warrior

I'm glad they are considering modding at all. They could have quite easily have said because the game is kinda multiplayer all the time, we will just not bother with modding completely. I don't want someone to create a cheat mod that gives them unlimited oil or something and then affect the global market and affect my playing unreasonably. There was no SC4 beta, but there is a beta for this, so many of the type of bugs that shipped with SC4 and had to be fixed by modding, will be fixed before release. Also there is the in game lot editor, to slightly offset the lack of initial modding. You can't compare a 2012 shooting game with a 2003 shooting game, because the genre has advanced. But city simulators have been pretty stagnant.

I know SimCity uses glassbox which requires a lot of simulation and computer power. I think I will get SimCity more for fun, and this more for playing with transport which is my favourite part of SC4

I kinda wish Maxis would combine with this team. Or vice versa. I love the glassbox engine from simcity 2013, but the transport options are a little dull compared to this, and the graphics of the transport network here looks better

is anyone from the community going to gamescom? Now that we know the be will be playable there, it seems too good of an opportunity to miss. I'm considering going but I'm just wondering if anyone else is? The post (below) has the notes I wrote down after playing the demo, I'm not a great writer or rememberer so it's not as good as the review posted on reddit, but hopefully it fills in a few small gaps for someone (overall I thoroughly enjoyed it)

Is the homepage for mobiles going to be fixed. I asked about it ages ago, but it's still a mess.

2. If you're talking about what I said about graphics, then that's my opinion, I played the first version of Cities XL so it may have changed since then, I think the detail in SimCity 4 is very good, most importantly there is a lot of texture, the walls are not solid colors, curves look like curves and don't have edges. This was possible because it was 3D so everything was prerendered, some BATers spent hours and sometimes days rendering their creations. Although I admit the closest zoom in SC4 was not always very pretty 3. I haven't played Anno 2070, I don't know much about it, but the new Simcity is always online. If you're in a population challenge and the city size depends on you're computer power then that will not be fair. And if you mean the less powerful computers can have bigger tiles but lower graphic settings, glassbox means that all the animations and details actually mean something and are used to play the game, it's almost as if they have combined the UI and graphics to make a more engaging gameplay. For example in the demo I zoomed in on a factory to see for myself what it was like from the trailer videos, and indeed you see boxes being moved around, if the graphic settings are reduced details like that disappear and the game becomes harder or different to play. 4. Moore's law is about the transistors on chips, not the average computer, how many people buy new computers every one or two years? not that many. I would think they could get a slightly bigger map out of the minimum requirements. They don't want to annoy people, it's not EA dictating the size of the map, they will have a reason for it. maybe in the beta they will see actually they can increase the size. In SimCity 4 (and I think Cities XL) the city is not simulated to the full extent it is in the new SimCity, eg parks would radiate their effect, in the new SimCity sims actually go to the park and actually play football to get the effect. The simulation is much more thorough. The problem with SimCity societies was at it's core, it was just made wrong. The problem with SimCity 2013 (relevant to this thread) is the map size, which is a number that can be changed with an update later on. The core game is made very well, the simulation is the deepest. When computers get better the map can get bigger and the game will be better. You could run SimCity Societies on a super computer and it still wouldn't be a good game.

It would be a shame to see this game fail because people don't buy it just because the maps size is a bit too small. The game is fun to play, more people will see that when the beta comes out, when playing the demo Rushhour added a lot of new stuff and no-one complained that it wasn't in the original game and had to pay more for it. The game is a reboot, not a sequel, you can't really directly compare, especially as the new one is in 3D. We've waited almost a decade for a new simcity, we can either buy this one and help it become better after release or just let it be released not buy it, it will still be a success in all likely hood (judging by the size of the queue at gamescom), and not get the game we are waiting for. I do think the map is a little too small, but it's not that big of a deal when playing. Also remember the people playing at gamescom are playing pre-alpha, things will change.

Sadly it seems that the city in the demo was a "standard" sized city... And it is the only size available...

They didn't say anything about the tilesize, but I was reaching one of the edges a few minutes before the end. So I'm betting that this was either the smallest tile or they reduced it for the demo. The car and pedestrian details were very good. For example you could see sims playing football, zoom right in and click on them to see what they were doing. In SC4 it was just animation of sims playing football, but in the new SC they actually know they are playing football. The cars driving seemed less jagged than in the trailers. It is definitely fun.

Here are my thoughts on the game (pre alpha): Tldr: I thoroughly enjoyed it, and this is only the prealpha... (I edited this post once at a computer to clarify some points) No auto create roads when zoning, you must draw the roads first: Zones aren't like SC4 zones the lots are determined when you draw the roads and you just choose water RC or I fills that lot Can't upgrade roads, if you have a road and you want to upgrade it to an avenue, or if you have avenue and you want to put light rail down it, you hav to bulldoze the existing road and redraw it. Light rail is only down middle of the road, you can't place it anywhere else. The upgrade lots thing (in game lot editor is pretty good) you can add modules outside of the lot The curvy roads didn't quite work as I expected but I'm pretty sure once used to them you can control the easily, they much preferred following guides than my cursor The demolish animation is far superior to SC4 I wasn't quite certain how you know what your sims need there is no central place to find data, like there wasn't really an advisors panel which collate all the news. Instead "news" s now speech bubbles around the city. When I tried to upgrade the town hall it plopped but didn't actually buil I think this was probably a bug, so I couldn't place a school and see how that worked. The glassbox is very good you see different bursts of agents like Sewage, but it appears all sims flush their toilets at once. It threw me that the sewage and water lots didn't work immediately. I think they may have waited for the next working day to get workers which is quite cool. The tile in the demo is a bit small I thought, I used roughly half (maybe a bit more) and got to 1,700 sims before the demo ended. Many lots (if not all) must be placed next to a road on specific points the game highlights for you. You can't plop a lot and them drag a road out to it. You can place airports just in your city (well there was an option for airport in the menu but was disabled and it didn't seem to indicate it was a great work) There is also ferrys in the game. But they were disabled in the demo and there was no water anyway. You can only connect to the regional highway where it lets you, there was a highway stub that came off the highway (as an intersection not interchange) and you had to connect the road up to that. I found it quite hard to find buildings in the demo, a lot of the time you have to see what an advisor is saying in the town hall, (it would be nice if you could type the name of a building and it would go to it, in SC4 the financial pane showed a list of all schools and hospitals etc, I missed that, but a lot of the UI was disabled in the demo so there may be something like it) There was no evidence of the ability to make tunnels or embankments or elevated networks. There was no terrain modification of any kind but again a lot of the UI was disabled. From the videos I was under the impression you could plop or plot RCI. But I could only find a way to plot it. The ploppables were locked (not disabled for the demo though). So I couldn't find a way of manually increasing the density of the lots. There was a lot of green space. The My Sim mode from SC4 seems to be built into the new Simcity you get little speech bubbles when sims are unhappy about something (or happy). But this isn't bad thing at all. When you are plopping something like a water pump you see a map of the water table, it will also give a numerical value next to the cursor. Rail sadly was disabled. I'm very glad that the range of police stations is now done by road and not just a circle. To increase range you just add modules (instead of plopping another police station) the modules didn't have to be on the lot , and the lines along the road will become green from red to show the increased range. Overall I wasn't overly impressed by the graphics compared to SC4, everything was too coloured, mean there wasn't much texture, the detail may have been lost with the lower screen resolution. But the engine worked well, and seems to have a lot of potential. Hopeful an expansion pack is released that adds some more features like Rushhour did During the game the zone section showed a little bar for each zone indicating roughly how much of each zone you needed to build. Also after upgrading the police station there was a bubble telling me that the police station needed more workers, so I had to add more residential. I would have liked to see more transport options, like the ability to specific how many lanes and whether there is a median or light rail or neither. While playing I lost myself in the game, the sounds were surprisingly effective, when I took the headphones off I noticed the difference. The graphics were better the CXL (and definitely SCS), but not as good as SC4 (not far off though ) If this is pre alpha, as it says it is, I'm definitely buying it. The learning curve was not as steep as SC4, but I got the impression that if I could have spent an hour or two more I could have been able to do more complex stuff. It was quite a rush while playing the game so ask questions and while I'm not an expert I'll probably remember something more than what I've written. (The main point I took away from this, is that it's a reboot, not a sequel, so it's not quite as broad as SC4, eg there are less transport options than in Rushhour.)

I am going tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to actually play it. If I do get to play I'll post back here with my thoughts, though I know others have already posted their thoughts on reddit and places. I may get there though and spend the whole day queuing and not get a chance but that's just life So what exactly are the most pressing questions? I have no interest in new games, but for once there is something big being shown not in America and relatively close by, and the entrance fee is only €11, so it seems worth getting up at 3am (in 4 hours :/)

They've also said it you lose connection while playing, then you can still carry on playing.

You can't take game art and take it seriously. Look at the cover of SC4, massive skyscrapers next to flat land, and Curley bridges...

highways have been shown in the trailer haven't they? Connecting the Airport?

The simulation in SC4 had some/many problems, the minute control we got made up for that. Now we have really good simulation, but not so much control where we'd like. The SC community can either embrace the new and give Maxis/EA a reason to release updates and expansion packs, or can boycott* it and let it shrivel and die. Out of all the SC4 "sequels" this one has the best chance of being something the community likes. *However I'm pretty sure most people who say they will boycott it will still buy the new shiny game when it is released to at least try it out. I'm pretty sure we have control of placing roads at least, why else would they advertise curvy roads? And in the E3 footage it showed someone laying down roads I think. We have control of roads and transport within our city, but the intercity transport links are placed before you start the city. You build your city on top of the existing regional transport. While there is no god terraforming, I would imagine that once custom content is enabled (if not at release), players will be able to create their own maps. But as far as I can see from Maxis people have said, we will have mayor-mode terraforming, i.e. it will cost money and not be as drastically quick. Remember in SC4 once you've started a city, you can't use God mode terraforming without cheating or installing a mod.

It seems that player customising the regional network is more complicated than just allowing the play to drag between cities. but the ability to customise may come after release. @Jon889 Out-of-scope for ship - maybe later. My take - city's aren't responsible for the interstate highway system. They connect to it. — Ocean Quigley (@oceanquigley) July 18, 2012 And more details (new details) about region play will be announced at gamescom. Now that the initial "shock" has worn off you have to keep an open mind, remember The Simcity 4 we play today is very different to the one at release, we've had rush hour since then and custom content came after the game was released. First BATs and then the more complicated modds. Now you can bet EA is pushing Maxis to release earlier than they'd like, but they did this with SC4 too, dirt roads (what we know as RHW now) shipped with the game but were disabled as yet were finished. Ocean Quigley says they want custom content ( @Jon889 Yeah, but probably not immediately - remember it took a few years to really open up modding on SC4. It's not trivial to support. — Ocean Quigley (@oceanquigley) July 19, 2012 ) but like SC4 it won't be immediately. I think EA/Maxis has realised that custom content is the reason SC4 is still being sold today.

So you build cities on top of the regional infrastructure. The regional roads and rails are per layed out. So it's not that you have stubs at the edge of the city which you can then drag from. the whole highway is predetermined. @Jon889 Different cities have different connection options. Pick your location based on what you want to do. On a river? Highway? Rail line? — Ocean Quigley (@oceanquigley) July 18, 2012

What happens when the connection gets over capacity, do you just keep widening and widening the road? What if you want a rail or tram connection not road, and I guess this rules out subway?

So did anyone actually get one of their questions answered, or are they ignoring the ST users as per usual? This nonsense about the transport network not being customisable between cities really ruins the game, because it means you can't choose exactly where you want your city.... So not quite the open sandbox we were promised. Nevertheless as soon as I get the game I'm going to find out exactly how/if we can mod customisation.

It missing the colon after the http

Remember there are 8 months until release, if you look closer at the videos from E3 there are many bugs. Trains jumping tracks. Railways ending in level crossings. Cars driving though each other. Roads not connecting properly (although that bug was fixed between scene changes as in the following shot they were connected properly). Cars driving through pedestrians. Cars driving though houses. So don't worry they know they have stuff to do, and they'll do it. How many people here can remember playing SimCity 4 vanilla (before rushhour and before custom content), there were several problems, you'd be surprised how much of the NAM is dedicated to fixing bugs in the game. Custom Content (beyond BATs and Lots) was primarily done by the community, tools like the iLive reader, without which mods like the NAM wouldn't exist, were made by community members not MAXIS. We know Glassbox agents run on sets of rules, it's mostly likely those rules are not going to be in the EXE, so even if Maxis/EA don't ever allow custom content (and they'd be stupid not to), the modders in the community will get on to it (I know that personally as soon as I've played a bit with the game, I'm going to digging around in it). Also there are multiple versions of the game, you can preorder (I think one includes a British, German and French city set), I doubt they will have 2 seperate EXEs, more likely the city sets will be additional files like we have .dats in SC4, if so theres a good starting place to make more buildings at least. SimCity 4 didn't ship with custom content, the BAT and Lot editor came after release and since SC4, DLC is very much common place, in general EA and Maxis are more aware of the Internet. At E3 SimCity was competing for room in the press with more popular games, it's typically more attractive for the press to be talking about shooting and sport games than a city simulator. If they'd gone into lots of detail, with lots of data and the stuff the "Core" users typically prefer, they wouldn't have got as much press. EA want big initial sales, which means appealing to as wider audience as possible in places where theres a lot of press like E3. That said when Kip did the origin chat, it was pretty useless.

Sewage pipes got a small mention in the video, can't remember the time. I like that the water pipes are automatic, I hated laying those pipes in SC4, I just ended up dragging them up and down in a massive grid. But it would be nice to manually draw some pipes, like between neighbour hoods, that aren't connected by road necessarily.

And at 3:30, it seems some of the problems of trains jumping track in SC4 have made it through to the new simcity... And it looks like they haven't yet put collisions in. The number of times cars drive through each other, pedestrians or houses is quite high

Wow at the beard