Sim Vision - Who's Inflicted?

[infamousjbe 592]

Sim Vision......    what is it?     Really just a saying that's been a part of my life for a very long time due to SimCity. Actually surprised that I never made this post when active on the forums all those years ago. eh, better late than never.  Not one for writing or spelling, but I'll do my best so bare with me pls.

 

I've been playing SimCity since the original version on Nintendo in the late 80's. I'd spend the whole night building the city to max out the skyscrapers only to fall asleep with the controller in my hand. Upon waking up I'd find the city pretty much burnt to the ground.    But that would never stop me. Friends & I would compete to see who could build the most skyscrapers. Oh the times we had as a kid..

Playing through most of the SC releases, it was only the original & SC4 did I spend a majority of my free time playin and wasn't till SC4 that Sim Vision really kicked in...

What Sim Vision is to me, is when I'm traveling around IRL, do I start to view everything through the "lens" of SimCity. Kind of hard to explain really. It's more like a feeling than an actual vision. I start seeing how the city around me is "zoned"...   where the I-D/M is located to everything else. I see buildings and lots in sizes. What's all the stuff in between and around the buildings. 

Like I've always viewed my mother's home, which I spent over 10 yrs living in as a kid, as a 1x2 in SC size. Her neighbor's house to the left sits on a 1x3, but he also owns the plot between the houses, so his property is essentially a 3x3. The building to her right is a corner 2 floor apartment that sits on a 1x2. Her whole block is made up of mostly  1x3s, or 2x3s plots of land except the two corners of the "block". The whole block is like 12x5 (b2b 12x2or3s) with one end of the block on a main street with a CS on the diagonal corner from my mother's corner.

Even commercial sectors. I analyze the skyscrapers and how they occupy the plot of land it stands on. Does it take up the whole block from corner to corner but really only a portion of the building reaches the sky (4x4<), or is it a smaller lot (3x3>) of that larger 6x6< plot of land with other smaller lots to fill in the block.

I see things that make me want to run home to recreate in SimCity, and not just that Utopian beautiful city stuff, rather the nooks & crannys that typically gets over looked as content in SC4. The content I call "fillers" in my plugins. The stuffs that goes between the stuffs. 

Now I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar "feeling" in IRL because of SimCity?  

or has SimCity possibly effected you in some other way in IRL situations? or maybe just SimCity seems to pop up in your everyday life even when you're not playing the game?

Is anyone a little off like myself. 

 

ps.  on a side note, this post brought on the idea of possibly trying to recreate that neighborhood to post in the Showcase section. Maybe it'll inspire others to do the same to post in the thread. Like just using a small city tile on view 4 or 3 maybe. Nothing crazy, just the immediate blocks you grew up on. Thinking I might use Google Earth to help with the street layout. Know I'll need to use FAR roads in this process.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Yep, I've got Sim Vision, too, @infamousjbe, though maybe not quite as serious a case as yours!  

For some reason, I notice heaps of 2x2 and 2x3 R$$ medium density apartment blocks in my home city of Sydney.  I'm living on a 1x3 low density block myself, and down the road there's about 30 houses bulldozed for a massive 6x12 R$$ medium density complex.  There's some dirty industry in some of the last few pockets of cheap real-estate, but most of the old industrial lots in Sydney have been rezoned to medium density commercial or high density residential.  I also especially notice apartment complexes with green spaces between the buildings, and think about how that would work in SimCity.

One thing I notice, that you didn't mention, is roads.  In particular, this one has seized my mind, and I keep wanting to plop it in my cities, probably because there's something just like it about 7km from my house.

Yep, I've got concrete highways in my NAM install.  Well, Sydney still has some concrete highways, and all because of SimCity 4, I noticed that one of them is just a few kilometres from my house!  There were lots more concrete highways in Sydney when I was a kid, so I'm kinda fond of them.  

I keep seeing real-life roundabouts, classifying them as 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4, and taking special note of the roundabout fillers.  Even more, I keep spotting TuLEPS turning lanes.  When I go through a highway interchange, I think about which type it is?

I find myself thinking about whether a real life arterial road with a medium strip is an AVE-4 or a RHW-4.  There's a SPUI interchange a few kilometres away from my home, and an astonishing number of RHW-6 arterial roads in Sydney with at-grade intersections, so I can't decide whether perhaps they are AVE-6 instead!

What else do I notice specially IRL, all because of SimCity 4 and NAM?  Pedestrian overpasses.  Tunnels.  Street malls.  Viaduct rail with streets, roads and highways underneath.  Bus lanes, and dedicated bus roads.  Car parks and sports fields.  Sports fields, and tennis courts ... and tennis courts.

Yep, I've got the Sim Vision happening to me, too, and I sometimes get lost for hours in Google Satellite. 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

I have Simvision too. But in the exact opposite way. I have spent my life building homes, and a few skyrises too. Now that I'm retired, I pay more attention to the natural surroundings now, like creeks, parks, retention ponds, culverts, etc. I'm always plotting out ways to use what I see in some future map. I really don't pay that much attention to buildings, unless they're really architecturally striking. There aren't that many places on earth with a lot of skyscrapers, but there's a boatload of places with Do-Drop Inns and burger joints. My city's tallest building is only 12 stories high, and it's the only one...in a city of half a million.

[PaPa-J 778]

Add me to the list of people with Simvision.  I look at how streets are laid out and how water ways cut through the land as well as the zoning and layout of cities and towns.

[Terring 6,473]

My kind of Simvision is very different. Instead of translating real world situations into SimCity terms, I prefer to wonder what I could do if I was playing SimCity with a real city. For instance, if I was the mayor of Piraeus I would build el-over-road instead of the tram we have right now, set up subway stations in most city blocks and replace all abandoned buildings with parks. Even better, de-zone most of the city and rebuild it from scratch.

[infamousjbe 592]

On 12/22/2019 at 12:03 PM, Terring said:

if I was the mayor of Piraeus I would build el-over-road instead of the tram we have right now, set up subway stations in most city blocks and replace all abandoned buildings with parks.

That is a very interesting version of your infliction.   Instead of seeing the "what/how is", you see the "what could/should be". Never dawned on me that there might by other types of visions and not just the type I feel. 

Thank you for sharing! Now I'm curious as to if there are other types of IRL visions brought on by the SC4 addiction.   Hope other members pop up with the descriptions of their visions.

[PaPa-J 778]

That is rather interesting way to look at the world.  Now I'll start doing the same with out even thinking about it.

[infamousjbe 592]

8 minutes ago, PaPa-J said:

That is rather interesting way to look at the world.  Now I'll start doing the same with out even thinking about it.

lol.. I feel like I'm going to start seeing things like Terring some times too now that the seed has been planted. 

[carlosmarcelo 968]

When, like me, you live in a chaotic city, with strong disorder growing, where almost nobody follow plano diretor of city, you think in SIM VISION all the time! 

This is certain when note a lot of bottlenecks in traffic (any hour) and favelas around the city, without basic infra to live there, and in imbelievible places: in stepwalks, in dangerus colinas, below viaducts etc.

[rivit 3,391]

Yes its hard not to have Simvision at times. In Sydney CBD we have been going through a 4 year ordeal to put in Light Rail (really guys they're called Trams - ala in avenue/street GLR) for umpteen millions. I cannot believe how the mayor has let the heart of the city die for 4 years - hundreds of (mostly small) businesses disappeared. And to think that Sydney had trams up till 1961 then ripped up the tracks for cars and busses. But its been just like trying to rebuild transport with NAM GLR in SimCity - if it weren't for SC4fix we would have CTDed several times.

[Naomi57 2,985]

46 minutes ago, rivit said:

In Sydney CBD we have been going through a 4 year ordeal to put in Light Rail

Yes, and we've had quite the spotted history with all kinds of rail in Sydney, almost like a new SimCity 4 player who hasn't quite grasped that rail systems are meant to help people commute to work!  

From the abandoned Airport line that was originally supposed to connect with Bondi Junction, to the new Chatswood - Epping line that was originally supposed to connect with the Carlingford line ... but didn't, to the new Parramatta light rail that no one I know actually wants, which will result in closing the Carlingford line in a couple weeks.  Maybe the Parramatta light rail will encourage decentralisation, and that's why they're doing it?  I hope there's some rhyme or reason to that decision.

And then they had to close the new Chatswood - Epping line shortly after building it.  I haven't ridden the new "Metro" line yet, but I've heard the air conditioning is good, so that's a positive.  It's rather off-putting that all passengers have to change train at Chatswood to get into the city, but that is, at least, incredibly like SimCity 4.  

The craziest one of all, I think, was our Sydney monorail fiasco, which didn't even connect with any of the train stations.  
At least Google Australia had a use for some of the old monorail carriages.  

[PaPa-J 778]

13 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

WTH!! What's going on in this photo?  How did that tram get up there?

[Naomi57 2,985]

23 hours ago, PaPa-J said:

WTH!! What's going on in this photo?  How did that tram get up there?

On 25/12/2019 at 12:39 PM, Naomi57 said:

Now that is a sight you're not likely to see in SimCity!  

The original Sydney monorail was so poorly planned that it was considered irretrievable.  It's been a bit of a standing joke in Sydney.  It operated for 25 years, from July 1988 to June 2013, though it was more of an incredibly expensive tourist sightseeing track, than any kind of practical public transport, because none of the monorail stations were anywhere near a train or subway station!

The monorail didn't really serve to take people to work, or to get them home ... it was just kind of there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Monorail
The decision to build the monorail over other forms of rail such as light rail was in the eyes of many a political decision. Light rail would have been $20 million cheaper to build, serviced more passengers per hour and cost 40% less for a ticket, but the monorail system prevailed.
...
"The monorail is not integrated with Sydney's wider public transport network and has never been truly embraced by the community. While it has been a controversial part of Sydney's history for more than 20 years, the monorail is reaching the end of its economic life and the NSW Government cannot justify costly upgrades like the purchase of new vehicles required to keep it running.

Most Sydney-siders are still scratching our heads, wondering why the Sydney monorail was ever built in the first place.  

So, what does one do with rails and train carriages that no one wants any more?  They sold eleven of the carriages, nine of them for display in museums, two for conversion to meeting rooms in Google Australia!  The photo shows the tricky process of getting a monorail carriage inside the Google Australia office building!  

[PaPa-J 778]

@Naomi57 A bit of tricky business that is for sure.  It's amazing what people, corporations and politicians with money will do.