SimCity: Multiplayer Discussion

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This is all just speculation, we know very little about this game.

Too right. This whole forum is just a gigantic wish list.

I want a modern distributed application, others want to squirrel away under the covers, and everything else in between.

[jacksunny 741]

Well, everyone wants something different, some people want things that others don't. You can't please everyone.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Please vote for Question #29 in the new questions thread. It will settle arguments in this area once and for all.

I am willing to bet they don't have this. If they did, the announcements wouldn't be so vague. I suspect that they are in love with GlassBox, and haven't really got a complete design.

  Edited March 27, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[Paulobergonci 673]

I suspect that they are in love with GlassBox, and haven't really got a complete design.

I agree, all that they talk about is glassbox. Well, i guess glassbox is the base of the game, the engine. Design comes later.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I suspect that they are in love with GlassBox, and haven't really got a complete design.

I agree, all that they talk about is glassbox. Well, i guess glassbox is the base of the game, the engine. Design comes later.

GlassBox is just a tool in their kit. If they don't have a firm specification by now, they won't make it in 2013. A big programming team will just make it longer due to the administrative overhead.

EA has been in business for a long time, but sometimes I wonder whether they really have a professional programming shop or maybe they have just a seat-of-the-pants gaming shop.

The quality of their product is not strained, it droppeth with a clunk from somewhere unto the market scrum. (Sorry, Bill, but you did say something like that.)

  Edited March 27, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Ahem.

Can we please remember that this thread is for 'multi-player' discussion?

Thanks.

[MINIggy03 227]

I'm really excited for multiplayer, it's a mixture of SC2/3's neighbors and SC4's region play. I've really missed having those neighbors, Simcity 4's region can get pretty lonely and it's going to be nice to make real neighbor deals again that aren't with yourself. I don't mind the global market aspect so much, it's no different than having an artificial one, and I'm intrigued on seeing how it plays out with more dynamic progress. I like the the idea that what I'm doing is impacting others and others are impacting myself as well.

My brother and I used to play Simcity 2000 multiplayer and while it was different (you shared the same map and bought land), I always thought what it would be like to have real neighbors in a multiplayer game instead of AI ones. I love the idea of a conflict arising where you've spent a long time tossing your trash to a neighbor only for them to break it off, forcing you to find someone else to toss it to or fend for yourself. Span that across many different kinds of deals and resource grabs and you have yourself a very active atmosphere to deal with as Mayor and those participating in a region.

I hope they have a way of introducing inflation, bubbles, crashes, and all sorts of global scenarios that are impacted by a global community.

I'm looking forward to multiplayer, can't wait to play a region with others! I'll be the one dumping tons of trash

  Edited March 29, 2012 by MINIggy03  

[Mark Waybill 242]

A true rather than AI economy shall be indeed very interesting. I wonder if any Wall Street crashes will happen?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

A true rather than AI economy shall be indeed very interesting. I wonder if any Wall Street crashes will happen?

What Wall Street? Nothing says that the economy running here will be real or the American one.

They seem to be bent on running the simulation one day at a time with score (leader) boards every day. In multi-player this would be slightly interesting.

I believe the only score is the success of your city as it develops into a place of no-complaints, no-problems, lower taxes, and net return on the budget. In multi-player, the team of players should be trying to achieve this for their cities and the region as a whole.

I do not see how this is going to work with a new crew of Sims each day with no carry overs, not even a place of residence. This could be exceedingly dull and hard to co-ordinate in a multi-player situation where you couldn't even attract Sims from one city to another based on talent and resume.

[Paulobergonci 673]

this was copied from SimCity 5 facebook profile, they posted it and it explains why it is going to be an on-line game.

"SimCity – The Connection Between You and the World

Real cities don't live in bubbles, real cities are connected to each other.

People and resources flow from city to city in regional economies. Neighboring cities directly affect each other, and through markets, their actions affect other cities across the world.

Because cities are connected, they specialize and differentiate. That's possible because they're all playing roles in a larger economy. Cities look different because they make a living doing different things. Clusters of cities working together do things that no city can do in isolation.

From the beginning, we built this SimCity to deal with this stuff realistically. We're not just simulating the internal mechanics of cities, we're simulating how cities relate to each other, to resource markets and to the natural world around them.

These are things that we have to do if we're going to model real cities with integrity.

The larger environment that cities live in, and the global markets that they are participating in are all being simulated on Maxis' servers. We're running the underlying simulations that enable cities to transform their regions, to interact with each other, and to move markets. We're tracking the accomplishments of cities and their effect on each other and the larger world.

This is true whether you're playing by yourself, or if you've invited a bunch of friends to come and play with you. Your impact on the larger world matters, and the larger world in turn influences your city. This will be visible in lots of different ways, from changing commodity prices, to leaderboards to global and regional opportunities.

Here's what this means in practice - Your cities won't all look the same, they'll take on specific roles, and it's just awesome to create a region with your friends. It's magical to see Sims come from their city to yours. It's fun to make stuff and send it to a friend when they need it.

When you see the connection between your city and the larger world, your city is more real than it's ever been before.

That's why it's an online game. We'll be showing you more of this at this year’s E3 Expo in June.

-Ocean Quigley [sim City Creative Director]"

[§haÅ--Ñ€ §hÅŽo 370]

So they are still listening to us. I like how they confirm Maxis will have it's own servers, and that you can play single-player too. If only they would plan on making the graphics realistic.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

They do plan on having the graphics realistic. The field of view will just be (by default) short in order to make it feel like a miniature.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Now that is highly enlightening. I don't care what the game mechanics are. The interesting thing is that instead of limiting the operations to one region they have now taken a global approach. Now the question that arises is will this be an Earth economy with all of its nasty little frogs or something more simplified and ideal?

A PC could never simulate a world economy unless it was so overly simplified that it would quickly become dull and boring. So now I feel that they are fully justified in wanting even solo players to join the system on-line. The question now is whether it would be necessary to be continuously on-line or only when needed to update the servers and receive updates back.

They have said all along that this will be asynchronous, but there has to be a synchronization sometime to set the world parameters. Players may be asynchronous, but the background world simulation must cough up some data on a regular basis.

How often have any of us wanted to do some trading outside our regions? I certainly have, and I have wished for trade elements too. SC4's killing of exports at the city boundaries has always been one of my hot buttons. Now this game is being set up to include trade and commerce. Nice.

If things are operating globally, the player may be too busy with the learning curve to worry about trivialities like making your own lots and buildings right away. All this can come in due time.

Multi-player could be a lot of fun. It really depends on what kind of inter-player communication facilities are available.

They are getting closer to getting my nickel.

I am starting to see a general block diagram:

PC <==> Communications Server <==> Back End Server (mainframe?) <==> Storage Server <==> RAID. This will need a 24/7 UPS.

[Mark Waybill 242]

I'm all for inter-regional trade. I've always felt that my cities were too 'The Good Life' about economy and resources, and seemed highly independent, almost like countries in themselves. It will be nice to think that those coal transporting ships leaving my port are headed for further away destinations than the next city. And if what we see is what they sim, then each ship is a real vessel carrying actual coal to a real destination. All very promising.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Ok Moose and Mark....I think I'm beginning to understand. So when my industrial ships, trains and trucks leave the borders of my city, they must have a target to go to, given the nature of the agents. It makes sense and I like that. But my question is, where does the economy originate? Is there some supreme city at the center of it all before any of us even begin to play? If I am the very first person to play and my trucks are the first ones to leave city borders, where are they going? If there are no other cities in my region then the trucks should not leave the city until I create another city with a viable target or I make deals with neighboring Mayors. I look forward to the presentation at E3 to get more facts.

  Edited April 1, 2012 by Mr_Maison  

[Mark Waybill 242]

I imagine that intracity economy will function until there is a surplus of a commodity, or a need for one, in which case one can advertise commodities on the global market, or buy. I daresay that for small villages starting off the basic needs can be supplied locally, although possibly to kick things off Maxis will create their own cities with surplus production but I should think the economy will arise by itself as more and more players buy and sell. It will be an interesting experiment in itself, to see whether real world situations will arise like recessions etc.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Maybe the early economy might be dominated by Beta testers?

[flowmotion 24]

I really don't like the idea that as "Mayor", I would also operate the local coal mines and buy/sell coal & commodities from my neighbor cities. To me that's more in the tycoon sim genre and not SimCity. I want to design my cities using abstract mechanisms such as zoning and ordinances and not by managing resource production.

One thing I could see are generic "industrial products" which are shipped around by the simulator. Light industry would truck their products to heavy industry. Heavy industry would ship by rail/ship to other heavy industry. Somewhere along the line, a percentage of the industrial material would be turned into products and shipped to commercial zones, which would attract sim shoppers.

This would require players to collaborate. Nobody could build purely High Tech industry unless there was the global/regional industrial base to support it. Cities couldn't fake it by just building high amenity zones. (For example, you can't have Apple Computer Headquarters unless there is the supporting industry: aluminum plant, copper foundry, glass factory etc. Although not in that detail!)

Also this isn't specific to multiplayer, but it would be great if things like heavy industry or coal plants required ports or freight rail connections,

  Edited April 1, 2012 by flowmotion  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

^ I doubt all this trading will have to be micromanaged by the mayor. It will probably be quite automatic once you've built the plants that produce the goods.

Someone asked where the global economy originates. I see it as a simulation running on the back-end servers. I suppose there will be some initial "charge up" to get the simulation going, but after that it will develop from the surpluses generated by each city. It also means that if you play off-line that when you finally connect, all your surpluses will be uploaded to the global economy and any needs will be filled if possible. The whole aspect of this trading empire urges everyone to play on-line.

[Hiramas 4]

My modell of the economy would be something like this:

The economy works with points. When the game starts, the global setting is zero for everything.

Now the first player builds a city based on coal. That means +1 for coal in the global economy. A lot of other players follow, so coal will have + 10 or so after the first day.

That means, coal is quite cheap on the global market. At first, the people will use this to develop heavy industry like steel. Steel gets a +1, too. (Maybe this could give a boost in building speeds for larger projects so the economy would have an impact on your development?)

But now we have a few guys who just love High Tech cities, so they plan for that. But since the rest of the community focuses on heavy industry, all that is connected to high tech wil get -1 on the global scale. The High Tech cities would have a slow pace in their development, because they are very expensive.

But then I get into the game and see: Oh, there are a lot of basic resources on the global market, but a high demand for the things a high tech industry would need. So I focus the development of my city on light industry and low tech manufacturing. All is well.

But then the cities who developed on coal get hit by the economy, because their coal is so cheap on th global market. The coal- mayors decide to change their focus, so coal prices rise which will lead to a movement troughout the global markets.

This is just a very simplified model. The background would work like this: Everytime a game is saved, the statistics of your city are uploaded to the economy server which calculates the state of the global economy every 12 hours or so. If the economy is recalculated you get a message about the changes.

On a side note: Modding and cheating could work in a way that your city is still influenced by the global economy but your data is not taken into account while calculating the global economy.

On the Multiplayer: I would really like to see how this will work. Asynchronous gameplay means in my eyes that it will essentially be the multiplayer version that was tried by users in SC4, just smoother without the manual upload. Lets hope for the best at E3.

  Edited April 7, 2012 by Hiramas  

[GrayAnderson 6]

To respond to an earlier comment, I'd say that some of us (myself included) see rather glaring deficiencies in gaming models that require persistent internet connections. I raised this in a separate post, but sometimes one's connection goes down or one is out of touch with the internet for a few days for whatever reason. It happens. Sometimes it's only a few hours, but when those hours are your "downtime", it matters a lot (for example, when I'm on a train heading up to DC...the connections on there may be wonderful at times, but they can also be the antithesis of reliability when a bad signal patch gets involved).

It's not (as I believe someone said) a "head in the sand" attitude to want to be able to play wholly offline. If anything, there are plenty of games where the "online" aspects are rather nominal if extant at all (look at anything Paradox has issued over the last decade for examples; LA Noire is another example of "why is this even online?" being a head-scratcher question), and there are plenty of reasons for preferring the older model of having a "hard copy" of software just-in-case and not needing a connection to play. Connection reliability is one while a lack of confidence in long-term support from EA is another (SC2K was initially released nearly twenty years ago and I know I'm not the only one who still plays on occasion; would anyone here care to bet money on SC5/SC still getting any sort of server-style support in '33?). Yet another is customizability of one's experience through not-just-cosmetic mods (which having to sync into an online "community" with, on some level, lots of things having to be the same can almost not help but reduce).

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I have done my best to avoid the "connected world". However, if this is the forced putt, then so be it. It could well be that devoted players of SC4 will remain so, and some may transition to the new situation, whatever it is. Having a complete(?) hard copy of the software to load on your PC is probably what you'll get, but you will need to register on-line just as you had to with SC4 if you want any of the support and goodies. The provision of an on-line connect for multi-player was attempted before and it was a bust. They seem to be determined this time to have it and are sweetening the pot with the global economy idea. The question here is how many global economies are they prepared to run and what, if any, relationship will this have to the real world (none, I hope).

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I think that a single global economy should do to begin, either that or have an anglophone planet, francophone planet, german/Dutch/Scandinavian planet, Spanish/Portuguese planet, and Asian planet. Monte Cristo's tried to have a different planet for each language but the Planet Offer failed (for multiple reasons).

[Mark Waybill 242]

I considered this point quite a bit. The idea of a language based or nation based 'planet' would make sense to a point, but what if you have friends who play the game who live abroad?

I think the rational thing to do would be to have several 'planets', depending of course on how many people actually play the game. If this game becomes the new Sc2000 and everyone is playing it, then it might make sense to divide the planet. How it would be done I wouldn't know, but possibly there could be say five to start off with, and once each planet reached a certain population cap a new one would open up?

Possibly a stupid idea? Anyway the language based division would make sense, as communication between Mayors would seem to be of some importance, unless a translation automatically happens or something.

[Odainsaker 2,137]

Different planets with different languages...errr, but then how many online cities or regions plugged into such worlds will we be allowed to create or maintain. I have not known any online account games, both free or subscription, that did not maintain limited player slots, such as number of playable characters, and I do not see why we would not be limited in available city or region slots here. Afterall, collections of saved cities and regions will pile up their world clouds pretty fast as people try cities, abandon cities, or run multiple regions. We will surely get multiple slots, but are very unlikely to get unlimited slots. How permanent will these even be, especially if this was a free system...would cities or accounts not accessed within a certain time period be purged in order to make room for other players or free up resources?

Still, the multiplayer strategy already presents itself...use your slots to run one primary city and then set the others as bot-run, temporary macroer cities to dump trash, strip resources, and transfer the wealth back to the primary city. When the resources are depleted, delete the secondary cities, rinse, and start up again. The global economy in this setup is already going to be a skewed nonsense, much like the player-driven global economies of other online games, as players resort to simply gaming the system. I'll be sure to offer great deals for importing everyone's polluted trash to my secondary city, and ignore any rage complaints from neighboring cities, as it is all going into the delete bin after the final transfer of funds. Or is this world more persistent than I suspect? Ack, building the stand-alone Empire State Building reward will take a lot of imported steel...at least my guild runs several macroer steel producing cities with automated client programs on shell accounts, so we always get the Great Wonders first!

  Edited April 8, 2012 by Odainsaker  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Division by language is exactly that: divisive. The real world economy runs just fine as a polyglot. While the old international language of diplomacy used to be French, I've lost track of what the diplomats are expected to speak now. Before French, friends, it was Latin.

In my part of the world, the international trading language appears to be English. I think the system will simply have to be plugged into a translation system such as Google.

When I spoke of multiple world economies I was speaking of multiple instances of the same program. Do people have problems with running multiple instances of the same code? Almost all PCs around today can do that, and have been able to do it for a long time. The only fly in the ointment is usually the applications themselves which cannot withstand this. Most compilers these days generate pure procedure code where multiple data streams can be handled in the same program text.

[josue balmore reyes 0]

Maybe the multiplayer style city will require permission to do an action?

  Edited April 11, 2012 by Blue Lightning  
Removed all caps

[jacksunny 741]

^Please don't use all caps.

It is difficult to tell what the multiplayer will be like, considering we know very little about the game. By the way things are sounding though, it will be similar to Cityville, yes.

[LivingInThePast 364]

I realized that with this "global economy" thing, you couldn't really make an entirely self-contained private server where you and a bunch of friends can play cooperatively (without trolls and uneven difficulty).

This makes it FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN, which makes it a waste of time. You can't mod around the elephant in the room. Cities XL was also fundamentally broken due to the Planet Offer, although that's gone now, leaving it to be extensively modded. Even with patches and rewrites, mods couldn't save Ultima IX (it's marginally less buggy). As for Cities XL and making it a better game and the city simulation we always wished for...I wish them luck. As for SimCity 2013? I pray that it's not fundamentally broken.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

If you want a LAN based multi-player city, he who lives too much in the past, you should try SimCity 2000 network edition. LAN parties are (honestly for the better) on the decline.