Thetford

I wonder why people (of both sides of the argument), are so determined to change the viewpoints and opinions of the other side of the argument? Lovers gonna love, haters gonna hate and the Laissez faire are more or less fairly in the middle, or other such post modern crap.

I'm thinking of something of a two speed mods. First are just new models and retextures of existing buildings, using the same existing properties. Like the tilesets. And second is more complicated which allows game affecting mods, just that the world affects you, but you don't affect the world. I can also see them putting out something similar to The Sims 3 Create a World, possibly with limits or spawners of how much resourxes you can place in a world.

I am under the same opinion, that you purchase the resources with simoleons rather than actual money, on account that why would you have a global economy at all, they did say your city affects said economy, with the amount of coal, oil, manufactured goods whathaveyou, the can be sold on in the economy for simoleons, so why cannot the reverse of purchasing them be true either? If there is DLC (which in this day and age is quite likely), it will be buildings, tilesets, landmarks and possibly regions. Not resources.

I thought they said arcologies were a global project like airports?

I don't know what Cities XL is (is it like City Life? I've played that, it's adequate to good), but from what I've read, it sounds like a glorified urban planner's tool as a opposed to a city simulation, holding the ideas of aesthetics above the simulation. I prefer my cities simulated rather than aesthetic though, and while a 100km^2 is all well and good, I cannot foresee even SimCity 4's simulation engine done so at a grandiose scale in glorious 3D while it plays on computers of a community, forgive me for saying this, that doesn't strike me as having a top of the range line computers with all the mod cons such as illogically numbered graphics cards, LED lights and cup holders, for a game that probably required an average computer a decade ago. With this new SimCity, they have taken simulation and ran with it like an Olympic relay athlete with a baton (topical, eh). But glassbox is for a different topic for a different time (the stickied one at the, or near to, top of the page I believe), but I can understand why they have chosen to limit the city size at the 4km^2 aforementioned.

Not sure what you mean by that. Care to explain? meaning I don't believe the SimCity fanbase is quite as willing to pony up for endless DLC and expansion pack fluff that don't really add much as the Sims fanbase is. http://pc.gamespy.co.../1225696p1.html "In yet another example of why you really, really should be using multiple, secure passwords and every security feature you can get your hands on, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced today that Blizzard's internal network has been illegally accessed. While he says it's not possible to access anyone's account solely with the information Blizzard knows for sure was taken (security question answers, unspecified mobile and dial-in authenticator data, encrypted passwords), he recommends that North American players change their passwords immediately. That's good advice." And if people didn't have to have an account and be online to play a single-player game they wouldn't need to worry about this at all would they? People can choose to avoid MMOs if they don't want to deal with this kind of stuff...if EVERYTHING has to be online and through an online account then their only recourse is to not play games at all. I don't know why it keeps combining my reply to Spirit and this post...I've tried separting them several times. The current SC4 fanbase/community has gotten used to high quality DLC that is free here at Simtropolis and other sites. I agree, I think it will be hard to get us to pay for DLC that is not as high quality...EA is taking a big gamble that may not pay off at all. Sure the Sims fanbase will probably do so, but will they stick with the game for long? I suppose the major difference between The Sims fanbase and the SimCity one, is that the former is much more larger (so much so, you could claim they killed off the rest of Maxis, e.g SimsVille, SimMars) and stuck with it, true that may be helped by the fact it has been in constant production since the days when mobile phones only allowed you talk and text, coffee was less frothy and people were scared that their '98s couldn't handle the change the millennium so everyone rushed out to build nuclear shelters or some such lunacy we mock in retrospect, anyway, obligatory rule of three over, what I'm getting at, is that in comparison, SimCity is the forgotten older brother, in essence, Charles Cunningham, it's been that long since Maxis have done a SimCity title, that one can safely say with a conservative estimate, that the large majority of purchasers of SimCity 4 and previous titles have since stopped playing it; the people of these sites are a minority who stuck on in there, who no longer became fans of SimCity, but SimCity 4:Modded Edition. It could be seen as no longer a worthwhile marketable audience. The online bit doesn't bug, I've played several games that require being online, many examples are those found in my Steam library, what I'm far more concerned about is the game itself, the meat and potatoes, not the dinner service it's served on or the attractiveness of the waitstaff of your preferred gender who served it to you. Some things are a little iffy, like city size, (but I've always been able to accommodate a fairly balanced and varied cities on medium tiles), but that can be changed later, like how Kalypso increased the population cap for Tropico 4 to 1200 people (or was it 1600), provided your computer could handle it, I can see Maxis adding regions later after SimCity's release to test the waters, to see how peoples' computers can handle such feats of Glassbox on the medium tile scale. In all honesty? I'll try out the multiplayer mode, it seems interesting, at the worst, I'll be stuck next to someone annoying (but I don't have to talk to him or her), at the very best I could be inspired and learn new techniques and how well things function (something I struggle to do with the "ooh pretteh! Now guess which lot is the one functional lot in this sea of ploppable props" screenshots), and possibly make a friend or two online. Only time will tell how well everything - including the always online - will be implemented.

The way I say it, there really isn't such a thing as a hardcore SimCity fan anymore, simply because a title has not been made in almost a decade. I can see three different groups: fans of a heavily modded SimCity 4, people who bought SimCity 4 and previous titles, but after several years of playing it have since stopped, and those who have never played a SimCity title in their life (parameters such as age could come in to play here). Most people on Simtropolis, and other fans sites, content sites and the ilk, would be categorised as the first group, and probably account for a very small percentage of sales for SimCity 4, and like it or lump it, most likely won't be the target audience of the new SimCity, simply because there would be little money in it, especially considering the resources needed going in to the game. Chances are, Group 3 and maybe a little of Group 2 will be the target audience. It's a whole new generation, they want to start afresh. A new direction. I suppose one advantage, and it is a stretch of one at that, is that being online, EA and Maxis will want Group 2 and 3 to stick around a little longer than they would have done with previous version, and encouraging them to do so by keeping it updated with new content and support. SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4 can be seen as different as the latter and the new SimCity. SimCity 4 did away with all the humour and quirkiness it's predecessor had, and became a much more serious, sterile and more pure city building game with greater emphasis in micromanagement, road network layout and balancing the budget, while significantly increasing difficulty and learning curb. So I can see why they are calling it just SimCity, it is a reboot after all. Think of it like Back to the Future Part II, when the Doc is explaining to Marty, why 1985 is different. In essence, Maxis have gone back to 1955 using the basic components of SimCity Classic, and taking it in to a new direction, a new 1985.

I know they said in the latest E3 interview that there will be wind (so wind turbines will not be consistent in producing electricity).

To be honest, it seems to me every game franchise that has at least existed for more than five years seems to suffer from this. The Sims, Fable, Civilization, and you apparently can't be a fan of the Fallout series if you played it after 1999. Over a period of time, people of differing subjective views will grow possessive, and view the game differently, and as newer titles come along, it is judged by how it is compared to the one they hold most dear, at this point, bolstered up by nostalgia, recollection and time actually spent playing it, meanwhile, more people of differing views are joining the fan base, not all for the same reasons, and come part of the collective voice, but of a differing viewpoints, and as more and more people join, an individual voice will become white noise or a statistic.

To me, it doesn't seem cartoonish, just bright, a bit like, have you ever seen the show Pushing Daisies? And I don't mind that. Buildings in SimCity 3000 were bright and colourful, to a degree they were colour coordinated (bright green mowed lawns were a sign of low density high wealth houses, red brick was mostly a sign of medium wealth, medium density apartments, low wealth, low density shops were grey with pink or purple markings, low wealth industry was black and yellow I believe etc). It was the game that got me into the franchise, and was the first PC game I owned.

I argue the reverse can be true. If we look back to 1960s zoning (which I think may also be the basis for most previous SimCity's concept of zoning), huge high density residential areas were built outside of cities when land was cheaper (unfortuantly, being outside of the city and it's businesses lead to no economic output of the residential area leading to the ghettos/council estates/slums of today, but that's another story), but today at least in the UK, greenbelt laws forced land on the outskirts to come at a premium, yet now what is built there are small suburban houses. I'm not saying your wrong, but it can just work the other way. Probably what should dictate the density caps would be something like population density mixed with demand in a particular neighbourhood and affected the density to a degree . With low density, it sprawls out, high density builds up. Though I'm not sure how they would program that as a prerequisite. And I'm a bit too tired to care at the moment.

Or perhaps an option just to lift your city from the region to a new one if things get too bad. Plus a readily built city may help neighbouring ones to blossom and bloom.

The time limit thing may not work, as there could be cases where someone is unable to access their city for a while, for example, those going on holiday for a long period, or those who are hospitalised. Plus there is the question of how new players will be affected by this, if for example a proficient player may deem a "griefer". Also, a polluting city isn't persay a griefing one, as in, I believe it was stated that industry that produces the most pollution also produces the most profit. Plus all the commercial services need it. But also remember: giving you the tool to grief griefers with disasters, will also give griefers a tool to grief you. Good grief that's a lot of grief.

Well, according to this article, there are power cables, so who knows? http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/games/896949-simcity-preview-and-interview-mayoral-candidate?ITO=socialnet-twitter-button

I suppose we can guess and speculate what it will look like with information given that A) it will use tilt shift to make it look like a model town (I believe it was stated in one of the interviews, though I may have misheard it), and B) that the overall artstyle will likely be in a similar vein as the concept art. But as you say, nothing definite, conclusive or concrete, so it could end up being totally different.