Future of SimCity Official Discussion Thread

[DARKO 3]

I honestly don't think there's a chance in hell we see a new SimCity in 07'.

08' Would the earliest. If they do plan on releasing another version might as well have them take as long as they need.

It would be in there ebst interest and ours if they were to do so.

1. It would allow them to spend alot of time implementing much of what we as a community have already put in, and hopefully things we havn't even thought of. I feeel they may even be intimadated by what we as a community have done. In essence there has to be some pressure to do a much better job than they did with SC4 out of the box. Now that they realize the stuffwe amke blows anything they do expansion wise out of the water, maybe it will be an extra incentive for them to concentrate more on adding everything from the beginning, and not on ways to suck extra money out of folks via expansions.

2. Let Computer technology catch up, and people's personal spending budget on a new PC as well.

3. This next installment has to be 3d, or at the very least more camera angles and a first person vew of some sort. I don't want them to rush and release a City Life. SC has grown into another game pretty much. It should keep u

interested for at least 2-3 more years.

[jstaple123 0]

go to ea page and send an email in the contact us tab. choose the corporatation.

http://ea.pogo.com/login/napd-login.jsp?locale=en_US&site=eaco&skin=eacom&parsid=1761168

this is what i sent them:

To whom it may concern,

I would like to know if or when you guys plan on releasing the next generation SimCity game. There has been no news to speak of that I can find. The SimCity.com website also has not been updated in a while. I am not sure if you guys are aware of how many gamers there are waiting for even a small bit of info on even a possible release of this game. There are about 150,000 people registered on simtropolis.com alone. SimCity 4 has become a completely different game with all of the add ons and modifications that gamers have created. I believe that it is a little unfair for you as a company to leave the website without an update for such a long time. To make a long story short: You have a lot of customers that would go out and buy a SimCity 5 or SimCity 4 expansion pack tomorrow if you put it out there. Please let us know if this game is coming or not.

If this is sent to someone who can not answer this email properly, please foward to someone who can.

Thank you,

[CaptainHailey 0]

Hey all,

I wouldn't mind holding on to SC4 With all the modifications possible. If we want SC 5 truly better we should give EA a little more time (say til 2008-2009) to create a wonderful game that would include all our wishes. By then computers will also be better to cope with the demand that the game will put on the computer. Also i would go for gameplay and difficulty over graphics, if that means graphics will be slightly better then they are now in Simcity 4.

[sendarrow 3]

I want SC5 to be Universal and fully compatible with the new generation of Macs.

[KeanoManu 42]

Would be very intrested in any news regarding a new SC

I actually doesn't care so much how many different buildings there is from the beginning if they develop another game. The most important thing is that they made it more modable. If they just provide us with a good ground to start with we can fix everything else. The modders here are awsome.

One thing they should add is tourism. It's boring to only be able to build industry cities. Maybe it's hard to fix that but i hope EA will do it anyway, they can save time from not adding so many buildings or ask members here to make some.

They must also make so that we can add more types of transportation and roads without removing the original ones.

I have many ideas, maybe i'll write them sometime.. Maybe we should write to EA about some ideas that people have, or do they read it anyway?

And then like CaptainHailey says, the graphics isn't important att all.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Not 3D. It can't be a seemingly ripoff of City Life.

[jstaple123 0]

here is the response i got back

Hello Joe,

Thanks for contacting EA Technical Support. We recognize and appreciate the effort that goes into game and product ideas and submissions.

We have thousands of employees world-wide who are constantly generating and developing game ideas, games and new game features some of which we build, but many we do not. Because of our creative scope, we do not look at unsolicited product ideas or game concepts from people outside of Electronic Arts.

We may review third-party products, but only after they have been built to a fully playable prototype (a working game). If you have such a prototype or if you have further questions, please contact productsubmissions@ea.com for more information about our submission process.

You may also post comments and suggestions at the Sim City 4 Forum (BBS). Thank you!

Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com).

Japhet G

EA Technical Support

[songmen 0]

wanted!

SC5

[DARKO 3]

How would SC5 going 3d be a ripoff? Citylife is pretty weak, look at the already non existent community.

Simcity was sought to be 3d going back to 3000, but was ditched.

Way before any notion of Citylife was ever concieved.

Why would EA waste their time with a slight graphic upgrade over what we have now? Anything they do next will be revolutionary.

You people do realize that full 3d means you could play from any angle right? To think that the game wouldn't be going that route would be severely shortsighted.

[dadyrghluv 8]

jstaple123: if u had a playable version of a new SC5, well one we all here would jump for joy, but EA as greedy as they are, would steal your idea if it was good enough to be made a game w/o compensation. if this is what we need to do, then i don't see it happening for quite sometime if ever.

[Pixelrage 34]

I really have zero faith that there will be another SC game. However, contrary to a few posts up - I do think that if it did happen, it would in fact be a "mimic" of City Life, but they'd 1-up it somehow, either with more functionality or better graphics. And, like all good things that have come to an end in the past several years, I'm sure it would be 3D -- there is only so much you can do (graphically) with 3D because it will be too overperforming for PC's.

[jstaple123 0]

i didnt say that i had a new game. I told them that the game became something totally different with all of the modds and stuff from this website. That is the "new game" they are referring to. I honestly think that they will come out with a new sim city game. I just think that it will take a while. They should come out with an expansion pack to revitalize the game a little bit and then release a new game about a year later.

[Pixelrage 34]

I think they really owe us a patch before anything else. There's no excuse for anything to be this buggy - even plugin-free, it's awful.

[basballstephen13 0]

Simcty 5 is now in the works!

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6160951

[songmen 0]

cant wait

[aking88 7]

Here are some ideas i wrote way back on simcitycentral when it was up, and than also on skycscrapercity and added some there. Some ideas are more realistic to achieve than others.

However some ideas are lost with the Simcitycentralforums database...

Remember i wrote it a while ago, bad grammar and annoying formulations are only two of the things you will just have to withstand.

________________________________________

"I don't think the ideals of Sim City are those shared in the socialist and communist circles of the world...it's kinda capitalist of a game, odd.....?!"

Well, you should be able to choice. Actually that gave me an idea so...

here once again my ideas, updated with more text:

__________________________________________________

Well, i'l start with the hardware. Better hardware can make it possible for us to:

- Better physical simulation. For example, sandbeaches, will not need to be only textures in the future, but they could actually be grains of sand with physical attributes and characteristics.

Lets put the idea in a shooter game to make it more concrete. Lets say i shot at sand with my Magnum gun, a shot from the magnum gun may have twothousand "ITEMPOINTS", which means it can affect 2000 items (grain of sand) in a particular way, in this situation, to get thrown up in the air becouse of the impact. The computer choose twothousand grains of sand beginning exactly where the bullet hits and then away in a radius direction, until it has affected exactly twothousand grain of sand. The ones closest to the impact gets affected the most by the impact and gets thrown up highest in the air.

This was just an programming idea in how to make this work realisticly. We can push it one step further, now useable in a game like simcity (even the previous idea was, when people walk on the beach the sand can get affected by footsteps). The sand may get new attributes in contact with another mass, WATER! And create clay, making the sand darker and behave in a new way when being affected my for example impacts.

All this, ideas in how to make the world of the videogames, especially SC, more realistic in detail. This could be used for a lot of stuff, Buildings can be build up be a lot of polygons and act as a real building, if a car hits the building in one side, that side gets damaged!

Everything to increase the realism by just making more complex physics.

Wind can make sand get thrown upp on the nearby roads, a tornado may throw the sand several hundreds of meters upp in the air! Making a fog of sand lie down over the city. Sunbeams during the day makes us see further trough the water etc.

- Different temperatures, also partly a part of the physics ideas, more hardware power makes it able for the computers to simulate temperatures. If its really hot during a week in the game, it starts to rain becouse of all the water evaporating during the hot time. Fabolous i say! Also, more sims should stay inside in different weatherconditions.

- More detailed simulation of the population in the citys. They dont got any parks to play in and are surrounded by 10 cheap fast food restaurants, well, the results? Half the neighbourhood gets fat!!! Which in turn gives your citizens bad health, giving your municipal hospitals more expense.

Sims should be able to take there car out of the garage when going to work, you should be able to zoom in and se them open the car door, getting in and driving to work (or anywhere they are going) leaving it in a garage nearby, or if there is not enough parking space, even worse, cars will gather outside the officebuildings stopping other traffic causing problems.

(i got more ideas, i will update this later, give me your ideas to, il appriciate any contribution to develope my ideas further)

- Relations between sims, the ultimate population simulation. The sims should be able to be friends or really dislike their neighbours. This should be affected by their MOOD. If they have a lot of parks, open areas, great traffic, everyone is happy and friends. But if they are no schools, no open areas to relax. Its over dude, the people will start fighting becouse they dont got anything to do, they will not have education so they will form gangs and paint graffiti on the structures.

- Better gfx, of course, the graphics will look better, not only becouse of the capability to make more detailed 3D-models and higher resolution textures, but also the way the world behaves, becouse of the great physics, will make citys look neat.

- The effectivness of schools etc. How much impact they make in the society. How much better will it get if you place a new school? Well, depends on where you place it in SC5, if i get what i want. If you got a RICH neoighbourhood, full of schools and open areas, and you build another school, not that much difference, maybe even the other, POOR side of the town will get angry becouse of this. The poor side doesnt got enough schools and open areas, its a hell of a mess. People have a tough time living there, they feel they are not a part of the community in the town. If you place the school there, it will have much more impact! Becouse there is need of improvement in the area.

- And if you want to introduce social allowance/supplementary benefit and a welfare system, that should also have great influence in making sure no one got it bad in the city. Of course, this requires higher taxes and expenses. If you have free, costless school/education a la Sweden then you will not end up having unsuccessfull prostitutes on the streets and criminals robbing stores. They will be able to get another chance for free in school.

- The possibility to turn on a, whats it called i English, hm, you know the squares that make up places to plopp things. Well the possibiity to click on a button and make them a lot smaller, the squares. This would create the possibility for more detail work, like plopping lampposts, palms and other tree's, recykling containers. This would make citys more unique, and you could prevent radical angle differences. (EDIT 2006 - I believe i meant plots when i wrote this)

-The possibiity to plopp things on existing stuff. Like plopping a container in a park instead of having to change the whole base. This will alsoo ad to detail work.

NEXT, what is missing in SC4 RH:

- The ability to give money to repair damaged buildings!

- Zebra crossings/cross walks, and also pedestrian overpasses.

- Possibility to creat ponds and canals through the city where ferrys could go though.

AND, is there anything completely new that would make the SC experience better:

- Even more detail work. Like in the highway thread. Ability to choose the number of lanes on the highway. To make roundabouts and yeah, alsoo more detailed statistics about the trafic.

- A city is bound to the rules etc of a country. When you start a city. You should be able to choose what kind of country you're in, if it's very kapitalistic, communstic, liberalsocialistic or if you want it to be in a state of it's own (not neccesarely a country, think of Monaco). Furthermore, you should be able to choose if you want the state of the state (lol) to be able to change from one to another. Like getting a new government. You should if you choose that be able to follow elections every fourth year. Or if you wish you can make the condition constant (dictatorship or just so it doesnt change).

In the regionmap you should be able to see which country different parts of the region is a part of.

The state (if the city is not choosed to be a state of its own) can affect by giving extra money to the city for developement, raising funds for schools etc. But also, it puts tax on your citizens and demands on the city (and you as a mayor, if not followed might get fired).

- When playing in an onlineregion or as an own state, you should be able to sign Free trade agreements with other cities/regions/countries affecting how the market and economy developes. Also, you can boyott other cities/regions/countries. Sign other agreements etc. When playing online a lot of options should be available and important in the online gameplay.

- When playing online. Plugins should be able to be supported. Everyone should be able to start a region on maxis servers with plugins. The serverstarter should be able ad more plugins/BAT's later to the server. The plugins should also be in the server and when the regionstarter (founder) adds plugins, othe rplayers who sets up a city in the region or already have one automaticly can get em downloaded and installed so they can keep playing in the region with the same conditions.

- Be able to regulate what should be able to be developed. Like in an area you can regulate it to "Only hotel" in another, "only high tech industry". However this should give consequences. Especially if sims want to develope other businesses but they cant becouse of regulations, maybe they will protest or move out of the city (those particular sims, and other unhappy sims)

- Customisation of things you build! Like highways, not only should you be able to choose design and number of lanes. But also the traffic lights. For other things, you should be able to customize in other ways.

- Ability to sell/rent out municipal land to private companies/persons. This would create an income. When sold/rented, you could choose agreement options, like what they are allowed to do with it. Of course some things you cant regulate. Like what they should build there. But you can limit it to like, that they can build anything radioactive etc. This has it's negative consequences, and positive.

- Research, raise money for research if you ahve universities and such. After year 2010 in game, you should be able to research about hydrogen production.

Which as a result should create hydrogenproduction companies settle in the city, and petrol cars being replaced by environment friendly hydrogen cars! NO POLLUTION. Should be different types of hydrogen production companies/facilities, also such owned by city. One type could be nuclear-hydrogenproduction, another coal powered hydrogen production or solar energy powered hydrogen production. Having its advatages/disadvatages. And why not Fussion-hydrogen production, the ultimate solution. Also electrical cars and cars driven by compressed air.

- Filling stations for vechicles. The game should restrict it to like, one every XX Km, so that they dont build to many. Or maybe, they should have their own zooning option so you can choose where they should develope as mayor. They shouldnt be neccesary but improve certain traffic things i think.

__________

IDEAS YOU HAVE POSTED AND I AGREE WITH:

~Random disaster mode...some complain fires happen too often, but my complaint is that you never see random tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. popping...it can get boring in a too happy go lucky city

- I think you should be able to choose if you want random disasters when you start a game. Its great. And in online regions, the regioncreator should choose yes or no for the option. A region should be able to be more or less vulnerable for vulcano eruptions and earthquakes, or tornados etc. When creating a region you should be able to choose from a scale from 1 - 100 how likely it is for each TYPE OF DISASTER to happen, depending on how the nature looks. Preset regions should have it set.

~New ones! Chemical spills, blizzards, lead poisoning, plague, etc.

- I say, why not, however the likelyness of it happening should be affected by how the citie's condition looks like. Especially poisoning etc.

~Parades and conventions! I would like to see marathons, concerts, sports team pride, banners, and shows all over the city. Unlike SC3000, it would no longer have the auto-goto for the parade.

- For sure! I would like it to be able to be arranged by the mayor, or sims themselves! If sims want to arrange it, a proposal from the sim in question should arrive in the mayor (players) office in game. And you can accept it or prohibit it. It should have effect on sims mood and health.

~Good gravy, how about a "road sketch" mode so we can draw roads/streets that go beyond 90 and 45 degree angles? I need curved streets...

- Another great idea where we can make us of better hardware.

~Traffic lights up the wazoo: cable strung, horizontal, whatever makes it look more like a city than the default metal bar.

- Agree, read more in my ideas.

~Really, there needs to be a mixed-use zoning option. Take the John Han***** Tower for instance: people live there, people work there. SC5 should include this type of zoning.

- Sure but thats mostly for highrises, isnt it?

~Another graphics complaint: have the buildings construct from the bottom to the top (I know we've all observed that the roof is built first.)

- "minor" adjustment, big change .

I ADD TO THE IDEA

When BATing buildings, you should be able to choose core width and strucutre material (steel, concrete etc). This should make simcity 5 "know" how the construction should look like. Even more options could be added. Also, add visible workers to construction sites at least 12 hours a day.

~Agriculture is cool, but how about mariculture? I think it would be nice to have fish farming as an option.

- You can't possibly say no to the addition.

~Separate zoning for commerce: I would rather not have services and offices mixed up all the time.

- As i've said in my own ideas. You should be able to regulate zoning more in detail if you want, make regulations, but it shold have it's consequences.

~Abandonment chart. Baltimore and New York use a program called CitiStat which can point out where there are abandoned houses. Too often I have to look around for individual houses to get the skinny on neighborhood conditions.

- All ideas are good.

A "skyline view" mode. I would love to see how my cities would appear as though I were a pedestrian strolling along downtown. Just a horizontal panorama would suffice, so as to not have such a high lagging problem.

- Yes, why not be able to look around in 3D mode if you want to, at least in a "Photo mode". It can have its restrictions.

the fact that the Building Architect Tool is actually a 3d engine but makes a 2d graphic of the buildings is dull: create a wonderfull fast engine and make SC5 3d!

- Neccessary for many ideas here.

SimCity 5 must include the following transport options:

Trams

Monorail

Ferries - already available in the new version of SimCity 4 I think..

Bus network that doesn't need bus stops which take up a whole tile!! Crikey!!

QUOTE]

- Yes, trams for sure! Rails should be able to be built in on the asphalt, so you can put them on the road.

1) General

All infrastructure should be placed not only on a 2-dimensional grid as is the case now, but on a 3-dimensional one. This means that, in addition to defining the location of something North, S, E or W, you also define it by elevation. So, as someone has already pointed out, highways can be underground or at ground-level or above ground level. I suggest a 4-level scheme. This would allow you, for instance, to setup your downtown as such: Ground Level are city streets, sub level 1 are power lines, sub level 2 are highways, sub level 3 are subways and sub level 4 are pipes. These are net set in stone, you decide where you want things. For example, a subway can emerge from sub level 3 to sub level 1 and then go 2 levels ABOVE ground.

- Awesome idea, ive also thought about that. Would give a lot of advantages and possibilities. One step closer to reality.

2) Subway and other Rail

To begin, let's use the destinction of Local Transit and Long-Distance transit instead of Subway and Elevated rail and ground rail etc. As discussed above, a subway could start underground then move to ground level then the elevated. Similarly, as in NY, the main rail lines start out at ground level and then move underground. So, there should be one tool for local-rail and one tool for distance-rail. Also, no two stations are alike. They vary in size depending on demand and number of tracks. Therefore, I think instead of a station object, there should be a platform object. You build one station building, and add platforms and tracks to it. Furthermore, trains don't just randomly choose tracks. We should be able to design lines and routes and name them. Check out the New York subway map . So how in Sim City? Start with the track tool and pick a level or sublevel. Lay your track and add platforms and stations at major intersections. Then select the Route tool. Click on a track, it becomes red. Want it to switch tracks and head downtown? then select an adjacent track that later heads into the city. Sim city adds a switch to the track and the line now follows that track. Trains will then follow that route, making stops whenever there is a platform connected with that track. Confused? OK, now you can add another line, that crosses UNDER your exsisting line. ALSO, you can make express and local lines, because trains only stop where there are platforms. Setup 4 tracks and the middle two are express, and only have platforms at major stops. Then you should be able to look at a transit map and see all your lines! Just like New York! Ha.. IM me at CMation201 on AIM if you are completely confused. I also think that what rail is elevated above ground level, you should be able to build directly on top of streets.

- Good idea, however, also it should be mentioned in the game the pollution in Subways, all metalparticles gathered in the close room, gets into the lungs. So it should be more pollutionfree and friendlier to sims to build trams.

3) Busses, too, can have routes. Stops shouldn't take up an entire square, though. Instead, you select a part of a road and the bus stop tool will add little shelters on the sidewalks there. Then you can use the "Bus Terminal" building for a larger station. Oh, which reminds me, if a local transit train is underground, the subway station should be like a bus stop and only make a stairway on the sidewalk, rather than an entire square.

- Sound like busstations could be a part of my "detail work" idea .

1) General

As with infrastructure, zoning should occur on many levels as well. This means, as one person pointed out, a building can have shops, bedrooms AND offices. How? Click down to sub level 1. Zone parking here. Ground level, zone Commercial-Shopping. Level +1, zone residential. Level +2 or +3, zone Commercial-Financial. The result: a high-rise that provides parking underneath, shops facing the street, second story apartments and then offices above that.

- Simply great idea as a solution for how it could work

3) Parking

Yes, parking should be zoned as well I think. In any major city I think you'll find most parking is underground. In a smaller city, above ground in parking garages. In smaller towns, ground level. You should also be able to make a parking fare for the city, much like you would taxes for other zones. As the city grows, so does the demand for parking (which can now be represented on the graph with the other demanded zones). Another last minute thought is about on-street parking. I think you ought to be able to designate streets as parking or No-parking streets. Thoughts?

- I agree, so you dont only have parking buildings, but also parking plots and parking on streets. Maybe someting for my detail work idea, should only work on broader streets.

2) It would also make sense if we had the "God" tools availble to us from the region view. So we could carve valleys and make mountains without having to go into each city.

- How many times havn't we wished for that?

3) Lastly, the borders should be able to bend and curve. For instance, a river could be a city's border. (which reminds me I forgot to mention curved roads, too, in my last post.)

- Awesome idea, ive thought about many ways of how to create more options for player, more realistic gameplay. Never thought of this!

________

IDEAS IVE ADDED NOW (2006)

_______

- Ability to choose nightlighting on beuildings, if u want colorful nightscenes etc.

- Ability to plant/plop grown palms/trees of different sizes and with peripherals, like neonlights around them like those in STEX, ive really had a lot of fun with them in SC4.

- Memorial statues of appreciated sims in the city/region, for example if a professor accoplishes to invent "floating/flying" cars.

- More possibilities to change landscape and vegetation. As sort of an god mode with decreased possibilities and high costs. Think of Dubai and the huge landscaping being done there with the "arabian canal", the "palm islands", the planted green areas.

- And lastly... we want to be able to create addons to the game to customize it. Make it easy for us to do that from the begining.

I

I also have highway idea i will share as soon ive made a scetch of it. Its simply this new vechicle technology where cars use either antigravitational waves or strong magnetic forces to float above the ground. The highways are made out of enclosed and transparent "tubes", the upper half is where the vechicles go, and the lower half is a securityarea, so that if vechicles stop working or an accident occur, they fall down to the soft lower service part of the tubes so that the traffic above can continue as normal. The tubes are elevated above grounds on piles of your designchoice, u can also choose colours and which color the transparent facade/glass should be. The advantage is that there is no pollution, including noise. I made an illustration of it in my artclass but that artwork i left in school. Will see if i can make a new on in the computer.

[cityhawk 12]

This may or may not have already been said, but I would like to see it where the player can draw the boundaries for the city blocks; not all districts are perfectly square (as a matter of fact, a lot of them aren't perfectly square), so this would add some realism to the game IMO.

[aking88 7]

How do you think and want the onlineplay to improve in SC5?

Ive had two ideas in my previous post on page 15.

"- When playing in an onlineregion or as an own state, you should be able to sign Free trade agreements with other cities/regions/countries affecting how the market and economy developes. Also, you can boyott other cities/regions/countries. Sign other agreements etc. When playing online a lot of options should be available and important in the online gameplay.

- When playing online. Plugins should be able to be supported. Everyone should be able to start a region on maxis servers with plugins. The serverstarter should be able ad more plugins/BAT's later to the server. The plugins should also be in the server and when the regionstarter (founder) adds plugins, othe rplayers who sets up a city in the region or already have one automaticly can get em downloaded and installed so they can keep playing in the region with the same conditions."

The first one could work for offline to of course.

Right now there is not many who choose to play Simcity online. Do you think that will change, or does Simcity's future lie in offlineplay?

One more idea. It would be great if there was one, or several, virtual SIMGLOBES (planets), with different SIMCONTINENTS, different climate conditions and different countrys/states where you could start your city. There should be litterally thousands of players at least per SIMGLOBE, and there should be an ingame bulletboardfunction. A lot of agreements between countries. For example if your neighbouring city is polluting a lot, so much that even your city gets polluted, you demand him to lower pollution or you can boycott his city. To put one ex. Different countrys should put different demands on taxes, pollution etc.

Also there should be no borders for pollution as stated, only physical like in the real world. And to continue on the borderissue they should be able to be not only rectangular but shaped with the nature, plus, you should be able to buy land from the players around you and increase your cities size.

There should also be parts of the simglobes unhabited by Simkind, and those areas should be able to be bought the right to develope on and start a country of your own with your rules. Of course this should be extremely expensive. And it shouldnt be possible for one single player to start a country, but there should be a minimum of like 5-10 players, and you start your cities and cooperate about the countrys laws. Then u can invite new players to buy land in the country and start a city. Together the players ruling the country split the taxincome for countrypurposes. When you run a country of course there should be demands by the SimWideCommunity, pollution demands etc from the United Simnations.

Furthermore when you play you should have votes every week on every simglobeserver where the players vote for who has been the most interesting player this week, the most contributing to the simglobecommunity etc. And those voted highest for every week should get SIMGLOBEpoints which can be turned to special unique gifts given by maxis that only these can build, and special countryprivileges such as a lowering of taxes demanded by the state you have your city in.

Maybe you could even be able to connect all the simglobes in a starsystem or galaxy, and the richest simcities who have reached big wealth and extraordinary scientific deeds can benefit from the advantages of spacetrade or interplanetic trade.

What i think is the MOST important though. Is that when MAXIS develope this onlinesystem, they leave it open for changes and improvements which can be made throughout SIMCITY 5's lifetime.

More ideas?

[cardshark12521 1]

Hmm how about control of prices of utilities. Also, what would be great, is "single player region mode"- meaning that other cities (computer) evolved/developed at a realistic rate, in pace with you're own.

[aking88 7]

There is no computerdeveloped cities in SC4, and im happy with that. But if people want to have that included in SC5, i would like to have possibility to choose if i want to have computerdeveloped cities or not in my game.

[mightygoose 92]

so now that EA have officially announced SC5 is in the pipeline we just gotta pray previous lots are compatible...

[aking88 7]

Why? SC5 will take the franchise to a new level, and the custom content will have to be taken to a new level to (in terms of detail etc)

[addax61024 6]

What if lots are constructed in a different way aking? You obviously weren't here at the start of simtropolis/sc4. Things on the modding/lot creating front were decidedly primitave and what may now seem as fairly standard mods were seen as major breakthroughs with a bunch of dedicated folk scratching their brains over the coding of the game - and everyone else being eternally grateful.

[aking88 7]

I know there has been put a lot of work to it, and it has lifted the SC4RH experience to the heights its in today. But it will be very hard to make it compatible with SC5 if SC5 is to use a whole new game engine, have new functions for plots etc. And i want a new gameengine, not just a new version SC4.

But this discussion has given one more important idea. To make SC5 with the goal that it should be able to use the content created for SC5 also for SC6 and coming games. however that would be challenging, as we cant be sure about what the future will hold.

[dogscarletnyc 0]

Landmarks for SC5

1. Eiffel tower

2.Sydney Opera House

3.Sears tower

4.AMP tower

5.Transamerica Pyramid

6.of course the ones that have been included in SC4

7.Petronas Twin towers

8.Taipei 101

9.One canada square

10.More bridges

End of list.

[aking88 7]

Another quick idea from me. The measuring of Purschasing power in cities populations. Should be affected by wealth etc. And effect demand. At least if you create a marketeconomybased city that is ^^.

[Nightshiver00 1]

Some quick ideas stolen from recent gaming with the Sims 2.

-Full rotation and zoom. That would be very, very cool.

-Possibly a Sims 2 type of building design program, where it is not as complicated as the BAT. Usually any Dick, Tom, or Harry can make a decent looking building in the Sims.

[aestiva 0]

I want to be able to control my city's shape - define its boundaries. I hate being bound to a grid pattern, it destroys the realism. 

-Aestiva

[buckeyefreak 0]

I think that the current version is almost perfect. Obviously upgrad in graphics would be great but in my mind not exactly required as most things look pretty impressive. I would love to see graphics in the range of some of the photoshoped pics that so many people are excellent at making in game screen shots look like a post card. Other than graphics though region play needs a massive overhaul. I can't stand having to grow other cities to create demand, or rather I hate how un-userfriendly the process is......save city, exit city, load a new city, make sure borders line up terrain, make sure you zone correctly and the correct buildings grow or in region view the border is clearly defined. I think that a true city should be able to incorporate other cities and although not necessarily be able to load bigger maps, but maybe to be able to see the borders of the surrounding tiles and not just the edge bordered cities. Maybe about 20 tiles or so all the way around the current city. I think that if the whole region advanced in time at the same rate things would line up better. If you go from one city you have been playing for 100 years and now want to create another city next door, all it really does is create demand for the current city. I think it should be more complex but that is a post in itself. I like what spore could possibly bring to the table with the new "learning" code that Will Wright talked about. I also think that the grid needs to go. I honestly do not believe it would be that difficult to have that in the game. With 360 degrees of rotation though the graphics card might be a little taxed. I would also like to see things evolve evenly. When a building grows in simcity it can be quickly replaced by something else. I think that should be taken away and once something grows it is there till the mayor destroys it. Nowhere on earth does a house get built just for another house to replace it less that a year later. I would also love to see some sort of auto update feature for custom content. Much like what spore does. However, I would like to have a choice. You are presented with what is new since your last update and you have the choice to get it or not to get it. I have way to much to say but I will end it now. Maybe come back later and put more down.

[aking88 7]

Buckeyfreak:

I like one of your ideas. The ability to merge several cities in a region intro one large. that would be awesome. About the time going at the same pace. I think thats easy to do for onlineplay, but for singleplayerplay it would have to be, as you say, quite an advanced system.

I do not agree though that the current version is perfect, a lot can be done better, not least the ability to build in full 3D, in other words define at what height to build something (underground etc). And also to be able to plop stuff on existing plops.

About the grid i think its helpful but maybe needs to be taken to a new level, user defined shapes, layers etc. Maybe you should be able to draw the plotsizes yourself.

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Bring your other ideas here to ^^