New Screenshots

[iomex 24]

Yes, there is rain:

https://i.imgur.com/DPPVVmc.jpg

At higher zoom levels you see dense clouds with precipitation falling to the ground, at lower zoom levels you get mist.

Anyone know why at the highway exit there is always a werid crosswalk infront of the city border? and what is the building beside it, a sewage plant?

Because I placed it there, lol. The crosswalk is there because SC treats road type transitions as intersections

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Looks like there was much work involved in that fire truck moveout scene... I guess they really focused more on the "close-up" level than in SimCity 4. See iomex's comment "It can feel a little claustrophobic when dealing with tall buildings, but overall, you're kept occupied enough that a small city tile doesn't really matter as much as you'd think."

Sounds to me like a stronger focus on the management aspect (or even micromanagement aspect) than in SC4. Then there are those city specialisations that give each city a particular "theme"... this, in turn, reminds me a wee bit of SC:S, although EA fortunately left out obnoxious stuff like those unforgettable (and unforgivable!) candy cane streetglights.

Pity that these changes are not really what I had been hoping for. Take the fire trucks: While the animation is really good and nice to look at, how often do you think is it nice and interesting to look at? How much does it actually contribute to gameplay value in the long term? Maybe not that often and not that much, respectively...

When I think about SC4, after a while sending out firetrucks became nothing more than a nuisance... Yes, there's a fire. Fine. Yes, I know how to make 2 clicks. Yes, I will be trapped in auto-pause for as long as my stupid fire trucks will take to get there. Yes, now they are extinguishing the fire. Can I please...? Jeez, good that it's over. Now where was I before I got interrupted?

I actually would have preferred a simplification there: You got fire departments, your trucks go to the fire automatically. You get a notification and a possibility to jump to the fire site (maybe even an estimate like "fire, but we got it" or "huge fire, we are not enough to keep it in check!"), but basically your brave firefighters work independently, and only if you have too few of them you'll have to do something. After a very short while, there's really absolutely no fun in reacting to every little fire personally.

That specialization... OK, so we got smaller and more separated cities, and each one of them can have a theme... oil city, casino city, and so forth. Once again, that's an interesting playing concept, but the way I would have preferred is just the opposite: Closer connected and more homogeneous city tiles - maybe the possibility to make 'L' and '+' and 'T'-shaped maps, to assign neighbouring tiles to a "mother city", and all city tiles belonging together share the effect of larger amenities (airport, university, city hall, seaport, etc.). Effect radii that carry over beyond city tile borders. Maybe even effect radii (zones of attraction) calculated based on commute time instead of mere distance? Mixed-use zones (a wish often listed here and on other fansites), all that kind of stuff.

EDIT: Come to think of fire trucks - how about if your firefighters feel they need reinforcement, you (or they) can call on fire departments in neighbouring cities for help? I'd gladly do without the animation in exchange for such possibilites.

Guess no luck for me this time - again. Oh well.

[The_City_Builder 299]

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley

That would be awesome for a city journal; especially if it was one about a mining town or something.

[iomex 24]

Pity that these changes are not really what I had been hoping for. Take the fire trucks: While the animation is really good and nice to look at, how often do you think is it nice and interesting to look at? How much does it actually contribute to gameplay value in the long term? Maybe not that often and not that much, respectively...

When I think about SC4, after a while sending out firetrucks became nothing more than a nuisance... Yes, there's a fire. Fine. Yes, I know how to make 2 clicks. Yes, I will be trapped in auto-pause for as long as my stupid fire trucks will take to get there. Yes, now they are extinguishing the fire. Can I please...? Jeez, good that it's over. Now where was I before I got interrupted?

I actually would have preferred a simplification there: You got fire departments, your trucks go to the fire automatically. You get a notification and a possibility to jump to the fire site (maybe even an estimate like "fire, but we got it" or "huge fire, we are not enough to keep it in check!"), but basically your brave firefighters work independently, and only if you have too few of them you'll have to do something. After a very short while, there's really absolutely no fun in reacting to every little fire personally.

EDIT: Come to think of fire trucks - how about if your firefighters feel they need reinforcement, you (or they) can call on fire departments in neighbouring cities for help? I'd gladly do without the animation in exchange for such possibilites.

There are hundreds of animations like these. Police taking down suspects, people arriving home from work and parking cars inside their garages, garbage trucks stopping to collect trash cans from people's front gardens. All these together builds an atmosphere which is immersive and pleasurable to work in. It makes the city feel more organic and alive.

Fire truck dispatch is autonomous. You place the fire stations, and once people get jobs in them, once a fire starts, they will dispatch themselves, put out the fire and return. Like many other civic services, the fire service can be shared with other cities. As the region is 'live', police cars, garbage trucks, etc will drive into and out of your city, along the highways to the next city, and so on. The only thing you can't do is 'call on' fire service from other cities if there is a disaster - but I THINK that if you run out of fire trucks some may volunteer themselves from neighbouring cities, as is the case with garbage trucks.

[dysonraf 37]

I have to say its these details that makes me really keen to play this. Ill be honest SC4 just never felt atmospheric enough to me. Dont get me wrong this game has obvious flaws - tile size etc but its more of a 'game' in my book

[Erthel 6]

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Fire truck dispatch is autonomous. You place the fire stations, and once people get jobs in them, once a fire starts, they will dispatch themselves, put out the fire and return. Like many other civic services, the fire service can be shared with other cities. As the region is 'live', police cars, garbage trucks, etc will drive into and out of your city, along the highways to the next city, and so on. The only thing you can't do is 'call on' fire service from other cities if there is a disaster - but I THINK that if you run out of fire trucks some may volunteer themselves from neighbouring cities, as is the case with garbage trucks.

Well, that's good news! Thanks for the information.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

Hooray! The largest version of this is larger than 1920x1080 - at last, I have a SimCity lock screen image (yes, I'm using Windows 8, please don't kill me)

[RyanMorgan95 144]

https://twitter.com/...475197883908096

http://oceanquigley.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/bad-neighborhood.html

[MPleines 17]

That high school neighbourhood looks absolutely amazing!

I did notice that all the homes in the foreground seem to have 'for sale' signs in front of them...and there are a lot of moving vans in the background...perhaps those houses had just been finished?

[Guibanez_ 177]

https://twitter.com/simcity

[Charlie_Zane 963]

That solar plant looks interesting.

There are new screenshots coming out at least 5 times a day!

[Guibanez_ 177]

http://oceanquigley.blogspot.com.br/

[The_City_Builder 299]

^ Not a fan of that filter, but It looks okay.

[Dewm 177]

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

it just kills me how "clean" everything looks.

Looks like a computer animated cartoon from 2005.

That and everything looks so dull, the dull greens against the dull browns against the dull greys. I know that SC4 when't for a more "realistic" look...but it is far more colorful and vibrant then what I've seen so far

I do like the chain fencing though.. looks pretty good, and not something we really saw in SC4

[pcwhiz24 1,185]

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

it just kills me how "clean" everything looks.

Looks like a computer animated cartoon from 2005.

I don't know, It does look very beautiful.

The houses are brand new, ready for families to move in. Personally though, I wish the houses had fences in their backyards (wooden fences, pickett, maybe chainlink.) It's very common where I live, and in many major cities.

Aside from that, I'm loving these recent screenshots. (and the more I want to be in beta!!!)

[Msprintz 25]

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

it just kills me how "clean" everything looks.

Looks like a computer animated cartoon from 2005.

Personally though, I wish the houses had fences in their backyards (wooden fences, pickett, maybe chainlink.) It's very common where I live, and in many major cities.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with that, fenced in backyards would be a plus. It's common in many suburbs as you have said. That aside the graphics are very pleasant on the eye, soothing. The shadows aren't bad either, definitely adds realism to what looks like a model suburb complete with high school.

[pcwhiz24 1,185]

There'

Haven't seen this around (source):

A very beautiful neighbourhood. I think that to some degree I'll try to build towns that look great, ahead from money-makers or high pop.

it just kills me how "clean" everything looks.

Looks like a computer animated cartoon from 2005.

Personally though, I wish the houses had fences in their backyards (wooden fences, pickett, maybe chainlink.) It's very common where I live, and in many major cities.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with that, fenced in backyards would be a plus. It's common in many suburbs as you have said. That aside the graphics are very pleasant on the eye, soothing. The shadows aren't bad either, definitely adds realism to what looks like a model suburb complete with high school.

True, I also love the baseball fields next to the highschool, and I hope we can add soccer fields and a track (I love track distance running).

I heard you can't zoom in all the way though, as in, no true streetview like in CXL Kinda sucks, since I loved pretending to drive around my city in CXL and explore it. I still want this game though!

[SirChick 184]

https://twitter.com/...5983361/photo/1

...And that there's the entire city tile.

That's only the main street... the first picture in the series shows the city in almost its entirety though.

In the fire engine video can you stop it from doing that U-turn ... first one turned left then U-turned when the other one turned to the right ? Possible path finding mistake ??

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

https://twitter.com/...5983361/photo/1

...And that there's the entire city tile.

That's only the main street... the first picture in the series shows the city in almost its entirety though.

In the fire engine video can you stop it from doing that U-turn ... first one turned left then U-turned when the other one turned to the right ? Possible path finding mistake ??

I'm not sure what happened in that video...

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

I actually would have preferred a simplification there: You got fire departments, your trucks go to the fire automatically.

That's exactly what's happening though, the game doesn't pause every time there's a fire, but it will tell you if buildings burn down because the fire response is too slow, or if all your trucks are already responding to fires and new ones are started (say, by an arsonist for example.)

Something I didn't like about SC4 was that once you had covered your whole city with fire stations, you'd never get fires ever! So you just pay to not play that part of the game anymore.

[Irganox 10]

Spending more and more time each day, looking at these screenshots and I'm getting more and more excited and convinced that this will be a great game. The screens (most of 'em, anyway) looks absolutely brilliant - and the filters, what a wonderful thing to incorporate in the game!

Even if I don't get picked for the beta (stress-test), I'm looking forward to all the new screenshots that will pop up! I would really like more videos though...

[strokesboy21 11]

looking real forward to this coming out the tile size don't bother me to much and yes there are some of us who want to know what our Sims are doing only because im sad though

[OldTurtle 53]

Looks good. I agree with the colours being a bit in your face, but the filters should fix that. Would look absolutely beautiful after applying say a soft or neutral filter.

I did notice a few small issues though.

- as others mentioned - no fences around houses.

- the driveway only extends to the footpath rather than to the road.

- car brake lights glow a bit too much. Just the red without the glow would be much better imo.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Looks good. I agree with the colours being a bit in your face, but the filters should fix that. Would look absolutely beautiful after applying say a soft or neutral filter.

I did notice a few small issues though.

- as others mentioned - no fences around houses.

- the driveway only extends to the footpath rather than to the road.

- car brake lights glow a bit too much. Just the red without the glow would be much better imo.

Isn't it typical for a driveway to go as far as the pavement (footpath) though? I would say it is where I live.

[guitarmatt99 27]

Looks good. I agree with the colours being a bit in your face, but the filters should fix that. Would look absolutely beautiful after applying say a soft or neutral filter.

I did notice a few small issues though.

- as others mentioned - no fences around houses.

- the driveway only extends to the footpath rather than to the road.

- car brake lights glow a bit too much. Just the red without the glow would be much better imo.

Im also loving how much variation there is with buildings. It's great!

[7238320 77]

Isn't it typical for a driveway to go as far as the pavement (footpath) though? I would say it is where I live.

The grass between the sidewalk and and road in front of the driveway is not so great.

[Guibanez_ 177]

https://twitter.com/mutagen13/

[Exe19 22]

[pic]

https://twitter.com/mutagen13/

Look at the Moon! It is far too big (like in The Sims 3)! It is going to hit the SimEarth!

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Isn't it typical for a driveway to go as far as the pavement (footpath) though? I would say it is where I live.

The grass between the sidewalk and and road in front of the driveway is not so great.

Ah yes I see. You don't tend to see grass between the road and the pavement here in Britain unless it's an avenue or an older street (when space wasn't so limited). Not sure what they can do to rectify this...