Future of SimCity Official Discussion Thread

[kasner 0]

Lots of great ideas from everybody! Here's my two cents. And though it might not be perfect, I just hope people can draw out its positives, rectify the negatives, or take ideas and make a Simcity that will RAWK! At least then consider the ideas.

 

Neighbourhoods, Counties and Bouroughs

I think we should be able to mark out certain neighbourhoods and bouroughs with a freeform line. Then whatever facilities we build within there will focus and cater for that neighbourhood only (unless we say so). Of course, if we have a densely populated bourough that we need to redraw the plans would be a good idea.

 

For each individual bourough, we could restrict how much it will grow, and what it could grow.

 

Revamp of Demographics

I think the way sims choose where to live, how to commute, which jobs they choose and what they do in their spare time is important. Desirability should be affected not by how many facilities there are, but how it makes a certain class of sim's live that much more easier and nicer to live.

 

All sims want this: good health, good education, live safe, close jobs, clean air and die happy.

 

Here are some rather basic demographic classes we could combine altogether with:

 

- Economic: rich or poor, or middle class. The poor would be stuck in a welfare cycle unless one takes an agressive and active approach.

 

- Education: uneducated, adequately educated (the normal), the intelligentsia/cultural (the kind of people that spur scientific, artistic and social change)

 

- Everyday: family, couple, retiree

 

And then, for each neighbourhood, combine with a certain want or need to be fulfilled, and by doing so could gain you favour in one place, but disgust in another ...

 

- Economic: a neighbourhood drawn to making wealth and being rich (I suppose this would be characteristic of a very poor neighbourhood and a very rich neighborhood).

Low taxes, lots of education, welfare schemes and charity benefits, lots of commute choices and commute avaliability

 

- Social: a neighbourhood drawn to cooperation, safety, development and peace (neighbourhood with lots of families and the elderly would be strongest at this one).

Parks, police stations, hospitals, community programs, short commutes

 

- Cultural: a neighbourhood that develops and unites its citizens with a trait that they can all relate to

Art galleries and museums, parks, religion and fairs. Ideas and innovations open up here, meaning these places contain the niche commerce and pioneering industries.

 

This with a designation of the 'zone' of the area (residential, industrial, commercial), and you've managed to get a unique neighbourhood thing goin' on!

 

Land Value and Desirability

- The concept of 'land value' and 'desirability' need to be rethought. Land value is straightforward enough. Desirability is completley different.

 

By desirability, the sims, in combination with its demographic, want is needed. I say, there could be a great piece of land, but the young rich don't want it because its too far away from jobs. The poor can't afford, and families want to be closer to their jobs. It seems the only people who'll live there are rich retirees really ... places of stagnant growth.

 

Or suppose there is a place with low land value. It's just a big NIMBY. No one will live there, no not a single person will. The poor will seek a another place to live, but because they are at the bottom of the 'real estate' pecking order, they'll have to live there, and they hate it, and they are absolutely miserable. They will groan, mumble, and maybe cause some kind of socialist idea upheaval causing giant riots and mass demonstrations calling for change.

Viva la revolucion!

 

Products

What the heck does your city make, and is it smart enough to make it? By choosing your primary exports, with respect to your population's 'talents', you'll have a rich city ... of course, you can't go for blue chip straight away!

 

Industry: Is the city's industry geared towards agricultural products, manufacturing, hi tech, or innovation. Let's say products can be meat, grains,and cotton or manufacture wholegrain foods and clothes, or focus on genetic engineering new breeds of beef cattle and synthetic fibers. Aerospace? Fossil fuels? Biotech? What?

 

Commerce: Is it basically just selling things from your industries? Is your city a tax and banking haven, or is it bureaucratic? The media or information technologies? Are there software, fashion or architectural designers in your city?

 

Quality: if you population is skilled enough to, you can make the most money. A city with farmers with the know-how of growing wehat could rake in millions with their high quality grain export. A city that tried to diversify into the aerospace industry without the sufficient resources or skills would plummet stone broke, or sell cheap, inferior qaulity products to a budget airline? Who said farmers were poor?

 

I think by reflecting on some of these could really enhance how SimCity works. Not as a pretty building thingy, but a social and urban experiment, the end result being all the pretty buildings you can get.

[rctshack 182]

Kasner, i couldn't say it better myself, that is an amazing plan. I hope EA and Maxis reads his!

[officer 6]

Hopefully the game will be better, and those are some great and realistic ideas. But, there is the prospect that EA is partially producing this game - and all they seem to car about is profit, not game quality, although, I doubt they'll ruin such a great and popular title.

[Compromise 1]

Date: 2/7/2006 3:26:22 AM Author: kasner

Products

What the heck does your city make, and is it smart enough to make it? By choosing your primary exports, with respect to your population's 'talents', you'll have a rich city ... of course, you can't go for blue chip straight away!

Industry: Is the city's industry geared towards agricultural products, manufacturing, hi tech, or innovation. Let's say products can be meat, grains,and cotton or manufacture wholegrain foods and clothes, or focus on genetic engineering new breeds of beef cattle and synthetic fibers. Aerospace? Fossil fuels? Biotech? What?

Commerce: Is it basically just selling things from your industries? Is your city a tax and banking haven, or is it bureaucratic? The media or information technologies? Are there software, fashion or architectural designers in your city?

Quality: if you population is skilled enough to, you can make the most money. A city with farmers with the know-how of growing wehat could rake in millions with their high quality grain export. A city that tried to diversify into the aerospace industry without the sufficient resources or skills would plummet stone broke, or sell cheap, inferior qaulity products to a budget airline? Who said farmers were poor?

quote>

So your saying make it more of a Industrey Giant game. This has been suggested before and seemed like quite a popular idea althougth it can only really go so far as SimCity is known as city building simulator and not a industrey simulator but it would defintley make the game more intresting.

[Firebird 40]

by officer
Hopefully the game will be better, and those are some great and realistic ideas. But, there is the prospect that EA is partially producing this game - and all they seem to car about is profit, not game quality, although, I doubt they'll ruin such a great and popular title.

quote>
I hope Will Wright has something to do with the game nowadays, we all know he would never let anything happen to his creation. And I don't think EA and Maxis match. And I REALLY hope Maxis reads this.

[dandysim 0]

Ok, folks.  Here goes:

1.  I totally agree with the capability of Region terraforming and sizing of city territories (if left as such).  The current process is really adolescent in comparison to the rest of the simulation.  However, in the event that a city grows beyond its territorial resources, let it annex an adjacent area or even merge with another city.  This could also be another possiblity when a city bankrupts, i.e. merge with an adjacent city that is not.

 

2.  Use of vector graphics would be a definite improvement for transportation systems and zoning.  Zoning should be realistic and completely fill the area instead of leaving half squares on adjacent angled roadways.

 

3.  The suggestion for an SDK is an awsome idea.  If anyone doubts the marketing impact by making this available, then they should be less emotional and logically assume that with such available, more demand for the basic game is created.  Thus, more $$$ in the corporate coffers for EA and, presumably, Maxis.

 

4.  There seems to be the one way interaction between the Sims and the Mayor of the city.  For example, they ask and the Mayor responds (or not) resulting in attitude rating.  A prime area for this use would be in the determination of ordinances.  The Mayor (and city council?) proposes, and the Sims respond.  This would certainly be more realistic for a democracy than the totalitarian way it is done now.

 

5.  The ability to manage funds would be more realistic if the ability to buy bonds from another city to get additional income or to sell bonds to SimNation for a specific project.  Bond issues would have to go before the Sims to vote on before actual consumation of the deal could be made.  This would only come into play if the city's treasury were not sufficient to cover the expense of the project, e.g. building a new power plant, replacing a street with a road, extending a freeway, etc.

 

6.  Ordinances should be ranked, i.e. some should be by Mayor's decree, some by City Council approval, and some by Sims acceptance through voting results.

[Compromise 1]

I like the idea of adding citizen voteing to the game on certain ordieances. I think this would make the game much more interactive and intresting to play.

[dandysim 0]

It came to me last night that making the God mode active for the Region level along with the city level would solve the ongoing problem and difficulties reported in numerous threads.  Don't know if this could be made available through an update to SC4, but it surely should be included in SC5.

Another feature that should be included with SC5 is the ability to move to an adjacent city without having to exit to the Region, then selecting the city.  The previous versions, including SC4, have too many mechanics to move about the Region and this would be an improvement.  I was really reminded of this when reading one of the threads involving the development of residential cities next to industrial cities, etc.  What a time killer to continually enter, modify, exit, enter, ad infinitum.  Perhaps a simplified pop-up map of the Region with the city names on the various sections would allow an even greater capability by just clicking on the name or undeveloped section and bypassing the exit to the Region.

 

Was reviewing (again) the discussions on submenus.  SC5 should contain a better menu tree capability that is more open-ended for the modders and users to organize the custom lots better.  Facilitation of organization should be made more user-friendly (hate that term) by allowing a GUI to organize the menus (and submenus) according to user preference without  having to virtually code the lots, etc. via external means.  I'm an IT professional of 40 years and the thought of using Hex notations to do something urks me to no end when I know that common language can be used in the GUI and the Hex be under the covers.

 

Probably more later...

[mjig_dudy 11]

regional terraforming would be really useful. And making acuall rivers instead of just inlets of the sea.

 

a way of putting in regional highways so if like adding major roads and highway before you start to build a city you can do this without having to start up each city one by one

 

[dandysim 0]

Hmmm...I understand your point about making major highways... in the Regional level and from a planning perspective, it would be helpful.  However, who pays for the project?  Until a city is established, there are no funds to finance the building.  There is a highway in California that just ends in Pasadena because of funding and right-of-way issues.  It has been so for many years and will probably remain so until a few more funerals take place.  In fact, the freeway ends on the NE side of Pasadena and gaps then starts up again in SW.  That's reality.

[dandysim 0]

Ok, so I've been busy with all these ideas...

In reviewing Kiknos' post, a question for you game developers came to mind.  Would it be possible to utilize something like menu.ini file to define the menus?  If so, then the delivered product from EA could provide it for all of the menus it delivers and the game would be playable for the vanilla player.  It would also allow for the non-vanilla player to easily modify this file to suit their style of play (or preference).  Not sure of all the contents for each entry, yet surely there is something that could be done externally to allow for the massive interest in submenus.

 

BTW, I'm attempting to summarize and group all of the points made so far in this thread into a single listing.  There is so much duplication in the wish lists that I felt it would help (assuming that EA & Maxis are interested in our input).  The other reason is that each contributing post has, perhaps, a different or additional idea relating to the same want.  When I'm done, I'll post it for review by all and welcome any additions, clarifications, etc.

[brancra 1,140]

I personally would just like to see a sign that they are in fact working on SC5. A screenshot, an article, something. Reaffirm the faith, in a way.

[dandysim 0]

Yeah, I know.  However, perhaps if someone from Maxis or EA is lurking about, they might just see a great opportunity to extract more of the game $$$s from us Simtropians.  After all, the modders here have done so much to extend the original and there is so much enthusiasm for the game as evidenced here, that they surely have to take note.  We can't sit by and let them create SC5 (or an expansion to SC4) in a vacuum.  The input from here is invaluable as these folks are delving into the game to make it better as well as playing it.  Can't ignore that.

[CitySim123 0]

I myself would sooooooooooo much rather have a SC5 than an expansion pack because i dont want the same graphics forever i want something new even if that pic wasnt from SC5 i would like to have something like that other than the SC4 graphics and besides what else could an expansion pack do to make SC4 better? ya everything that everyone has said on here but CHANGE IS GOOD and y doesnt someone just see if Maxis could just tell us if they are working on a SC5 like all those S2 expansion packs we knew about them loooooonngg before they came out 

[CitySim123 0]

hey does n e ne know wat this is a pic of? i found it here http://simcity.9.forumer.com  

 <- thats the pic 

[Micah 16]

Yeah, let the people vote! That would be interesting if the people voted against everything you wanted...

[Firebird 40]

Date: 2/18/2006 12:13:17 AM
Author: CitySim123

hey does n e ne know wat this is a pic of? i found it here http://simcity.9.forumer.com

&lt;- thats the pic

quote>
Hmmm, looks to detailed to be Sim City 5, but I don't know the specifications of the new Windows Vista thats comming out.
OH, I just thought of something, maby Maxis is developing the new game for the Windows Vista only-beacause of it's capacity!

[Jayayess1190 3]

Date: 2/18/2006 12:13:17 AM Author: CitySim123

hey does n e ne know wat this is a pic of? i found it here http://simcity.9.forumer.com

&lt;- thats the pic

quote>

 

That photo is Downtown Memphis, Tn.

[joeynymets 19]

Date: 2/18/2006 7:46:56 PM Author: TRAINPLANEMAN5

Date: 2/18/2006 12:13:17 AM Author: CitySim123

hey does n e ne know wat this is a pic of? i found it here http://simcity.9.forumer.com

&amp;lt;- thats the pic

quote>

That photo is Downtown Memphis, Tn.

quote>

 

lol... that is way too realistic anyway to be SC5 you would need one hell of a graphics card.

[Superchan 23]

if simcity 5 is vista only, its either becuase microsoft, payed them to do it, or forced the to do it, or TCPA, it better work on windows xp, and if they want it to be succesfull, backward compatibility would be nice for those people with 98 and ME, and i hope they have low graphic mode, for people with bad graphic cards.

[rctshack 182]

I like the regional highway Idea, Reality is actually towns popping up because of trails in the past, and now it's highways. All the major cities in a state are on interstates and so on. Towns just don't grow out of the grass, they gross from need and transportation. Interstates are a huge thing, lets have them!

[dandysim 0]

Once again, I question the funding for Regional highways, roads, etc. before a city is established.  Perhaps an inherited tax from SimNation on a newly established city?  Just pointing out that in the real world ... somebody pays the bills.

[Gman55 0]

Regional scale projects (like super highways) would be a great addition. I think each city should have an adjustable SimNation tax. You might be inclined to tax your rich cities more, but I'm sure the citizens would get pretty PO'd.

[winonanick 0]

My latest idea is this... (I can picture and understand it in my head but bear with me)...

So you know a large map is the combination of 16 small maps and a medium is a combination of 4 small maps, and so on.  Well my thought would be to have a dynamic mapping system.  So instead of needed all of a large map open you could open say a section of 4 of them (the equivalent of a medium map)  this would make for a more seemless region, eliminating the need for neighbor connections, and neighbor deals etc.  You could creat a seemless interconnected transportation network, instead of as I currently do, restricting the network connections so to "force" the sims on to the mass transit network.  So your region would be basically be one area with, in terms of the current game, 16 sectors to be switching in between.  This IMO would allow more flexibilty on the part of the user, planning would be easier, mapping would be easier (no more reconcile edges)

[RedImperator 16]

I'm sure this has come up before, but for those of us who like to build dense East Coast style cities, mixed-use zones would be tremendously helpful. The strictly segregated RCI model is accurate for California, but in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, there's block after block of rowhouses and brownstones with retail space on the first floor and apartments above. The corner store is a staple of life around here, and there's no easy way to model it in SimCity currently.

[BBGun06 0]

Who cares if they dumb down SC5? EA can just release the source for SC4 (or keep fixing the bugs) and we can all keep on modding and batting and playing SC4!

newbies can play SC5

on the other hand, they should make the difficulty customizable like in Tropico

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this way everyone's happy

[jfksc12 0]

I think they should add a way to form neighborhoods by economic wealth.  I hate how you can have 5 mansions in a row and then some $ shanty.  I think the zoning tools should be expanded so not only do you zone for density type (l,m,h) but for wealth ($,$$,$$$) it would make the game look more pleasing. Unlike density, the house must specifially be of that wealth or higher.  Think of neighborhoods of high wealth, low wealth, medium wealth.  It just makes the game so much more realistic.

Also I think transportation should be exapanded so you can truely use the whole region.  In Sim City 4 and Rush Hour you can't even get people to drive from one side of the town to the other if you are using the largest map.  yes there are modds and I use them but still people don't travel up to an hr to work on highways like people do in real life.  That's another annoying thing.  Highways aren't used and are a huge waste of cash and space.

Next you should be able to have commerical and residential combine into one.  This is so common in real life that I think its absurd that they dindt' put it into SC4.  Like why cant' they use medium and high density building and use the first like floors for buisness and the upper for residential?

I wish this wasn't true but the idea of building a huge region without city boundries is currently not possible in our cpu's today along with having a 360 view.  One thing SC5 could have though is on the edge of the regions have like 5 or 10 tiles of non-playable terrain that shows what the borders of hte cities around you have.  Not only will that help with terraforming but now your cities can truely be synced up togther and get a better overall view

[dandysim 0]

Just a quick update on the combining of ideas into a single post which I volunteered to do ...

The task is greater than I initially anticipated.  There are so many "cross genre" ideas that is quite difficult to organize them properly.  To make matters worse, I looked in on SimCentral and noticed that they are posting many of the same ideas with additional commentary as well as unique ideas.  However, I will state that we Simtropians seem to have a more technically advanced group judging from the two separate threads.

In any event, progress has been made, although slowly toward the end goal.

[RedImperator 16]

Originally posted by: jfksc12 I think they should add a way to form neighborhoods by economic wealth. I hate how you can have 5 mansions in a row and then some $ shanty. I think the zoning tools should be expanded so not only do you zone for density type (l,m,h) but for wealth ($,$$,$$$) it would make the game look more pleasing. Unlike density, the house must specifially be of that wealth or higher. Think of neighborhoods of high wealth, low wealth, medium wealth. It just makes the game so much more realistic.quote>

If you want to do that, what needs to be improved is the way the game treats property values. In real life, one room shacks aren't built next to mansions because the land is worth too much for a poor person to afford the mortgage, and even if he could, he'd do better selling and building a nicer place on cheaper real estate. Zoning for wealth is not only totally unrealistic (no city on Earth, at least in the parts of Earth that don't suck, specifically zones "No poor people"), but it would add a new layer of pointless micromanagement. Do you really want to have to rezone a neighborhood every time the desireability goes up or down? I agree with you about the basic problem, but there's a better solution.

[Gman55 0]

Yes, land value should be a new variable that's heavily tied into desirability (which, of course, is tied into many other factors). That way, neighborhoods will look more uniform.

Land value would also provide the mayor the challenge of urban renewal. Like trying to convert an historically poor neighborhood into an upper class one.

SC4's zoning system is fine because it's fairly simplistic. But the actual simulator should do a better job of growing buildings (like no more of the same structures right next to each other.)