A glimpse inside the GlassBox engine

i like this concept of industry. i never quite understood why freight had to go to the nearest road that connects to a neighboring city in SC4. Sometimes, you just connect a road to a neighboring city even if there is no city existing adjacent yours.

i never thought the graphics to be cartoonish, perhaps the word is... familiar.

Here are the slides from the presentation.

This game will have zones right?

This is very intuitive engine. I wonder how large of a city one can make? I suppose more detail will be released. But simulation wise, wow, I am impressed.

I am so excited. Obviously the graphic are in their early stages. What is important right now is seeing how efficient the simulating algorithms are, and not bog down on game play experience.

For those wondering, the graphics are not final (read the video description below the video, might have to translate). As well, for those concerned with "childish" graphics, modders will be able to create more realistic buildings if the graphics become an issue, as game modification has been confirmed by Maxis.

I was worried it would be dumbed down for a "casual audience" but i'm sold, the area to build a city looks big, zones are back, and they've confirmed reigons.

Graphics are irrelevant in this video, there are simply representations in order to show how the engine works.

Wow I can't wait to get my hands on this game....

On the Multi-player aspect, I'm interested to know if my wife and I could work on different parts of the city within the same region without having to allow other people to join in. $160 USD is rather steep for two copies of the game, but that is something we are looking for.

I'm also annoyed SimTrop is getting all this info second-hand, as if Maxis has to find every OTHER news outlet to talk with first before giving SimTrop the time-of-day. "Gee guys, you've kept this game going nearly 10 years, and we are really grateful for that. As an expression of our gratitude for your passion, let's just talk to everyone ELSE in the world, and y'all can go sit & spin."

lol,they didnt talk much about how the highways will be of how many lanes it can have up to, or how the Ave play its part of turning lanes and how many lanes it can have up to or even talk about bus systems to just about anything in the transit area, just curvy roads blah blah blah we got that like a million times

@WildMan04: They're not at the point in development where they can really talk about that yet. I'd imagine we'll find out more as they get further along with the game, though the GlassBox demo videos and the concept art has shown some very NWM-like roadways.

@Tarkus yeah I've seen them videos but did you notice that the cars that was making a left turn was from the FAR RIGHT LANE which is STUPID cause who does that in real life.... but yeah yeah

@WildMan04 Yeah, I find that stupid too. Though we do know that sometimes people do that in real life. I hope Maxis adds that idea as an actual part of the simulation. That simulations should not always be perfect, there will always be these people who won't abide to traffic regulations. Deviant drivers may represent a certain factor, such as low education or high crime rate. Those subtle imperfections would make the simulator more realistic in my opinion. I don't want my city to look like too much of a clockwork.

Police car chases anyone?

After looking at the GlassBox presentation I can see this having some interesting uses in other simulation games, such as a Sim Tower game or Sim Ant game.