Gecks_II

I donno what to say. Hugely disapointed? YES. I can see why EA wants to simplify the next SC release. Look at SIMS! its simple and hugely popular! But thats it! Heck, even Spore is following the same formula. Maybe EA thinks that by simplifying SC, it will enable them to get a larger base. But I see there being one problem, the main Sim Fans adore the SC franchise for its pursuite of realism and to an extent complexity. And with every version we have been given deeper more developped depth. Now, I do agree that for the "new" guy it probably comes accross as overwhelming. And the argument could be made that SC could be simplified. But frankly, I think they would of been much better off going the way of giving the player a scalable approach to control, and let an AI control the rest, for the new guy, and for the hardcore simcity fan, let him have full control! I also think it is to an extent a "slap" in the face to many members of this community, because of the effort and time and how far many members have pushed the envelope of what SC4 could do! I mean we almost have gotten to the point of creating a hybrid SC4/SC5. We have raised the bar high, very high in terms of quality, of what we expect and want. And I think we all expect SC5 to atleast meet those high standards, if not exceed them (even by just a bit). And frankly, if they had just expanded just a bit and polished up some of the main features of SC4, threw in some new graphics and effects, given us 3D, and opened up the game for easier modding, I think we would have ALL been hugelly satisfied! and exicted! Add the scalable control and you'd even get the new guy to like it and play it! -and eventually challenge himself to take more control. Instead they changed the formula, slapped cartoon all over it, took some CityLife formulas and mixed it in, and slapped SimCity on it and DONE. And perhaps, that was there only mistake, was slapping the SC title on it like that. Because, it doesnt fit into the SC franchise. Its not an forward iteration of the SC franchise, its a whole new set up. I will follow SCS developement, and if they have a demo try it out. But unlike all the other SC, (all the way back to SC on SNES when I was like 5) I wont jump on it right away and buy it the day it comes out. And I will hold judgement for now, but as things stand, I feel a bit insulted and let down by what EA has done, but who can blame them, its the $$ that counts for them. If they blow off the whole current SC community, salvage a few and grow a larger base, to them, they succeeded. All I can say, is, unless EA plans a surprise SC5 from Maxis, before or just after this game releases, Another Studio, like the Monte Carlo, might be able to scoop up alot of gamers if they push out a CL or the leaked City Unlimited, that appeals more to SC players then SCS does. sorry for the long post

Hey Tarkus, I've been having a very similar issue with NJZ. I've had the new NAM installed since it came out, but the problem I have just popped up in one of my cities when the population got high enough for high density sckyscrapers to be built ( +65k) It is a new area that I developped once I was able to get tall buildings, next to my commercial downtown. The thing, I dont understand, is that for the most part when they come up, after the figure out their commute route, they all go NJZ on me! and it is even when the job is just a block away!. I figured it might happen to the odd building, but it happens to 95% of the buildings that come up. I had my population skyrocket to over +100k and then drop down to 60-65 because of this. I even added combo subway/train stations after this started to happen to see if it was caused by too much traffic. But I still have NJZs. I have sims commuting 2/3rd through the map, no prob, and the these urban sims dont seem to want to walk out of their building, any ideas?( I have the 10x commute 10x speed) Im gona go try and un-install/re-install NAM.. see if that does anything.

Sweet jumping jelly beans! Your a MONSTER!!!!...lol.. This is sooo awesome!!! thank you very much!! I always go through cycles of playing for a few months then RLF takes away my time.. then when I have time again, I venture back to Simtropolis.. and see the hard work that people like you blahdy do and it just excites me to go back and micromanage my cities to get that special little thing that makes it unique. Enough with my blabber. Thank you so much for you contributions! On a side note, ever thought of perhaps making sunken highway pieces (ie: straight aways and curves or even overpass skins) based on this style that are transit enabled? I donno about other people, but I realy love that clean look this project has. And you seem to be a master at detailling and the small touches.

SWEET JEBUS! MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERD!!! I had bummed around the idea to get the monorail to be used for long hauls. I was just gona originaly keep the monorail as it was, and make plopable white sloped pieces*_/ll\_*, to "hide" the pillars, and make it look like it was raised off the ground. Although, I dont get my white sloped wall idea, THIS IS AWESOME! THANK YOU SO MUCH! oh, and It was mentioned earlier, the nightlighting for the track, I think a light blue or greenish/blue might be realy cool to use, will give it a -fresh- kinda look...and cool factor. Thats just my 2cents. But thank you everyone that worked on this!! hats off to you all!!! I cant wait to use this im region (will help SO much with my congested rail system)

@Ijuin Yup I totaly, agree, but only in overall effects; Pollution, traffic, etc. I guess I could of worded better, but basically the "editable area" is the area, where you can a) build new stuff, and b) that current buildings may change and develop. But overall direct effects of these changes would, like you said, taper off as you extended further outward from the "edit circle".

I have thought, and dreamed for a long time about the next installment of the SimCity franchise. In fact, to such degree in certain aspects that its too detailed, for even me to explain lol. So without further a due my thoughts/ideas; 1) First and foremost, the next version of SimCity, should be built Open ended. That is to say that places like here, in Simtropolis, should be able to go into the game and add content (Thinking about all our awesome bat’rs and the rest of you!) 2) The game itself, should be built to operate on the futures growing multiple core CPUs. That is to say, they should build the game to be able to not just utilize dual cores, or quad core processors, but no matter how many cores you have (not to sure if it is entirely possible, but just a thought) This would enable us, as time goes on, and the next version being 7years after, the game could in fact keep “growing” as our systems would become more powerful. I mean Frig! Vista will handle up if not over 128GB!!! Of Ram! (god knows why I’d ever need that much, but hey who knows.) 3a) Get rid of the region and city levels/maps. Think outside of the box. (In this following case, literally.) You should be able to zoom in to what ever level of the game you want. (well not too TOO close). When you are about to create a region, the game should analyze your system’s capabilities, and tell you a good performance maximum. At which point a set of variables become available for you to mess around with for your region. (forests, water amount, mountains, type of climate/weather, etc) 3b) Now, what if (with reference to point 3a) as I said, zoom in at any level, and be able to see your entire world/map/region, whatever you want to call it. (I can already here people saying, yeah, that’s great, but my computer would DIE). Well, what if, you could see it all, but you had what I like to call and “editing circle”?(See figure 001) That Is to say, you could see everything, but in fact the game simulation only ran within this free moving editing circle. Now this circle’s size, would be dependant on the games needs versus your systems capabilities. (Again, leaving for improvement that as you would upgrade your system, these changes would be seen as larger editable circles..regions..etc.). So lets say you were out editing a small village area, the circle would be able to be expanded to a larger size. But once you moved into a densely populated area, (at which point the simulation would be more demanding.) the maximum editing circle maybe much smaller? (lets say a current small city tile size for a thought.) 4) So Basically what the game would do of your region, is divide the whole region into tile sized still pictures, so to speak. These would include all variables for pollution traffic, so forth. And basically, would become actively aware once you moved your editing circle over onto it and would update or change. 5) Now to stop weird things from happening, (like huge polutting industry next to a cottage farming town that hasent been edited in hundreds of years, the game would have a larger awareness running in the background, managing, traffic and other variables on larger less detailed and less computer resources intense way. So that it would judge that this industrial area(withing commuting distance) can accommodate 10,000 workers, so that your editing area can take advantage of the jobs available. This larger awareness would also control stuff like free flowing weather systems, and traffic. (again not a per-say changing traffic patterns, just a static one, with maybe a few adjustments taking into consideration new commuters). All this would lead you to believe your region is alive, but in fact the only area that is changing and developing (the part that sucks your computer’s ressources) would be limited to the “editing circle”, which could be free roamed or moved around at your own will, but separate of what your scrolling around and looking would be. And of course stuff like the grid should be smaller triangle like shapes instead of squares. That would make it easier to make different angles streets. And maybe set it so that you can kinda like “freeze” your lets say road level, so that your road will stay at the same height, and accordingly, if your drag goes through a mountain it turns into a tunnel, and over a valley, it adjusts to make a bridge. And that you can make it go up and down at different angles, at the selection of an option. Those are my 2 cents worth of ideas that I don’t believe have been mentioned. If you have any idea or questions about the concept, or would like to talk about that “editing circle” PM me or something ^.^ Id love to go into greater detail. FYI: Maxis, if your reading this, Go ahead, feel free to use my editing circle Idea. If you are NOT Maxis, aka: not wanting to make the next simcity... you'll haft to ask nicely you have been warned...lol

I've done the same in my farming efforts (I'll post pictures later on) the smaller farms, and more random shapes and sizes adds alot more to looks and feel. Some of the farms I make arent even big enough for maxis to develope them, so I stretch the zoning further out.

now ..dont hold me entirely to this.. but I think My current region is something along the lines of close to 60x60kms. or rougly..2817x2817 or 44x44 for the config.. but i mean.. hell! its huge! i dont think ill ever get it fully developed..

just a thought: Would'nt this mean that in essence.. we could have a free handed way to making any transport paths we want/can make? This is kinda like reverse engineering, we are learning how SimCity 4 works, and now we are re-making the game more open ended and free to customize!! Awesome work guys!!

@zakuten I noticed this too, when the small green things were passing through it. All I did was turn the station around, and bam! trains go the right way!

Just a thought, would we not be able to make, lets say tunnel looking pieces and have custom tunnels made? I mean im sure we could find a way by using textures to even hide the pieces. Like dig a trench and than plop a cover piece on it and voila! Or heck, even tunnels that are surrounded by glass, so people can look at the fishies and perhaps other not so desirable things in the water. Just a thought. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to knowing how to create such things, but Id more than willing to design or make texture. Im pretty good at Photoshop and designs.

One word... WOW!!, that is amazing, I know its been said before, but your teraforming is amazing. The highcliff and plateau thing reminds me of the scenery in the animated series, Dragon Ball-Z...I've always wanted to tinker around with that idea, but I have not the time nor patience too!! lol!! Keep up the Fabulous work! I am not one to post up on CJ's, but this, this one I will follow!