DocRorlach

Yes, there are now billions of IP addresses out there, but that does not mean that - as someone once posted in this forum - "most gamers are online all the time anyway.." (or words to that effect). DRM is fine, but Origin or any idea of a single online system is simply rubbish from the start. If EA was so certain of their new Maxis baby they could just as easily make it an option: see what kind of fan base you get, give the buyer a choice. I might want play online one day, offline another. I might get downtime from my ISP, good as it is, and in the meantime the region I am develops and suddenly I am behind the curve due to a technical glitch. Online gaming works, of course it does, but it is not suited to every genre or game out there. Heck, "online" SC4 regions have existed - 3RR comes to mind - but it was a labour of enthusiasm not an enforced game play system. And although the famous "we're not idiots" quote re modding, online gaming adds an enourmously complex dimension to modding (forget batting for the first year or two). How are you going to test your creation? Online? Real time? Let EA/Maxis run its odd course, perchance they will actually learn something this time around, then let's look at it again in a 2014 or 2015..

In the "distant" past, before the most recent release of NAM, there was talk of 7.5m high eleveated rail viaducts and even STR viaducts if I recall correctly. I know the US delegation on this site favours road/RHW/etc., but those of us who live in tiny European countries tend towards rail. So - any chance?

For a very succinct explanation of the What & Why SC2013 suddenly appeared on the horizon and how it will come to the market, I would like to refer every on to SenorBrightSide's 106th post on this SImPeg topic.. 'Nough said

Do not get your hopes up about batting or modding or even customizing SC2013: for one, in SC4 it was Maxis who made the first tools available for it - they do have to be compatible with the games engine. As far as we have seen thus far (and there have been utterances from the development/management team accordingly) there will, at least initially be no such an approach for SC2013. Moreover, since it is an online only game where other players influence what happens in your city/region (not sure how far this will go), custom content would be a nightmare unless it is instantly shared. The next SC game appears to simply follow a trend: Focus is trying, so EA/Maxis - with a lot more investment cloud - hopes to beat them. It is not SC5, probably never will be, because that would be a natural progression on the same graphic plane, i.e. isometric, just better. I doubt very much that anyone at EA ever thought about doing just that: improve SC4 to make it SC5, complete with an initial set of batting/modding tools. Shame, that..

Sorry, but this all just looks like CitiXL in a different jacket. The region view simply looks ridiculous (I hope that stays as concept art) and the buildings, with a few exceptions, remain super-simplified. Methinks Maxis is trying too hard to rush this out - Societies on steriods, with little input from the users.

I know the original question mentioned the Sims; however, thequestion was formulated general enough to cover custom content. Moreover, from the articles it becomes very clear that "legacy content" - i.e. what we batted & lotted - will not work, not even with modifications, because of the new graphics engine which is NOT isometric but uses "free view" approaches similar to CitiXL. Anyone seeing current batters recreating the100-odd GB of custom stuff to fit the new engine?? Maxis/EA is, as expected, once again going for the money only. They are being their usual shortsighted selves, and are apparently unable to peruse the fan sites. Or understand what close to a million SC4 players world-wide are trying to tell them. Some time back, Becca tried to get folks on various sites to come up with a concerted letter to Maxis; well, now would be a good time to revive that idea. We know the addressee: Lucy Bradshaw, in charge of all simulations at EA. The only hope we have is a simple one: Maxis is just starting out on this. Hence now would be the time for all SC4 fans to stand up and be counted, Why not start a petition across the sites? Now, more than ever before, would be the time to round up the troops on every SC4 site and pool them into a single message: we know what SC5 should be able to do! They claim to have the next generation graphics engine. Again, we know what CitiXL did wrong. And we already have long lists on every site, detailing what we want. Should not be hard to get a few thousand signatories for a real petition. All it takes is someone like the Pegasus or the Dirktator to spearhead the idea. Not taking such a step means we leave it all to a bunch of developers who probably were not even old enough to purchase SC4 Deluxe when it came out. What that means has been shown time and again - you need not look any further than Societies and/or CitiXL.

After reading the original artical, it turns out to be pointless to translate the entire thing. The most important part, as far as I am concerned, is said in the Interview with Lucy Bradshaw, where Ms. Bradshaw very clearly states that custom content a la SC4 will not be available: (roughly translated quotes) Q: "The importing of the user's custom content was a stroke of genius which made SimCity much more attractive to end users." A: "We do not currently envisage that; the two games [sC4 & SC5, ed.] are technically too different for that." This indicates that the new game will be nothing more than a souped up version of Societies. It also shows that the folks at EA/Maxis have little intention of listening to what the die-hard SC4 community has to say. It appears that the forthcoming game will be merely a reaction to CityXL. BTW: none of the graphics shown in the article are "real", they are merely concept art, i.e., what some artists think the game might look like.

Since the translation of the original looks like one of those horrid Google jobs (quite a bit of it does not make sense): does anyone have a link to the German original so I can correct it?