penguin1634

Total, unending war.

Just remember guys that the default mountain texture for SC4 is that same uniform, ugly brown dirt color. I think I've said this before, but i'm not liking the architecture. It just is too childish looking. I'm assuming there will be better looking graphics by the time the game is released, though.

I don't really agree with your assessment of SC4 having more realistic simulation than that in the new SimCity. Hasn't everyone been saying that the simulation of SC4 is all smoke and mirrors - the illusion of realism - whilst the agent system is much more realistic: the results of the simulation are based on the actions of thousands of separate entities - as it is in real life. Yes, the new SimCity is looking to be simpler than SC4 (although I could argue that its complexity is on par with SC4, but I'll leave that for now), but this is not at the expense of realistic simulation. I think you are confusing two rather distinct characteristics. I believe that they are both realistic. SC4 is as realistic as they wanted to make it for a game released 10 years ago. If they made the game based on thousands of little agents they'd have problems selling because most people in 2003 didn't have a powerful enough processor. The new SimCity looks realistic in terms of the GlassBox engine, and I'm sure it actually is more realistic. I wouldn't call SC4 "smoke and mirrors" though.

I just found the requirements online: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/buy/simcity They're at the very bottom. The broadband internet requirement scares me. My internet is fast enough, but why would the requirements be so high (we all know, but, you know...)?

It perplexes me to no end that EA thinks they can attract that "lucrative" demographic that plays Farmville and Cityville to the real nitty-gritty of SimCity. They can't, and they never will. You can play the little Angry Birds style games on your iPod, your cellphone, or your browser for free and you don't need much time or energy or processing power. SimCity is an extremely deep, highly complicated sandbox-style game and it's pretty hardcore. If it ceases to be like this, you have SCS or the SimCity you play on Facebook Two similar games but different. One is a standalone game you buy at the store and you install on your computer and isn't a social game, the other is a cute little game you can play on Facebook. One was a commercial disaster and one isn't. No matter how hard they try to make SimCity inviting to the for-some-reason-lucrative casual gamer, it won't. Casual gamers will always pick Angry Birds, or Minecraft (if you could call that casual gaming), or Bejeweled, or one of the "villes", and they will only play that sort of game. They will always be scared to buy it because of its complexity or the social stigma attached to being a "gamer". When people pick up a game at the store, install it or load it up on their console, they're not looking for a fun little casual game, they're looking for an immersive, deep experience that will put their skills to the test, whether it be a FPS, a MMO, an RTS, or a cut-and-dry strategy game, or what have you. When people will go to buy or download this new SimCity, they won't be thinking "oooh, I played SimCity on Facebook, this looks like a cute little game too!". They will be thinking "This game looks awesome, I am going to buy the sh*t out of this and spend the next decade enjoying the sh*t out of this". That's what I will be thinking when I buy this new game.

Here's my take on the matter. Personally, I don't see why they seem so keen on force-injecting SimCity with the Sims. The two are similar but different. My biggest criticisms are that the graphics look too playful (I have a feeling that screenshots of some bada** realistic looking megacity will draw in way more drooling customers then some the cartoony, cutesy architecture they have now), and that there aren't more options to customize your game (ex. terraforming, larger city sizes), and also I wish you wouldn't have to rely on EA's sketchy servers to store all your cities. First off, the graphics. I really can't complain about them and neither can anyone else. They're 3D. Plus, in all honesty, until our GPUs are all $5000 quantum state, liquid cooled computers, we shouldn't expect the level of realism and detail in 3D as we see in SimCity 4's isometric-y layout. I guess the playful look has to be there somewhat, but I wish they would perhaps try to make it have more slick realism. I hope the soundtrack isn't the same bland, boring "happy" music they had in SCS, and instead has more panache and beat. Small complaints, I know. Second, on the options for the game. I am clinging to hope that they release something later that allows you to terraform and build on larger city tiles. No game like this is ever good on first release. SC4 wasn't that great when it first came out, neither was Civilization 4, nor was Civilization 5, but all were fixed. These games are often too complex and too deep to get just right on release, oftentimes it take a bit for the developers to perfect it (Rush Hour for SC4, Warlords and BtS for Civ4, Gods v. Kings for Civ5). Even though this is EA we are talking about, a company who in recent years is known for ruining gaming for the sake of desperate cash grabs, I still have to have faith that Maxis doesn't have their heads planted up EA's gargantuan behind enough to ignore what the customers really want, and what they really want is what we are all complaining about (SimCity players are NOT Farmville players, Maxis and EA should never get them confused). On the online only play, I pray to God that the "online" portion is, at the very least, just used at game launch to validate the game's authenticity. I hope that solo game data is kept on your computer. They have absolutely no reason not to allow local saves other than so they can control the data and wipe data away so they can force people to upgrade to the next iteration of SimCity, or just do what EA does best: scare away customers. I am staying optimistic because I just can't believe that they could screw this up. If they do, they could permanently lose quite a few customers (including me). Maxis hasn't screwed up yet, SCS was Tilted Mill's fault. I hope, and believe, that EA and Maxis know that pushing out some playful, simplistic, facebook-y nonsense with a pay-per-month multiplayer system and little customizability won't work, hasn't worked, and will never work. Customers of this genre (including me) play this genre for a reason: because we love the freedom and excitement and challenge and depth of starting a city from scratch and watching it grow into a bustling megacity. I'm sure they will give us the last two, if they give us the first two is yet to be seen.

I have a feeling that it will put a pretty hefty load on the processor, considering that the game is much more complex now with agents and what not. Plus, the 3D rendering will require a good GPU. I doubt it will need more than 2-4GB of RAM. I would guess that a 2.2 Ghz core 2 duo could handle it, but a 3 ghz quad core or better would be preferable. 8 gigs or RAM should be more than enough. I'm just going by pure speculation here, by the way. However, I can give a good guess based on how well my computer handled EVE Online when I played it. I put all settings on Ultra and it ran perfectly. I have a 3.2 Ghz Phenom II quad core from AMD, 4 gigs of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 560 card, and so far I haven't run into a game I can't play on ultra. I'm sure you will be fine.

Ha! Awesome! I qualify! This might be a good opportunity go get into BATing.

Looks promising!

The recreated city you are about to see is a fictional one that could possibly be located along the Russian or Ukrainian coast. The time of year is a mild December on a cold, bleak, cloudy day. The year is 1975. We begin this tour of this small city with a humbling shot of the mighty factories located at the delta of the short shipping canal that splits the town in half into two micro-districts, Polovina Zapada and Levyi Bort. The factories located here are textile mills and chemical manufacturing plants. Beyond that are the prefabricated flats which the working comrades and their families inhabit. Nearby, schoolchildren milk the rest of the "snowless" part of the brutal Russian winter dry by enjoying a game of soccer. A good way to warm the blood up on a chilly December afternoon. Other than the flurries of activity in the local park, stores were busy after a new shipment of cigarettes arrived in the morning causing many a worker to hastily purchase them on their way to work. Most employees kept them in their pockets or locked in the trunk of the car to prevent the valuable tobacco from being stolen. Besides that, the Polovina Zapada micro-district is fairly quiet. Across the river, the government center of the city remains quiet as well. Two buildings next to the city hall draw attention for sure, they are two bleak gray concrete flats, both closely in a row. Both the same. Why, some joke that they even have the same keys for the corresponding flats in each building. Yes, much like the uninspired suburbia the 1950s brought America, the 1960s and 1970s brought seemingly indistinguishable blocks of concrete en masse to the sweeping plains of Soviet Russia. It was a sign that the Soviet machine was stagnating, turning from the vehement days of Stalin and Lenin to the drab, declining days of Brezhnev. The gears of Communism were rusting.

Ooooh, nice. I'm interested. I'll be back to see more, you can count on it!

Very impressive! Great work with the PEG ground textures, I can never make them look realistic, they just end up looking like a bunch of shadowless circles. Excellent terrain, no doubt. Bugs Bunny: [url="https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/23827-network-widening-mod-windows/"]Network Widening Mod[/url].

Yay! 41st place! I am honored.

[quote name='bane83' timestamp='1305292250'] 'brainwashing tactics' I didn't realize Simtropolis was a site for political debates... Maybe your perfect cities look perfect just because of 'brainwashed' architects that originally created the buildings within. I say maybe... This is not right place to condemn either communism or capitalism, so I hope we will all stick to the game, that's why we are here.p.s. I like your pics. [/quote] Well that is the definition of propaganda. Biased information used to sway the minds of the masses. Glad you liked the pics though

Good start, no doubt, but needs more custom content.