Article 3: Final ideas
Article 3: Final ideas
Builders VS Mayors
Years and years ago, some people complained about “the cheaters”. They were talking not only about people that used money cheat (a.k.a simleon tree), but to people that would swap other things too, like using SuperDemand mods (its more than just one). In the other side, some other people complained about “the noobs”. These guys had kind of ugly cities, with some repetitive building. But they used to say “hey, at least I made it on the honest way”.
The noobs were known as mayors. And the cheaters as builders.
Everyone started playing SC4, or maybe any other City sim, as a mayor. Manage money flow, taxes, control crime and fire, build hospitals, and etc… This is the meaning of playing as a mayor.
However, there is always a time where you get tired of these things – or better, tired of the engine that runs these things – and want to build the City of your dreams. Then, you will not want the engine holding you back. You just want to build and make things exactly – or almost exactly – like you want. So, you take the money out of equation, create or destroy the demand (or “plop” the buildings on your own), take out any problems related to crime, end any possibility of any fire, etc.. At this moment, you become the builder.
It is just about what you want to do – and achieve. Have as much population as possible, or have as many satisfy rate as possible, is not everybody´s goal on this. Repeting: it is a question about what you want to do.
Some people prefer to stay on the middle although. They try to build the city they want without doing engine “swaps”. That’s a way too. So, if you call anyone a “$%&^!” for having an ugly city, or if you call anyone “a cheater” for using the money tree, stop and ask yourself what the other people want. Maybe the idea was never having a pretty city, or the idea was never having the engine holding you back.
Finally, it would be a good idea if anyone developing a city builders take note about the builders. It would be a great idea to have a mode that disables the engine – the money stuff, the sims processing – and create a builder mode, where you could create exactly what you want. Managing the traffic, when clicking on a street and setting it to “zero”, “small”, “medium”, “heavy”, no money, and anything like that. Even if we are full of mods trying as much as they can to make a builder mode possible, SC4 is going to always process traffic information, sims information, and always simulate everything – wrongly, with the mods. This will likely consume memory. With less memory, with no simulation, maybe this mode could generate larger maps – or, at least, lit will be a lighter mode.
Expanding “Mayor Mode”: State and Nation management, different systems
I wonder if someday there will be an expansion of the mayor thing. I mean: What about having a position as a president? Manage a whole state or nation? Just imagine how would be a “President Mode”. Problems to solve, currency, diplomacy, trades, managing transportation as a whole, solving trouble done by big disasters like flood, earthquakes, etc… Mayor Mode has a good potential for expanding in any City (Nation?) Builder Sim.
And: Why capitalism only? Why not some variations of it or radical changes? Not for the sake of the efficiency but it would be fun and puzzling. “Mayor Mode” is something people don’t take long to get tired and a different mode, with different strategies and approaches would be nice.
Future
In the end, somehow, all the 3 articles I´ve made talks about the future.
A big problem today on City Builder Sims is the proportion about detail versus size. Finding the right balance is hard. For most games that includes any kinds of maps, from racing games, airplane simulators, some action games, RPG, etc… There are always limitations at computing, and that influences on the map. If the map has too many details, it is too small. If it has huge, it is detail lacking. For example, do you know what the biggest map ever made on videogame history in any platform is? There are some RPG, Racing Games, but in the end, it is “Flight Simulator” rules… It has the whole world as a map, every kilometer/mile. However, 90% of the map is just texture taken from the satellites, sky images like on Google Earth. And it is like that since the 2000´s. In the other side, the new “Sim City” tried to process the commute of every citizen and barely end with 1 square kilometer…
With the potential expansion of computing and hardware, with the natural evolution of technology, limitations problems like that might be solved, even if we could never reach the infinite. There always would be the limitations but they will get smaller than they are today.
I really believe that the golden age of City Builders Sims (late and middle 2000´s) will come back in between 2020 to 2030. As I´ve shown on the others texts, there are some problems with map size and general appearance. With better computing, these problems are solved slowly. Just imagine: Bigger maps, like 10x10 or 20x20 km… Better, good looking and realistic graphics… Expansion of Mayor Mode… Even if these days have not been the best, someday the golden era will come back full with new concepts, new ideas, new ways and new possibilities.
Comments Reply
@Dedgren (Art 2): These graphics expansions and evolutions doesn’t happen from day to night, they happen slowly. Slowly we get some new possibilities… Slowly “we get there”.
@Raynev1: Thanks.
@kschmidt: Thanks. There are comments saying that my cities look busy, but I´ve always thought that the traffic in SC4 in general is not big enough. Sometimes, we see real ghost towns with big buildings… Even if I used to not be good at generating traffic it was better than nothing. Always tried to get balance on my scenery too…
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