Techleo

The interesting thing is when you build a city with just commercial, you can still thrive. Since the cities are linked to a global economy you can just import. I suppose during times when global industry is booming and material prices are low you could see entire regions dedicated to commercial. Then as the economy becomes more competitive, you would see shifts to more diverse economic models. Also if you have one extremely heavy industrial city with a good train system, I suppose you could produce enough for several commercial and residential cities. Frankly thats how cities work where I live.

Just dawned on me that they could have the land develop into farming communities via a system like great projects. Hrmmmm not a bad idea at all!

Ran the game on my desktop: AMD Phenom II 720 Black Edition, 4gb ddr3 512mb ATI 4870 OC No lag, graphical errors or hiccups at the highest settings. Even with anti-aliasing on. I did notice with the Warmer filter that it ran a tiny bit faster then with the Vibrant. Also its worth noting I ran it with the Framerate locked at 60fps.

I suppose as much as I disagree with most peoples negative points, thats one we all agree one. Map size is the elephant in the room. Every reviewer I have seen has the same feeling as almost every player Ive seen. Sure I can live with the map sized but .. its to small by a factor of 4 for me. That being said, I wonder if there servers could handle all the data.. hehe, we have no idea.

I keep hearing people say the game is to easy. *shakes head* We have no idea how easy it will be. There are so many more levels of services, zone densities, commodities, transportation networks and the structures to support said networks. I suspect once your city starts to enter the higher densities, the commodity needs will soar, just like in real life. The wealthier people are, the more resources it takes to maintain them. Which is one reason highly developed cities are so hard to maintain in real life. One has to keep in mind this demo was more of a insight into the visual style and capacities of the game at a lower level, with minimized needs to help make it easier to get into in a 1 hour span. Mind you I think they could have taken a easier approach but thats just me. Also the zoning issue I keep seeing is a null point once you figure out the basic block sizes of larger structures. I literally had no space between my buildings besides park lanes. Speaking of park lanes, people will use those as pedestrian paths rather then circumnavigate a road. Which is a amazingly useful feature. The issue with density became a fairly null point for me as well once I figured out how to use parks and recreation to boost zones into the density I wanted. All together I fell they took the game in the right direction by making it much more flexible.

I was really looking forward to farming as well. The issue may well have been one of space. If cities required food, then a set amount of land in every region would have to be a farming community. They may have felt such a hard limit was to constricting. That being said, we don't really have any idea why they didn't add it so its not fair to speculate how they will proceed. Just remember though, if they add it to the game as a commidity, everyone would have to have it. They can't add it as a optional DLC. In fact, they cant even really put expansions into the game unless its a required expansion. Unless they plan to have multiple worlds. That leads me to believe that they will garner there income from unique regions and grand projects. Perhaps something cosmetic. Its all rather difficult due to the online nature of the game.

Interesting. Id imagine the imports are from a fixed price source. Very cool info! Honestly I am having so much fun today. I tried to drain the map of all water. Haha, I managed to put a small dent in it in a hour.

I managed to get my 8th city to about 60k, but in truth I love my 30k one better. Theres something about a sprawling suburban environment with forests and ponds dotting it. Reminded me a ton of Seattle.

Something to remember is, this demo has no resource restraints. There is no inflation, no trade, no transport cost to ship stuff around, no great projects to absorb massive amounts of money and no depletion. Generally speaking, the demo isn't really anything more then a basic mechanism test. From what I can gather there is also a large number of misconceptions with how roads are laid, zones are plopped and generally a lack of understanding with how the game works. For example I have covered only 1/3rd my map and I have nearly 30,000 citizens. With vast sprawling subburbs and a urban core near the shoreline. *shrugs* Honestly thats why I haven't wrote a review yet because as much as I like about the game and dislike, I dont understand enough about the full game to give a opinion.

I supposed they had to make it free since we don't have access to the global trade network or the region. I can imagine the impact of not having resources at first wont be to bad. Since the global market will be flush with resources. Give it awhile though. Once less people are joining the game and resource levels go down. Ah! Then the fun begins. Still really depressed they didn't include agriculture.

Remember if you cant plop a park exactly where you want, use dirt roads! They essentially allow you to plop a park anywhere. Consider them road access just like a normal park. At the moment I am starting to realize just how simplified they made the demo. There are no resource requirements like in the main version of the game. You dont need resources to power your plants, you dont need anything really. I think people will be in for a surprise when they play the main version.

Generally speaking I find having brownstones isn't all that hard as long as the housing block has a $$ park by it and a medium road. Sadly I cant show you my configuration but suffice it, its simple really. Basically to control how your city looks , you just need control over transportation, landvalue and services. I wish you could see my circular road with apartments, Its beautiful!

Well I don't have time to really summarize what I feel about the game. I'll have to review it later. However I am very much enjoying the game. My biggest city was around 8,000 people. A comfy beachtown which reminded me of Lorn in Australia. Anyways, I will review the game in further detail once I get some time.

The good thing is, by hearing this feedback they can tweak how easy the game is. Especially in the higher end of the game when we have huge demands. In quite a few places the devs said the initial stages of getting a city going was very simple and easy. After awhile the needs just become greater and greater. Anywho, still testing it out. Ill give a real shakedown tomorrow though since Im exhausted!

Well just got my key. Really curious to see if my expectations have been met. Honestly I have wanted a sense of resource management since the beginning. They pretty much added all the elements I wanted. Now to see if my dream Simcity matches my expectations. PS guys, IGN is giving out keys.

Realism is definitely something a lot of us are concerned by. As it stands, I think the Unit, Agent, Resource and Rule system really offers us a far more organic and realistic system. Instead of the pc running calculations and rending traffic as it supposes it would look, we have cars using roads. The cars interact with there environment and traffic forms as a consequence of interactions. Rather then a pure calculation rendering. That realism seems to pervade every little element. Every tree, bunch of grass, person, aquifer and so on all links to each other and the behaviours form organically. That excites me beyond imagination. It also seems to me it will make modded structures have a far wider impact. Thats good in a way. I read a bit about how the farming works and that is one thing I am thrilled with. Farms take in nutrients and water. As long as those substances remain, the farms grow. Eventually you can have a scenario similar to the dust belt. If water tables disappear and nutrients is to low, the area dies and it cascades outwords. This makes it necessary to manage nutrients and water tables. Eventually you will have to rotate farms off land and onto new land to ensure regenration of the water table and the nutrients. This is the sort of simulated reality that we will just see in a simple manner that looks and makes sense. Yet its immensely robust. Good stuff

Actually I use linux at work Moose*chuckles* I actually think they could make Simcity work on it just fine. I was just saying Linux isn't a gaming OS more out of the public view of linux. Not its capacities. After all how many game boxes do you see from major developers with Runs on Linux. I can think of.. almost none. Anywho, yeah it would be great and fully possible.

I was extremely excited when I read that each car is persistent. A car leaves a home for work, and comes home to park. Essentially meaning traffic is more or less literal. There are to many cars for a road, if there to many cars to fit. This opens up so many possibilities. If a farm takes to much nutrients from the soil, it produces less. If you rotate fields, it fixes that. Basically a complex simulation which is easier to interact with because everythings more apparent. As for the single player region interacting with a global economy. Actually Simcity 2000 had this and is something Id been missing. Economic trends such as a portion of your commercial demand were generated or lost from a global set of factors. I can still remember cringing when I read that cars were selling worse then usual due to a recall. My economy temporarily tanked. I had prepared for it though. All in all, I am a very happy camper. I literally have nothing I am concerned with.

Well after reading the Reddit my brain is swimming when it comes to traffic simulations. The fact each car is actually there and goes from each place to each place is terrific. So many interesting tidbits coming out

Also it should be stated Idcaf, that while your city takes on a flavor, a Industrial style city can still be clean or dirty. The trash will still show up in the streets or not dependent on your ability to control it. City themes is more about giving your city a sort of identity. Much like the difference between Detroit and Seattle. Thankfully we know this due to a awesome review of the Glassbox engine. Well worth watching the videos. I cant say for sure the game will be awesome or not. I am extremely optimistic though. Oh and I am not attacking you. I really wanted you to know that bit of info.

Your about to give me a heart attack from laughing Moose. You mean native support for Linux right? Not emulation ? I suppose that could be done if they run the game on Mac. Would be surprising though if it was planned for at this point. Linux isnt exactly a gaming OS

Frankly Im thrilled because Ive wanted to run a logging city for a looong time in Simcity.

You crack me up moose

Ah! Good to be back on the boards! I really honestly think if they go the direction there going now were in for a treat. My biggest issue is modding. With the online play it could be.. difficult. Mind you we know little or nothing about what they have planned. After all , all the other Sim games they have made are centered around sharing content. *shrugs*

Personally I was one of the people in the past which wanted them to add resources and environmental costs long before it became what it has now. To me at least, building a city requires consequences. Not just smashing numbers and coming up with the richest and most balanced cities. That was always one peeves of Simcity 4. Why doesn't materials run out? Why doesn't water run out? Id much prefer a finite amount of resources. People either compete or co-operate. We see it all around us in cities now. One city fights another for water. While two other cities work together and thrive. Personally that a element Simcity just didn't have. Its like Simcity matured and is giving us access to more layers to see and learn from:D Natural resources make cities. They are cities. Without them you just have a half simulated city. In my opinion of course hehe.