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.

In regards to healthcare, I was thinking a similar thing to the above. Though slightly different, I was thinking of three resources (if that is the correct term): capacity (beds), staff (doctors and nurses) and ambulances. Beds dictate how many sims can be admitted at once, staff dictates how fast a sim recovers, and ambulances dictate when a sim will be taken. So I'm thinking it could work like this: when a sick sim returns home, they will send out a "medical emergency" agent looking for any hospitals with free beds, once one is found, the next available ambulance will take the sim to the hospital (if multiple sims, the demands will queue at the hospital depending when the hospital received the agent), once at the hospital, the sim will recover at a rate of number of patients divided by number of doctors (or would it be the other way round?), once recovered, the sim leaves, the bed frees up. Hospitals can increase in capacity by adding modular components (like we've seen with the school concept art), so adding more wards increases bed capacity, adding labs, surgeries, specialist facilities would increase staff capacity, and adding more ambulance docks would increase ambulance capacity. Though that is my theory and guesswork, so it's all speculative.

This may be just a minor detail, but I do hope that as shown in the concept art, that if a building with a driveway/garage/parking/delivery access etc such as that of the building above, that the drive/parking/access road bit connects to the road and overlaps the sidewalk. It always bugged me a little in SC4 a car park entrance being built 30ft in the air, or have no realistic access. But that is just a minor aesthetic thing.

But you could also look at it another way: it allows for neighbouring cities to blend in as one metropolitan area. Though there can be adverse effects from this. As witnessed from the glassbox with the house fire simulation, where it sends out an agent to find the correct unit (in the video's case, a fire station, where none was present), the further away it is from the house, the less efficient and longer response time where more damage is being done to the house. I find it interesting that it is not just the conventional stuff that you can trade.

Is it me, or does it sound like people tend to forget this is SimCity not the Sims. The core of the former is residences, while the latter residents. While the demographics change daily, the buildings don't. Chances are, that neighbourhood of two storey homes that accommodate more people per square metre than Dickensian slums, are quite likely going to go to work today in those factories next door that will make your finance and environment advisers at odds. Would you follow a sim from front door to factory floor, and back? It's probably not even going to be the same mesh or texture. Does it matter? In regards to social class, it relates to my previous point. There are no permanent individuals in the grand scheme of things, but there is always a perpetual ratio of upper/middle/lower class workers, simply because of the economy. It's like a pyramid formation. Multiple workers work in a department headed by a department head, multiple departments make up an organisation headed by a CEO. Which means, very few $$$, more $$, and a more significant chunk of $. Someone has to make the stuff and someone has to buy it. You can likely encourage more of the regions share of the mega wealthy to your humble little berg complete with a yacht club, though it might encourage the world's unwashed masses to flock en massé to that fancy new fangled factory or mine town over those yonder hills that produces so much pollution (and profit), that if video games were real life, may cause more ecological controversy than Lara Croft using the endangered species list as a hit list. So all the people in that fancy yacht town - which will likely produce next to nothing aside from the next generation of touchscreen toothbrushes - will be likely relying on the cruddy little town where all the peasant live for their food and furnishings - or they could always own the factories and just commute everyday. When your rich and wealthy you can have your cake and eat it, so just let the poor eat cake (or not, whichever is more economically advantageous) OK, I think I just drifted off into a monologue only myself will find humourous, but hey, I'm tired, and hopefully (though unlikely) I explained myself well. I don't think I have, just ignore me.

I'm hoping for the basics first of bus, subway and rail. Then if it at least has those, then I can worry about the fancier options. Though, on a slightly related note, I think resources could be implemented into mass transit for example, whether they run on coal (like SC3K steam trains), oil (buses, diesel trains) or electricity (electric buses and electric trains), and can effect maintenance costs, such as fuel prices, aesthetics of the vehicles, and face different issues such as shortages or blackouts. Though that might be a bit too much micromanaging.

I always liked the idea of zoned parks, not only does it replace fairly repetitive park lots if you want to create a large park, but also it would allow more fluidity and even create such things as walls/fencing all around, a pathway winding through etc. Does anyone remember in SC3K, in the premade city of San Andreas (though it could appear in your own towns), a large house on the low density side of the river. It was surrounded by walls/hedges/fences and had a gatehouse/driveway. The thing was, those fenced lots were separate and modular from each other and the main house, but obviously seemed to acknowledge each others existence. Perhaps parks could work like that, creating a boundry, and placing things such as playgrounds, fountains, ponds and lawns in them, and could reflect the property value and use in the surrounding areas, and conform to the shape you give it.

I'm just wondering if all players will be live and in real time as in, if we won't be able to use time/speed controls, or if all players are required to be logged in at all times, or if they are allowed to step out for a while (with intention of coming back) if their city will be in suspended animation, or running along merrily while your at work. How regional is the region play, and how will it work? Do we get assigned? Is it first come first served on a region board? Do we get to modify the terrain? And will we have to pay to use it, or will it be like Steam games (or at least the ones I played such as The Ship) These questions I'm sure will be answered in about a couple of seasons time.

I'm not sure as I've never tried since I don't have the correct monitor or glasses, but I was going about through my computer and I discovered that my graphics card has 3D capability, and there was a list of games that would support 3D, from either a medium or excellent way (as rated by the card), anyway, even games as old as the first four Tomb Raider games seem to support 3D, and the latter two Sims games too. I repeat, I'm not sure how accurate the information is, but that is according to my graphics card, and I'm not spending over £100 just to find out.

Think of it like this, there are two Londons in the UK, both have their own mayor and everything. There is the City of London which houses about 5000 people, while Greater London, which as I can recall, can be split into 27 boroughs, and surrounding Greater London is the Home Counties, containing of many of the suburbs of London as well as other smaller towns and cities, people from the suburbs can commute into the city. Even in SC4 they admit you cannot do a street by street recreation on one tile as London, New York and San Fransisco all cover a vast region (whereas in 3000 they were all in one quaint little tile). Think of tiles in this game as boroughs or wards.

It looked more like a high tech watermill to me, since the mill wheel was clogged and stopped by the polluted waters from the industrial city, which caused the blackouts (at least, it's the sequence of events as described by the designers)