jeremy1

holy hell is this a hate-fest..."what...what do you mean the world is round!!!!" get a hold of yourselves! Yeah, the game is missing some classic dynamics from past instalments but the opportunities to make this new platform something awesome are infinite. Remember some compromises must be made at least initially lest you have a defense mainframe quality computer to run your desired complex game. Who is to say once the game does get its sea legs and we arent satisfied, we wont modd the crap out of it?? And EA, however capitalist they may be is not going to abandon the game servers...I dont think Maxis would have agreed to make the game if that was a possibility, its really really bad PR. But then again you people keep burying this game before its born, it may infact be dropped from servers. I personally am excited. smaller means more detail.

Maxis...please add drive ways : )

I like the fact the smoke from stacks drifts in a realistic pattern, rather then just up 3 or 4 meters and then dissapear. Id like to see larger industrial building though, rolling mills a mile long, pipe mazes, and little workers turning valves and checking gauges...that would be neat. Whatever the case may be, im sure anything and everything will be moddable.

was that my chernobyl? my bad...ill offer some money for your city's issues...as long as you take my garbage too....ohhh this is going to be good.

I dont know what you guys are thinkin, I cant wait to interact with other cities. I relish the idea of creating an industrial black hole city that puts the surrounding cities industrial sectors in the toilet...rober baron style. Now I can mass pollute, fouling up water systems of downstream cities and smogging out the region. I can undercut the market, sell cheap and both bulster the commercial sector of the region and doom the rest to rust belt unemployment... yep cant wait ;P

I really liked the stylized look of 3000, It was not really realistic, but gave a sort of feeling that I liked. The industrial buildings were way bigger and more complex looking too giving that gritty dirty 1930's-50's kind of feel. I see simcity going in two directions from this point, one is the traditional approach that everyone of any age loves, the other is a more complex adult path that will prob have to be built by the modding community. We as the core fans really should respect that younger generations deserve to be exposed to the greatness of Simcity and not selfishly pushed aside to accomodate an aging other wise small sect of the fan base. The new Simcity is not going to be like 4, it is impossible for maxis to really top what the modding community has done, but since the new game will be modd friendly im sure many modds to change the appearance of elements such as roads and buildings can and will be implemented. Maybe sometime in the future Will Wright and EA will release Simcity 4's coding to see what we can do to it. In either case I see this community making its own city builder in the near future. Im looking foward to see what glass box does at its best.

I hope the construction sequence of individual buildings is better then 4, would be nice to see workers bring in equipment and cranes and assemble the structure rather then have it rise out of the ground. But Initial concepts and trailers are not always proved to be true, look at simcity 4's first trailer showing a totally different construction sequence than the final product...sometimes I feel Maxis is a little over zealous with the theatrical trailers of its games.

To be more accurate, Cities XL is more likely a rip of of A-Train.

I have to agree with the sewer system idea, that would be interesting, even if it were just eyecandy. As for flooding and interactive weather and what not, for those of you who know how atmospheric and hydrology models work, they are very complex and require alot of computing power. I see a future for simcity as a tool for education and science and I would love to see it branch off to a very complex setup. If Maxis is smart they will produce a new game with the following concepts: 1. Adjustable complexity, so that every player can play at their level of desired complexity 2. Incorporate the custom content creation pool. There is alot of untapped talent here and Maxis could utilize this, even in a way that makes a little profit. Now Im not suggesting we charge for content, but in the future it would be interesting to see cooperative expansion projects akin to the NAM with Maxis programmers and simcity modders. These projects could include manipulating and evolving the source code. These project expansion packs could then be sold at a reasonable price. Since they would only loosly be associated with Maxis game production, time constraints will no longer be an issue, as the projects can follow the policy of the NAM, its done when its done. Following this method will make everyone a winner, We get unlimited advancements for simcity 4, Maxis makes a little money allowing access to a source code that would other wise be unprofitable, and the education and science feilds move closser to a true urban model to use. Its time for Maxis to think outside of the box set. Ive said it once before, Ill say it again. FORGET SIMCITY 5! Science rarely builds from scratch, it compounds upon the progress already made. Jeremy

Most Simcity buildings have been constructed using BAT, which is the premier way of doing things. However, there are other clever ways to construct more personalized structures, especially for those who are not BAT savy. I am a fan of very large industrial buildings, and Simcity is notorious (at least until lately) for having unrealistic small factorys. I constructed my mill buildings entirely from props and maxis buildings, with the addition of random props collected off the stex. When approaching this method, two things to keep in mind: Anyone attempting to upload such creations should remember that the list of dependancies may be exhausting and attempting to cite the original creators of each prop used could be difficult which is why I will not be uploading most of my "kit bashed" lots. The other issue has to do with how the props themselves react to elevation. When you make a lot like this, it must be placed on flat terrain...the result if you fail to do this is not pleasing to the eye. There you have it though, I have been making custom bashed prop buildings since 2006. Anyone els done this before? And yes, I am a horrid speller....blame the pot of coffee I just drank Steel Mill

I have only uploaded one lot creation, and that is an abandoned single track made from maxis lumber and beam cargo props. The rolling mill, with some adaptations may be a candidate for upload as most if not all the essential props are of maxis origin. Ie: corrugated tin fence and dirty industry warehouse, the walls are carefully arranged. These days Im getting back into BAT and am working on some railroad telegraph poles...I think they will be liked by many. Here is another bashed lot: Regional Power Plant Blast Furnaces you can also see some sneak previews of my railroad poles on my Flikr account What I meant by "has anyone done this before" was about making the lots, although could be quite interesting to see pics of peoples creations getting all "terrained-up"

Want to be good at the playing multiplayer on wic? Follow these general guidelines and I garrantee your game will be stepped up a notch. 1. play few player mode with bots that are set to the highest difficulty, do this until you get to the point of being able to destroy the bots in minutes. Doing this helps you build multitasking skills, if you can field and command all roles at once, you will find individual roles to be very easy. (best to use a modd like the no hope nuke mod, it helps computer pathfinding and unit usage tremendously.) 2. Once profficient at destroying hard bot players, play a friend over the LAN settings. Fighting a computer is one thing, fighting the strategy of a another live player is something entirly different. 3. As you play, reduce the dependancy of using large brute force, focus on using smaller elements to accomplish tasks. Also dont rely on similer tactics or use of particular units for all situations. Practice different tactics and switch them up to both test, and confuse the enemy. 4. Lastly, and most important, dont be the lonely general, battles are not won by individuals. Members of your team should do the above also. Play against each other, know each others strengths and weaknesses, test each others strategies and combine them. if you generally follow these tips your team will be a force of death and carnage spreading fire and frustration to whatever map you choose to pummel.

is it possible to model the rails to give a more 3d realistic look to rail?