New Screenshots

[Hellken 1,658]

Hello Maxis Developers,

The elevated road looks fantastic! I notice the viaducts so far are 2 lane roads. Will there be any avenue overpasses?

Thanks

That elevated road started from a hill though. Is it possible to build these elevated roads on a flat city tile which has no hills?

That's something I wanted to do but it doesn't look like it's going to happen

1) I remember there was news about 3 - level overpasses. Was that removed?

2) Will there be any expressway interchanges (inside cities)?

http://www.inautonew...ld#.UNXn629wpLY

3) Boulevards?

Credit: Pictures from:

http://www.simcity.c....php?tid=109484

[Pandemic 32]

New screenshot,

[flyer2359 92]

New screenshot,

It's been out for quite some time but looks good nonetheless.

[Superbacon 380]

Is anyone else slightly perturbed by the over sized-looking cars? Or is the road small?

[Hellken 1,658]

It's an old picture. But I noticed this:

[johndoh4 13]

I never understood why Maxis doesn't believe in turn lanes for the default road designs; other than that, things aren't looking too bad so far. I just hope that the gameplay mechanics, and statistics reporting aren't all watered down in an attempt to cater to the casual audience. Not that it is wise too ignore them all together, but it is at least nice to have the extra options mind you.

I suspect that this game will go gold relatively soon (probably in January when all the team members come back from vacation), so not too much will likely change from what they have already developed and presented to us at this point (putting aside anything that we aren't aware of yet).

[Samuel Lavoie 5]

The first image would have been so awesome if the green void is replaced with an actual city or an extension of the represented city. This is making me want to buy this, but its the damn green void.

I registered just to comment on this, because I agree that the green void is just bad. Wouldn't it be really easy to fix this just by adding generic towns in that space? That is, when you first start off as a small town, the green area around your town has a bunch of other small towns that are entirely self-contained, and so don't need to be part of the agent system. They don't provide workers for your city, they don't leech off your police or fire (since they rely on their own local equivalents), and so on. Maybe they'd be clustered near the major transportation systems, but historically that didn't always happen. For convenience, let's refer to the small towns as being part of your "County".

While your city grows into a metropolis, these small towns don't really change, although maybe their graphical style could adjust to match the closest major city. As your city reaches the edge of your city map, the small towns in your county eventually get absorbed into your sprawl. This'd make your city look much bigger without increasing your management overhead; you'd be managing the core of the city, and the nearby areas would just be standard suburbia. Since this effect would be purely graphical, it'd be something the user could choose to disable (or tone down, if given the option). If you really wanted to you could let the suburbs provide workers for your downtown, but it'd be more balanced to make them worker-neutral (so instead of having every worker in your city work in the downtown, you could have one come from the suburbs but be balanced by one driving outward to work; labor-neutral, but a bit more of a strain on your roads). That way, players aren't hurt or helped by the exact positions of the nearby filler towns.

There are plenty of real-life examples of this sort of thing, lwhere a small town was eventually absorbed by the larger city but still retains its own mayor, police, schools, and jobs. But really, it's just an easy excuse to put SOMETHING in that green space...

This. Please Maxis do something around those lines and settings for folks with better/bigger computer configuration to expand the maps or these visuals.

[Retro Physical 1]

Uh. I hope SimCity 5 won't be too much like SimCity Societies.

[d-stylow 0]

omg..! this looks to much like sim societies and cities XL we want more realistic and modern buildings and highways in European or Asian style..! Maxis Sim City 4 forever !

[snick25 384]

omg..! this looks to much like sim societies and cities XL we want more realistic and modern buildings and highways in European or Asian style..! Maxis Sim City 4 forever !

What in heaven's name are you talking about? CXL looks a hundred times better than this, and you can build an actual city in that game. SimVillage and CXL are nothing alike.

[Skyrunner27 23]

Uh. I hope SimCity 5 won't be too much like SimCity Societies.

omg..! this looks to much like sim societies and cities XL we want more realistic and modern buildings and highways in European or Asian style..! Maxis Sim City 4 forever !

What thing in the game has made this Simcity Societies. That image above is from E3 in June. You don't just plop buildings you zone, Is not based on culture building, and this is made by Maxis.

[flyer2359 92]

Uh. I hope SimCity 5 won't be too much like SimCity Societies.

omg..! this looks to much like sim societies and cities XL we want more realistic and modern buildings and highways in European or Asian style..! Maxis Sim City 4 forever !

What thing in the game has made this Simcity Societies. That image above is from E3 in June. You don't just plop buildings you zone, Is not based on culture building, and this is made by Maxis.

I agree, I don't see people are getting the "it looks like Societies and Cities XL" from at all. The games aren't even close (and good thing) to being the same from what we've seen at this point.

[jacksunny 741]

I don't believe this one has been posted yet.

It might be my favourite picture so far.

[CaptCity 4,753]

Folks... The topic here is to discuss what is shown, not some "grand conspiracy" to hide things. and discussion can take place in those respective topics. Thanks.

[macvirt 361]

It just looks like someone poured a bucket of "shiny" over the buildings. I realise that's a case of the origins of the render engine, I do hope however that through modding we will be able to make it look realistic. Yes, Maxis is putting a lot of emphasis on how they want to make it ultra realistic, but that is a focus for the functionality, not the feature sets or content.

It will be utterly hilarious if they have "forgotten" elements like cultural styles, for example US vs European, and suddenly shown up with that as DLC

[Essex 322]

Folks... The topic here is to discuss what is shown, not some "grand conspiracy" to hide things. and discussion can take place in those respective topics. Thanks.

*I understand*

[aparrot7 82]

This picture worries me:

The cities themselves look great, and the simulation seems to be a very well built one. I'm excited about alot of the new features of the game, however Maxis really shoots themselves in the foot when saying "No city is in a bubble", while making all of these cities bubbles visually. In reality, cities aren't this separated- even in the suburbs. Maxis either needs to:

1. Make the maps bigger, and we wont complain about the gaps in between

2. Find a way to make cities touch, even if this means sacrificing that highway system

Like I said, the game play seems to look really good- and the cities look great. I love the idea of specialization, new transit networks, etc. I Like this picture:

[jacksunny 741]

The UI looks great!

[flyer2359 92]

That UI is easily the best UI in any SimCity game so far.

[snick25 384]

That has to be the most compact Nuclear Power Plant I've ever seen. I also like how it's right across the street from homes and businesses.

The cities themselves look great, and the simulation seems to be a very well built one. I'm excited about alot of the new features of the game, however Maxis really shoots themselves in the foot when saying "No city is in a bubble", while making all of these cities bubbles visually. In reality, cities aren't this separated- even in the suburbs.

Well said.

[cyruskafaiwu 29]

The cities are just too small. Honestly, there a ton of cities that become country immediately after leaving the city. I think to pull the real city look will just require a larger city size.

[cirugo 1,889]

This picture worries me:

The cities themselves look great, and the simulation seems to be a very well built one. I'm excited about alot of the new features of the game, however Maxis really shoots themselves in the foot when saying "No city is in a bubble", while making all of these cities bubbles visually. In reality, cities aren't this separated- even in the suburbs. Maxis either needs to:

1. Make the maps bigger, and we wont complain about the gaps in between

2. Find a way to make cities touch, even if this means sacrificing that highway system

Like I said, the game play seems to look really good- and the cities look great. I love the idea of specialization, new transit networks, etc. I Like this picture:

Yes, they only look good at that scale of zoom from certain angles. The regional pictures make me cringe.

[jacksunny 741]

Here's another one from their Facebook page:

The caption is "Naughty or Nice: Will you be naughty and collect a stinking wall of waste with a sewage outflow pipe or be nice and build a sewage treatment plant to clean it all up?"

[Hoipus 292]

I'd put the sewage outflow pipe on the poor side of town. I'd also give them no water and only sewage if the game would let me.

[jacksunny 741]

I hope they improve the graphics of the sewage coming from the outflow pipe.

And I really like the trees, they look great.

[Hoipus 292]

I think it captures the "there is poop coming from here" effect quite well.

[Cob92 360]

The game looks great except for the green dead space in the region. Fill it with SOMETHING! Farms, suburbs, doesn't matter as long as it gets rid of that sudden wilderness at the edge of every city.

[spa 968]

That regional picture is the first one that really and truly shows the games biggest flaw; the empty expanse between cities. Why they think that looks better than having the tiles adjacent to one and other is really beyond me. It's a real game killer. It feels like it's something that is being done at the expense of single player to satisfy the online requirement when, really, it shouldn't be either or. Why can't we have regions that have space and regions that don't?

[Altus 111]

Those screenshots of the regional view killed any chance of me buying this game. I wont support a game with gaping flaws due to the need for an always online component.

[marksman1416 12]

That regional picture is the first one that really and truly shows the games biggest flaw; the empty expanse between cities. Why they think that looks better than having the tiles adjacent to one and other is really beyond me. It's a real game killer. It feels like it's something that is being done at the expense of single player to satisfy the online requirement when, really, it shouldn't be either or. Why can't we have regions that have space and regions that don't?

Its nothing to do with online. Its about simulation, more cities together equals more simulation. Its to keep the requirements down in order for more people with lower spec computers can play.