New Screenshots

[nhgriffith 179]

That's so cool that land with a view is higher value.  Plus that city looks really big.

Yea, I don't know for sure about SC4, but I'm fairly positive that in SC2k, tiles next to slope tiles or water tiles had a higher land value...

[Wildcat67 12]

It doesn't bother me at all.  Just less wasted space.  SC4 was all pointless expansion for no reason.

 

If it's immersion that bothers you, just pretend it's a different planet just like earth but they build there cities differently.  Or maybe even it's just a city that for whatever reason has less square kilometers so they are forced to build up.  Just like Tokyo.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Because you can totally build 400 square km. Come on. Why can't people just accept that this is not the Simcity they are looking for and carry on?

May I do a math correction? The city is 2 x 2 km large (or 1.2 x 1.2 miles for those who work with imperal units), which makes up to only 4 km2, not 400...

Also, cities that are densly built are usually way larger than that, tens of times larger.

[Mithrik 562]

Because you can totally build 400 square km. Come on. Why can't people just accept that this is not the Simcity they are looking for and carry on?

May I do a math correction? The city is 2 x 2 km large (or 1.2 x 1.2 miles for those who work with imperal units), which makes up to only 4 km2, not 400...

Also, cities that are densly built are usually way larger than that, tens of times larger.

 

I was sarcastic there, I know the math, the city I am actually describing would be 20km per side.

[Sunfighter 186]

Tokyo is 2,188 Sq KM. Just pointing that out.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

You do realize that Tokyo is the largest city on the planet and has 35 million people in an area the size of everything between Philadelphia and New York City? Essentially taking up the entire northern half of the state of New Jersey.

 

Tokyo itself is divided up into dozens of districts, with the 23 central ones (also known as Special Wards) each being large enough to fit on a 4x4km SC4 tile (and the outlying ones are even larger). The core districts themselves have populations that are between a quarter and half a million people. Some of these districts have sooo many businesses that during the daytime there's nearly a million people moving about in those special wards.

 

Tokyo itself is the conglomeration of all these districts and all the surrounding edge cities, sprawl, and suburbs. The thing is a colossal continuous titan of a city.

 

The little town-sized tiles in the new SimCity, are realistically able to be as large as a small country town. After a certain size, once the high-density buildings come into play, the unrealistic edge of the city becomes a huge let down. You can tell by the city boundaries and the surrounding No Man's Land in most screenshots.

 

Goodbye SimCity... Hello SimTown (aka The Sims 3: Small Towns Expansion Pack)

 

Tragic indeed

[kneebon5 4]

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

 

http://youtu.be/uBrYf-A2WhM

[Ma8thew 77]

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

That's awesome. I bet Ocean Quigley would tweet a link to it if you showed him. How do you hide the UI, I couldn't work it out?

[Hoipus 292]

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

That's awesome. I bet Ocean Quigley would tweet a link to it if you showed him. How do you hide the UI, I couldn't work it out?

Options>Gameplay>Hide UI in Photos/Videos

[Sunfighter 186]

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

That's awesome. I bet Ocean Quigley would tweet a link to it if you showed him. How do you hide the UI, I couldn't work it out?

 

Actually he wouldnt due to copywrite on the music. =P

[Ma8thew 77]

 

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

That's awesome. I bet Ocean Quigley would tweet a link to it if you showed him. How do you hide the UI, I couldn't work it out?

 

Actually he wouldnt due to copywrite on the music. =P

Irrelevant. You don't infringe copyright by linking to infringement. YouTube detects infringement anyway, so if the audio hasn't been blocked it means the record company is allowing use of the work, or is getting ad revenue from it.

[AnyNameWillDo 6]

From http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151466995093833.548981.176897568832&type=1

 

 

 

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Not a screen, but didnt see a video thread. Here is what I made last night during Beta 2

 

http://youtu.be/uBrYf-A2WhM

 

Great video!!!

 

The game looks so beautiful. I can only imagine how nuts everyone will go if we were able to create our own regions.

 

But even this video isn't enough to convince me to buy the game. While the limitations of the game persist, this game will be nothing more than the sequel to SimTown for me and half of the previous SimCity lovers.

 

[bokrif 18]

Isn't there a NDA for the beta 2 users? If not I will post my screens too.

[Towel 76]

Isn't there a NDA for the beta 2 users? If not I will post my screens too.

 

Nope, post away!

[strokesboy21 11]

nice video op 

[Metzger28 6]

Edit: Original content removed: Off-topic.

Forgot to add: I've noticed that pretty much all of the mid-wealth towers have this mid-century modern feel to them. If you get the light just right the sun reflects off the vertical strips of glass and creates this awesome relief and shadowing effect. Little details like that make this game come alive.

  Edited February 19, 2013 by Metzger28  

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Edit: Nevermind. Really didn't want to take this off-topic.

 

Sorry, it was my fault. I shouldn't have generalized, I was just angry about the situation at hand. I edited the other post to not say "all".

 

 

On the other hand people, keep coming up with these shots, some of them are pure eye-candy!!! Anyone care to upload any videos as well?

[Metzger28 6]

Edit: Nevermind. Really didn't want to take this off-topic.

 

Sorry, it was my fault. I shouldn't have generalized, I was just angry about the situation at hand. I edited the other post to not say "all".

 

 

On the other hand people, keep coming up with these shots, some of them are pure eye-candy!!! Anyone care to upload any videos as well?

It's alright. I came off a little crass in my opinion, so I decided to just kill the comment entirely.

I agree about the eye-candy. The limitations of this engine will be overcome in time, I am sure, but boy if the foundations there aren't strong, at least visually. I'm going to try and take some time to get a few of mine uploaded. I didn't use any of the filters like a lot of other folks did, so my images still borderline on the Sims 3-style default visuals. I have no idea why I didn't change it to one of the more neutral/cooler filters, though I had every intent to do so.

[Metzger28 6]

Some shots I took during beta 2, apologies for the low-res - my Flickr stream is all screwy so I can't link from there.



This giant industrial district did not make my sims happy.



Loved the stepped exits and the effect of the lighting in the windows on this multiplex.



This faux-Home Depot wasn't the original tenant. The building was beige and green before and housed another store, but it didn't last barely a few days in-game time. This tenant didn't, either. It grew into a hotel after this shot was taken.



An early-century neighborhood street at just before midnight. Most of the city was quiet like this. The downtown district was eerily so, with most of the mid-wealth towers that grew sitting almost completely dark.



The same street, early in the morning, with a bit of life. Most of the folks exited the buildings and walked to the bus stop a block over. Now the kids are walking to the bus. I loved seeing how these places changed between night and day.



Now this one I have to explain...No joke, I am absolutely not kidding when I say this. The query card for this building called it the "DiaBeetus Bakery". I burst out laughing at this point. At two in the morning when everyone was asleep.

Wilfred Brimley be praised.

-Metzger
 

[LucasK336 54]

mmm... Maxis... you should maybe check the images before you post them on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151470674334866&set=a.10150671443859866.416315.160156464865&type=1

[Sunfighter 186]

mmm... Maxis... you should maybe check the images before you post them on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151470674334866&set=a.10150671443859866.416315.160156464865&type=1

These kinds of polish issues really worry me. You shouldnt be seeing glaring polish issues like these on a 60 dollar title thats already in GOLD status especially when these are the advertising pictures..... When you consider the map sizes...this seems to indicate the Devs have spent all the dev time on the engine, which implies serious engine issues and zero time left for polish.

 

yea yea...day 1 patch blah blah blah...how many things have been mentioned on this site alone that we assume will have a day 1 patch for now? And thats IF they dont have any network issues. Which we know they did have on the demo day.

 

Call me crazy, but I think with the 1 hour limited demos....the signs of zero polish work..... I think there is something seriously wrong with the glassbox engine that rears its ugly head several hours into a game.

[oppie 487]

...

These kinds of polish issues really worry me. You shouldnt be seeing glaring polish issues like these on a 60 dollar title thats already in GOLD status especially when these are the advertising pictures..... When you consider the map sizes...this seems to indicate the Devs have spent all the dev time on the engine, which implies serious engine issues and zero time left for polish.

 

yea yea...day 1 patch blah blah blah...how many things have been mentioned on this site alone that we assume will have a day 1 patch for now? And thats IF they dont have any network issues. Which we know they did have on the demo day.

 

Call me crazy, but I think with the 1 hour limited demos....the signs of zero polish work..... I think there is something seriously wrong with the glassbox engine that rears its ugly head several hours into a game.

I wouldn't really worry about that - those pictures on facebook have never been from any recent build of the game. This one was also the 'hover tooltip' picture of the tram terminal in the first beta, so it's as least as old as that - probably even older. I doubt that they're going to update their 'preview images' with every little change they do. Why Maxis would use images with such obvious bugs as promotional materials is another question.

[Ma8thew 77]

What does the inattention of the marketing department have to do with the polish of the games itself?

[Hoipus 292]

The marketing department doesn't have access to everything Maxis is doing all the time?

[RoseCityAlive 9]

As a marketer I can tell you that they do. Other then the development team, the marketing department is the next most important division. As we can all see by members of Maxis that comment on the forum or someone like Ocean, Developers can also be directly involved in marketing.

[efgrib 45]

mmm... Maxis... you should maybe check the images before you post them on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151470674334866&set=a.10150671443859866.416315.160156464865&type=1

These kinds of polish issues really worry me. You shouldnt be seeing glaring polish issues like these on a 60 dollar title thats already in GOLD status especially when these are the advertising pictures..... When you consider the map sizes...this seems to indicate the Devs have spent all the dev time on the engine, which implies serious engine issues and zero time left for polish.

 

yea yea...day 1 patch blah blah blah...how many things have been mentioned on this site alone that we assume will have a day 1 patch for now? And thats IF they dont have any network issues. Which we know they did have on the demo day.

 

Call me crazy, but I think with the 1 hour limited demos....the signs of zero polish work..... I think there is something seriously wrong with the glassbox engine that rears its ugly head several hours into a game.

 

 

this is a little graphic bug... and graphic bugs have nothing to do with glassbox...

[Sunfighter 186]

Its not just one graphical bug, there have been several showing up even though the game is in gold state already. From the trains stopping at intersections for cars, to the lack of correct rail crossings, to the civic center roads, to the road intersections, to the trees in the road, etc etc...

 

My point was never the one mistake, but the several taken together. It shows that the game never went into polish stage before gold. And when you take into account the small maps...you have to wonder where all the dev time has gone and why? Its the engine. They are running into issues with the engine they hadnt anticipated and its pushed them well behind schedule..and typical of EA, instead of delaying they are pushing it out in a no polish state because they know people will buy it. 60 bucks is a blockbuster PC price point. If they demand that price point, and expect the limited map sizes to be okay, the lack of landscape editing to be okay, the lack of regional freedom to be okay, the always online to be okay, and the general lack of mass transit to be okay , then then sure as hell have better have what limited stuff they have in the game at launch to be god damn polished to gleaming... and yet they havent done it.

 

Its not just one picture. Its the big picture, all off the bugs already seen. Where was the dev time spent? It wasnt on polish thats for sure, it wasnt on building signage, thats for sure....soooooo the only logical conclusion is the engine..

[Towel 76]

On a typical AAA title there are usually hundreds if not thousands of bugs ... What you are referring to would be classed as low priority bugs, ones that affect the game visually but do not harm its playability, nor do they break the game. Those bugs get fixed last, and they aren't engine bugs.

 

The game I played at Beta felt very polished, especially so in comparison to other AAA titles... 

 

You want unpolished? Buy Aliens: Coloniel Marines!

[Sunfighter 186]

Well I am of the opinion that games should get different levels of leeway on graphical issues based on their scope.

 

Simcity has a very tiny scope to your comparison of a FPS for example. while an FPS might have less complexity overall (which is questionable, depending on whether the game has a physics engine and whether the weapons are hit scan or not and all the scripted crap that seems popular with FPS these days...). All the action in simcity takes part in a 2x2 cube, while an FPS is in a always changing environment. So a graphical mistake in an FPS is more forgivable and ultimately less visible than one in simcity would...

 

Its like how your less likely to notice a damaged box in a warehouse full of boxes then if you had only 4 boxes in a 2x2 get up.

 

Simcity insists that it take place in a tiny little box...so that box better be perfect if they want my 60 bucks is all im saying.

 

Scope is key.