Maxis Explains City Sizes

I felt this was important to know so I posted it on the news.

Indeed, thanks for posting that. The question at the end asks "Should Maxis be working on this issue?" If they want my $60, they better.

Also, I'm no techie, but those last few paragraphs are interesting. Could they indicate a correlation between the cloud nature of this game and its map limitations? That's something I suspected a long time and would not be surprised to find it be true.

Indeed, thanks for posting that. The question at the end asks "Should Maxis be working on this issue?" If they want my $60, they better.

Also, I'm no techie, but those last few paragraphs are interesting. Could they indicate a correlation between the cloud nature of this game and its map limitations? That's something I suspected a long time and would not be surprised to find it be true.

Yeah the # of cities is due to the servers and budget. And I bet much more is cause of this too. I hope they atleast make an offline version.

Why does it seem that Maxis makes SimCity games 10 years ahead of their time? They said the same sort of thing 10 years ago when asked why SimCity 4 wasn't in full 3d? "The technology isn't there!"

I wonder what it would be like if they worked with technology that was here today...

I don't mind the smaller size in exchange for a better simulation. It's a good trade as SC4's biggest issue is there isn't any depth to the residents (I like that sims will go more places than just work). It's the set gaps between cities in SC2013 that makes the small tile size an issue. If the tiles were next to each other, you could flip from one to the other and it wouldn't be a big deal. You could still build a large city. I feel that if they're going to have smaller tiles, they should figure out how to put the tiles adjacent to one and other to compensate. Taking both away just makes for a smaller world.

I agree....and like the article said...someone, probably from this website, will create a modd for a bigger city

@Spa,

If they weren't programming for a 1.3Ghz Pentium III when SC4 was made, I'm sure that sims would have had to fulfill other 'occupations' as well.

Still frustrating and really lame initial excuse. Players end up repeating areas of their city on big maps! I'm building a massive region and of course areas sort of repeat...most cities do...

The frustrating part for me is that their seems to be some exciting parts to this game, but the drawbacks really limit that excitement. I think this will be more of a GAME than what SimCity4 evolved into. SimCity4 = hobby/sandbox/increasing realism though the simulation wasn't always that great, we used imagination...SimCity5 = game with more robust simulation, but won't lend itself as much to the storytelling aspect of playing.

1. It's not more than a 'game', I never think if Simcity 4 is a game, but more as a tool to make something that we want. While this game is just a game, with all features is made to make the players feel it as a game, not as the Simcity that we know.

2. Some limitation is acceptable, but too many of them is not.

3. My problem with the map is not the size of the city tiles, but the unusable land between those city tiles.

4. Though it just the foundation, it's not very promising. Everything needs a strong foundation to ensure everyone if that thing will become a good thing, and game is not an exception. Peoples can find another game before any mods released if the foundation of the game is not strong enough to keep them interested with the game.

This thing is though, what's the percentage of people that use SimCity as a storytelling tool or view it as a hobby? Probably not enough to make a commercially viable game with the triple-A standards that we're seeing in the new game.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of value to be had in a very open-ended game that promotes storytelling. After all it's why SimCity4 is still going strong today, and why minecraft exploded the way it did.

Instead though, Maxis is sticking to making SimCity what it's always been, a game. But instead of layering more and more features over a concept born in the late 80's, they're stepping back and asking themselves just how a city simulation game is made.

I don't mind the smaller size in exchange for a better simulation. It's a good trade as SC4's biggest issue is there isn't any depth to the residents (I like that sims will go more places than just work). It's the set gaps between cities in SC2013 that makes the small tile size an issue. If the tiles were next to each other, you could flip from one to the other and it wouldn't be a big deal. You could still build a large city. I feel that if they're going to have smaller tiles, they should figure out how to put the tiles adjacent to one and other to compensate. Taking both away just makes for a smaller world.

You got that right, providing they would also let you build more intermap connections of various transportation types. I believe that this is something that will be dealth with though, because I ge tthe feeling that the gaps in the regions are just 'eye candy'. It should be possible to just let them disapear from game view and make the cities border each other. The fixed connections issue is the mane one that bothers me.

I love larger cities too, but we just don't know just how taxing the Glassbox engine is. Considering what the developers have said about it so far, it will probably be quite a resource hog. So like spa, I also don't mind a medium sized city in exchange for the new engine which I'm quite excited about.

Sure the developers should have added an option to have larger cities if your system is up for it - but as the article stated, we should get a mod for that anyway.

I just hope they do something about those inner city spaces. Those empty spaces would be an eye sore and kill any hopes of a creating a decent metropolis region - unless ofcourse we can get a mod for that too lol.

Also, there has been a lot of criticism towards maxis for the way they way they have communicated and or the fact that this game does not meet up to (in my opinion ridiculously high) expectations of being a SC4 successor (by which the community seems to mean SC4 +RH + 10 years of development by s hundred or so modders from the community). I feel this is very unfair. Communication like this item, but also messages in the past have been very open and forthcoming. Much more so than with a lot of other games. In the end, this game will have to be a commercial success, which means it has to be developed within tight time/money/quality constraints for it to make money out of a projected number of buyers. Making the game this community wants, will simply never be possible within those constraints. I think, that compared to lots of other crap that’s being sold out there, this is finally something of a quality worthwhile (even though I too have my reservations about some aspects of the game).

cut back on the micro-level simulation. There are more people upset about small maps and the inability to create realistic-looking cities than there are fascinated with following each and every sim all over the region.

I love larger cities too, but we just don't know just how taxing the Glassbox engine is. Considering what the developers have said about it so far, it will probably be quite a resource hog. So like spa, I also don't mind a medium sized city in exchange for the new engine which I'm quite excited about.

Sure the developers should have added an option to have larger cities if your system is up for it - but as the article stated, we should get a mod for that anyway.

I just hope they do something about those inner city spaces. Those empty spaces would be an eye sore and kill any hopes of a creating a decent metropolis region - unless ofcourse we can get a mod for that too lol.

Well the Glassbox engine is what increased the RAM requirment 4 GBs. In my opinion that is a lot of RAM. Although putting large cities should only make the RAM only a few more GBs. I have 8 so if there is a large city mod my PC should be able to handle it.

I wonder how much the online component has factored into the decision to not have cities border each other? If each city is being played by different players, I can see why they want some separation. If the online component is part of what's driven the green space, it's an unfortunate compromise for those of us with no interest in playing with others. Why not do both? It would be nice to have regions with cities next to each other and regions with space so that it can, hopefully, work for everyone.

I wonder how much the online component has factored into the decision to not have cities border each other? If each city is being played by different players, I can see why they want some separation. If the online component is part of what's driven the green space, it's an unfortunate compromise for those of us with no interest in playing with others. Why not do both? It would be nice to have regions with cities next to each other and regions with space so that it can, hopefully, work for everyone.

I believe this online component is the No. 1 reason for the decision to have static inter-city connections and the spaces between towns (for the latter the display constrains might have had a thing to play, but frankly, even if the other cities viewed from active town looks low-res, I'd rather have that than some wasteland.)

Most of us following the news on this new game have speculated that the reason for small city tiles is due to constrains on bandwidth/ storage capacity. The second quote on the article is proof.

I do agree that, if some there is a decision to be maid on micro management versus macro management, I'd prefer to see the latest develop more. Even if that means representation instead of 'all simulated' graphics. SimCity was always a City simulation in opposition to The Sims.

You can avoid a lot of repetition in a large tile if you are not an idiot.

So they are using a online only server based game to help with this so called advanced sim engine, yet we can only have miniscule, limiting 2 X2 small town size maps? Something tells me EA and maxis are giving us a line of bull.

Sorry, 2 X 2 is simply not good enough in 2012. It is simple a pathetic amount of space to build a proper city with an airport, universities, park space, proper transportation.