The whole environmental bent worries me

[a_muses 39]

Just my two yen thrown into the fray...

Did anyone here play SimEarth, that old classic simulator? I guess I might be in the older age range here (I'm just thirty), but I played SimEarth all the time as a kid, and it was the first game I jumped onto when getting old DOS games to work on my Mac... but anyway. SimEarth had limited resources, but the difference was that, unless you started with a pre-loaded game, you always started at the beginning of history. The resources, such as oil, were semi-realistically built up by having a long pre-sentience period where animals could die and leave their oily remains to become resources, and so on. You could adjust your civilizations to rely on this or that source of energy with consequences in development and, if a resource was running low and there was competition for it, wars breaking out between neighboring cities.

Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I would think that the SC5 developers would want to aim for a system like that which allowed flexibility while remaining realistic. Let's say you start a city in 1900, as you could in SC2k—presumably you'd have more resources (which are, sorry colonial town fans, never truly unlimited, only seemingly so) than if you started a city in the 1950s.

Well, this is all speculation so far, so let's not get too heated about a game that hasn't been finished yet!

  Edited March 12, 2012 by a_muses  

[Ocram's Razr 964]

After the Success of SimCity, SimTower, SimAnt, SimEarth, SimSafari, and Streets of SimCity would all become possible.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If we are going to have user-created regions, then some kind of region editor must be supplied. The natural resources will have to be predefined to exist in the landscape and the cities will simply be able to take advantage of them. So planting layers of resources will be part of the regional terraformer, then. Depending on how you terraform your region, there could be default resource layers. Of course, building a farm will need water and soil resources, and will produce a food resource of some kind that must be either marketed or processed.

Raising mountains could easily default to a (random) selection of mineral resources or just plain rock. Rock is a resource for the building industry after it has been processed into either cement or aggregates. I have a feeling that this is going to be an educational game.

The environmental resources simply add some realism. The motto of players in this game should be "Doing well while doing good."

[Sap59 3]

It would be interesting to have sustainable solution options available for the city to help the environment.

I found this link which best describe what I'm thinking.. http://globalstewards.org/index.htm

[LivingInThePast 364]

OMG! I cannot believe this! I need to have education and healthcare!! And why roads??!! Looks to me like some political agenda is being forced to me! I don't like this! Why on earth why there is roads in game?!?!? It is an agenda! I don't wanna be a victim of agenda or some hidden message. Why don't they use helicopters?? No wait those need fuel, oh no - no I'm a victim of fuel politics! Most horrific is education and healthcare, both are simply politics pure agenda not a real world issue. Libraries should be banned from the face of the earth!

[etc]

You didn't read my later posts and thus, are completely missing the point.

Yes, the Western world may be heading into a green "ecofuture", but first off, it's not fun to start off in the present and keep going into the future. I want my city to at least have a past. And secondly, pollution is bad when it gets out of hand. As seen in the Jakarta example, out of control pollution has huge consequences. But also "going green" would have enormous costs...who knows what damage could happen later down the line if you put in some CO² sucking instruments everywhere? Screwing around with that will have consequences as well.

The preview focused way too much on the environment thing, therefore, it's what a huge part of the game will be--and that's diverted away from the rest of the simulation. I'm not going to be happy if one part of the game (say, trains or railroads) is crippled while they went out and focused on something else. Secondly, it's the person doing it, which already has a clear and obvious bias. It's like if they wanted your Sims' religion to be a core focus and brought in a rapid Fundamentalist who would say that you're going to Hell if you even suggest that the Earth is older than 5000 years.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Like in 4 you could have 'easy', 'medium' and 'hard' but for random region generations with realistic levels of resources, or have a user created terraformed region where you choose to either select resource distribution yourself or allow it to form naturally as you form the region, possibly you could even have realistic terraforming actions with realistic consequences. Then again I'm not suggesting you need to form mountains by millions of years of sedimentary buildup and an earthquake or two

[Jahnri 21]

Actually the developers simply stated they don't want to tell you whats eco-logically right, educationally right, economically right or anything like that. They simply wish there to be a beefy enough simulation to allow actions to generate consequences naturally. That in and of itself gives every style of play a opportunity to excel.

Trains, cars, electricity, people and every element of the game will be stronger because of the underlying code.

[Mark Waybill 242]

I agree. It'll make the game far more involving.

[packersfan 666]

I would love for there to be an option of starting the game further in the past, so buildings and resource management evolve to a point of turning green. The hard part of SC4 was always trying to build a gritty midwestern manufacturing city, but hightech just took over so easily. I would love to be able to build a pristine developing manufacturing center that then falls on hard times because of resource shortages and then turning to green redevelopment.

[Crazy_Ivan80 35]

Ideally there'd be several generations of classical and not so classical powerplants available.

Taking coal as an example: the older and cheaper but very polluting versions, and more expensive versions that pollute less. with the most expensive version being the high tech coal plants they're building today.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Let's face it. Since the Industrial Revolution we have lived with an environment of fossil fuel emissions, and here we are about 100 years later trying weakly to do something about it. It is not for the builders of this game to make any kind of statement in that regard, but a good simulation will force the player to handle it, because it is there, already.

The latest fashion seems to be capture and store carbon dioxide. Well, what will we do with it when the storage is filled? Climate change is raising the temperature of the permafrost and the oceans wherein is stored so much methane that will be released it will make carbon dioxide look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison. The methane release, about which we can do nothing, will trigger the next ice age in about 5,000 years, but meanwhile things are going to be much warmer.

As simulation progresses into the 22nd century, coastal areas will have to take into account the average rise in sea level. This is well predicted and should be built into the game. If no action is taken, then large scale population displacements could occur, which could be a problem in a coastal game region, as there gets to be less land and refugees wandering about. The question is does a game want to have this as a consideration? I doubt it.

We are working on a game. Let it be fun, and somewhat, but not overly so, educational. Let us not have ELEs in this game. The game of Chicken Little is not for us.

[FreedomFox 13]

From the Maxis AMAA Transcript:

As for the biggest gameplay improvement, we’re moving from a purely statistical simulation model to an agent based model. So one example of how that’s different would be that the vehicles you saw in SC4 were just visual representations of ‘traffic density’ at that location, they weren’t real, if you watched them long enough they’d fade out as they turned corners. By contrast, with our new simulator, each and every vehicle and person is a real simulation entity heading to some real destination.

So basically each and every sim will carry a resource load to help better simulate the ebb and flow of the market and movement of goods. I don't mind this in the least. However, what I'm hoping won't happen is that, because of a limited quantity of resources, the game will find a way to preach to me how to defend against 'global climate change' and implement carbon taxes. Euugh. More city simulating, less environmental shenanigans. Not saying there should be none -- I just would prefer it to be logical (e.g. if I make a heavily industrialized city I will have to deal with health disparities and pollution. If coal deposits are depleted, I'll have to buy from my neighbor. NOT the sea levels are rising and the city will flood, let's reduce our carbon footprint as soon as we can in hopes to stop it). If I open Simcity 5 out of the box and it stresses theses sorts of things, I think I'll uninstall it. Simcity 5 should be a city simulator, more advanced than its predecessor. I don't mind the aspect of resources and even environmentalism and dealing with social issues implemented in it (much like in SC4), so long as the city simulation aspect remains in tact.

I don't think Maxis will fail us. They're pretty intuitive to their fanbase and I doubt the next Simcity will be like too much environmentally/socially bent like in Societies or Cities XL. They've stressed that simulation comes first, and then they add all the tweaks of social and environmental issues and whatnot. All I ask for is a step up in sophistication and graphics from SC4 and I'm satisfied.

[Mark Waybill 242]

I wonder if at some point every plant and animal will be an 'agent' and will need water, nutrients etc to the point that we'll have a real SimEarth on our hands

[mapboy 106]

More city simulating, less environmental shenanigans. Not saying there should be none -- I just would prefer it to be logical (e.g. if I make a heavily industrialized city I will have to deal with health disparities and pollution. If coal deposits are depleted, I'll have to buy from my neighbor. NOT the sea levels are rising and the city will flood, let's reduce our carbon footprint as soon as we can in hopes to stop it).

They have never said they were going to force (or even implement) sea level rise in the game (If anything, it may lower due to over extraction). What they have said is that they want to allow you to build any city you want, and providing the consequences of your decisions. In that way it is more city simulating. You are really blowing this out of proportion.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I see nothing wrong with exacting consequences if you overdraw your resources. I don't think political messages are appropriate to a game that has hopes of getting sales world-wide. Preaching green will kill the sales in the developing world.

However, if you don't pay attention to your resources because you only want to build skyscrapers would definitely gain you some problems of the first kind, as it should. This is a city/region simulation, not a "build a pretty city" game.

[croxis 150]

I wonder if at some point every plant and animal will be an 'agent' and will need water, nutrients etc to the point that we'll have a real SimEarth on our hands

They designed the game engine to be generic for all their future games, the idea to make SimCity with it came much later. So yes, SimEarth and SimTower (and please SimMars! Why did you cancel!!!!!) and all those others are possible.

[LivingInThePast 364]

However, if you don't pay attention to your resources because you only want to build skyscrapers would definitely gain you some problems of the first kind, as it should. This is a city/region simulation, not a "build a pretty city" game.

Sadly, that's certainly what the trailers look like. Personally, having a small city is pretty fun, partially because there's always new stuff to add. Bastrop, Texas has seen (in recent times) new construction that are an old hat to larger cities. Lowe's. Best Buy. Spec's¹.A limited access highway. Petco.

[1]A big-box liquor store chain in Texas, popular with alcohol aficionados and rednecks alike

Wind and solar are not "the future" either. Sure, they COULD be, but there's research and prototypes right now that can turn carbon-based objects into concentrated fuel that doesn't take millions of years to develop.

  Edited March 19, 2012 by LivingInThePast  

[Lantentine 4]

I see nothing wrong with exacting consequences if you overdraw your resources. I don't think political messages are appropriate to a game that has hopes of getting sales world-wide. Preaching green will kill the sales in the developing world.

However, if you don't pay attention to your resources because you only want to build skyscrapers would definitely gain you some problems of the first kind, as it should. This is a city/region simulation, not a "build a pretty city" game.

I'm not entirely sure if I agree with you about sales in the developing world getting damaged by 'preaching green.' I mean, obviously if Maxis is going to take the "Its the developing world that is doing the damage' - then yes - that would damage sales - but it wouldn't if they made it clear that the environment is everyone's responsibility. I don't think anyone in a developing nation who owns this game is going to see a wind-farm or a ordinance that makes heavy industry suffer slightly and be insulted.

Additionally, whether we like to admit it or not, ultimately sales are going to be affected by the developed world not buying the game due to a lack of environmental simulation / consequences compared to the developed world buying it because the game does reflect what really happens if you don't look after the planet properly.

All I would ask myself from Maxis on this topic was yes - a full pollution simulation and the consequences - but also another route to take aside from clean industry to have low pollution. Perhaps technologies not entirely dissimilar to those seen in Anno 2070 but only at immense cost and late in the game.

  Edited March 19, 2012 by Lantentine  

[Cob92 360]

Additionally, whether we like to admit it or not, ultimately sales are going to be affected by the developed world not buying the game due to a lack of environmental simulation / consequences compared to the developed world buying it because the game does reflect what really happens if you don't look after the planet properly.

Don't forget, there are many people in the developed world who despise the idea of anything environmentally friendly (I hate the term "green", it's a stupid buzzword and automatically makes you look like a hippie), even when it's stuff that would actually produce economic benefits and improve the quality of life. You suggest a sleek, modern mass transit system and they will fight to the end to kill it because they see it as a liberal Democrat plot to smash the suburbs and force us all into Communist boxes (people who think that way are the reason Houston only has one working train line in 2012; we're lucky we have an economy that brings people here despite the city's shortcomings). If the game gets preachy and starts sounding like Al Gore was on the design team, you'll piss off a lot of the market not only in the developing world but also here in the West as well.

[Mark Waybill 242]

I think as long as

A. Effects of pollution, bad healthcare, climate etc are relatively realistic and do not favor 'eco friendly' 'green' cities more than they would in a rational real situation

and

B. It is possible to build a Dickensian London with dirty industry and sewage filling the Thames that can be played for more than five minutes without everyone dying and a message reading 'Your city was not eco friendly. You ahve been lynch mobbed. Bye, Loser'

I shall be happy. After all this is a simulated planet, it doesn't have to be exactly like ours, as long as things are in perspective relative to one another and make sense. Realism is good to an extent of course, but if it is indeed true that a new ice age is coming I wouldn't want all my hard work swallowed up in a glacier in the year 2500.

[LivingInThePast 364]

B. It is possible to build a Dickensian London with dirty industry and sewage filling the Thames that can be played for more than five minutes without everyone dying and a message reading 'Your city was not eco friendly. You ahve been lynch mobbed. Bye, Loser'

Yes, but ultimately London came out A-okay, didn't it?

[Mark Waybill 242]

Yes, but ultimately London came out A-okay, didn't it?

I was there last year, so I can safely say that yes, within reason it has excelled pretty nicely. Which of course is another thing, some cities will change over time to become distinctly different places to what they once were. However some gritty industrial towns remain gritty industrial towns.

[starbar61 0]

I like the idea of limited resources because it will make it much more realistic and give more challenge if you want to create a sustainable city.

[knighthawk75 56]

It should be no more an aspect of the game then it was in SC4, if they go beyond that it'll be yet another possible front for failure. Put it this way, I shouldn't have to mod the game in one form or fashion (like custom pollution eating parks\buildings etc) in a typical say 1m pop city again to compensate for their failed models or some environmental fetish in the code.

On the resource front it could be interesting dynamic, unless they go overboard with it. Water\Water table I can understand, the rest however seems like BS to me though I'll reserve total judgement, this is supposed to be sim*city* not Industry Giant2.

  Edited March 30, 2012 by knighthawk75