Future of SimCity Official Discussion Thread

[mrboo001 12]

I got 2 ideas now, may come up with some more. They deal with some of my biggest problems with the game

Instead of builtding ploppted builtdings instantaneously, and take money out of your coffers, what I do instead would be to make it layer, waiting for you to confirm it being built.

Example: Let's say, your getting to the point where your going to built a new stretch of highway, but can't afford it right now. Unlike before, where it was built and paid for automatically, you could lay it down without having to worried about it blowing up your current avenue or spending the thousands of dollars of blowing up mistakes. Once your done, you can close the mode, and continue simming like before you went into that mode. Once you have the money, or your city needs it, you go back to that mode, click that stretch of highway, and click "Build it!". It will be built, and you do only have to pay for the highway itself, and bulldozing whatever building what there or building in the way of the highway, NOT for any of the mistakes.

Basically, its like your planing on paper before you acculatly built it. Like what City Planners do in real life!

In Sim City 4, the region is broken up into unchangeable "tiles", so you can only see part of the region (for the sake of our PCs not blowing up). It also acts as the city limits. What I'd do differently is have the city limits and the view area speaptarrer.

With the city limits, it would simply slip the region into different municipality (towns, cities, suburbs) for the sake of management. You could also have the entire region as 1 city, if you please.

With viewing limits, you'd only see a part of the region, but not in tiles, but in a "window", determined mostly by how dense that part of the region is, and how powerful you PC is. The less denese, and the more powerful, the larger the window, the more denese, and less powerful, the smaller the window. If you need to make a bridge, but your window doesn't go that far, you can simply move the window over, or you can move the border of the window. If you want, you can save cetrain windows.

Example: Your recreating New York City. You can have saved "windows" over Manhattan Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, New Jeseary Area, etc. And when you want to build the Brooklyn Bridge, you can simply move the window or border over slightly to get it over the other side of the river.

[KeanoManu 42]

I guess this have been mentioned before but it would be cool if we could multi-zone.

Zone residental, commercial AND for example health in one zone. That little medical clinic.. At least here in Stockholm, those are most often built in the same building as residental and commercial. My local police station are in the same building as some commercials and so on. That would be very usefull in downtowns.

Maybe we should have the usual zones as it is and then we can have an extra mode where we can set up our own creations. Choose what things that should grow in that building and maybe how many % of the building. For example 75% residental, 10% Commercial & 10% Health and then the capacity of everything are after that.

[star.torturer 0]

i have a document in the making that i think you lot will like, it can be posted in a bit, it is quite a elaborate attempt at city building, and oh how i would love to play it.

Main point, new game should be opensource in parts

[BlackTiger(SC4 deluxe owner) 0]

If they are making SC5(which they will as i've seen it)I think they shud have roundabouts,gasstations,large busstation,parking lots,more casinos,different kinds of police fire and medical stations and e.t.c srr if i bothered but i think it sounds good

[aking88 7]

Gasstations isn't a municipal issue.

[patriots_1228 51]

you can find all those things on the STEX, just search. i have at least 5 gas stations, 10 casinos, roundabouts from the NAM, 3 bus stations from the STEX, parking lots, and tons of police, fire, and medical buildings. just search!

welcome to ST

[tonka89 0]

I think that the new sim city5 should have to be atleast 3d, like citylife the game. And seasons such as it snows, blizzards, etc maybe some rain make it realistic. And you can play as your sim.

[elew4too 77]

I just have a whole bunch of stuff in no particular order. I think that there should be a realistic economy. Such as major industries. There should be 3 different types of cities, towns, villages, and cities. The town would be the smallest. I would also like the zoning of airports and seaports back. It would be nice if the cities weren't all square and if they were able to annex other cities. I also agree with many people that you should be able to zone all civic services. Add a junior high school too. And have pop ups saying something like "a university wants to move to your city, do you approve?". Then you should be able to zone the university. You should be about to make different entertainment lots also. Parkways and zone-able parks would also be nice. An option to choose the number of lanes streets and roads have would also be nice. There should be one way streets as well as one way roads. There should also be school districts.

[KeanoManu 42]

Gas stations can easily be added if they only give us the options to customise the menu by our own. Then we can make our own gas stations with it's own menu-place. Of course that can be done now too but you easily forgets it when everything is in a big mess.

One thing with traffic they should add for us to deal with is the parking issue. That's proberly the biggest issue for most cities nowadays. If i remember it right now so did my town close the local firestation and shall build a parking garage over it now. Especially big cities have problems with this. But i wouldn't cry if they add some special features considering gas stations too

Patriots: The gas stations you have doesn't have any function in-game. Them are just eye-candy/regular commercials. I guess he meant that them should have a function. And i agree with that, but it's not the most important thing to add but it would be nice if they do.

[rctshack 182]

A 3D animator in my class here in San Francisco is interning at EA and is working on the Sims 3, but he said the other day they asked him to build some interesting large buildings that he said were obviously not for The Sims. I asked him if it was for the new Sim City and he said "Well... they don't tell us what we are building for, they just give us sketches and we build them. But even if I did know, I signed a contract and wouldn't be able to tell you any details." and that's all he would say. TRUST ME... I BEGGED for details. But common sense... large buildings being rendered in 3D? Sounds like Sim City to me.

This made me excited!

[KeanoManu 42]

Well, it doesn't have to be SC5.

Aren't EA doing action games too? The buildings in SC5 aren't so big, or with big, did you mean like skyscrapers in small format or houses that acctually were big?

[rctshack 182]

True... but this guy is a gamer himself, so he would probly know... but he isn't budging with the information... so it doesn't matter anyways.

[grinch337 1]

I would like to see the region view encompass an entire globe similar to what you'd find with google earth. On the region view, you would be able to zoom into your cities and then ultimately select them to play. Also, with the global view on sim city, online play would be interesting as different players would influence different parts of the globe (ie soviet union, USA)...

You, as a user would be able to create nations with specific governments, cultures, architecture, and climates that make geographical sense.

You would also be able to truly create sleepy, remote towns, and desolate roads that go for hundreds of miles through rural areas.

Trading with far-off nations could influence the culture and architecture of your city as well.

Also, with the global view, vegetation would differ not only by altitude, but by latitude as well. In the northern reaches of the globe, you would have tundra and alpine forests to build your cities within, and towards the equitorial regions of the globe, you would have deserts, tropical islands, and savannas.

Architecture could also be influenced by latitude. So each building set would only appear in certian regions on the globe.

As far as graphics go, if EA stayed with the status quo (but ditched the grid), I'd be happy.

[KeanoManu 42]

As i said before, if we'll get a whole forum for SC5 instead of one giant thread, it may be some posting too..

They have to fix some bugs too.. Like that one when they never use highways. I always have to cut all road connections 'cause my sims uses them instead of the highway. In real life, highways are busy and full of cars but in SC4 them are empty.

[LTParis 1]

I think that since there seems to be a new direction brewing, I would hop that it would trend towards this:

Multiple 'types' of play. Simple / Moderate / Complex

Smaller total region size if it allows for more micro-city details

More flexibility in road and RCI designs

More random 'realistic' disasters

Better terraforming engine

[rctshack 182]

hopefully this Nintendo DS thing ISN'T what he meant by going back to it's roots... I will be very unhappy.

[songmen 0]

WOWO...

[songmen 0]

WOWO...

http://www.simcitycentral.net/2007/02/16/simcity-5-this-year/

[NAR 0]

As a mayor in SC5 I would love to be able to buy LOTS and build them like Simtower (if you guys remember that one) it would be nice to incorporate such feature in 3D

[Micah 16]

songmen: What game is that from?

[Micah 16]

bump

[twodollars 0]

Originally posted by: songmen

WOWO...

quote>

 

Thats a shot from Windows Live maps with the 3d enabled

[NAR 0]

Sorry for the delay Mitch
It is an older Game by Maxis where you build vertically in 2D, it is very interesting though
See attached screen shots

[LivingInThePast 364]

Originally posted by: rctshack A 3D animator in my class here in San Francisco is interning at EA and is working on the Sims 3, but he said the other day they asked him to build some interesting large buildings that he said were obviously not for The Sims. I asked him if it was for the new Sim City and he said "Well... they don't tell us what we are building for, they just give us sketches and we build them. But even if I did know, I signed a contract and wouldn't be able to tell you any details." and that's all he would say. TRUST ME... I BEGGED for details. But common sense... large buildings being rendered in 3D? Sounds like Sim City to me.

This made me excited!quote>

I hate to pop your bubble, it could be for other games that require city like backdrops, like "The Godfather".

[rctshack 182]

I agree LivingInThePast, but wouldn't he has just said "No" when i asked if he was working on Sim City 5? It was very suspicious.

And Songmen, that image is definitely the transbay terminal area os downtown san francisco... but their is not that much dirt construction stuff there.... and google maps CAN'T turn buildings on at angles unless they are just grey boxes showing the height and widths. So what is this a picture of? Because that would be an amazing sim city 5... but obviously there have been no screens yet.

[rekrab 0]

Originally posted by: rctshack

and google maps CAN'T turn buildings on at angles unless they are just grey boxes showing the height and widths. quote>

That's probably why twodollars said Windows Live maps with the 3d enabled, not google maps...

And regarding someone not saying "No" about a release, this is why this thread keeps growing. Nobody wants to believe that a SC5 isn't coming, and nobody has said "No" there isn't going to be one.  The problem is, nobody has hinted at a new one coming out.  Even the DS version that was released was a remake, so if they can't even add anything new to that version, I doubt they are allocating any resources to a full remake, especially since the market has been flooded with bad dumbed down simulators like CityLife.  I personally think they will just continue to milk their cash cow The Sims.  Just my opinion though, for all I know it could come out by the end of the year like some sites are speculating, but without any hint from EA yet, I doubt it.  They announced the DS version a LONG time ago, so they obviously aren't that worried about secrets or suprising anyone.

[LivingInThePast 364]

SimCity 5 is either in development hell--4 years away from a SimCity release, there's always either a real sequel on the shelves, or there's mockups and info available. Let's see...

SimCity 1989 + 4 years=1993, SimCity 2000 for Mac and DOS

SimCity 2000 1993 + 4 years=1997, 3D SC3K pics

SimCity 3000 1999 + 4 years=2003, SC4 out (2002 had mockups and new info)

SimCity 4 2003 + 4 years=2007, nothing

SC5 must be revolutionary yet evolutionary, simple yet complex, and beautiful yet processor-saving.

It's hard.

Either that, or SC5 is long dead.

Yes, Maxis did mention SimCity 5 was indeed under development...in 2004.

If you look at this news report, where EA "confirmed" SimCity 5...

...they said "a new SimCity game". Just because its a new SimCity game, doesn't mean its SimCity 5. It could be SimCity DS or a knockoff a la Sims Life Stories or The Urbz. So, stop holding your breath and repeatedly stating SC5 is indeed on the way.

It's vaporware. Like Duke Nukem Forever.

And know what, people?

Google Earth 4 HAS textured buildings.

[DARKO 3]

You know what I hate.

People who rain on the parades of others.

Some of you have very little faith. You remind me of people who never actually believe something untill its been proved like a zillion times.

Since the birth of this series a virtual 3d installment of this game has been wished by nearly all who have played this game. Whether SC5 arrives or not, this will always be the case.

Threads like this grow because of the love of this game.

It's not like your saying anything profound or anything. I think most people understand what your saying. 

Some of you are on crack though if you expect people to be content with SC4 for enternity.

[LivingInThePast 364]

I believe you are talking of me, and first of all:

a) I am not totally denying SimCity 5's existence. It might be there.

b) I am not "raining on others parades" and have "little faith". I gather proof that Santa Claus is not real and tell a 10-year-old that, even though he might not believe me, it is the truth.

c) I didn't say anything "profound", I'm just restating what others have said: there is no proof that SimCity 5 is in development as we speak.

d) If Maxis helps us make SimCity better and not stall hopelessly on SC5, then the secrets can be cracked, and we could have a truly 3D SimCity. Just look at the Big Dig lots, for example. Wouldn't you love to drive through that in 3D, even if it was SC4?

You people think that SimCity 5 is like thinking there is life out there.

The answer is not 0, but .0005%. So, while I'm not denying SC5, I am strongly doubting it.

[njdevi66 12]

I also been wondering if we will see another simcity expansion or a new game. I just cant see them ending it, i mean simcity is what started it all for them, its their flagship aint it?

I like everyones ideas, but only 1 hasn't been mentioned and that is era. I would like to be able to built cities that were during different eras of time. Like rebuilding Athens, or Rome. Add in different cultures to the game, china, american, european buildings. The idea of building a region or country with 2 different cultures or 3 is very tasteful. Each culture would have its own style of buildings, landmarks and others. It wouldnt really have any warfare abilities where you could declare war on a city near you, but it could have its own style military lots. This is a feature i would love to see put in, or maybe an expansion.