Discussion about City Tile Size

[Zukunftstraume 220]

In one of Maxis's articles they stated that the've learned a lot about Simcity 4.

Oh wait, i know one thing.. they probably took the box art literally in terms of city size:

^HA! this x100

What really pains me the most about all this is that I've seen some of the moderators and the developer Guillaume directly responding to people's comments relating to topics on where the game is aweome: Such as the color filters, the buildings, transportation networks, glassbox engine, modules within buildings, etc...

But I've never seen any of them (not even once!) mention a single thing regarding tile-size, the region-view, or God-Mode. At least some message saying "We're reading your pleas, concerns, and hatred against the city tile placement and the exclusion of God-Mode... We're definitely listening and we're trying to work something out" <--- Something like that would be nice, even President Obama said that after the uproar from the Sandy Hook massacre. But seeing Maxis not say a single thing really hurts. It feels like someone accidently shoved a Titanium defiled blade into my heart and in the mean time I'm screaming and begging for help, but that same person is just standing there, watching me slowly, and very painfully die... That person is doing nothing, just watching... thinking about what? I haven't got the slighest idea, and that's what hurts.

Even the tiniest acknowledgement of this disaster would be a step-up from the complete and utter silence you guys have presented us with. And I know one of you guys is reading this!

[JaceTwice 115]

In one of Maxis's articles they stated that the've learned a lot about Simcity 4.

Oh wait, i know one thing.. they probably took the box art literally in terms of city size:

^HA! this x100

What really pains me the most about all this is that I've seen some of the moderators and the developer Guillaume directly responding to people's comments relating to topics on where the game is aweome: Such as the color filters, the buildings, transportation networks, glassbox engine, modules within buildings, etc...

But I've never seen any of them (not even once!) mention a single thing regarding tile-size, the region-view, or God-Mode. At least some message saying "We're reading your pleas, concerns, and hatred against the city tile placement and the exclusion of God-Mode... We're definitely listening and we're trying to work something out" <--- Something like that would be nice, even President Obama said that after the uproar from the Sandy Hook massacre. But seeing Maxis not say a single thing really hurts. It feels like someone accidently shoved a Titanium defiled blade into my heart and in the mean time I'm screaming and begging for help, but that same person is just standing there, watching me slowly, and very painfully die... That person is doing nothing, just watching... thinking about what? I haven't got the slighest idea, and that's what hurts.

Even the tiniest acknowledgement of this disaster would be a step-up from the complete and utter silence you guys have presented us with. And I know one of you guys is reading this!

Something like this? Posted on page 21:

There's an even better tweet floating around on here somewhere that says something to effect of optimization and larger city tiles but I can't find it at the moment.

[efgrib 45]

another one:

https://twitter.com/...750708493647874

[JaceTwice 115]

another one:

https://twitter.com/...750708493647874

There we go! That's the one I was looking for.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

another one:

https://twitter.com/...750708493647874

Haha thanks guys! Personally, I do want something more than just Ocean's one or two responses and see like a real Maxis message. But, I guess I might just be demanding for too much...

It's a consequence of trying for something new - we're having to rebuild all of this stuff from scratch.

However, this one ^ does in fact give me even more hope. Makes much more sense when he mentions they're starting from scratch. I just don't understand why they didn't forsee this before they let the game get to this stage.

Fair enough though.

[Servan 5]

It's simple quality vs quantity balance

[Decius 360]

If the maps get bigger i'd see a future. But this is still something thats is failing due to EA beeing greedy

It goes like this really:

1. Make it basic see if it sells
   
   
2. Sell it basicly unfisnished
   
   
3. if it sells expand it to potential full game
   
   
4. exploit it
   
   
5. ditch it wen sales drop
   
   
6. make a sequal based on exaclt the same thing just more shine
   
   
7. write of the game principle if it doesnt work
   

But why not invest that extra little mile and get more starting sales?! The bigger maps make so much differance!

I filled the tile in the beta within an hour!!! COME ON!! SC4 kept me busy for days on 1 map!!

I fear the long term problem for this game will be lasting appeal like this, not the sales ...

If EA actually put some good work into it (not Maxis, doing best they can, i'm sensing Ocean is a bit dissapointed he has to let fans down so much) i'd be willing to pay a monthly fee like the planet offer had in mind. The thing is, they need to get it of the ground properly. Ok smal tile baby steps but IF they want to try and go that path, then make maps huuuge and realstic.

I play World of Warcraft, the reason I keep paying is because the game is so huge and has lasting appeal.

Finally i'd like to say that i've seen some discussion earlier in this thread regarding Cities XL map sizes etc and what specs ppl have to play it with.

Lets say I dont lagg in SimCity beta at all while Cities XL decreases performance wise when I havnt even filled half the map. I dont have the best graphics card: Radeon HD 4870 but SC goes smooth.

So i'm not convinced larger maps are not possible or too complex. Its just EA's milking tactics.

  Edited January 26, 2013 by CaptCity  

[Zukunftstraume 220]

These guys are setting themselves for a colossal failure within 2 months of launch

[City Planner 121]

Sadly, I believe that as well. I would honestly not be surprised if EA yanked the servers within 24 months.

Unfortunately this game is typical of a 3D style game, the map gets smaller and the buildings get bigger so you can fit less in the same amount of area so that 2kmx2km area now feels about one quarter of the size. They will never be able to do anything about that unless they can somehow make the maps super huge and still perform well, which from what I've been reading is not possible right now.

[presidentk 7]

Sadly, I believe that as well. I would honestly not be surprised if EA yanked the servers within 24 months.

if they do this then people will simply stop buying their products

i doubt this will be the case ....corporate managers are stupid ....but not this stupid

[Skizzik1 15]

Sadly, I believe that as well. I would honestly not be surprised if EA yanked the servers within 24 months.

if they do this then people will simply stop buying their products

i doubt this will be the case ....corporate managers are stupid ....but not this stupid

People always say this when EA does something stupid, but people are stupid, so they continue to buy their products.

[iowahawkeyedave 8]

All it is is just setting Simcity 5 up for an expansion. Simcity 5 : Megalopolis, now with bigger maps & taller buildings.

[pkderek 51]

Look how many $20 DLC's The Sims gets. This is the future of the Sim City franchise.

[iowahawkeyedave 8]

Look how many $20 DLC's The Sims gets. This is the future of the Sim City franchise.

I'm not surprised. Heck Rush Hour was an expansion and that was 10 years ago,

[Cob92 360]

All it is is just setting Simcity 5 up for an expansion. Simcity 5 : Megalopolis, now with bigger maps & taller buildings.

I prefer to look at such an expansion as being to this SimCity what SC3000 was to SC2000. A polishing of the basic gameplay, plus shinier graphics and bigger maps.

[Decius 360]

Look how many $20 DLC's The Sims gets. This is the future of the Sim City franchise.

I'm not surprised. Heck Rush Hour was an expansion and that was 10 years ago,

Honestly Rush Hour was deleted content. I clearly remmember there beeing screenshots with avenues long before vanilla was released (no not twin roads).

In the same era Generals: Zero Hour was released containing 3 generals for each faction. Long before Generals initially released the devs claimed in previeuws that the game would have 3 generals for each faction. Upon release, no 3 generals. NO statement of this that it would come up with an expantion.

Releasing an actual expantion is 1 thing but making a game, deleting content and selling said content later in an expantion is exploiting of the game developers and its costumers.

[magicrobbie 77]

I have 3 issues with the city size, the first is that the physical appearance of the cities and region view will not at all resemble a city. Obviously many people have discussed this, and it seems a common concern. However, it will prevent me from buying the game, and cost Maxis some money, maybe not much but who knows how many people are thinking the same way I am.

Next the simulation will be dramatically impacted. For example the glass box engines transportation system sounds awesome, but it will end up being completely worthless on a 2km x 2km tile. In SC4 I often longed for the ability for my sims to make 45 minute commutes across multiple large tiles allowing true suburbs. This will be completely ruined in SC2013 because of the region layout, lack of highways, and tiny city size. SImultation will be affected in many other ways and in my opinion that makes the game fairly pointless even if I didnt mind the appearance of the small tiles.

Finally my biggest concern is that they are rushing it to release without doing everything possible to increase the tile size. Honesty, I think the game would be better off it it got delayed another 6 months for them to overall the region and city size issues. If the game launches and even a generous 200k people buy it and Maxis makes their money there is still a huge risk of users falling out of love with the game very quickly due to the limited amount of gameplay time users are going to have working on small tiles with broken regions and not having more than 16 save slots. I could see myself getting a couple weeks of solid fun out of the game, but that is nothing compared to the multiple years SC4 gave me. SC4 had enough gameplay right out of the box that by the time rush hour and modding community really got into the swing of things there were tons of addicted users. SC2013 has the potential to sell a lot of copies, but not engage those users for long enough for any real support to emerge. Delay the game for 6 months, and things could be totally different.

^This!

The game's launch won't go as smoothly as planned... And it will definitely have a falling-out within a month or two after launch if things aren't fixed (like tile size and being able to really make a metropolitan region, as opposed to patches of city with an empty expanse inbetween)

I mean, there has to be something we can all do right now... Demand that Maxis change these things or boycott the game, I'm sure plenty of people are already backing out of buying it.

I agree. The beta shows promise but the game seems not ready for launch. Most of the things fans have been complaining about (tile size, terraforming, etc.) were said to be due to multiplayer region play. However, those functions were not available in the beta. And I am wondering why. I imaging balancing the multiplayer part is actually quite challenging and I am surprised they didn't test multiplayer trading. The engine offers potential for depth - but the small tiles take all depth away. Even though the new engine is much more capable, game play in the beta seems rather shallow. The terrain in the beta is rather unexciting (all flat). I don't like how zoning works now (no tile sizes shown, players have no control over zoning density). All in all - the game could be great but it needs much more content (buildings, infrastructure, landscape features) and bigger tile sizes for it to be lasting fun. While it is impossible for a developer to please all people, there seems to be a consensus here regarding what is missing and what should be done. Better to get a truly great game 6 months later than a half-ready and unexciting game on time.

[StoNe220022 159]

All it is is just setting Simcity 5 up for an expansion. Simcity 5 : Megalopolis, now with bigger maps & taller buildings.

I prefer to look at such an expansion as being to this SimCity what SC3000 was to SC2000. A polishing of the basic gameplay, plus shinier graphics and bigger maps.

Polishing gameplay? Graphics? Maps? That's not an expansion pack at all. I'd be devastated if EA released an Asian themed city; then threw in an extra tram/trolley car with elevated roads and called it an expansion.

I agree with what someone else here said, it is disgusting that EA charges $20 for bedroom sets in The Sims3. Who is buying these? Who is encouraging the developers to make that junk??

[macvirt 361]

All it is is just setting Simcity 5 up for an expansion. Simcity 5 : Megalopolis, now with bigger maps & taller buildings.

I prefer to look at such an expansion as being to this SimCity what SC3000 was to SC2000. A polishing of the basic gameplay, plus shinier graphics and bigger maps.

Polishing gameplay? Graphics? Maps? That's not an expansion pack at all. I'd be devastated if EA released an Asian themed city; then threw in an extra tram/trolley car with elevated roads and called it an expansion.

I agree with what someone else here said, it is disgusting that EA charges $20 for bedroom sets in The Sims3. Who is buying these? Who is encouraging the developers to make that junk??

Ofcourse those are roads to follow for DLC content. Don't expect a full game please. That is no longer how it works. There are masses of people with just a few hours worth of passive amusement focus (usually with the added on parts of social shouting). There are less people who actually want a deeper or even proper experience. This is business.

[London-b 90]

I'd understand if the graphics were stunning, but they're not. I actually like the look of the game, but it's not exactly beautiful. Yet we get both too small a map and graphics that aren't even as good as the first Cities XL.

Another issue is that because of the small maps, curvy roads are totally inefficient, especially with those big grass gaps that appear in the middle. The only effective use of space is tightly packed grids.....

[JJxvi 3]

I'd feel ok about the city size and even the gap between player areas if they weren't dead areas. When playing Sim City 4, part of my problem with the region play is that it really seems too symbiotic and not enough of a comptetion element, in reality bordering cities are competing with each other as well as symbiotically growing with each other. People and businesses actually have a choice whether to move to the suburbs, or even unincorporated areas as opposed to the city.

I also always felt like things like farm stuff in sim city 4 was great for adding excellent visuals, but really didnt belong in the CITY simulation. In my opinion farms shouldnt be placed by the mayor, but they should grow on their own because of the presence of a nearby growing city, and then as mayor, I would need to demolish/redevelop that farm land that exists on my tile in order to expand. The same thing (in a perfect world, which no game is) should have been happening in adjacent tiles, so that when I zoom out to region, my tile wasnt surrounded by empty unclaimed tiles, but adjacent tiles had farmland and rural things that are not part of any city, but have grown because the city is there. I always felt it was dumb that i needed to zone off a bunch of land as farmland around my city if I wanted that feel of my city growing out into rural spaces.

This brings me to the Sim City 2013 regions. I dont have a problem with the region style at all. Multiplayer capability? Great! Great works like regional airports and things? Awesome! Tile size? Crap, but understandable and I can live with smaller size if the simulation is good.

I like the fact, that there are unincorporated lands around each city. Thats great! Thats how it should be, the problem is not that it exists, the problem is that it is DEAD. There should be farms that arent under control of the God-Mayor sprouting up in the dead land if there is a small town in the adjacent tile. Those farmers should take trips into my town. There should be independent developers developing neighborhoods in the adjacent unincorporated areas once my town gets large enough. If I do a bad job, sims that moved to my town and businesses should leave and set up in the suburbs and its up to me to fix my central city to bring things back into balance. The unincorporated elements around each town COULD be a great competition, visual, and a more realistic element to the game play, but just having it there because the graphics and simulation wont work otherwise is really disappointing.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Sadly, I believe that as well. I would honestly not be surprised if EA yanked the servers within 24 months.

Unfortunately this game is typical of a 3D style game, the map gets smaller and the buildings get bigger so you can fit less in the same amount of area so that 2kmx2km area now feels about one quarter of the size. They will never be able to do anything about that unless they can somehow make the maps super huge and still perform well, which from what I've been reading is not possible right now.

See, but I actually don't mind the map-size. As long as all the cities are right next to each other! That way, the 2x2 is actually just a district or neighborhood within a much, much larger metropolitan region. That's what it should be like, but Maxis has decided to make the 2x2 itself a standalone city <---- That's what bothers me.

[cirugo 1,889]

Sadly, I believe that as well. I would honestly not be surprised if EA yanked the servers within 24 months.

Unfortunately this game is typical of a 3D style game, the map gets smaller and the buildings get bigger so you can fit less in the same amount of area so that 2kmx2km area now feels about one quarter of the size. They will never be able to do anything about that unless they can somehow make the maps super huge and still perform well, which from what I've been reading is not possible right now.

See, but I actually don't mind the map-size. As long as all the cities are right next to each other! That way, the 2x2 is actually just a district or neighborhood within a much, much larger metropolitan region. That's what it should be like, but Maxis has decided to make the 2x2 itself a standalone city <---- That's what bothers me.

Exactly! That and the inability to place your own regional transportation completely kills any of the illusion of being able to create one large sprawling metropolis.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

I've played the "Beta" multiple times now, and I've always managed to fill the entire map with roads, zones and ploppables within half an hour. In SC4, a medium city would take me several hours. This due in part because a lot of things are done automatically, such as pipe-laying. But the greatest issue is by far the pathetic city size (which is really a big village). I'm not even sure 4x4 km would suffice, but it would certainly be a welcome improvement. I hate to say it but the "Beta" has discouraged me from buying SimCity, purely because of the city size.

[Cob92 360]

On the other hand, some of the cities in the intro video look to be of a respectable size. If I can make something that big in the final game I'll be satisfied for the time being.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Exactly! That and the inability to place your own regional transportation completely kills any of the illusion of being able to create one large sprawling metropolis.

Back to SimCity 4 it is

[apreble 1]

I would love the ability to play the region, and I also think it would help with the small city sizes. Terraforming/landscaping on a regional level, ability to place cities next to one another, and placement of regional transportation would be great additions to the current gameplay. For multi-player regions, everything could be fixed as it is now, or just allow someone to be that region's super-mayor which would grant him the regional controls.

Regional transportation could just be a guide, and it would then be up to the individual cities to choose whether or not they wanted to spend the money and build the highway/train/subway/etc.

[Cob92 360]

I like the fact, that there are unincorporated lands around each city. Thats great! Thats how it should be, the problem is not that it exists, the problem is that it is DEAD. There should be farms that arent under control of the God-Mayor sprouting up in the dead land if there is a small town in the adjacent tile. Those farmers should take trips into my town. There should be independent developers developing neighborhoods in the adjacent unincorporated areas once my town gets large enough. If I do a bad job, sims that moved to my town and businesses should leave and set up in the suburbs and its up to me to fix my central city to bring things back into balance. The unincorporated elements around each town COULD be a great competition, visual, and a more realistic element to the game play, but just having it there because the graphics and simulation wont work otherwise is really disappointing.

This is what I want Maxis to do. In real life you do not just have cities; you have populated, developed lands surrounding the city that are not incorporated. In SC, these lands should develop as described above, and there should also be the option to ANNEX them. Farms would be easily annexed, since all you have to do is pay off the farmer, but annexing suburbs could be a more challenging thing. You could even have rival players putting up bids to annex the same neighborhood, and competing to get the Sims living there to vote to join one city over the other. Alternatively, if a player does a poor job in his city and attempts to annex a suburb, the local Sims could attempt to resist annexation, and forcing it through could result in negative consequences depending on the type of neighborhood (mass exodus for wealthier areas, protests and riots in poorer ones).

So in an ideal SimCity, your city would start off as the small 2x2 area that we have right now, but would be able to expand through annexation, potentially covering much of the region at its fullest extent. That adds a good competitive element to the game, where cities don't just compete for money, they compete for land and regional primacy.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I like the fact, that there are unincorporated lands around each city. Thats great! Thats how it should be, the problem is not that it exists, the problem is that it is DEAD. There should be farms that arent under control of the God-Mayor sprouting up in the dead land if there is a small town in the adjacent tile. Those farmers should take trips into my town. There should be independent developers developing neighborhoods in the adjacent unincorporated areas once my town gets large enough. If I do a bad job, sims that moved to my town and businesses should leave and set up in the suburbs and its up to me to fix my central city to bring things back into balance. The unincorporated elements around each town COULD be a great competition, visual, and a more realistic element to the game play, but just having it there because the graphics and simulation wont work otherwise is really disappointing.

This is what I want Maxis to do. In real life you do not just have cities; you have populated, developed lands surrounding the city that are not incorporated. In SC, these lands should develop as described above, and there should also be the option to ANNEX them. Farms would be easily annexed, since all you have to do is pay off the farmer, but annexing suburbs could be a more challenging thing. You could even have rival players putting up bids to annex the same neighborhood, and competing to get the Sims living there to vote to join one city over the other. Alternatively, if a player does a poor job in his city and attempts to annex a suburb, the local Sims could attempt to resist annexation, and forcing it through could result in negative consequences depending on the type of neighborhood (mass exodus for wealthier areas, protests and riots in poorer ones).

So in an ideal SimCity, your city would start off as the small 2x2 area that we have right now, but would be able to expand through annexation, potentially covering much of the region at its fullest extent. That adds a good competitive element to the game, where cities don't just compete for money, they compete for land and regional primacy.

I like the idea of annexation, but for lag-related reasons, I don't think it's a good idea to allow a single city to be too large. Maybe 30-40 square kilometers at the limit (instead of the scrawny 4 they're throwing at us, if that really even is 4 square kilometers and not less). How about annex land until you meet borders with the nearest neighboring city and for practical reasons aren't allow to expand beyond that? If you want to continue building, you'll have to move onto another neighboring city. After much gameplay, you and the other players on the map would have developed a very interesting region either with small towns mingled amongst vast expanses of agriculture, a dense megalopolis alpha world hypercity with it's surrounding suburbs (with most city-tiles towards the middle acting as districts or boroughs), or somewhere inbetween the two extremes. That would be nice!

[pennjersey83 25]

There isn't a chance in hell I would buy this game after seeing the Beta videos on YouTube with the city size. The only way I would buy it is if there was no empty space between cities so at least I could pretend I was making a real city by using the whole "region". As of right now, SimCity is looking like another societies failure