cowcorn

Being myself an RTC I could say in defense that staring at 9 screens with multiples phone lines and radio lines constantly ringing for 8 to 12 hours at a time and trying through that to manage traffic requires you to sometime get out of your chair simply to go the bathroom and get something to eat (generally at your desk and in between calls). You know to maintain basic bodily functions... and sometimes sanity! Most of the time when you come back there might already be 4 lines or more waiting... Despite that bit of editorial comment on my part I still find that this was a fantastic post with an awesome level of detail.

If I am not mistaking Will Wright was really that involved in SC4 anyway so that part about him does not mean anything whatsoever. I am not really hoping for anything here but I'll refrain from being negative as some others are.

"We see the Facebook games as snacks – they are five or ten minutes play, and then you go do something else and come back. But the experience on PC is much more robust and in-depth. The Facebook game is the starter before the main meal on PC in that sense." In my opinion a Facebook based SimCity could be a first step towards a real PC version.

Frdm920 : I was trying to put back some hope and convince people that if we work together we might a have a chance (even though remote) to persuade EA into making a new Sim City. However since the reply I get is demolition then I must say I would not pursue this for now. For the record, I am not even a bit surprised to get such a response. The overall tone in the community on that subject is that of an old man convinced that nothing can change and that the best is behind. I have heard your arguments numerous times before and sincerely I don't care about them. You may wan't to reply to this post but it will be lost words because I will simply ignore it. Jacksunny : Sorry I had not seen your post before writing the first part of this post. My view on this is that if there was a will on the part of EA and Maxis to make it happen there would be numerous ways to make it profitable. We tend to think in very limited terms. Railworks 2 is a game for the passionate to say the least. The basic game is priced like any game but there is tons of DLC to choose from at a cost. The Sims uses a similar commercial model. Now I would not go to these extremes for a SimCity game but it would definitely be a way of making it profitable. A basic accessible game and them a few DLC packages for the passionate. Mind you that publishers get a better profit margin on online products than on physical releases (another big evolution since 2003). Even though that would raise the price tag for the core players I think most core Simcity fans would buy it. The logic is that hardcore fans will find the money even if it's painful.

As usual I see quite a few arguments that say that this is not worth it. The problem I see is that if all humans thought like that much of the great evolutions of mankind would not have happened. Very great things have started from hopeful people who were willing to fight for a cause even though the odds were stacked against them. I am usualy one of the pessimistic but in this case I am willing to hope. As for the financial reasons EA would have for not doing Sim City 5 I think in the end they are poor excuses. How many copies of Sim City 4 have been sold since 2003? Thats how much people would be interested to buy a new Sim City if it was well done. Ultimately the reasons why we did not have a real successor to Sim City 4 were technical up until now. If this is a start for a real lobby campaign than I propose that we get organized. There are quite a few ideas floating around; let's put them to work.

Today in southern Quebec, Canada... More Precisely Sherbrooke, QC. Currently -9C. Snow is dialing down after the 70cm fallen in the last 36 hours... From what I gathered from Flickr these were taken this morning. The final amount is even more outrageous. Also, that snow was preceded by a full day of rain and melting snow that froze under the snow. It took me 1 hour, friendly neighbors and traction aids just to get out of my parking spot.

I think I joined under Simtropolis 2.0... And yes I am still somewhat around. Anyway it seams great and is likely to ease the task of keeping up with everything.

I have to correct my previous statement. The game just crashes as soon has there lots of graphics to process, like just after zooming to zoom 4. I was able to run the game longer at start but it won't work now. I actually play SC4 on windows XP through parallels 5 but the performance is very slow on large cities, comparable to my old P4 when I had only 1 gig of ram.

I have SimCity running flawlessly on a Bootcamp 64 bit windows 7 on a iMac that doesn't even officially support 64 bit versions of windows 7. I think it may be a matter of using the compatibility center of windows 7. However I failed to make Civilization IV run on the same setup.

Well thats a great review! Thanks RHF. Nice comment on the Neverendingstory, I didn't think of that when I wrote but it very possible that it infleunced me somehow. I was away because (yet again) RL and my internet connection.