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Welcome back to the Surf Coast. This time we're at Fairhaven, a small town with a Pub.... and a servo. One of the few days the lake has water in it. A very strange fog moving over the region? Down the Ocean Road again. I'm sure the next town will be more fun.

gah, everything here is FAR TOO DEVELOPED! I offer you something not so developed Or if that ain't your jazz

Good day everyone! Join in for another update of Confluence Region. Since the last update, i've been working on the final unfinished areas of the first tile. And boy, it WAS productive! //////////////////////////// Replies: First of all, a great THANKS to all of the great comments, tips and support I got after the last update! I really didn't think that Confluence would get such good feedback from the community! So thank you. JKRMC: Thank you very much. I'll tell the chef to make some more of those. SimCoug: You sure are right... I am planning to populate the plains at start, so I tried to invest less there than the riverbanks, even though I don't want to plan ahead due to my natural development approach. Btw, i've seen your last CJ entry, and couldn't notice you upgarded some streams similar to mine. Coincidence? Jacob Guajardo: I try my best. Thank you! Harden: Try to look at google earth/streetview in order to have direction for the kind of environment you want to create. I have a folder with examples to help me. Good luck! Schulmanator: Wow, thank you! You're welcome to contact me, it will be an honor. blunder: I appriciate your advice. I think you refer to some areas that I paid less attention to. This will be fixed as times progresses and population arrives there. _marsh_: Thank you dude! As a token of gratitude I created a marsh on my island. //////////////////////////// Sculpting an Island: The work on this island took me about 1.5 hours. Pretty fast in my pedant terms hehehe... Anyway, this nameless island (nameless as everything yet) features two small marshes/sloughes/bogs. In the process of creating the scenery, I used approx. 20 kinds of Mayor-Mode-Ploppables. Some of which are easy to detect, some less conspicuous. This is the island before any intervention. The south-eastern marsh was made first, using ALN marsh. At first glance it looks as if I plopped too much. The north-western marsh is the bigger one of the two. Heblem sand and ALN green grass helped me to blend the marsh with its surroundings. Some other great MMPs from the ALN Pasture flora pack were plopped. Rocks and trees (most of the trees originate from the awesome yield of VIP team) Back at the other marsh, progress has been made, and the shorelines was created. The final outcome of both marshes: Some another great views of the island: //////////////////////////// Island mosaic: Next update will probably be the last nature update for the near future, hopefully to start populating the region. Have a great weekend, thanks for watching/commenting!

The entire USA need to adopt more of these teachings. This way, a peaceful coexistence with Iran and other countries that are nowadays regarded as problematic will no longer be a problem because there's fundamental agreement on many issues.

Perhaps after years of fans signing petitions they thought we were so starved for a "Maxis" SimCity that they thought we would take whatever they dished out because they're "Maxis".

Not sure what you mean by that. Care to explain? meaning I don't believe the SimCity fanbase is quite as willing to pony up for endless DLC and expansion pack fluff that don't really add much as the Sims fanbase is. http://pc.gamespy.co.../1225696p1.html "In yet another example of why you really, really should be using multiple, secure passwords and every security feature you can get your hands on, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced today that Blizzard's internal network has been illegally accessed. While he says it's not possible to access anyone's account solely with the information Blizzard knows for sure was taken (security question answers, unspecified mobile and dial-in authenticator data, encrypted passwords), he recommends that North American players change their passwords immediately. That's good advice." And if people didn't have to have an account and be online to play a single-player game they wouldn't need to worry about this at all would they? People can choose to avoid MMOs if they don't want to deal with this kind of stuff...if EVERYTHING has to be online and through an online account then their only recourse is to not play games at all. I don't know why it keeps combining my reply to Spirit and this post...I've tried separting them several times.

Where did you get that street mod? It's amazing.

so in otherwords....youll buy the empty shell of a "game" at 60$ then pay for the real game in the form of DLCs :/

View Album Fort Pegasus has kept the land quiet... Now that the railroad has reached the area, a small trading post has sprung up, and a first stinking industry has arrived, too (it's purpose became hazy over the ages - something to do with breaking rock, or a smelter)... Meanwhile, others are making the land fit for raising cattle, farming, building a town... Since the town consists mainly of just Main Street, let's at least look at it from different angles ;o) Most notable is the Wells Fargo station with its rather luxurious hotel (that guy must have had insider information) and the neighboring telegraph office... Quite impressive also the 'government compound' with the tall courthouse, sheriff's office and jail... The undertaker is another smart guy - he set up shop right next to the gallows... The rest are craftsmen, shops, saloons, stables and liveries... As you can see - BoomTown...! Mostly its cattle country, and with the building of a larger freight station under way, SotH is driven in from all over the region... Some are (sc)raping the earth down to the bones in search of quick riches... thousands will die here from the horrible working- and living conditions, sickness, crime, greed... Very few will make their fortune... Unlike the folks who work and live on the DoubleP ranch - they are already pretty well settled, clearing more land all around their home to gain more pastures and arable land, continuing to build an empire... (among them the TLC, which will bring all the logging business under their control, until present day)... And some overviews of the humble beginnings of what we today know as 'Mountainview'... That's it with the history hour... most other articles from that era where lost in the great fire of 1932... =

The Emirate of Dhahran has experienced remarkable growth over the last two decades and it is often claimed that Dhahran is the fastest growing city in the history of the planet. One neighbourhood that has been at the forefront of this growth is Jumeirah which up until recently was mostly empty desert and uninhabited beaches. Today, Jumeirah is a fashionable residential neighbourhood where many of the wealthy foreign workers reside, and also a popular tourist hub with numerous hotels and resorts lining the coast. Burj Al Arab is perhaps the worlds most famous hotel and certainly the most luxurious. At 321 metres it is the fourth tallest hotel in the world and its completion in 1999 officially announed Dhahran to the world. The revolutionary 'sail' design and construction on an artificial island was implemented upon orders of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who wanted the hotel to be iconic. Upon entering Burj Al Arab, guests are immediately struck by the large atrium which runs the full height of the hotel. The Burj Al Arab is unique in that every room is a luxury suite, the largest being 780 square metres, the smallest being 169 square metres. Prices of the suites vary from $1,000 per night to $27,000 per night. The Royal Suite is perhaps the most luxurious of them all. Wild Wadi waterpark is situated on Jumeirah Beach across from Burj Al Arab and is one of the most popular destinations for tourists looking to relieve themselves of the intense heat of Dhahran. Wild Wadi contains numerous swimming pools and boasts the largest water slide outside of North America. Next to Wild Wadi Water Park is Jumeirah Beach Hotel and Apartments. Built in 1997, Jumeirah Beach Hotel was the first major resort hotel in Dhahran and its wavy design is inspired by the sea and nicely compliments the sail shaped Burj Al Arab. Previously this stretch of Jumeirah Beach was home to floating oil storage tanks and ship wrecking yards so the transformation of the beach is nothing short of remarkable and further shows the growth of the Emirate. The hotel also contains a separate conference center located right in front of the main hotel buildings. That is all for today, we will continue our tour of the Jumeirah district next time. Remember also that replies are now at the bottom of the previous entry.

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Replies ------------- @Gugu3 - Thanks, Max settings @IL. - Thanks @Lesczyk - Thanks @MamaLuigi945 - Thanks, I hope you enjoy this one too! @Markus J - Thanks! @KonstantinII - PM bout it specifically, and I would be glad to help you @halenbyname - Kool, Thanks Big Image

Perhaps an iranian fundamentalist wouldn't have an hard time at all in some parts of this emisphere, as long as he converts himself to the accepted religion and myths, and put into them the same zeal he was used to put into his past beliefs...yeah, he would probably fit nearly perfectly.

I didn't know that, actually. Thank you for the information.

Point #1: How is yodeling or that bridge related to a North African country?? Point #2: Mechanical resonance can cause bridges to collapse, so if we were to yodel on the bridge, there's a slight chance of the bridge collapsing and killing us. Point #3: I'm-a give this entry a 5/5 'cause it's funny.

Yodeling on that bridge

I must agree to that. Maxis, under EA, had a decade to make a proper SimCity game. Unfortunately, EA screwed up in the name of greed. What a waste of a perfectly good decade.

I don't know much about airports, but I've seen some on Google Maps/Earth as well as on Simtropolis, and the terminals look like there must be some sort of underground path connecting them. The busiest airport, in Atlanta:

Good day, Simtropolis viewers! Today we will continue our journey of sculpting the nature, soon to be a civilized area. Funny that I invest so much in the process, even though I know it'll be destroyed. Hmm, perfectionist, anyone? Beware, this is a long post. Don't get used to it. Just joking. I like having a CJ that appeals to many users. //////////////////////////// Replies: Jacob Guajardo: Thanks! You have a great CJ too! Furiousuk: Just you wait - there's more where that came from JKRMC: Thanks! The terrain in the pictures you wrote about IS raised... The topography of my region is well carved by the talented izidor44... SimCoug: Conusimg work? More like daunting few.. Great to see good response from awesome CJ-er like you! hercules83: If you could explain what do you wish to download, I would help you out. If you can, reply to this post about it. //////////////////////////// Grstudios presents... Some meadows, and another cliff: So... My first tile is about to be completed. In the process of it, you enjoy with some more heart-warming wilderness, as opposed to the usually seen cold & remote skyscrapers and megalopolises. But in time, this nature will be disrupted in favor of mankind's need of claiming the land to improve it's own life. The following pics are taken along a river's banks, and the meadows that surround it. That's the perfect place to build a village, right? Another bend of the river, bypassing a small hill. Nice fishing point... Who knows, maybe one day it will serve the locals. //////////////////////////// Sculpting nature, the mosaic: This is the first tile in it's whole. You can see my slow progress... I hope that I will complete the southern bank of the major river and the small island in the following days. To see the full size of the mosaic, click on it! With that bombshell, it's time to say farewell, until the next update! Thanks for watching/commenting.

Quite nice!

WAW! Your pics are fantastic! Plenty of sun! ... So ... paradise exist!

[i][font=times new roman,times,serif]Omg that's so awesome looking, nicely done![/font][/i]

Replies: Markus: Thanks! It's not too terribly hard to do. You just have to be patient. SimCoug: Thank you, sir! Teaser Update: Illium News Network says what most are unable to speak of without breaking into tears...

Oh dear. Perhaps mutant felines will make a future appearance. EDIT: I tried to watch the video but it gives me a bad link

Basic map canvas for my next city. I'm not sure whether I should go NYC style (Josh's inspiration here), Parisian style, or just try to combine with a London Underground style. Or just make it a roadmap. Bonus points if you can reckonize the city, too. XD

MTT9: Yeah, I can't seem to get it quite right :/ I've tweaked it a lot more and I think I might be getting closer, but it's an unusual facade which makes it hard to replicate. I really like the building, though, so I'll keep at it. darn: I gave in and remodeled it I couldn't live with it being the way it was Francis: That's for sure I'll do a reddish one and a blue one, then. I agree that green might not look as good. skyscraper: I'm trying to get a but more imaginative The spots on the roof appear to be loose tiles or something, I'm not really sure, I just copied them from the real roof. Jason: I tweaked the metal (although I'm still not sure how I feel about it), made the glass normal with a gold tint and I darkened the edge of the roof a little bit. It's not really noticeable on this building, but it's pretty pronounced on the others I've been working on. Sgt Pepper: Thanks brah It seems we both really like boxy/modern/international style stuff, don't we? So, I've been a bit AWOL lately. I'm posting this from LAX during a layover, so bear with me Also, this fall is gonna be really busy for me...so I might be updating even less than I do now, just so y'all know. I finally took the 5 minutes to remodel Riverview and I've been goofing around with it in my free time, I'm still not sure what I think about it, but I played with the metal, glass, and roof materials and it has the potential to be an improvement. I visited the RL building and I think I'm actually really close to it, but I'll let you guys decide. A little update on my generics...ignore the black smear on the top one, I figured out what the problem is and I've since fixed it, although I'm not sure if I still like the building. Or any of them, for that matter. I've seen them too much by now to stay neutral. Finally, I decided I need a nice dull suburban fire station in one of my cities, so I came up with this (based on the one in my RL neighborhood). Textures are just preliminary, and I modeled it with the potential for different modular designs in mind. If you like this one, I have 2 others planned out that are a lot like it.

Crave? Do you mean vomit? By taking out many of the features that make SC4 so fun, such as terraforming, larger city sizes, 100% offline single player, etc., SC5 is a joke.

My guess would be overlapping polygons. If you have any geometry in the same space as another, delete or get rid of the intersecting parts. That seems to be what it is. good work though.

Awesome! The Hotel is just fantastic! ps: If someday you wake up with that feeling "man, I wanna help someone today"... please, send us the link os that BAT! Congratulations, great work!

Here's a park & church combo:

And this is the exact reason I loathe this forced DRM stuff...it will always be a security issue to put a program on your PC that some one else has control over or that automatically opens up a web-browser or internet connection.

I wonder how moddable Simcity 5 will be? These Sim hero characters sound like they could be modded into a Batman, Superman, etc. You could recreate Batman, Two Face and the Joker battling it out in Gotham. Or Neo from the Matrix battling a mass of Agent Smiffs. Better yet, in the spirit of the SimCity series classic monster and ufo disasters, maybe a Godzilla could be modded in? Godzilla & Friends - many enemies, many scenarios. King Kong and others. And what about Power Ranger and giant Japanese mecha robots? A mad scientist runs loose with his toy robot. Or create your own custom heros, heroines, villains, etc. Lastly, I can't forget everyone's favorite muppet, Cookie Monster. After being spotted walking on Sesame Street in New York city and devouring entire food stores and bakeries, he grows bigger and bigger and starts to taste the city infrastructure itself. Watch out though, because after reaching a critical mass, even the army with its tanks and air support wouldn't be able to take him down, so you'd have to watch helpless as he stomped all over your city as he'd let out a huge roar. Perhaps he could only be placated by presenting him with a special giant cookie which would cost a lot of in-game money. That would be something, sort of like a Katamari game where he'd eat up everything and keep getting bigger. "Cookie takes down Twin Towers but Empire State is saved by ultramega cookie bribe" ...Just trying to inject some humor into the let down that the new Simcity 5 reboot may be for some of us. On topic - I've played a bunch of rts and city builder games and it seems almost every series has taken the social gaming route and/or simplified their games a lot in recent years. Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Simcity, Settlers, Impressions Games/Tilted Mill city building series, etc. Some say it's the economy, changing demographic tastes, immature younger people, etc and it's probably a multitude of factors. Maybe someone can write an academic thesis on it? Hopefully Simcity 5 will at least have some modding options to counter any in-game limitations. I agree. The last time I checked, SimCity is not City of Heroes (in terms of its focus on superheroes and the fact that it is an MMO). Even the Civilization strategy game series took the social route. I hope that SimCity 5 can be modded so much that it improves on SC4 minus the limitations. By the way, Cookie Monster (not Al-Qaeda) disguised himself as airplanes and ate the Twin Towers on the eleventh day of the ninth month of 2011 (joke).

What I still can't fathom is why they decided to have the whole game revolve around multiplayer in the first place(as Quigley has said was the focus since the start). I'm assuming EA went to maxis and said "make an online sim city", but why? By the time this game started development I have to think they knew about the disaster that was CitiesXL planet offer. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that room when the discussion took place about the direction they wanted to take this game. What reasons did they come up with for thinking there was any interest in an online focused city builder. I understand adding some kind of online feature to a city builder, but having it as the main focus just seems absolutely crazy to me.

I am pessimistic regarding 'Maxis', seeing as 1. what they've released about the game recently and 2. the fact that they aren't the same company that made 2000, they have evolved to become a very different company since that time, no matter how much we might like to read about Ocean being a SC veteran and this that and the other, the fact is this company has barely any connection with the company that gave us 2000 or with Mr Wright. Putting aside whether Maxis is really the same 'Maxis' we know and love that gave us the various Sim games, they are now a tool of EA corporation, and while I tend to avoid using over emphasised generalisations like 'the Evil Empire' and so forth, Maxis is certainly a Lord Vader at best, and EA is probably to a large extent to blame. However this is purely speculation. The fact remains however that whoever is in charge, or has the power to influence the course of the game, is either not in control of their own actions entirely, or is ignoring the fans for commercial reasons. I could understand releasing a limited versiuon of the game for starters to appeal to the quick-amuse crowd of Facebook gamers, and they have done that with SCSocial. In future the game could be modded to include further additions and more realism, or a separate version could be released simultaneously for the core crowd, which is what I assumed they were going to do. The recent news appears to show that not only was my hypothesis incorrect, and SCSocial is not the limit of simplified casual gamer targeted play, but that the main game is, in addition to sounding highly simplified and restricted compared with 4, also restricted unecessarily. I do not see any reason why the recent information can be defended on the basis of making the game multiplayer. A SC4 style gridded region could be made multiplayer, by two people using the same region file. Multiplayer compatibility isn't rocket science, Maxis. There is simply no excuse for these 'bubble' cities. Real regions are nothing like that except if each city was an arcology and this was 3000 ad. Also the 2 by 2 km limit means that these bubble cities are not only unexpandable, but very restricted with their space for development. And we can't terraform beyond simple civic terraforming within our bubbles. Great, Maxis. Really well thought out. We're listening to the fans now, sure. Even casual gamers should wonder at these decisions. They can't be performance based. You could have a SC4 style grid array and still have 2 by 2 km limitations on individual lots for development. There is no excuse from a technological perspective. And another wham attack point, Maxis, is this; they speak of higher realism, 'you see what we sim' etc with GlassBox. What is the point of added simulation realism if our regions are composed of bubbles exactly 2 by 2 km connected by pre defined transportation infrastructure? Where is the added realism in that? Strategy games with dragons and princess rescuing gameplay that have more realistic urban development. And to top it all off, they have included 'Heroes and Villains', a completely unecessary addition to the game. A unrealistic and silly scenario pack, and two or three highly stereotypical and predictable tilesets. Great, that was worth the extra dollars, not. So they are definitely not at present listening to their fans, indeed it seems they are listening to Metallica at full volume with earphones and facing their backs to us and humming. They have half a year to rectify this trend, and I, despite really wishing I could trust 'good old Maxis that gave me 2000 etc', have very little hope they will change their course if it means lost time or money, although imho they could have created what we wanted and still reaped in the cash.