot" instead of looking for a desirable area on the region map you would like to play yet he presents it completely wrong. Weird.

They probably only appear at close range. Or he was just giving a rough example.

Also, the train junction is just wrong. Aside from that, this has piqued my interest. I still say it's more of a spinoff though.

[grugor 60]

the plot sizes look really small, but maybe this is a friday night region designed for "quick games" as was mentioned in some interview before.

boats and planes are also in the menus so ports and small city airports are an option.

I would imagine the rail lines will curve even in a 90deg junction just like the tram lines do.

No sign of any bridge or oeverpass option in any menu , but im hoping the roads with the arrows are oneway.

there are some plots not near rail or water, wtf would want to build there?

[RyanMorgan95 144]

About the difficulty - I'm sure this can be altered so that make money is more difficult. What bugged me in the video was:

1. The heavy rail tracks connect perpendicularly, which is not at all realistic. I hope there is an option to build curves with heavy rail, and better, almost parallel junctions by release.
   
   
2. The wind speed where he placed the wind turbine plant was over 120mph! Unless SimCity is on a different planet where there is a thinner atmosphere (so the affect of wind speed is lessened) then they need to change that. Pretty minor, but silly.
   
   
3. The environment is pretty static: the trees are very cartoony and don't sway at all. despite the storm force winds. Again, this detracts from the game's realism.
   
   
4. Building textures are really basic, with very little detail, particularly walls. Textures will hopefully be improved.
   
   
5. No farms?
   

I do get the feeling that the entire region is meant to be the "city" - metropolitan area - and the "towns" are merely districts within that city. Notice there was no loading transition between the region view and entering a town, so I would assume you can zoom back out and select a new town seamlessly, which I can live with. Still, larger "town" areas, in conjunction with this seamlessness, would be a big bonus.

What I did like was the modularity of the wind turbine plant, the colour to highlight the effect/reach of utilities and the police station (much like Cities XL). When one isn't zoomed in, the graphics look fantastic. The UI and data layers are sleek and simple, too. All in all, I think this gameplay video strengthened the case for buying SimCity, personally. It's just minor things that need improvement I feel. Look forward to the next one, and the broadcast!

  Edited October 4, 2012 by RyanMorgan95  

[baertooth 330]

Wiimeise, the thing is I would have expected him to say if you want an industrial city or a casino city, you would activate city whatchamajig and have it show all the slots then pick the slot that looks like the best fit for the city type. Yet he seemed to indicate something the game seems to be completely incapable of. But he's the lead designer? That's what makes it weird. I'm not trying to nitpick him but it really stood out to me as odd. And I don't think it's nefarious. Just odd.

I'm also hoping they really improve the zoning tool. All the zones being the same depth from road. I'm hoping one can manually set the lot size and override the auto-zoning. I really used the power of zoning in SC4 to create interesting variations and unique neighborhoods. Hope there is more power in placing this so that's still true.

I also agree with the train issue, that's very unrealistic. Don't like the way the train wheels into the back of the station and turns around(?) to go back to the main line. I have yet to see a train station work like that. Massive improvement please.

EDIT: Don't like how the wind farm was handled either. I like the base building but the turbines should be independent of the lot and placeable on their own so only the base building has to be next to the road.

Something else that caught my eye was there was no effort to place turn arounds on the avenues so the Sims didn't have to drive all the way to the intersection to turn around. Plus I would like to know if it's possible to hook a road to one side of an avenue but not have an intersection for the whole avenue, just the side it connects too. As far as traffic management goes in SC4, I learned three things that really help traffic. One is to make turn-arounds on aves in between intersections, the second is to hook roads and streets into aves only on one side as to minimize interfering intersections, and third is never create 4-way intersections, all intersections must be 3-way only so there is less traffic going through an intersection at any given time.

Other things caught my eye but I have to say watching this really really really really makes me wish there wasn't the other problems with the always online junk, ORIGIN, or the missing features. This game at least looks fun and to me is visually pleasing. Here's to hoping it blossoms into a worthy purchase.

  Edited October 4, 2012 by baertooth  

[Architechnid 186]

Agree with the rail comments. Agree with the idea of having control over the lots and their sizes beyond the type of road put down.

I liked the offset snap to make the roads parallel based on a typical block. I would like to see at the least, a region editor where we could, regionally, determine where the terrain, cities, great works, and connections go. If it was as robust as the in-city abilities, then that would eliminate the issues with too much room, not liking a type or road, ect. It would seem just a logical continuation. Would certainly help in persuading me to purchase this game.

[SPESSMEHREN 13]

It does say "NOT FINAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE," so I bet they're still working on the rail part. If you notice, after he makes the intersection, you never see the rail lines in the video again, even when they pan out at the end they make sure to hide the terrible interchange.

But..... no highways.

  Edited October 4, 2012 by SPESSMEHREN  

[pyanodon 218]

Looks like if your town isnt near the rail line, you have no rail as i dont think you will be able to connect to the regional rail if you are too far away.

I didnt see any option for overpasses or bridges in the menus.

Man, that things is giving me creeps. I love the visual of the glassbox running. But the image of a flat city with flat roads and the only rail settings you can use is intercities connection is bugging me. Also, i know they have some months and that wasnt the final product etc. I´d like to see if i can put two train stations inside my town if i can connect between them and they work as a city´s passenger train.

[VeritaScientia 150]

Okay, even though this isn't final gameplay video, I'm starting to get concerned about the way the game is progressing, though I still understand the game is a few months away from release.

I'll go through them as they appear in the video.

1: City placement: I would REALLY like to see the ability to have cities right next to each other. This is just a matter of expanding the number of city tiles. Not really a problem, may just be using developer software without all the bells and whistles of the final game.

2: Highways: looking at the roads menu, there are three options to the right of the avenue that the narrator selected, they seem to me to be possible highways but I am not sure. Maybe a tweet to Mr. Pierre at Maxis will be able to give us the road types?

3: World connections: Okay, I understand having a single connection to the regional highway, but I'd also like to be able to see an option to build your own connection and T-intersect the highway.

5: Zoning seems to be a fixed dimension: I would prefer to see some more variance in this, since I've become accustomed to doing 1x1 blocks of low density residential to maximize my space and to give it a tract housing feel.

6: Rail: ok, admittedly,this is more the guy's fault for just trying to make the connection, not be as realistic as he could make it. I personally would have done a full-on wye junction.

I was encouraged to see what appears to be a grid option for roads., I'd like to see how that option works.

[TekindusT 3,809]

My raw thoughts:

- Awesome graphics, cartoony textures.

- Again, we're playing Californian cities. Terrible. I'm only wondering when the full version will be released, as it happened with SC3k and SC4.

- Curvy roads, nice to meet you. We had been waiting for you.

- Specialized cities? What about "realistic" cities?

- A railroad connects in a 90º angle to another railroad. Seems legit.

Now I've finally seen some actual gameplay, I fully know that I won't be wasting much euros in this game. I'm so sorry, but that's the truth.

[Rokugatsu 126]

Specialized cities? What about "realistic" cities?

How are specialized cities unrealistic? We don't have turists cities in real life? Industrial cities? Port cities? Bussines cities?

And they already said many times that you dont HAVE to have any specialization, but you CAN.

[VeritaScientia 150]

My raw thoughts:

- Awesome graphics, cartoony textures.

- Again, we're playing Californian cities. Terrible. I'm only wondering when the full version will be released, as it happened with SC3k and SC4.

- Curvy roads, nice to meet you. We had been waiting for you.

- Specialized cities? What about "realistic" cities?

- A railroad connects in a 90º angle to another railroad. Seems legit.

Now I've finally seen some actual gameplay, I fully know that I won't be wasting much euros in this game. I'm so sorry, but that's the truth.

There's still more stuff in development, my tweetversation with Mr. Pierre at Maxis revealed that the far-right two buttons (the ones with arrows) are still under development but that they were "exciting".....could this mean some sort of highway? I dunno, but what's the only thing bigger than an avenue with tram? Hmmm, I think I see what he did there......

The rail network doesn't exactly meet at a 90-degree angle if you look closely, this, like the lack of regional highway interchanges, may still be in the works, though I too would prefer to see it impossible for a 90-degree junction on a rail network, since no train I know of can handle that sharp a curve.

[Zombeast 69]

I think this game looks awesome, it's nothing like SC4 and quite frankly I could care less. This looks like a fun new experience and I can't wait to get my hands on it

Edit: I would love for this game to have as many features as SC4 but it wont. I'm still super impressed with how good it looks and all the data layering and filters. Once again, cannot wait!

  Edited October 4, 2012 by Zombeast