Nevets13

Very interesting responses. I would do more research into the subject tho Phillipe. I am thinking that hardcore city builders enjoy sandbox cities because they are building their "dream cities". I don't think this will be the same with the casual city builders who are playing the game for the challange of building the city, and wont be as interested in spending as much time on perfecting the city and using the mods. I think there needs to be an even balance between challanging city building and sandbox city building. Unfortunately, sandbox video gaming (I love it and think their is a huge future in it), is ripped apart by video game reviewers and critics. If a game doesn't have set goals or "end game" they go crazy and call it boring, and give it bad reviews....really really unfortunate.

Originally posted by: sam I think resources would make things interesting. But what I'd like to see most would be forests, animals waterfalls, rocks, trees and beaches. And terraforming, lots of terraforming options.quote> I have mentioned animals before, I think they would make great eye candy, that adds life to some cities. In the tropics or subtropics it would be cool to have flamingos in water areas. Like in Sim city, have whales in the oceans, deer in temperate areas, parrots flying around in the tropics, polar bears and caribou in the tundra.... I would be happy with this in the initial game. Maybe in an expansion I would like to manage the wildlife a bit more. Yes I know this is a city building game, but judging by the ski screenshot, we just wont be working with cities in this game.

I think there should be issues that the mayor can decide to put in to law (more like dictator...but come on, how fun would it be to have to pass everything through a computer vote) that depending on how you decide affects your city. like allowing gambling drug use (this isn't maxis) protecting the environment party city vs quiet neighborhood immigration (allows for a quick influx of workers, but at the cost of more crimes) They expanse of this doesn't have to be like SCS (no cheesy "Big brother societies", but having issues that allow for making your city more "unique" and alive would be nice.

I don't mind handling the budget, but I don't let it getting in the way of my cities progress. Maybe once I have my city the way I want it I will mess around with the budget haha. I do understand though that handling the economy is a big thing for a lot of players.

For me, city building games are the only games I really use cheat codes in. Reason for this is the main reason I play city building games is to build my dream city, with all the tools I need already at my disposal. Sometimes the money element of the game can impede this, so I just ignore it.

Here is my post on the subject from another forum: Since Monte Cristo is looking at disasters, what type would you like to see? I have broken it up into 3 categories, I wouldn't mind seeing options to toggle on/off all three independely. Small Scale: -traffic accidents -small fire -small riot -oil spill Large scale: -hurricane -flood -earthquake -volcano -firestorm -large riot -tornado -meteor -If mountains are in, an avalanche -Plague: Trying to quarantine off parts of your city as disease makes its way through. Unrealistic: Now this one, I'm not really sure if I would want this to be in this game, since I want it to be realistic, but still think it would be fun to have the option to unleash them on your city just to see what happens. - UFO invasion -Giant monster -Nuke -Zombie attack (now this one I think would be the most fun, watching as it spreads from citizen to citizen)quote>

Originally posted by: Sap59 a sandbox mode would be nice too.quote> Not just nice, needed.

Yea, I agree, cities don't need to have a bunch of skyscrappers all together. Metro Detroit has several downtownish areas that all of skyscrappers. Yes there is downtown Detroit has its skyscrappers, but its suburbs also have them....such as Southfield and Troy,

Assuming seasons will be in the game what kind of lots would you like to see that change during the seasons? This is mainly for a temperate region, but if you have ideas for other regions you can share those too. I would like to see mainly parks change throughout the seasons. In the summer you have lots of people swimming, running, biking....while in the winter you have ice skating on lakes, snowmobilers, sledding..etc. I don't know how these things happen in the rest of the world, but in a US-like region I would like to see, when the leaves change colors, pumpkins on people's doorsteps, hayrides, haunted houses appear on seasonal lots...around christmas time I would like to see pine trees for sale in the seasonal lots, lights on peoples houses....etc. It would also be cool to be able to place a countdown type thing, such as in times square, where many people in the region gather around for New Years. Flora placement can also be of importance in seasonal areas. SC 4 did this poorly, because you couldn't determine what trees you could plant, it was random. This isn't how it is in real cities. Look at washington dc and their cherry trees. I think main street lined with cherry tress would look quite amazing come spring time in my city.

Farms will also be interesting when it comes to different climates. In temperate you would have apples, pears, cherries, pumpkins, corn..... In the plains you could have wheat. Subtropical, oranges. mediterranean you could have grapes, with numerous wineries. Tropics you could have bananas and cocunuts. Also live stock on farms would be different. North American and European are similiar, but in south america you can have llamas and alpacas and in south east asia you even have elephants being used in field labor. In south africa you have ostrich farms.

Assuming we have zoning in the game, let's discuss commerical zoning. The problem I have with zoning compared to plopping is how commerical areas are zoned, specifically like in SC4. I don't care for crappy bars popping up in my high class shopping district, or toys'r'us popping up in my red light district, just isn't realistic. Now I would still like to see the high level commericial zoning (skyscrappers), but I think the lower level commercial areas need more options. Entertainment commercial: this could probably be broken up into two areas 1) Family friendly; arcades, movie theaters, go kart tracks, laser tag, skate rink, batting cage, wave pool, putt putt golfing, bowling ally....you get the idea 2) Adults: bars, clubs, comedy clubs, casinos. Shopping Commercial: Malls, other shops, expo centers. This could also be broken up into levels 1) Residential, the local shops the residents would use (Kmart, blockbusters) 2) High Level 3) Tourist (like the beach shops in all the beach towns). Lodging: Hotels. I'm not sure it would needs its own option, but I can't seem to be able to fit it in the others. Now I know my options may be a bit picky, but am I the only one that would be interested in more choices like this?

Originally posted by: Androv As for climate/terrain, I admit I would be fond of a detailed way of picking the spot to start a city. City Life had the choice of five 'climates' to build in - Temperate/Tropical/Sunny/Mountain/....the last one was Desert or something like it. The climate influenced (along with the scenario) the citizen's mood and the number of tourists that would come. There aren't that many more climates that you can go for (except for Arctic/Tundra) so I think a simple selection of climates would probably be alright.quote> You also have to remember that different terrains around the world change depending where you are at. A desert in Australia isn't the same and one in northern africa, or one in north america. Different climates: Temperate-Eastern US, Europe, Canada. Tundra-Northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia Subtropical/Tropical- Florida, Carribean Rainforest-Amazon, South East Asia, West Africa Plains/Savana-Central US, Patagonia, East Africa. Desert-West US, Australia, Middle East Mediterranean-Southern Europe, California Mountainous-Rockies, Himalayas, Alps

That is actually a thread discussing a Q&A with monte cristo, not a thread where monte cristo is suppose to answer your questions. Phillipe supposedly read all threads, and will answer what he can. There is no reason to keep posting in that one thread, it is getting pretty rough to find anything you want to find it in. I see no reason why we can't start making separate threads on different topics.

Originally posted by: Pinkyred9 i think if they made it so you select the place in the world your going to build and the building design corisponds (did i spell that right?) to the area you select. pick England, and well everything is british, Australia, Australian, American, american style.Brazilian... (yeah I think we get it!). That's a suggestion for any monte cristo developers out there! But you have give me the first hundred million kidding!quote> I am slightly against this, I think where we select should have the landscape, flora, and fauna match where we selected, but the buildings should be up to us. If I want to build a bavarian town in the outback, I am going to create one!

Originally posted by: cuboctahedron Originally posted by: KeanoManu But with the actual globe option, everything will be out of proportion. Building London will take up half of Britain and so on. But it would be cool to have the option.quote> I don't know how big the region size is actually going to be; I was hoping though the the play area size, e.g. Britain, would be identical (area-wise) to the actual size of the the islands, so you can theoratically rebuild a whole country (providing you have enough harddisk space). It's not that Monte Cristo has to mimic every hill, river or other details of a country/continent, but basically just have the contours of the coast-lines, and the climate main features (desert, artic, tropic, temperate, mountainous etc). Indeed it would be horrible if you build a city like london, and have Heathrow airport located in Bristol or Luxembourg-City be a suburb of Paris. In addition, perhaps Monte Cristo could use the mapping of a game like Microsoft Flight-Simulator as template for the geographic features.quote> Yup, that is pretty much how I imagine them doing this as well.

Originally posted by: rctshack I just typed in the KOTOR 2 game... and it's a star wars game... This game's book cover seems like it would be at half price books... and it is not the type of game I would most likely play. That genre does not interest me. Was KOTOR 1 good?quote> KOTOR 1 was very good. The story behind KOTOR 2 is that it sounded like it would be a major hit, it was KOTOR1X10. Only problem was they rushed the release of the game in order to get it out for the holidays. Needless to say, the game was noticibly unfinished.

Originally posted by: Mulefisk It's a little vain IMO to be judging a game base on a few screenshots (Even though they look incredibly nice ) so i'm gonna with with my decision until I get a little more info and see a few hands-on previews.quote> Again, I don't think most of us want this game based on the few screenshots. I think a lot of us our more interested in the dedication that Monte Cristo is putting forth in listen to us.

GTA without the violence? haha.

I agree, I would be interested in an addon game like streets of sim city that would add it to the game

Very true, which is why having Monte Critso (an independent company who has no one to answer to but the fans) making this is so great.

3) Phillipe and gang are so cool. They are willing to spend time listening to the fans.Just to give them slack, I don't see any difference between what the developers of Simcity Societies and Cities Unlimited have done so far. They've both come to this website, presented their products, said they may consider what we've said, and have moved on and developed their game further. The only difference I've seen is the actual product.quote> I think Monte Cristo will do more than "just consider what we've said". Our opinions will definitely have an impact on this game. They have wanted our opinion on what we want since the beginning of development. Tilted Mill didn't want to know what we wanted untill 5 months before the game was released, a little to late to add what players wanted.

Of course, I am desperate for a good city building game.

That would be no different than it currently is in city building games....there is only one model for car dealership, one model for burger place, one model for everything else....the only difference is these are actual brands and not a made up one. If you want more than you need mods.

To make the majority of people playing this game happy you would probably need to have 1/3 US:1/3 Europe: 1/3 Asian. Later on an expansion could be for other sets, such as Latin American and Middle East (I think that covers most the sets actually).

Phillipe has already said that the game is bringing in lots of $$$, and I believe he also said there would be ingame advertising. I think that it is an awesome idea! I don't see one problem with ingame advertising in city building games. It gives more money to monte cristo (money they don't have to wait till the release to get, remember monte cristo is an independent developer, they don't have an EA funding them money), which allows them to hire more people, which in turn allows for a better made game. Allows it adds to realism. Yes in most games, advertising looks out of place, but not in city building games. Look at STEX, look at all the real-life stores, restaurants, hotels....that is all advertising. Those are popular downloads, because it makes the cities feel more real. I would much rather see mcdonalds in the game, than the cheesy looking robot restaurant in SCS.