One more Expansion Pack...if only.

[Prophet42 1,503]

I have been splitting my time between playing SC4 and SC2013.  I still like SC4 better, but do like the futuristic features that the 'Cities of Tomorrow' expansion pack brings to SC2013.  Makes me think that, man, if only Maxis had released one more expansion pack for SC4 like 'Cities of Tomorrow', that would have been awesome.  They could have maybe added it as one more tile set and include advanced utilities, transportation, arcologies, mega-structures, etc...  I think that would have made SC4 almost perfect.

 

I guess after Rush Hour came out, they abandoned SC4 and focused more on The Sims.  Oh well, if only....

[CapTon 592]

Mmmmm.... I may have to disagree with you on that one. I don't think the MegaTowers would fit in nicely, but maybe anything else Cities of Tomorrow has to offer .

[Compdude787 916]

Personally, I'm not interested in creating futuristic cities (I'm not really a big fan of the futuristic city concepts presented on here, especially the architecture, which is just bad), so I think the game is fine with just the Rush Hour Expansion Pack.

Actually, we already have a second expansion pack; it's called the NAM, and although it isn't officially the second expansion pack, I often like to think of it that way.

[Lost Realist 762]

I couldn't really care less about futuristic content, to be honest. If there had been another expansion pack, there would have been enough game mechanical things to be repaired and enough things blatantly lacking in the base game to be added before moving on to another tileset from the future.

[NielsC007 499]

The agriculture aspect of the game is rather limited. To my knowledge they wanted to overhaul it in the base game, but they didn't have enough time and had to release the agriculture system that we've got now in the final release. If they did make another expansion I think it'd focus on agriculture. But we've already got a mod that does that of course, the SPAM!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Futuristic stuff can be got in the SimMars package.  There has been some serious work to bring it back to Earth as well.  To run SimMars I would create a new account because it really changes everything and current plugins may be invalidated.  This way you can have both environments.  Creating a new account is not rocket science.  You don't have to reinstall the game, but make sure nothing goes into the Program Files ... \Maxis area since this is global to all accounts.

 

As for future concept buildings, I think in the future tall buildings and all that will be out.  More environmentally friendly things will be the style as we decide we'd better look after our only interstellar base.  I expect many more off-the-grid efforts in the near future.

[1131989 223]

Thanks to mods, SC4 probably has as many expansion packs' worth of material as any of the first three Sims games.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

True.  However, if you want to talk expansion pack, what about a commerce pack?  This would require some changes to the main code and can't readily be done without doing it.

 

Add supply chain management to the existing game, and give over the Rush Hour tropism.  Instead, a general commerce simulation with both continuous and discrete manufacturing, JIT type industries supplied by plants further upstream in the supply chain that could be either of the two types.  Products could be bulk (gasoline, oil) or discrete (hair brushes, baseball bats).  Basically a bill of materials processing system in miniature.

 

A thing like this is pretty much guaranteed to eat all the cores of the biggest PC you've ever imagined.  A BOM processor has to have a data base to support it, and each plant would have to have its own.  Now this could be a fun kind of thing; but it is probably beyond the scope of most gamers.

 

Think of what goes into some products and you'll see how difficult it can be.  A baseball glove has discrete and continuous components.  Not only is there the leather shell, and the padding materials but there is an indefinite amount of thread/binding material.  And of course, they come in sizes.  Such fun.  I've been involved in this one in real life and the BOM guys we had working on this were yanking out their hair in handfuls.  Oh yes, and there are conditioning oils too.

[CapTon 592]

Honestly, SC4 players like the game the way it is even with its flaws and bugs. The mods have created new opportunities and have allowed players to spread their creativity in an innumerable amount of ways.

 

The events that have occurred involving SC4 have played out nicely, leading to where the game stands today: one of high regard and stature. If there had been another expansion pack, who knows where the game could have gone? It could've created more flaws and bugs and ruined the game for some, or it could've taken the game to another level in which it would be held in even higher regard.

 

I'm happy with SC4 the way it is now. I'm glad there weren't any more official expansion packs which could have led to the downfall of the game. The way the game is now is perfectly fine for so many people .

[Nesral Sredna 62]

As Moose says, there is an unofficial mod called SimMars that is pretty futuristic

The best mods are quite often those made by the communities themselves..

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You might call what has happened "crowd programming".  Every mod is a computer program of a kind, even if you only work with the Lot Editor.  What you do gets eventually translated into machine code.

 

Funny. most people don't think of it that way, but computer programming is no different than constructing an agenda for a meeting or a menu for a meal.  It is just a list of things for the computer to do.  All the arcanum that has grown up around it since the 1930s with the development of the Von Neuman machine (stored program) is just window dressing.  We wouldn't be able to write such snazzy stuff if we still had to write every line of assembly code by hand.  Computer language statements are simply macro instructions that generate machine code.  We've come a long way, baby, in less than a hundred years.

[APSMS 1,893]

Futuristic stuff can be got in the SimMars package.  There has been some serious work to bring it back to Earth as well.  To run SimMars I would create a new account because it really changes everything and current plugins may be invalidated.  This way you can have both environments.  Creating a new account is not rocket science.  You don't have to reinstall the game, but make sure nothing goes into the Program Files ... \Maxis area since this is global to all accounts.

Actually, the SimMars Package is self-contained.

 

You need the base game, of course, but everything else, from music to plugins to Regions is separate, and can be run on the same account as your standard installation with no ill effects. That's one of the beautiful aspects of the SimMars mod (which, for reference, I haven't used for about a year now); I think it's pretty cool that way, esp. since it suddenly becomes a much more attractive download.

[MandelSoft 2,775]

Frankly, what most people want right now for SimCity 4 is this:

 

- Core fixes (better error handling, so a CTD occurs less, solving the Puzzle-piece-over-TE-lot-CTD bug...)

- Remove some odd limitations (like residentials requiring car access and ploppable residential abandonment).

- 64-bit port and multi-core support so our favourite simulator can benefit from modern processing technology.

- Maybe a native version for Linux and Mac with the same capabilities as the Windows version (some parts of the NAM make the Mac-version crash; these parts are removed in the Mac installer).

 

These are things modders can't solve themselves. I think most of us want to lay down some money to repurchase the game with this upgrade. We have a myriad of buildings at the STEX and we don't need sci-fi stuff (because from what I've seen, gritty and old-style cities are more beautiful).

 

Best,

Maarten

[APSMS 1,893]

<snip>

 

We have a myriad of buildings at the STEX and we don't need sci-fi stuff (because from what I've seen, gritty and old-style cities are more beautiful).

Well, maybe not more beautiful...but certainly more interesting.

 

Of course, we can make our own "tilesets" if you are willing to do lots of editing in the Reader. I'm kinda partial to sci-fi dystopias, personally.

 

Bladerunner or The Fifth Element, anyone?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Bladerunner or Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

[Terring 6,476]

There is already a futuristic expansion for Simcity 4. It's , an expansion so futuristic that takes the game to the red planet. No "futurized" ugly brown boxes, but pure Martian modular architecture.

 

We have a myriad of buildings at the STEX and we don't need sci-fi stuff...

What? We have billions and trillions of historical and modern realistic buildings and city journals, but only a few sci-fi stuff.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

If you want to see a real future city in sc4, go check out these links. We don't need an official EA/Maxis expansion pack, we make our own!

http://community.sim...al/3474-ionica/

http://community.sim...9-invinia-2250/

http://community.sim...esmaran-empire/

http://community.sim...e-41-anno-2065/

we don't need sci-fi stuff

 

We you sure don't. However, your obsolete opinion will not stop us from making sci-fi stuff.

[MandelSoft 2,775]

Fine. The SimCity 4 engine and the BAT will allow you to do that, that's great But calling my opinion "obsolete" is not really polite. Beside, my point still stands that we probably want essential engine fixes rather than new content, because we can already creat that on our own...

[CapTon 592]

But calling my opinion "obsolete" is not really polite.

Agreed let's not start an argument here. We're all just presenting our opinions.

[Terring 6,476]

Oh, so you were talking about expansion packs. Sorry Mandel for the misunderstanding. I guess midnight replying was not such a good idea.

Back on topic. If I was in Maxis, I would released those expansion packs:

Rush Hour
Bug fixes
Engine upgrade
Add all the original stuff from Rush Hour, plus everything from NAM
Better and more practical version of UDI

Gods and Kings
Bug fixes
Engine upgrade
Add a huge variety of historic buildings and infrastructures, allowing the construction of old-styled cities, from ancient Athens and medieval Tokyo to Victorian London and Cold War Soviet cities

Brave New World
Bug fixes
Engine upgrade
Add a huge variety of futuristic buildings and infrastructures, allowing the construction of future-styled cities, from Venus Project to Blade Runner
Add resource-based economy
Add 2 new environments, Moon and Mars

 

With those expansion packs, I think we'll all agree

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Sorry, Terring.  Those amount to new games mostly.  I'd happily settle for the following:

 

Bug fixes

64-bit decor

multi-threading

 

We don't need any new bugs.  Doing the above will probably have its own set. 

 

The only other thing I want from Maxis is portability.  The time for MS-only programs is fading.  It is too late to be on the bleeding edge, but it is good not to be an also  ran.  A portable program that could run on OS/X, Linux and Android would expand the sales considerably, especially the last.

[dogma555 187]

SC2013 is a sick joke of a parody of simcity.

 

The worldwide SC4 community has created enough to make approximately 500 expansion packs for the game. Maxis laid the foundation, the fans took it from there.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Good point.  In fact there are several cohesive custom sets than could be considered to be expansion packs.  Simpeg sort of specializes in those.  And we mustn't overlook NAM.  SC4 Devotion also has a number of interesting things in groups.  There are others, but these are the only ones I use.

[GrijzePilion 10]

Terring made some solid points, albeit a bit far-fetched.

 

• Optimizing the engine (if not further developing it) wouldn't be possible on a large scale (rendering, the grid system...) but things like the UI or visual FX could be improved.
• Better UDI...very possible. One mistake Maxis has made many a time is leaving out content or rushing games. We completely lost SimMars and SimsVille due to restructuring - not even mentioning the 3D engine SC3K was supposed to run on. SC4 was to have more buildings, and, very likely a weather simulation. The The Sims franchise has seen this quite a few times as well - cars in the TS2 base game, clothes shopping in TS3, and the damned toddlers/pools thing TS4 is being butchered for.
• Resources? The Anno series does it (SimCity 2013 as well), and although I don't think it really belongs in a SimCity game, it could work. SC4 bears an almost striking resemblance to Chris Sawyer's Locomotion.
• More tile packs. Very possible, and an easy choice. Yet it hasn't happened yet. Euro 2040, London 1940, Mediterranean, Miami 1985...add in a new set of automata and an Expansion Pack is born. YAY!