Mark Waybill

I think this is an interesting issue so I think my former post was inadequate. I'll go into a few things. Quote 'A Nonny Moose' : "There is too much micromanagement in the game now, so adding more will just make it that much more frustrating. If you are the chief executive, you will delegate most of the things they have the mayor doing now. He doesn't dispatch fire trucks nor police cars. He also doesn't issue building permits. Instead of "Advisors" he needs staff to manage and to whom to delegate things. Many of the aspects of SC4 are just silly make-work." This is one of the big issues I have with 4, and one of the areas back when I initially considered what I wanted out of 5 I thought a great deal about. IRL a Mayor does not, as you so rightly say, dispatch fire trucks, and so forth. He manages , but does not direct such operations, especially on such a microscopic scale. A real life Mayor administers a Council which in turn administers various bodies and organisations or creates ordinances/bylaws etc to regulate them, and a Mayor/Council will have authority to zone or place civic structures etc Naturally the RL role of a Mayor isn't exactly video game material but I certainly think it should be more regulating than direct heroic action and consequence. Indeed, and this idea may be flawed, it would be interesting to have a game where you regulate members of the Council who are changed regularly like in a real Council, and they sometimes do stupid or corrupt things, which adds a bit of spice to the game and makes it less predictable, a sort of 'disaster'. Just an idea for the future. Quotye 'Tarkus' : "Also, how many times have you had Neil Fairbanks pop up in SC4 and go all Kunstler on your posterior by telling you to increase density? How many times have you ignored him? He's had a fit with me and my suburb lovefest more times than I can count, but that never stops me. (Sometimes, I even get him on my side after awhile.)" An example of the reverse way in which 4 works. Advisors try to act like Mayors and the Mayor has to act like a Councillor... Quote 'LivingInThePast' : "It would be cool if there was some sort of feature where you could discover natural resources as you were building your city, making the online component a bit like Settlers of Catan, which is great, because in SoC nothing truly "ran out", yet they could get extremely rare.Also, the "place fossil fuel burning near your neighbors, your nearby Sims get sick" is almost like asking people to grief. I can imagine some people doing that JUST to spite someone else. " On the first point if fossil fuels really are finite you can either build arcologies powered by solar energy or colonise the Moon. I.E I agree with your idea to the extent it would be nice if such were the case. On the second point I'm sure MP games have solutions such as being able to reload a city from a former era or being able to dislocate it's position. Otherwise get Maxis Man to beat Captain Spite to a pulp. Quote 'Cobhris96' : "To me it sounds like you can do whatever you want, but you have to live with the consequences. So if you have a mega-heavy-super-china-industry city, you're going to have to deal with health problems, smog, and so on as a result of the path you chose for your city. And because the regions are fully integrated, your choices are going to impact your friends' cities as well. I like that much better than a boring no consequences game where you just plop down stuff and watch it go. " I'd agree. TBH I'd love to be able to make a girtty industrial city filled with sick uneducated criminals and have a good few stay because in real life it isn't as easy as just moving town and suddenly everything's better. To be forced to create an eco-wonderland perfect utopia city takes the fun out of being in charge in the game imo. Also I want to create something reminiscent of Dickensian London. Maybe that makes me an evil Mayor I don't care tbh. Quote 'A Nonny Moose' : "As for the transportation capability, I don't see anything that might simulate the daily traffic flow that occurs after the daily rush to and from work. It should be possible to create both a busy metropolis complete with appropriate issues and a more bucolic setting with villages, towns, farms, and local industries such as resource extraction without having a large city. That is, in addition to being able to build NYC, I want to be able to build Huron/Perth." I agree completely. If I want to create a sleepy agrarian village that has no hope for and doesn't wish to advance into New New York scale development then I'd like that opportunity. Quote 'Motina' : "I downloaded logging and mining buildings from the STEX, LEX and simpeg because I want my cities to show some sort of resources base development of the regions. Oh, and grain silos. I certainly hope farming is part of this. Which I'm sure it is, since the GlassBox presentation showed food. So, that's. One thing about agriculture in SC4, with the addition of the mods was, do you actually have enough, or perhaps too much. the RCI graphs, and statistics do not show a good enough simulation of this." I reckon food and other such resources can be thought of in a relative way, national, regional, local supply/demand etc As long as there isn’t a ‘Your citizens are hungry- build a Food Creation Unit NOW’ system of gameplay I’m ok. I just hope SC doesn’t become a ‘island survival/colony in space’ type game. Quote ‘Croxis’ : "I've always felt I took the role of the entire city government instead of a single person. " I feel sometimes i’m this chosen one/messiah type character and the citizens expect me to be their God... Quote ‘ LivingInThePast’ : "I want them to treat all power plants, for instance, relatively fairly and not "coal=bad" and "wind=good". By this, I mean that most of today's coal plants have filtering systems that prevent them from becoming just soot-producing eyesores. That depiction is outdated and incorrect. A power plant in town -and HamsterTK should know this- does not produce the soot and whatnot that previous SimCity games show and even uses its cooling lake (because, you know, steam has to cool down) as a popular recreation area on the south side (boating, camping, et cetera, not so much fishing)" I agree. And of course if the game exactly models the PC way of progressing a real life city it will make the ‘game’ a mere educational tool for politicians and city planners. If I want to make a smog filled sick metropolis founded on and thriving on dirty industry, I don’t want every advisor telling me I’m Satan a dn my entire population walking away. That wouldn’t happen irl anyway. One thing about MP that concerns me is that if you are playing multiple cities and say you leave one for a month while concentrating on another, this one will be left lying, affecting those around it and being affected. Would MP allow the normal ‘save,load,new’ system to continue, or would a city be like a living creature and need to be given constant attention like a sort of metropolis of neopets?

My first reaction when I heard the good news was sort of numb. Like, for five years all I've heard and seen has told me 'Is SC5 gonna happen?' 'NO'. And then out of the blue BAM and it's happening after all. So, naturally it would be difficult to explain my initial thoughts regarding this news. It's like if a religious person was to hear a scientist say 'God definitely doesn't exist ppl' and then all of a sudden their God appears out of nowhere and acts as if he was never fictional. It's like for so long I've been Darian regarding sc5 that it's hard to know how to feel or think when all of a sudden it turns out it is going to exist after all. After reading the initial reports etc I was a bit apprehensive I have to admit. I mean imagine if 5 was made and after all that hype and jazz it turned out to be another societies/xl. That would just be the limit I think for many of us. But after reading Maxis' response at Reddit I have to say that if they live up to what they're saying to us now, it should be a worthwhile game. And if they listen to our feedback to the extent they are making it out that they are then I can say I am truly hopefuly regarding this game, and the future of SC/city sim games in general. So atm I am cautiously optimistic, I wish Maxis good luck and hope for all of our sakes it will be a success. I think as long as they develop the core skeleton properly, the options, features, additions etc can wait. I've been waiting as long as anybody for cycle trails, double decker buses and diagonal bridges but imho what really matters is building that strong core around which to expand. As to the MP issue from what they've said that doesn't worry me, what does is the resources simulation. Realistic- yes. But I think the 'nation' or 'simnation' wtvr economy should be optional, and regions shoul be able to have a national resource economy as well as an intraregional resource economy.

I have only just learnt the good news about 2013, so I can hardly say I can be authoritative on this point but I think if its done realistically and within reasonable limits an 'environmental' simulation is a progressive feature, however like the OP said, I would want the ability to create historic cities, and certainly would hope this eoc feature was tweakable or possibly editable in a god mode type feature

no worries

I am working on my own city sim Virtucity using Game Maker. It is good to see another such project. I wish you luck with it.

I first played Simcity 2000 back in 03 when we first got a pc. I spent hours playing it and stayed up all night. I used to draw cities on paper and read street directories when young so naturally it was a godsend. When I bought 4 in 2004 it cost all of my years savings of 80 dollars from birthday and christmas money, and I was naturally impressed with it and did not regret spending the money and later getting rush hour. But years on I have recently dl'ed XL 2012 and my opinion, considering EA's public stance on simcity is that XL is the future of city simulation for the forseeable future. Simcity is dead for all we know. I would invest my time in XL.

Downloaded it a few days ago... I am pleased with some features and it is progressive. I think the enviornment needs to be up to the standard of realism of developments- there are only trees and no animals or rocks etc... Transport options are limited and I have not looked at the whole modding thing much but the default is limited.... However some Simutrans-esque features like controlling bus lines were a pleasant surprise. Real advertisements is a good idea, a simple and effective way to help fund the game. I like the free road/zone system, the lots themselves well... I can't complain about that when comparing this to 4... The sims... ultimately I would like an integration with this game... individual simulation of citizens... also the ability to drive around the city and interact with ppl in some way... The graphics naturally are beyond complaint as computers like my newly got laptop still get some lag with bigger cities... But are certainly a significant improvement on 4... um... yeah... so I am quite pleased and despite I had to fork out an extra 150 dollars for broadband data allowance to download it I am pleased with it... and hope it will continue to improve.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6v2t3b3wxe7h5ll Well that's the link to my game. I created the graphics (which do stink but graphics are a low priority atm obviously) music (created with a free piano midi creator program just to give the game something to liven it up. was inspired by 2000 music. failed.) and most of the 'script' although a lot of actions used in built game maker functions or only a small amount of actual 'code'. I suppose why I like Game Maker is with a script I'd never remember all of it and GM is so easy to get around. I can store my images, sounds etc in neat foldered archives and if I say want an object to do something I go to that object and add commands easily. Code just seems so complicated and difficult to read and get about, like walking through a darkly lit forest whereas in GM it's like driving along a highway to where I want to go. As to games crashing a lot of GM games are buggy and only a small amount of finished professional style games are made. VC is currently mostly bug free, and I think rather than making games more likely to crash it's probably the fact GM games are very amateur and often experimental. But if you play my game (gameplay is obvious for one who has played simcity although I'd still encourage reading the controls as I use right mouse button rather than left for some things etc) you will note the main limitation wasn't GM's constraints but my own as an individual. If, for instance, I was not one but a team of dedicated and happy people with the skills and resources... But as to a 'fork' of Micropolis or Simutrans, it might be a good short cut to a certain level of development, but surely the best way to get what we want is to create an entirely new and fresh engine with what we want in mind. A forked Simutrans would be like 2000 but with better transportation simulation... I doubt It would get to 4 level quickly and by that time EA might have come out with 5 anyway...

I play it when I have nothing better to do. It is hardly anywhere close to sc, it is subpar to Simcity classic.

Good luck with making a better version of 2000 with the Simutrans code. My own project Virtucity I made using Game Maker. I am not an experienced programmer. I failed at C and even GML takes a lot of effort from me to achieve simple results but since 2005 I've managed to create something similar to 2000, using several scripts created by other GM users like one for isometric terrain. As it is not commercial and it is free and as it is just a poor quality version of 2000 made using Game Maker naturally I don't set much hope in store for it. HOWEVER it shows that even with the limited resources at my disposal I could replicate certain effects like zoning etc. More complex systems like transportation commuting simulation and individual citizen simulation, as well as 3d graphics which I stink at doing, could be done by other GM users. However Gm has limitations. We the fans have members who are able and willing to do this stuff for free, we don't have Simutran's organisation though. We also still hold onto some hope of a game company making sc5 for us. As much as I am not ruling out the possibility of sc5 happening it would be wise and we'd hardly lose anything by making a project ourselves.

It is good to see these steps taken by EA. I never gave up all hope of a ressurection of the franchise. (I still haven't got 3d with my own project) The Facebook page is a good step and I agree with the aforementioned sentiment it gives them contact with the fanbase (finally!) As to the Facebook game... If the level of realism was anywhere NEAR that of sc4 the lag on such a game would be immense. I doubt that's the direction they'll take things. Maybe something related like a portal for sharing cities or somesuch forum style application? A BAT/MOD sharing database? The actual game I can't see being an online one at present. And certainly not a free one! If they do release sc5 FINALLY (I can not stress that finally enough... Imagine those capitals the size of planets...) one thing I think that has to be insisted on is it being an open project. I don't mean open source but the fans, and the more skilled members of the sc community, need to have a part. Even if it is just consultation and market research, there's little point in making sc5 at all unless it meets expectations. Thus if they make it, they need to tighten their belts, pull up their socks and heil Will Wright, because there's a lot of catching up to do! They need to be dedicated to it. Listen to the community. If a feature at present is unviable keep the add ons coming, make sure the game will not be a last hurrah, but the start of a new and permanent project. It can be successful. There are the numbers to buy it and reccomend it. I feel that if they go about this the right way we can get all we asked for. So... It is good to see this step taken and it gives me a little hope for the firs time in years. Keep up the good work.

Well, I've been playing Cityville and recently there was a reward decoration given for placing a Best Buy store in your city, which later reverted into a electronics store without the logo after the offer had expired. Then even more recently there was the option to build a Capital One bank in your city, and this got me thinking. Possible source of revenue for any company/group looking to make a sc5? I know only a commercial company NEEDS profit, so I would probably aim this notion at such an entity, although a 'private' company could also use it (i.e a group of fans CREATE a company to create market and sell their own game with it's own title) but it struck me as a better way of making money than making players use real money to purchase special in game items. Now I'd be laughed out of ST if I suggested in game pop ups and banner ads were the way to go, but imagine if every commercial building, or a good deal of them, was a real life company and building. Also, transit systems could be similarly based. The one issue that would arise I can think of is locality, in that naturally some businesses do not exist in some parts of the world. This could be overcome by tile sets. (American tileset, English tileset etc) Also major international companies like Microsoft could easily do this sort of thing, as well as online companies. This would generate advertisement revenue without actual advertisements as it were in the game, and also keep the game free. Working by the same principle as banner ads, the game would become like a website. Just an idea i got from placing a Capital One bank in Cityville.

Let's face it. If they ever make sc5 it'll lack the features we want, be an online Facebook game like Cityville, cost money to play, and have gameplay similar to a poorly made version of sc Societies. I think it's time we just made it ourselves already...

I believe in the concept of 'abandonware' in that it's silly a company maintains rights over a game they no longer have any proper connections with, and I feel that hacking an exe should be perfectly cool. Then again my suggestions are always very communistic and I do realise that if the company gets any good revenue from the game there is a validity for it's continuing to have domination over it, but I fail to see how unless they are secretly planning on surprising us all with SC5 and saying 'april fools we were making it all along lol srsly dude' they are getting much from it now. Sales of 4 can't be that high atm? Not sntirely sure but certainly it can't be their biggest profit generator. Simcity 2000 I feel should be considered abandonware and the exe hackable. I mean Maxis as a company is like Italy as the Roman Empire now. I don't even know if Will Wright is doing anything to do with SC these days. But I feel as we have a demand for sc5 that we have in some respects a moral right to the exe, as the game belongs more to its fans than its creating company surely? It's lived it's useful life as a profit generating object, now let it become a classical work like Shakespeare or Chaucer that we can quote and abuse how we wish.

tbh full 3D is the one thing I did miss most in sc4. U drive it seemed like a teaser for something better to come, and it never did.

Very cool... I may as well give up with my stupid Virtucity project lol. I suck. It would appear this is indeed the future because the one thing I'd never be able to simulate is curved roads which would require an immense knowledge of math.

Tranceplante' I am all up for it, unfortunately I have no programing skills. I would be glad to help out, but I doubt I could be much help. I would be ready to donate money, but that's all I can do. I think! If I remember well, didn't they release the code for simcity 1. I guess you can start there?' Me too. All I know is Game Maker Language to a moderate degree. I suck at any complex math stuff. However I have found a 3d terrain engine that would be perfect if I could only integrate it with Virtucity. There is a game maker terrain script that uses Perlin Noise to make SC2000 type terrain which I have tried if one wished to make a nostalgic game but for sc5 this one I'm looking at now looks good. It has terrain like in 4 but full 3d. Well the source code for Simcity Classic might be useful but as for Perlin Noise and so forth that's available anyway, and most of the concepts in the game have advanced to such a point that I doubt it would be of much use. Besides best to start from scratch if we're gunna do this properly. What we really need are dedicated and skilled people to get together and work on this in collaboration... I tried learning C just so I could attempt something like this but... One person making such a video game with such a hands on code...

Tranceplante 'The sad thing here is that EVEN if EA releases a new simcity, I am sure it will suck. They have a way of making bad games lately, seriously i would be very surprised if they would stay ''true'' to the game' Which is why I say let's build a community built game from scratch, as all this waiting around for the promised land to arise is achieving nothing. There's nothing to be lost by trying. And with a concerted effort and the right skilled people we could make this dream happen ourselves. Personally I have no programming skills beyond GML but I'm sure many of us do or could learn. And after all a game built by fans is a game of the people by the people. It's that or another rubbish Societies type game that pleases a small amount of us and a small amount of non Simcity fans. The series was very successful. I don't see why a community built game can't achieve what a company built one can. Sure they have more time, better resources and money. But if you do something for the love of it you won't be limited by that. There's nothing in theory to stop us from making a game as good as Simcity 2000 in gameplay and as advanced graphically as 'Simcity 5'. The first thing to do would be to amass a group of core experts. People in the know. People who have worked for game companies or know C or wtvr. People who understand how these things work, have enough time to contribute at a good pace to the project, and are passionate enough about the project to not give up or squabble. There must be some of us with programming knowledge/skills surely. In the meantime i'm plodding along with Virtucity which is finally going 3D and when it is 3D it will have awful flight simulator type graphics, bugs galore and run slowly. So i've got all my hope in this concept of a community built Simcity 5.

Jacksunny 'But I am hoping that a lot of people will play. Maybe EA will finally realize that a lot of people want another Simcity and are interested in it and they will create a SC5.' The popularity of Cityville shows people are interested in the game formula. In my Cityville friends (yes I play Cityville...) there are people from many countries, ages, etc and both males and females too. So that shows Cityville is popular with a wide demographic. Now there is another FB game called 'My Country'. It is more serious, business oriented, and tbh quite dull. I love realistic city management, but My Country is like draining all the fun out of Simcity and making it harder and slower and a tad more like a strategy game. Cityville is playable because of the instant reward for effort. You collect 'rent' from houses and money from shops, so it's not very realistic although this could be thought of as tax more properly. There are lots of whimsical decorations and 'special' offers and features like St Patricks Day items etc, and also 'citycash', the commercial side of the game, which I have managed to avoid using and yet my city is getting along rather nicely. If Simcity were to become a FB/online game that in itself I would not frown at, as 1. anything is better than nothing and 2. if it does flop we can always make it ourselves finally anyway. However get ready for premium simoleon purchasing, holiday themed items and an easier laid back playing style and less realism. Also as A Nonny Moose so rightly noted, full 3d Simcity in Facebook? Yeah right. Think again. It will most likely still be pseudo 3d/isometric like Cityville, or be simplified to allow for full 3d if they do make that choice which I doubt they will. Indeed Cityville which is hardly a cutting edge display of modern graphics lags a lot on my pc with larger cities, which would in reality measure one mile by one mile in size. Unless the issue of game performance is resolved a FB Simcity would be disastrous and only work on the best computers.

I really do think there's little point in speculating whether EA will make sc5 or not. Let's just cut to the chase and make it ourselves already...

Indeed. Yes I've always thought that without those features it would seem pointless as you say. Unfortunately I have no coding ability myself, and while I have time and so forth, I doubt I can be of much use to the project. Always best to be honest I feel. I did try to learn C once, and while I understood how it was written and syntax and so forth, it was hard for me to attempt to replicate processes and systems I'd seen in Game Maker. One can't just click on 'add an object' for instance. Unfortunately not having been trained in programming, I doubt 'll ever be able to do anything terribly worthwhile for the project, and can only suggest what I always have, a strong team of skilled developers and a community to support them and to make the game democratic.

To be honest i'm not going to be excited until theres a game that allows the level of realism in well a real city. Until we get rid of the grid system and have full 3d graphics there's not much point making anything.

So basically we can argue as much as we like about having a war feature or full 3d versus pseudo 3d etc, but the root of the problem is the financial one. The only solution without resorting to getting EA or another company to make the game (and a collaboration with a small diehard fanbase is hard to imagine although not theoretically impossible to work with) and somehow making it profitable by coming up with some business model etc etc whereby players have to pay a large initial cost or maybe every new city they build costs an initial cost (build a city: cost 10 dollars) and the game becomes connected to the internet so until you paypal 10 bucks to EA/whoever you can't build a NEW city, but can REBUILD your old one. Hardcor3 gam3rz can blow up their city over and over and we chaps who actually want to create something in our game can do that, but to rebuild costs money. Okay, to make this profitable somebody has to have an interest in building more than one city, so the game has to be marketed in a tantalising way. Not only 'build the city of your dreams' but 'here's some awesome stuff you can do in this game'. To appeal to a large demographic would require finding something they instinctively like that isn't sex or violence and using that. Or alternatively we can make the game ourselves. But for that to work we need skill as well as business sense. Anyone can sell an idea if they dress it up nicely enough, and it doesn't take Einstein to come up with what we want, but for the actual game development we need skill and experience. And if this game is to be properly realistic we want the data to make it so too. So town planners/people studying that field, IT people for networking and so forth and of course people experienced with scripting a game. I've put Virtucity on hiatus again because I was ending up creating a Simcity 2000 clone pretty much, and I had trouble going 3d. There needs to be a certain amount of stable structure in the development team. A core of experienced people with knowledge and a good head for business. Whether or not the game is eventually sold the development team will naturally have to work for nothing, so they will obviously have to have a keen interest in the game genre. I am sure there are people here who have such skills but not the time, but a community built game doesn't have a timeframe or specific deadline date, although naturally the sooner the better although quality is essential. However the one BIG advantage of a community built game is constancy of updating, so that once we have a workable game updates can be automatically/manually added like with Firefox or so forth. Waiting for the source code is risky because 1. we might not ever get it and 2. consider how long it took for 'Micropolis' to be released.

Or we make a new game from scratch and do everything properly, and create a really good game that serves the needs of all the fanbase. EA isn't going to partner with anyone or give up source codes. Not for a long time.

Nice to see a single sc5 thread. Cobhris96''The only problem with SC4 (accessibility-wise) was that it didn't do a good job of easing you into the gameplay, at least in the vanilla game. I got SC4 when I was 9 years old, and it took at least a month or two before I was able to build stable cities on my own because the tutorials didn't tell you anything at all about how to make money ''etc ''For SC5, I would love it if the difficulty level was kept roughly the same as SC4, but we were given the option to build bigger and more realistic cities.'' I couldn't agree more. As far as difficulty goes I think the level of sc4 was about right, and if players want added realism or easier gameplay there can be a level setting like in sc4 deluxe, although personally I'd suggest a more advanced level setting with more levels but the difficulty level concept is good. Cobhris96''One of the things I loved about CXL was the ability to zoom into my city and walk around the streets.'' I would definitely suggest full 3d if computers these days can handle it. I am using Game Maker to make Virtucity, so naturally the 3d limitations there aren't on the same level as building a game from scratch with C and using a graphics engine or so forth. I have a limited understanding of these things but know that computers can handle fairly large full 3d environments, and so I daresay if a community built game or EA were to use the right tools it could be done without too much lag on a reasonable new computer. As to some people having older machines, there will always be some left out of every advancement- whether it be cars, computers, appliances etc- and the progress of the game shouldn't be restricted by the fact some people can't play it- as there will always be some people who can't do something. I should think most computers these days could handle at the minimum a small sc4 size city with full 3d, and if a 'fog' was used on older machines so that only part of the city was visible for them as a graphic setting... etc jacksunny''That is the whole point of the game. You have to make strategies to have a successful city. It took me a while too to get an actual decent city running.'' I remember when I first played Simcity 2000, a game I'd found by way of windows explorer on the first computer we got at home back in 2003 second hand from a garage sale a couple of houses down the street. I remember how I loaded the Maxis-made cities and marvelled at the fact they had buildings! I tried for hours to get deelopments to appear and then realised I hadn't laid any water pipes. Looking back I can't say I minded much, but then again I wasn't used to instant satisfaction and constant video game playing. This game was pretty revolutionary for me, as I'd enjoyed drawing city plans since I was very young- and it was incredible when I finally got developments in my cities. Each milestone like my firs skyscraper etc etc was quite a big thing for one not used to computer games and who had a black and white tv. But I can see things from the perspective of a battle hardened gamer who just wants to enjoy themselves and needs a lot of color and exlosions to achieve that goal, especially now, although my early city building adventures will alwas be good memories for me. I think having a tutorial that explains what you NEED to know to make a city that doesn't die instantly is great, but I think if it tells you too much the enjoyment of discovering the way the game and real life cities work is lessened. I think accessibility is a good thing, and the core tools like power plants, roads etc, should be easy to find and identify and not hidden by excessively bright and colorful UI with abstract stylized representations of the tools and too much clutter. (Then again in Virtucity i'm using a standard of UI graphics Windows NT would have been proud of). jacksunny''older machines. They would have to make the game so that there is options that will best suit to their computer. '' Two words; Graphics settings. I'm sure theres a way the graphics can be adjusted so that they can work for all good computers- but after all people will eventually replace their old machines- and these days most people can afford to buy a new computer every 5-10 years at least. I've been unemployed for some time and still manage to buy a new computer every 5 years or so. Cobhris96''people who are just sitting down to play SimCity for the first time don't get discouraged because they don't know how to do anything. It's remarkably simple once you get the hang of it, but for someone who has never played a city builder before, it can feel overwhelming when your first city is 100000 simoleons in the hole '' I think the introduction/tutorial to the game should be simple and effective. Not tell a new player so much that they can instantly build New York City- but enough to understand the basic necessary principles. If they can make a small functioning town with one school and a corner shop or two that is enjoyable to play and manage (after all with full 3d driving around town becomes a lot more fun than 'u drive-it' which imo stank. With enough realism a small town should be as enjoyable as downtown Manhattan. If a player can enjoy the game from square one, then they are more likely to become addicted to city building and want to return to their city often. There needs to be some chance. Disasters I would admit should be toggleable, but I would think that playing a realistic city one would want a certain level of chance, which adds interest and adventure to the game. This also makes gamers used to exploding zombies a tad more likely to come over and have a look around as it were, and if there is enough realism with the disasters, it creates an enjoyable challenge to prevent or fix them. Also wit non disasters, chance should exist. Otherwise the 'gardening' issue arises and we all sit around drinking tea and discussing how our commercial centres are doing and whether our commuting suburbs have been affected by the recent blight epidemic. There should definitely be some unpredictability to add interest, but not of a fantastic and unrealistic nature. Mind you in good ol' Simcity 2000 we had arcologies, dinosaurs roaming about downtown and a giant alien monster. So naturally I'm sure options would exist to add more unrealistic phenomena into the game. As to what LivingInThePast said, this is why I feel it should be community built. If a game company takes on the project then Simcity 5 might have it's name dirtied and become remembered as 'that failed attempt at...' etc. Game companies will want to make profits, and these days it would be difficult to market a game of this type successfully. I think asking EA to take this project on would be not a big risk, but a cig certainty, they'd ruin it. If 'Sc5' is to be community built naturally the core members of the team would be those with the skill to build, and so as I myself lack any skill in these things I can only suggest finding people who are skilled and dedicated to the genre/project notion. If a core group with the right skills, time on their hands etc can be found, then they can set up a forum/site etc and as they are dedicated that would keep the blood flowing as it were, so people newly coming across the site will see activity. Naturally opinions and so forth from non core members should be allowed as after all this is a community built game we're talking about. But I really think unless you can bring together the right people with the right skills and mindset and determination, this project will just peter out into a reminiscing thread about how great Simcity 5 would have been.