Discussion about City Tile Size

[ReschNicolai 6]

I hope title sizes will be huge if this is how the region is going to look:

 

No you can't make a region any more, only small 2km cities.

[dysonraf 37]

This is not sc4. The whole concept is that each tile represents an individual city and you can watch it all live and breathe on the same screen. Each city trades with each other they are not one and tge same. To have one part of the city functioning whilst the rest just sits in the background is ten years ago...

Now what is needed is bigger tiles. Then we can all have what we want. The city builders can have their big cities whilst the gamers can game and use the multiplayer elements. Thats generalising before peopke get hung up on who is/does what

  Edited February 21, 2013 by CaptCity  

[Nunoty 23]

Each tile in reality doesnt represent  a city, at least i never seen a city the size of a small neighbourhood, i think its pathetic the choice they made.

 

But games are made to make money...and most of the players buying this game are from the facebook era, they are used to play shallow, simplified, dumbed down small games.

 

Players that played real city building games in the past and are pre facebook era, look at sc2013 and laugh at it and ask the question: how dare they to release this piece of Bull... and call it a city building simulation game? well it is but its a pathetic tiny sized one and with no player choices with almost no sandbox features.

 

If we think outside the box and watch photos and videos of gameplay from cities xl and sc2013 its just a mindblowing difference from a real full sized with almost total player choice on building a gigantic city in cxl 2012...

 

Sc2013 is a facebook type town building game that costs 60 dollars, has to be installed and has the same online store with goodies just kie facebook simcity social, that gives us no choices, we have to build a small neighbourhood, in a tiny 2x2 tile, have to connect to a pre existing road, have to play only if we are connected to the internet, cannot save game locally to reload to an earlyer stage...we have no controll no choice.

[nhgriffith 179]

I don't understand the case being made. This is the argument some of you are running with...

I'm a fan of the SimCity series to date.

I disagree with some of Maxis/EA decisions regarding SimCity 2013.

Therefore, Maxis/EA doesn't care about their long-time fan base.

That's fine... but... what about me?

I first got hooked on SimCity 2000 back in the mid-90s. I was a huge fan of SimCity 2000, and I actually enjoyed SimCity 2000 more than SC3000 or SC4. And even though it was basically just a 1 hour demo, what I have played of the new SC reminds me more of how I enjoyed SC2000 and I'm looking forward to the new game.

So by the evidence of my personal experience, EA isn't ignoring their long-time fan base. If anything, they're ignoring the younger generation that only enjoyed SC4 and didn't experience as much of the older games while they cater to players like me that preferred SC2000, the pinnacle of SC, and then enjoyed each successive release less and less.

But that's only my personal viewpoint. I'm a long, long time SimCity fan. I think the new game is better than SC4 in every way significant to me.

The tile size is smaller? Meh, doesn't bother me. I'm not opposed to a larger map size, but I spend more time focusing on things in my cities besides simply how quickly can I zone every square inch of my city.

[Towel 76]

It's purely visual, my satisfaction with the game is not going to change because there is some "space" ... 

 

On City tiles however, I would like to see them larger. But I also appreciate that they judged the city tile they do provide based on having a large sprawling city versus a highly detailed living simulation. I am totally cool with that rationale.

 

I hope they can make the simulation more efficient so that city tiles can be increased in size. I hope they receive stats from origin that support increasing city tiles once the game is released too.

  Edited February 21, 2013 by CaptCity  

[champloo08 16]

I don't mind the tile size, but I hate the region with the huge spaces between the cities. I don't mind the tile size because I understand everyone's computer is not equipped top handle it , but the spaces between the cities are ridiculous! The tiles could have been side by side and made a city based off of districts then made the surrounding suburbs.

  Edited February 21, 2013 by CaptCity  

[CaptCity 4,893]

Several recent posts removed or edited of off-topic content. Reminder... Let's stick to the issue. We're not her to discuss each other. 

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I must say that I feel bad for Ocean Quigley.

He seems to be honestly enthusiatic about SimCity.

Personally I had my doubts. And after tested this new one, I'm not interested. So I bought yet another copy of SC4 Deluxe from Steam and installed that.

And last night I had a nightmare that I had accidentally pre-ordered SC2013.. Which is kinda sad..

 

But the "2 km x 2 km" they claim these cities to be is .. not very accurate compared to SC4.

I still say that the cities we built in beta were as small as the smallest in SC4.

And .. that's no fun.

 

Also, one of the ways we can tell that Maxis was well aware of this flaw in the game is by pointing out how many people a single skyscraper can have... Rumors of 10,000 people per building? That's not possible for a 20-story apartment tower, absolutely no way... Unless you get something the size of a Las Vegas mega-casino that is itself probably large enough to take up a quarter of the entire tile... Then sure!

 

Little things like that make me very pessimistic about Maxis changing the region's Dead Man's Zones or the tile size, since it seems like they planned it out this way. These aren't simple little changes to the gaming code, but colossal changes that probably require a lot of revamping. I simply don't see Maxis going out of their way to fix it, unless of course... sales are catastrophically lower than expected.

 

 

 

*ALSO: People... Understand that the issue isn't about tile-sizes... If those tiles were all continuous and right next to each other, most people wouldn't complain about the tile size since we would simply be able to leave our tile and go on to the next to continue expanding our cities. The real problem is the excessive space in between cities.

  Edited February 21, 2013 by CaptCity  
Edited. Let's keep it on topic.

[AwkwrdPrtMskrt 22]

The way cities are represented ingame encourages players to create unique neighbourhoods. For example, I can build a CBD in one city, a sleeper commune in another, an industrial area on yet another, add in a university-specialised town and a casino strip town, each town are connected through train or motorway.

[dysonraf 37]

*ALSO: People... Understand that the issue isn't about tile-sizes... If those tiles were all continuous and right next to each other, most people wouldn't complain about the tile size since we would simply be able to leave our tile and go on to the next to continue expanding our cities. The real problem is the excessive space in between cities.

I couldnt disagree more. The tiles on this game are designed to represent distinct and seperate cities (yes tiles are too small for that but thats another issue.). Each city would have its own player (or one player taking the role of all). By placing them together you would then suggest they are merely districts. Well if that was the case the rest of the simulation re specialist cities/individual mayors/trade would be pointless.

If they were adjacent and I built a nicely laid out city imagine what it would look like with someone building an eyesore next to it.

This is not Sc4

[Piersant 14]

First off I would like to say that this is a totally new way of playing SimCity, and as such you need to learn to walk before you can run. We do not have access to any region creating tools or mod tools. Think of this game as the baby steps of something greater. I am sad to hear you won't support Maxis in redefining its Flagship title, but I certainly am. Do I like the limited space? NO, but I do understand them.

 

In many ways I am glad it is starting small. There is a whole new generation just discovering SimCity! I do not doubt that we will see bigger regions and plots, but one must keep reality in sight. Look at cities XL. It has as some ok concepts, but look at the size and remember how horrible it runs with all that data crunching. I do not want to see SimCity become bogcityXL.

 

Look at the overall potential of Glassbox. They are just playing it safe. Please consider supporting them, the ride is just started.

[hunkske 53]

Piersant, I second you completely.

 

I have been a fan of Simcity ever since I was a kid, and I'm 34 years old now.. So I am definitely not of the 'new' generation. Sure I would have liked it if the tile size was larger. But if you look at the reason why the tile size is what it is now, it does stand to reason. Furthermore, it is only the 1st of hopefully a new line of SimCity games or editions or ..., whatever you'd like to call it. And though there has been no 'offical' statement (yet), we know they are considering larger tile sizes.

(Personally , to me, it feels a lot like SC3000 which I've always enjoyed more than SC4 - in a way I look upon it as a continuation of SC3 rather than of SC4)

 

I do not want to get too much off topic here but I'd just like to say this. What SimCity is concerned, take it or leave it. If you leave it, leave it at that, and walk away. Do not put your negativity all over the place and keep drumming the same drum over and over again. Everyone knows by now what some here like to call the deal breakers. Focus instead on SC4 and continue to expand this wonderful game. If you take it, then after having actually played the full game start to focus on the future and how it should progress and start making requests to Maxis/EA.

[AkemiAzula 280]

First off I would like to say that this is a totally new way of playing SimCity, and as such you need to learn to walk before you can run. We do not have access to any region creating tools or mod tools. Think of this game as the baby steps of something greater. I am sad to hear you won't support Maxis in redefining its Flagship title, but I certainly am. Do I like the limited space? NO, but I do understand them.

 

In many ways I am glad it is starting small. There is a whole new generation just discovering SimCity! I do not doubt that we will see bigger regions and plots, but one must keep reality in sight. Look at cities XL. It has as some ok concepts, but look at the size and remember how horrible it runs with all that data crunching. I do not want to see SimCity become bogcityXL.

 

Look at the overall potential of Glassbox. They are just playing it safe. Please consider supporting them, the ride is just started.

Totally agree 100 percent. The compromises are necessary and rational. I was going to not buy the game and all that but really when I think about it, they're making the same development choices I would be. And I agree, this is just the beginning. What's to say we can't turn this into Simcity 5? If we all refuse to buy the game, here's what will happen. EA thinks 'city simulation=no profit. right, let's never invest in that again'. We say 'ok, we understand the decisions you're making, we're willing to compromise, and here's where we'd like to end up', they might think 'this genre is attracting lots of players. let's continue investing and improving it'

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Actually, Mark Kochan is not paid by EA.  He is working on Buggi's Boomtown project instead.  Buggi's Boomtown is an independent city-building game that is built on the success of SC4.  I am also a member of Buggi's Boomtown as well.  I will not spend $60 on SimCity.  I would rather invest in Boomtown instead.

[tomfoolery_79 85]

Haha, Will Wright said the tile size felt "small" in his interview.  It was easy to miss.

[nhgriffith 179]

Haha, Will Wright said the tile size felt "small" in his interview.  It was easy to miss.

He did that in the same sentence that he complimented the design decision to do this.

Think of SC4 as a 30" monitor and SC2013 as a 20" monitor. But your 30" monitor is 640x480 resolution, and your 20" monitor is 1600x1200 resolution.

SC4 maps are a great big square... SC2013 is a cube. And even if the edge distance of the SC2013 map is smaller than SC4, SC2013 brings something to the maps that SC4 didn't--depth.

SC2013 cities are more in depth and more interesting than the City Journal version of SimCity 4 cities we get, and that's without anyone making the effort to write a city journal about it.

I can only imagine how great some of the SC2013 city journals have the potential to be.

[tomfoolery_79 85]

Haha, Will Wright said the tile size felt "small" in his interview.  It was easy to miss.

He did that in the same sentence that he complimented the design decision to do this.

Think of SC4 as a 30" monitor and SC2013 as a 20" monitor. But your 30" monitor is 640x480 resolution, and your 20" monitor is 1600x1200 resolution.

SC4 maps are a great big square... SC2013 is a cube. And even if the edge distance of the SC2013 map is smaller than SC4, SC2013 brings something to the maps that SC4 didn't--depth.

SC2013 cities are more in depth and more interesting than the City Journal version of SimCity 4 cities we get, and that's without anyone making the effort to write a city journal about it.

I can only imagine how great some of the SC2013 city journals have the potential to be.

 

I agree with your assessment 100%, but maps shouldn't be able to be filled in 35 minutes (even on cheetah speed).  These more thoroughly dynamic cities would be even better bigger.

[nhgriffith 179]

Well, the fact of the matter is, I can fill a SC4 map just as fast as I can fill an SC2013 map. It's not that hard to plop down roads then zone them.

But I would agree that a bigger map would be better than a smaller map... but I'll take the depth that 2013 gives me over the size that SC4 gives me any day.

[niqht 24]

I will bet cash that this sim'neighborhoods' will be made to integrate with Sims 4 someday.

That this simcity wanna be will have all the incessant major and minor expansion like the sims.

And that we won't give a damn about it in 6 months.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

*ALSO: People... Understand that the issue isn't about tile-sizes... If those tiles were all continuous and right next to each other, most people wouldn't complain about the tile size since we would simply be able to leave our tile and go on to the next to continue expanding our cities. The real problem is the excessive space in between cities.

I couldnt disagree more. The tiles on this game are designed to represent distinct and seperate cities (yes tiles are too small for that but thats another issue.). Each city would have its own player (or one player taking the role of all). By placing them together you would then suggest they are merely districts. Well if that was the case the rest of the simulation re specialist cities/individual mayors/trade would be pointless.

If they were adjacent and I built a nicely laid out city imagine what it would look like with someone building an eyesore next to it.

This is not Sc4

 

City tiles all right next to each other in multiplayer mode might seem a bit strange, considering that you might have someone who has drastically different plans for their tiles which would greatly affect the way the edges of the cities blend with each other and behave.

 

But, in real life, that's exactly how real cities are. They're not separate entities (unless you have a small town far away from the large cities). Real cities are, in a sense, nothing more than self-governing districts within a much much much larger metropolitan region. One of these such cities could be the rich mansion-filled estates, while another could be the crime-ridden ghetto slums, and yet another could be the financial business hi-rise district, and so forth. Some cities/districts can act and behave almost identically to their next door neighbors, or not.

 

Take a real life example, Beverly Hills and Hollywood for instance, within the much larger Los Angeles region and megalopolis. Both of these are continuous with one another, and also next door neighbors. The former is famous for it's large estates, filled with celebrities, old mansions, ritzy hotels, palm-tree lined avenues, and so forth. While the latter, is a tourist hot-spot, filled nightclubs, fashion-outlets, runaway teenagers desperately trying to become famous, dirty backstreets, drugs, prostitutes, and large amounts of homeless littering the spaces in between clubs. The two of them have interchanged some of their characteristics. Hollywood has been trying to better it's image, while Beverly Hills (in particular it's southside) has been somewhat deteriorating over the years and isn't as "safe" as it used to be. In fact, a lot of celebrities have started moving away from Beverly and into newer areas away from the core of LA.

 

^That's how real life cities are. Mayors of one city deal with the problems/benefits of their neighboring cities all the time, whether the neighboring city looks very different, or even whether the streets themselves start flowing in different directions... It's all perfectly normal. The city tiles themselves should realistically be right next to each other.

 

Think of this game as the baby steps of something greater.

 

See, but this is just under the assumption that EA/Maxis will actually indeed give us something greater. But, what if they don't? What if the city-tiles and the green spaces are never fixed? What if we never get

our region-editor or God-Mode back?

 

I'm under the impression that since EA has shifted the games target audience towards the casual end of the spectrum, that they have also revamped the ideas of the game. Of course, I could be wrong, it could again just be part of their master plan to get even more money out of us.

 

Ultimately, I really hope I'm wrong.

 

City-Tile size though, it's not too too much of an issue. If they're saying the glassbox engine won't allow for larger tiles at the moment, that's decently understandable. But as to why they decided to have those gaps in between cities by default instead of giving us the option between all right next to each other or the way the Beta regions currently look, is really baffling.

[alex macnamara 139]

Actually, Mark Kochan is not paid by EA.  He is working on Buggi's Boomtown project instead.  Buggi's Boomtown is an independent city-building game that is built on the success of SC4.  I am also a member of Buggi's Boomtown as well.  I will not spend $60 on SimCity.  I would rather invest in Boomtown instead.

 

Ive read the white papers on that kickstarter game and it doesnt look promising either. Its just a hacked version of SC4. No true 3-D , regions are whack, and no support for UDI.  

[whizard 45]

Ive read the white papers on that kickstarter game and it doesnt look

promising either. Its just a hacked version of SC4. No true 3-D ,

regions are whack, and no support for UDI. 

A) It is a new, standalone game, not in any way related to SC4

B) There is no white paper, the business plan is still being developed.

C) It's not, at this point, a kickstarter game.

D) The plans are for BoomTown are to be fully 3D

E) Define "whack"

As it is a city simulator, there are currently no plans to implement UDI functionality.

[AkemiAzula 280]

It would seem a simple enough thing to do to allow us to choose our own sites for city 'squares' in 2013 regions, or to allow them to expand. One would like to think (although one has little faith in these things) that EA would realise the potential of a compromise between their target demographic and city-building gamers in particular. There are plenty of things that could have been done in order to satisfy both parties, without affecting their profit.

  Edited March 2, 2013 by CaptCity  
Off topic content removed.

[AkemiAzula 280]

The solution to the terraforming issue would be to have options. Firstly to load a premade heightmap like we shall be doing. This has the advantage that the map will definitely look good, make sense, be of the right dimensions allowing for infrastructure etc. Secondly to randomise a perlin generated terrain and randomised infrastructure, and thirdly a free 'god mode' like in 4 allowing us to load our own height/infrastructure maps or create terrain from scratch ala 4.

 

Naturally once a region was inaugurated this would become frozen.

[DmainEvent 195]

I see the solution to this tile-size issue is to have a true offline single-player sandbox.  In essence, Maxis is releasing the multiplayer side of a game, you know, back in the 90's and early 2000's that used to be the extra part that they tacked on that nobody really cared about.  Now-adays they charge you 80 dollars and call it a real game.  But I digress.  If they released an offline part of the game, then the entire thing would depend on your hardware.  Now if that were the case they could have larger tile-sizes, plus contiguous tiles.  I of course would push my one-size fits all solution to having massive metropolis (ie my "focus"-solution), but it seems to confuse a lot of people.  So if you want to learn more, lookup my posts and private message me for more details.

[nhgriffith 179]

Ocean explained its easier to expand map size over an amazing simulation engine (as limitations begin to go away), then it would be to allow a giant map and slowly improve the simulation engine.

[AkemiAzula 280]

One hopes Mr Quigley's optimism shall convince EA to allow the game to be improved. One also hopes that said improvements shall either be free updates or quality expansions

[nhgriffith 179]

I don't think he was necessarily purely referring to an update to the current upcoming game. I mean, they've said numerous times that they'd like to do bigger maps, but that this is the size that the map will be at release.

No statement that any of them has ever made will ever suggested bigger maps will definitely be a thing in this game. It might, I'm not ruling it out, but no one has made any promises.

But when Ocean made that statement, he was looking about at the evolution from the original SimCity up through SimCity 4 and then comparing and contrasting it to this new game. At the absolute core of the simulation engine, not a whole lot actually changed in the 15 years from SimCity to SimCity 4. It's easy to get expanding maps, and add a whole lot of things you wanted to do in previous iterations when the improvements you're making to the engine are really rather minor when you really get down to it.

SimCity 2013 is an absolute complete reimagining of the simulation engine, and the game is better for it. The fact of the matter is, regardless of what YOUR computer or MY computer could handle, Maxis can't release SimCity 2013 with the simulation engine it has and have much larger maps and still manage to get the minimum and recommended hardware requirements low enough for their entire target audience (I've even seen members of this very forum stating that they won't be able to run the game with the requirements the game has anyway).

But the point is, if Maxis just wanted to release a game with bigger maps and add a few things here and there, they could've released SimCity 5 five or six years ago, allowed for 8x8 or probably even 16x16 cities, make it run smoother than SC4 and fix up the traffic a bit as NAM has done. But what is that? I mean... really, SimCity had really just gotten to the point of "Okay, let's update the game now that hardware is better."

Maxis made a design decision to invest in GlassBox, which looks like it's going to absolutely blow away other simulation game engines. In fact, I think I remember seeing somewhere a civil engineer or something comparing the quality of SC's simulations to what real cities actually use. It wasn't a replacement for real simulations that real cities use, but he said it was getting really darn close.

Now imagine if over the next 15 years, Maxis, SimCity, and the GlassBox engine take the same trajectory that the original four SimCity games took. Maybe this is the way we should really be looking at this new game. Just look at the difference between the original SimCity and SimCity 2000. That's only a five year gap.

Once 2013 gets released, what's going to happen to the SimCity people at Maxis? Well, if the game is a massive success, here's what will happen. A few people will be working on DLC, expansions, etc., for a continued source of income for Maxis and to enhance what already looks to be a great game on release. And maybe expanding the maps will be part of what gets worked on for SimCity 2013.

Meanwhile... after a bit of a break, the work on the next SimCity game will probably begin. By 2015 at the latest, I imagine, they'll start working on the next one and shoot for a 2017 or 2018 release. Chances are probably pretty good that 2013 is only the tip of the iceberg on the actual capabilities of the GlassBox engine. So give consumers 5 years better computers, and give the programmers and designers 5 more years to really dig in really deep with the GlassBox engine.

But at the end of the day, GlassBox give them something to build on. You can't have SimCity 4 without first having had SimCity 3000, SimCity 2000, and of course, the original SimCity. You can, to some degree have SimCity 2013 without having had any of the previous SimCity games. And let me explain why I say this...

Take a look at Bethesda. Are you familiar with them? Maybe you are, may you aren't. Bethesda does the Elder Scrolls games (Skyrim, Oblivion, etc.). Bethesda also released Fallout 3 and Fallout:New Vegas. Bethesda, however, didn't do any of the Fallout games before Fallout 3. Before Fallout 3, the Fallout games were essentially cult-classics. They were good if that was the type of game you were into, but they were never all that great.

After releasing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda acquired the rights to the Fallout universe and developed Fallout 3 using the Fallout universe lore combined with the engine that they use for the Elder Scrolls games. The Elder Scrolls games are essentially always Game of the Year winners and they're always extremely highly anticipated games. So what happened with Fallout 3? Game of the year, extraordinarily highly anticipated, absolutely stellar critical reviews, and even extraordinarily amazing player reviews. Honestly, find me someone that has something bad to say about Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 could have happened without the previous Fallout games. Essentially, it already was happening... in the Elder Scrolls games. All Bethesda did was slap a different story over the same engine that had been running their Elder Scrolls games. They replaced bows with guns, replaced magic with plasma rifles, and took medieval style melee weapons and turned them into entertaining post-apocalyptic melee weapons. I mean... Fallout easily could have been a series of movies, TV shows, books, or whatever, because all Bethesda took from the original Fallout games was the lore, and the lore can easily exist without the games existing.

And that's about all that Maxis has taken from the original SimCity games. A bit of the lore. Or a city-builder equivalent of lore anyway. This new game is the first game in a whole new series of SimCity games that are built around the GlassBox engine, rather than the old, tired simulation engine that Maxis got away with for 15 years.

So, city tile size is what it is on release. It may or may not be upgraded on this game, and it may or may not be for free. But there will be another one coming, and just as SimCity 2000 build on the success of the original SimCity, SimCity 2018ish will build on the success of SC2013, and probably the first thing implemented will be larger city tiles.

[BravoGreenONE 120]

I think glassbox is a terrific idea. What I dont find terrific is the the lack if balance between simulation and map size. Commutes ok but does sewage and water blobs being tracked really add more to the gameplay then a larger map.

Or if water and sewage is simulated have the default for these things as "off". If people want them turned on have a warning message. To me its less a matter of a new direction but rather an issue of balance

[nhgriffith 179]

Water and sewage has to be simulated. That's part of the engine being more in depth and complete. They're not being simulated for the sake of you being able to look at the blobs floating down the road. That's just a visual representation for your sake so you can get an idea of how stuff is working and see where problems may be occurring if there's a problem with your water or sewage.

So short of straight removing water/sewage from the game entirely, what would you have Maxis do besides simulating water and sewage?