Where has all the realism gone?

[Dewm 177]

I don't mind cartoonish textures as long as I can eventually get "Texture Pack" modifications or plugins. The shape and models are also exaggerated and caricaturized.

--Ocram

This!

And I don't expect this option right off the bat, that's why I don't care for the "art style" but its not a big draw-back for me either.

[Essex 322]

The "cartoonish" acquisition towards SC4 only came about when SC2013 came a long anyways. It was when the old skool Simcity players started voicing their opinions about the cartoonish graphics and limited possibilities of the new Simcity that the majority who liked the idea of a total irrelevant "reboot" of the franchise all of the sudden had to call SC4 "cartoonish" and "not realistic".

SC4 was always intend to please the people who played the Simcities before it and liked it's realism and freedom of choice. Something the new Simcity is totally lacking.

*Might I ad that I don't specifically mind the cartoonish graphics, it's SC2013 core design flaws that irritate me the most and won't make me buy it. It might say Maxis, but I have a hard time finding it.

  Edited January 20, 2013 by CaptCity  

[Bipin 3,403]

What I'm most concerned about is how much modding power we will be able to have in our hands. I'm sure the developers at least have some idea as to what we'll be able to do. I just hope they don't pull another Battlefield 3 on us; getting our hopes up that we can make significant modifications to the game, only to say "nope, can't be done" once everyone has bought their copy and they've made their money. I'd much prefer a realistic answer that doesn't go in circles, even if it's "no, because of ____" I'd still like to hear their honest response now instead of much later.

[newyorka 26]

Simcity has never had realistic graphics.

Simcity has always had an cartoony style to it.

Simcity (original) had cartoony graphics (just look at it the picture above)

Simcity 2000 looks more cartoonish than the original (pictured above)

Simcity 3000 looks just as cartoonish as Simcity 2000 (pictured above)

Simcity 4 is the ugliest version impart because they used a bland artstyle.

What's more cartoonish than a UFO attacking your city? Seriously I'm asking!

Simcity 2013 returned us back to the Simcity 2000/Simcity 3000 look.

I personally love the cartoonish look because it fits the game better than a dull realistic look.

Here is a new feature you can use in Simcity 2013:

I think the color filters are cool.

But it after spending a decade moding Simcity 4 to your liking, many of you will never be happy with a new Simcity unless it is a Simcity 4 2.0!

I agree with you for sim city 4 and Sim City 3000, because you have to admit, since the games were made in different time periods, the graphics got better except in Sim City 2013. Sim City 2013 looks really cartoony and SC4 looks more realistic.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

What looks really realistic, and somewhat boring, is Cities XL. Compare its scale, proportions, and colors to that of SimCity 4. SimCity 4 is stylized. City Life (2006), SimCity Societies, and SimCity 2013 are 3D and cartoony.

--Ocram

[rctshack 182]

I truthfully believe scale and lack of realistic focus are what killed this game for most of us. Some people are talking about how if we were younger that this game would seem better, but the truth is that we have all grown up 10 years... YAH... we have, and so has EA. If they want to make a game for younger people, make it and name it something else. Don't come and take a franchise that has a loyal fan-base who will invest in the game and work to make it better, and then throw a simple looking unrealistic unmoddable lacking game at us and then use the excuse that it needs to sell to the younger crowd. I don't buy that excuse.

Size is the real overall issue. Nothing is realistic because everything is scaled down so much. There is no need for mass transit or highways or even actual realistic service coverage when your city is 2km long. I walk 1 1/2 everyday to the subway here in NYC... and that's just to get to my transit, and then I take it about 8 miles into the heart of the city where i walk another 1/2km to work. By this point I would be out of the region in this new game. So yah, the OP is dead on when he says realism was thrown out the door. I don't buy sim games so that I can create a pretty gambling street or a guitar town. I buy the game to simulate a new large realistic city that I create... which isn't possible with this new game.

Also it's obviously that modding won't be real... it will be dumbed down and very limited so we will never get the community that SC4 had. They worked hard to make every aspect of this new game the opposite of what any real Sim City fan wanted. They took a cherished game and turned it into child's play and took out every core feature that make it actually sim city. Nothing will be like an actual real world city. It will just be an illusion of what they want you to think cities are. It's like the designers have been locked in a windowless room for 10 years and somehow think they have made an actual simulation of a city when it's glaringly obvious that these cities are beyond unrealistic. What the hell are the 1/2 mile green spaces between each city? Why is a highway something thats foreign to them? Why is density dependent on road size? Not realistic at all. The list goes on and on and ON.

I'm livid about this game if you can't tell. This should have been a different game. This is Sim Town... or a larger Sim Cities Societies. This game was not created with any fan in mind, it was created with MMO in mind. Something no one but the execs at EA wanted because it's a feature that controls the customer.I don't blame the designers... they are very aware of the unrealistic nature of this game. I blame the company execs who chose to ruin a franchise because they thought they could make slightly more profit off of controlling access to this game and storing it on their servers, along with pandering to 12 year olds who want to build a city in the shape of a flower or guitar.

[Vorret 49]

I kinda have to agree with what many people posted in here. I watched the "beta tutorial video" and it didn't feel like SimCity. There are some nice stuff and some bad stuff.

I don't mind the graphics, I think "cartoony" expands the possibility of a game and hides imperfections that are too noticable when you

downscale the game for people with slower computers, nor do I mind the online only as most game I play are multiplayer so, meh on that.

What bothers me is, like most of us, the size of the maps, as was explained earlier, the density simply makes no sense and having 20ish sims living in one house is completly unrealistic and breaks the immersion.

[MPleines 17]

During the golden age of simming, a large part of the gaming population were early adopters of computers, and likely more interested in computer science, physics and technology. Errr...nerds, if you will. Simulation was a new thing, and companies (Maxis, Microprose, SubLogic etc) were trying to outdo each other in this exciting field. Anything from flightsims to virtual anthills was hot! Even if the hardware was extremely limited in today's terms, the games felt deep and required a lot of involvement-some felt more like a job than a game...

Today, it has all changed. Everyone has a PC, or a tablet or a smartphone. This has, in effect, diluted the audience for games. More and younger kids, more 'casual' players. The hardware has improved tremendously, but graphics and audio are grabbing more performance and development budget. And, of course, everything is going 'social'. In the meantime too, the gaming industry has become more mature, with more power for the financial and marketing departments and more emphasis on making big bucks for investors faster...less room for the developers to create what they really would have wanted.

[Vorret 49]

It's just a matter of time until we see a kickstarter projet with a true city simulation pop up.

[pyanodon 218]

It's just a matter of time until we see a kickstarter projet with a true city simulation pop up.

Man....im saving money to throw all when this day happens. To say the true, i dunno why there´s no citybuilding game asking for kickstart there yet. If someone make to a citybuilding game what they did to Planetary Anihilation...wow.

[MPleines 17]

Don't get me wrong - despite it all - I think the Maxis guys have done an excellent job in the glassbox engine and the visualization of SC2013 - I just wish we could enjoy them at the proper scale!!!

[Xenocity 343]

@rctshack

Many fans and gamers were equally as unhappy when Simcity 4 attempted realism.

Maxis has traditionally given all their games colorful artstyle at the expense of realism.

So many of us including myself are glad to see Maxis getting back to its roots and going back to the colorful imaginative artstyle.

I can safely say I cringe everytime I play Simcity 4 and see the lack of an imagintive arstyle.

Also we've had almost 2 decades to prepare for this game.

Will Wright the creator of Simcity openly talked about having a Simcity one day where all the cities/regions would connect to the Simworld and work together.

I mean every new Simcity game had more interconnectivity with the neighboring cities and regions.

The MMO step was the logical next step.

Seriously folks Simcity has always been a simulator not a city builder first and foremost.

Anyways if you want realistic graphics buy Cities XL!

The Cities XL series was created with the intent to recreate and build realistic cities.

I still don't understand why anyone would think or expect a Maxis game to have realisitc graphics?

[dysonraf 37]

Couldnt agree more xenocity...

[efgrib 45]

why do you still want discuss the scale? ocean himself said enough to that topic: yes, it's to small, yes we will try to make it bigger asap. what else you want to hear?

[Cob92 360]

why do you still want discuss the scale? ocean himself said enough to that topic: yes, it's to small, yes we will try to make it bigger asap. what else you want to hear?

Talk is cheap, and today's gamers are skeptical that the developers really want to produce quality games, and there is doubt they will follow through on promised improvements. I agree, the scale is a legitimate reason to complain about this game. Some of the screens make the city look about the size of SC4's smallest town. I can handle 2x2, no problem. After all, in SC4, I can squeeze a subway network, freeways, and an international airport into a 2x2 city. A 1x1 city can fit maybe one interchange and that's it. And I am generally a supporter of the new SimCity; I like Glassbox, I like the art style, and I like the global market. What I don't like is the tiny city.

[CaptCity 4,927]

Because they disrupted the intent and direction of the topic, a few of the recent posts were removed. Remember to keep comments on the intended topic.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I wouldn't mind using 10 cities maps that were all 2x2 to accomodate 200,000. In fact, I did the same in SC4 quite a lot, one central mid-denisty city bleeding out into suburbs and then agriculture, overall all those maps together would be several hundred thousand people worth. Even the continuity of having all the cities right next to eachother made it extremely realistic. The region-view was really the pride and glory of that game.

Now the trailers for this show a dense downtown squeezed into a 2x2 map, and it bleeds out into....... nothingness. You're right, they nuked the fridge realism-wise in a few aspects. This could have easily been avoided if they had thought about it differently instead of sacrificing realism and making too similar to the Sims for it's own good.

On a side note: SimCity Societies was a complete joke, I don't even consider that part of the same game series... Most other people agree, since this game is still called SC5 by many.

[MPleines 17]

Talk is cheap, and today's gamers are skeptical that the developers really want to produce quality games, and there is doubt they will follow through on promised improvements.

Oh, the developers are willing enough, I'm sure. It's corporate management that's holding things back, I think. Same outcome though, but hopefully not. If the game is successful, hopefully they will cut the devs more slack to improve things.

After all, in SC4, I can squeeze a subway network, freeways, and an international airport into a 2x2 city

Well, so much for SC4 realism...

As such, SC2013 is probably more realistic-but yes, we do want more space to make these things possible!

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Those color filters are going to save the day for us. As long as the music in the game actually sounds mature and serious (as opposed to, let's say the cheese-ball music used in the Sims 3) I'll be happy. The SC4 Soundtrack was beyond-amazing, especially the God-Mode selection, never once took that game non-seriously, mainly because of that.

Sure, the game may look a bit cartoony, but that's why the color-filters are there. To cater to the needs of all players. If the music doesn't sound too great either, I'll just drown it out with the God-Mode or my own playlist.