morriswalters

Trading will sort itself out. People who want to trade will find a way to make it work. The question should rather be are there enough of those players to support the planet offer. The trading systems biggest problem is that since there is no real property exchanged there is no incentive to stay in a contract once it is no longer in your best interest. In game assets should never be left idle. The game is set up so that what you don't trade has no value. What you trade is flow. Money in the game past the ability to buy certain items is worthless. Cash flow is important. So to statetgy. Never leave an asset unsold. Sell it to omnicorp. Advertise what you want to trade, the minute you can get a better deal cancel with omnicorp and sell that asset to your new partner. And of course your new partner should fear that to. How perfectly capitalistic. Not! For myself I would rather see some trades that would be in items that you would own. Buildings, utilities, or whatever.

So now were going to run in to each other here. How cool!. We could bat this around forever, but let me conclude with something I have come to believe about this game. Some times the game we want isn't possible with the technology that we have. It may be as simple as that. Again my plan is to stay in the game. A lot of things can happen and who knows...... I almost forgot. Try this. Use 2 lane streets and the right angle tool. Make zone six houses by three houses. Accept the wasted space, use green fill. When your ready to upgrade you have a four by two high rise lot. You can do that with the straight road tool but you have to be really careful. You can vary which streets you use. Learned that trick right here at Simtropolis for use in SC4.

Perhaps it's to early for this, but if MC comes through, some tapered lots with park textures and trees and shrub of the perimeter to act as cammo on those really tough sloping lots would be nice. TIA.

Think about this. Until this whole shooting match gets up and going there may not be anybody else to trade with. Trust me when I tell you, Omnicorp doesn't skew anything. Think of it like their setting a price floor or a price ceiling. If they bother you ignore them. Eventually when the kinks are worked out It appears that it should be self regulating. But if you've operated a business you would be aware that pricing is the most difficult part. Look at the conversations about MC's pricing.

One thing that holds true with either game is that either the model or the tile holds level. If the terrain is not level then some kind of foundation will have to be used. Those lots of the SC4 screen shots look really good, however it is possible for those same lots to look really bad with stretching and other things. And the buildings have foundations. I can't see well. Where do those sidewalks lead to? Screen shots of CXL show some buildings without lots. Look closely at farm buildings. In point of fact there is a building in the demo with no foudation. The windmill. It looks good until you look close. To my knowledge there is no solution to this problem with any 3D engine. Google earth has some of these same issues. Model makers add terrain to keep buildings from hovering above the map. Limitations show the quality of the builder. In both games it is possible to overcome some of the limitations of the game. Currently SC4 has the advantage here, it's been here longer and people understand it better. CXL is much more sensitive to unlevel terrain then SC4. For one thing you can't see it as well. One thing that SC4 did extremely well was to make the texture on the terrain reactive, you can see your changes. In CXL the textures stretch, but they don't change. It will be interesting to see how model makers deal with this.

Omnicorp is MC's trading company. Their prices are absurd, but it does provide some pricing info, in the sense that you shouldn't buy anything at a cost greater than what Omnicorps will sell it for. On the other end you shouldn't try to sell anything at a lower price than what Omnicorp will buy it for. They are the trading partner of last resort. They are also the most reliable.

Before I retired I worked in a high rise condo as a Maintenance manager. To build the condo it required demoing six residential lots, six rather large lots in an affluent neighborhood. High rises take space. The building was surrounded by wasted space. The owners called it the grounds. It looked very much like a park. There is less of this in dense downtown area. But it still happens. Look at New York, or Hong Kong. The game will never have the variety of building tiles that the real world shows us. On the other hand the real world doesn't have to count polygons. Since I'm an optimist by nature, I've already preordered, ya'll just sit on the sidelines if ya want to. This ole boy is gonna jump in. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Couple of things. It is possible to upgrade curved roads if homes are on one side. See above pictures. Roads snap to homes. Start your road at the ceter of a house. The game will space it correctly. Snap at the center of the next home. Rinse and repeat. Having said this, curved roads extract a price. They are fussy and require effort. Square lots. I wish it were otherwise, but it's not. Is there a city builder that has any other type? Retaining walls. Fact of life in a 3D game. This is a player issue. Just because you can build something, doesn't mean you should. Deleting road segments. Use marker roads to isolate the roads, then delete. Pretty poor planning. All small roads in the game can be used as markers for larger roads. Roads require planning both in RL and in the game. If it don't fit, it don't fit. Yeah, I wish they would change this. However rural roads behave somewhat differently, and are useful in avoiding some of the problems with paved roads. Sure there is terraforming, however not anywhere near as robust as SC4. Lots of maps though, a maybe a map editor later????? I grew up in an unqualified neighborhood, got an education and moved uptown. Dad said he was to old to upgrade and decided to stay with his friends. Isn't fantasy great. However this is really about the lack of an auto upgrade mechanism. I hear this about Mayors, but I have to ask, does this make sense? There is no one in your city with you. Your playing a game. There is no one else to make choices. Like it or don't, Monte Cristo has made trade part of the game. When Boulder Dam was built workers came from all over the US to work there. Cities were built for them. And transient labor is used all over the world. However I find this one of the games weakest points. Primarily developed for blueprints I believe. I suspect resource balancing to be a continuing issue. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Originally posted by: Tropod ...You don't see a house suddenly turn into a skyscraper, especially from a smaller lot....quote> You don't see a vacant block of land suddenly turn into a house from nothing. No, it gets constructed, same with a skyscraper. But the backend stuff, like zoning, does take place such that it allows skyscrapers to be built where houses are currently situated. The Gold Coast is one such example. The zoning and building are 2 different aspects. Personally, I say it is an issue. Because many players out there will find this aspect very frustrating to deal with, especially given that there is no density filter. quote> There are three different types of zoning being talked about here; 1 Real zoning. In the real world zoning is a city planning tool consisting of codes and regulations about what can be built where and how. It's purpose is to make cities safer and more comfortable to live in. Developers determine what types of homes will be built and how expensive they will be with a goal of maximizing their return on investment. Services such as schools, police, fire services, libraries, and almost any other function available in cities follow populations they never lead them. Again wealth levels are determined by the developer. Zoning is not building. 2 SC4 zoning. In SC4 zoning is a density filter(I like that phrase) with an autobuild function. The wealth of developement is determined by ammenities(I miss spell check). 3 CXL zoning. In CXL zoning is by density and wealth. No autobuild. I like SC4's way of doing things more so then CXL's. It has nothing to do with how real the zoning simulation is because CXL is more realistic. However SC4 is more alive. I love to watch things happen on the map, prompting changes by placing things on the map like churches and what have you. And in the end we play games to have fun. Now with that having been said. let us talk about CXL strengths and weaknesses. Which are two sides of the same coin. I'll start with a question about SC4. Where could you go with it. How would you improve it and add value enough to put out a new version which would fire up players and get them to cough up 50 dollars(or whatever). The sim is already pretty complex. You could add sewers but I don't see this getting peoples juices flowing. Better graphics, maybe fully 3D. Well....., maybe. I'm not sure that I can see a path, but perhaps others can. But this is a tough crowd we're talking about so be careful not to step on someones favorite feature. Well we know what Monte Cristo came to believe. We have it before us in the demo. A fully realized 3D city builder with the Planet Offer. The game is beautiful, it offers pretty vistas and allows us to walk or fly through our cities. But wait this beautiful detail comes at a price. Bring a good video card to the table, wimps need not apply. And in my opinion here lies the core of the problem. Monte Cristo posted a video about the continuous level of detail and to follow what I'm going to say you should understand what that means.. Every thing in the game must scale, It must fit in. Everything has volume, height. It has to look good when you stand on the ground and look at things. Everything in the game is a 3D construct. Our first ugly truth. Avatars and city folk. Like them or hate them they are a product of a truely 3D enviroment. Each one is a 3D construct, a model. You can't make them real enough to look good with the buildings so Monte Cristo decided to use cartoon characters. It's not an elegant solution but I don't know that it can be done better. Rectangular lots. What I'm going to say here may be right or it may be wildly wrong, I encourage people with more expertise in the field of 3D game geometry to correct me. The lots appear to act like a rectangular solid that has been sculpted. When it penetrates the surface texture it is always a rectangle. This appears to be true even of the roads. So there appears to be a limitation on non rectangular plots. I suspect that the limitation involves the increased complexity and number of polygons required to simulate a curve on the lot, not the map. Roads are a special case as their consruction is much simpler than the average residential lot. In any case the utility of that kind of lot would be limited since what people want are lots that would fit almost any curve or angle and that would mean reconfiguring a lot on that fly, a daunting task if I say so myself. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Perhaps I missed something while I was playing SC4. Would somebody tell me how to use these great upgradeable roads everybody talks about. The only roads I know about are either 1 tile roads or 2 tile roads. And you can't upgrade 1 tile roads to 2 tile roads without leaving room or demolishing something. A street upgraded to a road by making the sidewalks narrower. They were still 1 tile roads. Same thing for avenues. This is the price of having a 3D game that you can walk around in. I will also tell you that it is possible to build over roads without demolishing them and then going back to delete the old road. If there is room.

No implementation of any system is perfect. Within the limits of what is possible, Monte Cristo has done pretty well with the grid. Any 3d game has a grid, they have to. All the objects in the game are polygons. But constructs in the game are not confined to any particular grid and it possible to build in almost any orientation. This is demonstrable in the demo. Roads in the demo can leave an origin point and go any any direction in a straight line, and off any road you can build a house. So it would be possible to build cities this way. One limitation is that at the origin there is a limit to how many roads can intersect there. So in terms of the grid as represented by SC4, Cities XL has no grid. Stupid street trick. On a flat spot on a map draw a small road acoss. Below that road pick a point make a tee intersection with the tee pointed away from the road above. ------------------------- T From the intersection draw a road upward past the horizontal road. Delete the part between the t and the horizontal road. Be careful not to delete the T. Rinse and repeat. If you have the money and time you can make a fairly good fan of roads. I got up to about 60 before I quit. In terms of roads, out of the box in the demo there are 2 rural roads, 2 2 lane roads, 3 avenues, and a highway and their associated bridges. Each roads has propeties that can be altered. However unlike Sim City roads these roads are 3d constructs. In the demo create a tunnel, stop the tunnel without creating a surface exit. Then go into the tunnel. If you are careful it possible to look at the underside of the surface display. Interesting isn't it. The tunnel itself is a quantum leap forward in terms of what has been possible before. However these roads come with some prices. They are not upgradeable in terms of width. Everything in the game is scaled, that is made to look the same at high altitude and on the street. So a road taking up a width of 30 meters can't be expanded to magically to 40 or 50 meters. However all roads have dimensions so it is relatively easy to plan around these limitations. Now LordOscar has posted some pictures that are fairly amusing, the bridge is a killer, and I hope that they fix that for release. The 4 lane road going around a building of some type is there to show how ugly curved roads are in the game. What it actually shows is how forgiving the roads are in allowing you to do things that no highway engineer would comtemplate. I have never driven on a road like that and would not want to. In the game a small lot is 40 meters square and the highway is 45 meters wide(give or take I have uninstalled the demo). So he has taken a road as wide as the lot around it. So figure it for yourself. Think of it like this. On a switchback curve the curve has to have sufficient radius to allow the longest vehicle likely to be traveling on it, to make the turn without leaving the roadway. It also must be safe at the expected speed. You don't see sharp turns on limited access highways or interstates. Fortunately MC has given us a lot of freedom with the roads, even the ability to do impossible things. The same thing can be said about leveling issues. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

It is very easy to plan for future expansion and to have medians. How ever this game does not think for you, it requires you to plan for roads. That should be apparent from the demo. For instance a quick measuring tool for expressway is a small house which is 40 meters square the same as the expressways width. In the demo look at the tools you have available. Look at everything. Everything in the game has dimensions. Roads have snaps look at how they charge for larger roads, Want to transfer a dimension from one side of the map to the other. Then understand the right angle road tool. It's available in the demo. Understand the difference between the straight road tool and the right angle tool. The right angle tool for roads is always perpindicular the map edge, parallel to the map edge, or 45 degrees to the map edge. The straight road tool is blue when the road is straight with respect to itself and turns green when its not quite straight. Play with everything. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Don't see something that isn't there. I'll give an example maybe that will make it clearer. When I was testing with Microsoft features would go in and out. Things would change and be adjusted. Some things they tried might be put in for a patch after release or delayed until the next version. Microsoft wanted to control the flow of information about their product until it was released. Testers have no stake in the product other than their time. They certainly have an opinion but it's not really relevent until the final product is released and they see it. What they tested may not be the shipping product. It's not unheard of to have multiple betas going testing different things. Beta testers may be no better informed than you. However people will tend to give them credance even if they don't deserve it. Therefore the NDA. Companies owe it to themselves and others to protect their property. That's good business, and any business that doesn't do so won't be in business long. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

There is indeed a single player game componet. However not all content will be available in it. Primarily mass transit. It can be assumed that there will be a sandbox mode although thats speculation. MC has indicated that they will support user generated content. See the posts in the custom content forums.

I'm not sure what you are upset about. The demo is available warts and all and I don't remember agreeing to a NDA to play it. But NDA's are fairly common for beta tests. I tested two different OS's for Microsoft and was under an NDA for both. Just as a general comment about legal agreements. Generally they are designed to give the person offering one to you the maximum rights in whatever agreement there is between you while avoiding the maximum amount of liability. Read Microsofts License for Windows XP, or if your an open source type of guy read the license assoicated with Linux distributions or Open Office. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

I would think that it would be obvious. As a beta tester you might be exposed to parts of the game that are the developer might not want exposed, or that would interfere with business arrangements with third parties if revealed. In any case if you were wise you made yourself aware of what you agreed to before participating. And there is someone posting here who might shed some light on this if he chooses to. I'll let him speak for himself if he wishes. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Originally posted by: jcleary47 Originally posted by: ch0c0 Originally posted by: jcleary47 lol $10.00/month is pocket change, you guys are tripping. quote> only to those with a mother willing to open her check book to keep her child happy. quote> Or a job? Look - people can either buy the game or not. They can either pay the $10/month or not. Seems pretty straight forward to me. It's not like they aren't telling you that you will have to pay a fee to get certain features. If you don't have the money to pay the monthly fee, don't buy the game. If people are having an issue finding $10 to try the online features for a few months then purchasing a $40 or $50 game probably shouldn't be on their list of priorities anyway.quote> How rational, and it's very much to the point. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

Their are some things you can do to make these things look better. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts. Sorry for the squashed image, my first picture.

I don't know that modding has been prohibited by MC. Their post have primarily talked about their online assets. I would suspect that modding might be allowed as it could be a nice addition to the game. I would suspect that what they would do is to protect the value of their online assets which is their stated priority. Think of it this way. Buildings and new interchanges or any 3D models that might enhance the look of the game might be allowed since after vetting MC could allow them to be used in the online side. This is a net neutral at worst. Gameplay mods might be allowed, again if MC doesn't feel that their online assets are threatened. I would guess that mass transit or multplay mods would be prohibited as these would be a direct threat to their online assets. This is pure speculation on my part, I have no direct insider knowledge. Enough fun. Think for yourself , I do. This is my very humble opinion and not to be confused with truth or the facts.

The road system allows the player to do many things, and a lot of them you shouldn't do. But it means that you have a lot of freedoom. Those tunnels, kind of weird, but I bet traffic still goes through them. In point of fact the player could fly through them. Ah the cloverleaf. This is that 3D tech that everybody always wanted. Unless you make earthworks as part of the model making earth ramps might be pretty hard. The interchange is a model. In normal mode roads can't meet at that sharp an angle. Try it. That interchange is 300 meters by 400 meters. Moving those ramps out would cost you maybe another 100 meters both ways. Now 500 meters, thats what, 1/20th of the length of the map. Basically like SC4 the interchanges are a compromise between what you want and what you can get. Stupid street trick. Try this in the demo, start a tunnel, finish it, but don't worry about getting back up. Delete it. You should have a nice hole dug. Start a bridge finish it halfway. Delete it. If you did it right you should have a ramp. How you feel about all this will determine if you will buy. I have the money and I'll give the Planet offer a shot. At the most I'll be out some bucks. But heck, maybe I will be lucky, you can never tell.

I don't know if this will play well in the latin community and playing as Che in the US may well get the developer talked about. However the game has beautiful graphics. I wouldn't think that you could model people that smoothly.

Originally posted by: LordOscar Lack of fun.quote> Amen!

Saved game sizes could be an issue.