ziroi

Signed up a few days ago; no new or special info yet. You do not have to install the Origin client on your computer to be a SimCity Insider. You give the same information to EA as you do to any other website requiring you to register.

'Adding coal in the bedrock'? Can you provide a link to the video you saw? I've not seen this aspect yet.

Mmmm...I don't think this confirms "no terraforming" just yet. The quoted part is in the context of discussing multiplayer aspects of the game, in which I doubt there will be options for individual mayors to terraform their own cities, separate from the region's overall topography. Think of the mess that could create. It would be nice if Maxis includes options for us to import custom terraformed regions into multiplay though. My guess is, for now, Maxis will provide pre-set maps for players in the multi scene to enjoy and will not allow sweeping terraform tools when playing with others. Nothing here says that terraforming is out entirely, specifically for single player.

Not officially for the release date, no. Unofficially, I read a post on another forum that Maxis was posting job needs for folks who would work on the coding to port a "major new game" to the Mac. So, perhaps...?

I think there are three possible reasons for this: 1) The game is not finished. They still have 8 months of development to go. Perhaps round-abouts aren't developed yet. 2) The creator of the city is an American and doesn't know how to create a European or Asian-oriented city style. 3) Maxis doesn't want to show us other elements of the game yet, like two-way streets, tiny alleyways, round-abouts, etc. A little revealed at a time keeps us coming back to check on the latest news right? I know I do this. It generates hype. We are spoiled to get this early of a look at this game, imo. Based on the transit networks I've seen from the pictures, we've got the most realistic and diverse set of tools yet (if you ignore RHW/NAM, which weren't developed by Maxis). I'm excited to see the full gamut of options available to us as we get closer to the launch date.

It looks like a development version of the UI, so I will guess we'll see it cleaned up and refined a bit before too long. It is interesting though! One thing I caught is that it looks like the in-game camera is free to move. I suppose people might say that would be an obvious move since SimCity is 3D, but still...glad to see that potential in some screens. Tieing the sounds of traffic to individual cars is a great idea. I think it would absorb you into the "realism" of the city more. I also like that the music changes depending on what's happening. Hope that it's implemented well in the end.

The way I understood the article is that they are setting the scaling like this for the actual game graphics. He was describing their vision for the games aesthetics, so I assume that means Maxis intends to scale this way in the end. How that affects modding in real-life buildings? I don't know.

I think I would prefer differently. Cell phone towers are kind of specific and could be tied to a scenario or something, but I think it would serve better as custom content for aesthetic value. As far as power lines are concerned, I think it would be realistic to have two kinds: The ones they have now (which look great!) and smaller poles/lines you might see along a street or highway connecting two or more city areas. Really though, the stock power lines in SC look the best of all the games thus far, in my opinion.

Ocean Quigley was interviewed recently about the development of the simulation and the ideas that drive it: http://www.gamasutra..._in_simcity.php It's a little long, but an interesting read all the same, especially if you are worn out from reading about the multiplayer aspect. For the impatient, a couple of the highlights that I noted are (they are not exact quotes, so my own bias might creep in somewhere): -Developers have worked to make every graphic element in the game communicate something. Ocean later mentions that while they pushed to convey this kind of aesthetic in as many elements as possible, there are still data views and graphs to help communicate the most abstract information. -Tilt shift and model-train style graphics are implemented in an effort to make cities look more realistic than ever before. Ocean specifically mentions that buildings are not set to "real-life" scale on purpose. The scaling is still being worked on to give the feeling of a real city. The reasoning behind this is to show as much detail as possible in every building, no matter how you are viewing it. -Developers have thought through and researched social elements and their ties such as crime to education, etc. and how they affect one another. Specifically he noted that "something we would not want to bind is crime to social class, because that's outside of the player's control." This quote is a little out of context; the jist is that Ocean says they are trying to allow player's the ability to control the destiny of their city. -Many buildings are notably era-based and change depending on how you build your city. A coal plant, not regularly used today, looks like it comes out of the 50s. Industrial buildings are constructed in a more contemporary and up-to-date style as the education level of your city increases. -Ocean unofficially confirmed that there is not a "Fusion" power plant in the current build of SC with no plans to add one. He also unofficially noted that time and date does not operate like it has in previous titles, or (this is my speculation) there may not be a specific date at all now. This is Ocean's summary of it: "So it's not a linear march of time that we're binding to the aesthetics. It's just that we're tracking the education level and the technological sophistication of your city, which can go up and down." -For the "political agenda" concerned, Ocean stated that Simcity is not designed to push an agenda of environmental conservation or otherwise. He reiterated that the game is being balanced to allow you to take your city on many different paths. I think for most of us, we already knew that. -There were not mentions of gameplay specifics other than anything noted above. This isn't an interview about game mechanics either; just some simulation aspects of Glassbox and a lot about how it ties into the aesthetics of the game. Just FYI.

You know, SimCity 4 is great, but I'd love to just go from SC4 to SimCity(2013) for multiplayer AND singleplayer. If I'm enjoying playing on a multiplayer map with friends or foes, it would be hard to open up SC4 later to play singleplayer, as awesome as it is. I want to make the jump and go; I'm hoping the game will allow excellent gameplay and minimal to no hassle with Origin on both counts. I've never used Origin though, so we'll see.

The whole interview seemed pretty positive to me and I'd say is worth the 8 minutes. The DLC talk read a little dodgy, but we do get a confirmation that there are no plans to release "gameplay" additions using DLC at this time. If that will change next year? Who knows!

I think croxis makes a good point that we're assuming the rules are "hard and fast". As I mentioned in my earlier post, the model that seems to be in the works is not perfect and has flaws, but the two rules that are in play is the transport type AND the volume of the traffic. If your one-way street is busy (as the case might be in Manhattan), then it seems reasonable to conclude that skyscrapers could appear there in time. SimCity is going more "organic" as the Maxis devs put it, so surely they've looked at models of cities in Europe and other places where tiny streets are surrounded by high-density buildings and are developing with this vision in mind.

I like SimCity 5, but it will probably end up being called SimCity. I'm OK with that.

Very cool graphics! They are certainly narrowing the gap between real and make-believe. The city looked too clean though.

I don't understand the community here sometimes. The zone-control system they seem to be implementing (which, in an attempt to stay remotely on-topic, is probably something that won't change during development) is more true-to-life to city development than SC4's zoning control ever was, in my opinion. It evolves naturally with the transportation you choose and the traffic that occurs. Zoning laws and restrictions are a fact of life for the construction industry and business owners. You can't just zone for high-density on a small street, or even a major road because you want to. The transport infrastructure has to support the potential influx of car/foot traffic. In other words, it's even more realistic than SC4. This is good, right? This is what we wanted! And yet, there are complaints that this decision "dumbs-down" the gameplay. I admit that this isn't a perfect model and there are flaws (old single-family homes on a major avenue isn't an uncommon sight). If we get too realistic though, the game will be boring. So which is it? Do you want a more realistic city simulator or god-like control of every aspect of your city (macro or micro)? You really can't have both. If you are a real mayor of a town, much of your city's development is out of your hands. I think we're forgetting that Maxis called this game a "reboot". Starting over. Maxis isn't making SimCity 4 + tons more. We already have that (thank you amazing modding community).