PGHammer

Older towns, yes. However, the trend in new development (established towns as well) is toward regionalization and zoning (similar to theming in SC 2013) - for the simple reason that real-world communities are not bubble communities; they exist as part of a wider region/county/state. A region will have a *flavor* different from another region (even in what may be the same county or, in the case of larger cities, the same city - Washington, DC or even New York City are prime examples - in the case of New York City, look at the differences between Brooklyn and the Bronx, or between either and Queens) - the *village/borough* concept is actually drawn from the real world. I'm actually expecting there to be more data available in SC 2013 than in SC4 (which is not exactly easy to manage on a whole-large-city level) - for that reason we as Mayors may actually be glad of the smaller village concept. If you get the chance, talk to a mayor of a small town - find out exactly what he has on his plate on a daily basis. (If you know of a town or city that also has a city manager, that's another person whose ear you should bend - a manager and mayor have overlapping responsibilities, and are required to work together to keep the town or city running smoothly; it's something that SimCity has implemented in the Advisory Council, which dates back to the original Sim City). Do you REALLY want to drown in Information Overload? (There are times that SC4 threatens to do just that - that is why there is a limit to how large I would let a city there grow.) I love the way you use EA marketing tools in your comment. What SC4 info overload? I find SC4 too simple and was looking for a challenge in SC2013 but what I get is something called "Simvillage 2013", Why can't they give us a choice tough? Even if I wanted it to be as "modern" planning wise as you want it to be, why can't I make it the old ways? Why does it need to be predefined anyway? Heavy on the marketing indeed Besides, very US centric in terms of approach. In Europe neither urban nor regional development can be compared there, it is based on completely different principles and methods. It's almost funny. I was looking at Simcity (the current one) compared to real-world urban development/redevelopment at the town/small-city level because it's a hot topic locally/regionally (I live in the Washington, DC suburbs - so I am looking it it compared to suburban development and re-development, therefore the "Americanisms") - I can't compare it to Europe because I've never been to Europe, and I don't watch enough of the English-language versions of channels such as FRANCE24 or BBC World to get an idea of how European urban development or even UK urban development gets handled. The only other city sim that comes close is CitiesXL Platinum - however, that doesn't have as many datapoints as even SC4. In short, local politics, not marketing.

Older towns, yes. However, the trend in new development (established towns as well) is toward regionalization and zoning (similar to theming in SC 2013) - for the simple reason that real-world communities are not bubble communities; they exist as part of a wider region/county/state. A region will have a *flavor* different from another region (even in what may be the same county or, in the case of larger cities, the same city - Washington, DC or even New York City are prime examples - in the case of New York City, look at the differences between Brooklyn and the Bronx, or between either and Queens) - the *village/borough* concept is actually drawn from the real world. I'm actually expecting there to be more data available in SC 2013 than in SC4 (which is not exactly easy to manage on a whole-large-city level) - for that reason we as Mayors may actually be glad of the smaller village concept. If you get the chance, talk to a mayor of a small town - find out exactly what he has on his plate on a daily basis. (If you know of a town or city that also has a city manager, that's another person whose ear you should bend - a manager and mayor have overlapping responsibilities, and are required to work together to keep the town or city running smoothly; it's something that SimCity has implemented in the Advisory Council, which dates back to the original Sim City). Do you REALLY want to drown in Information Overload? (There are times that SC4 threatens to do just that - that is why there is a limit to how large I would let a city there grow.) I love the way you use EA marketing tools in your comment. What SC4 info overload? I find SC4 too simple and was looking for a challenge in SC2013 but what I get is something called "Simvillage 2013", Why can't they give us a choice tough? Even if I wanted it to be as "modern" planning wise as you want it to be, why can't I make it the old ways? Why does it need to be predefined anyway? I didn't lift the terms from EA, but from politics - specifically, urban/regional-development politics and the Battle Over Sprawl (referred to here in Maryland as "smart growth" or, by its opponents "anti-growth"). It's also why I suggested picking the brains of real small-town mayors. You're right on SC4 being simple *by comparison* compared to the current SimCity - which was exactly my point. Even with the smaller amount of problems to manage, the issue with larger cities in any SimCity (even 2000 Unlimited, my original exposure to the franchise) is *scale*. Trying to start off with a large city (even one of the included model cities) is the political equivalent of diving of the high-board without knowing how much water is under you - due to being blindfolded. Learn to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Overconfidence is a synonym for hubris, which invariably leads to disaster - in anything. Because the current SimCity throws more details at you, starting small makes more (not less) sense than ever. Here are three towns that I suggest throwing into Google (or other search engine of choice): Forest Heights, Morningside, and Maryland City. These are all real small towns about the size of the starting size of SimCity; however, each has had their share of mis-steps that you would think wouldn't happen in a small town. (My plan with the size of SimCity's cities is to use the sandbox feature for region-modelling analysis, especially if, at some point, I can plug data from real towns and cities into it for realism.) If I can get comfortable dealing with an entire region, I CAN always go back to SC4 - which I have installed - for big-city tackling.

Older towns, yes. However, the trend in new development (established towns as well) is toward regionalization and zoning (similar to theming in SC 2013) - for the simple reason that real-world communities are not bubble communities; they exist as part of a wider region/county/state. A region will have a *flavor* different from another region (even in what may be the same county or, in the case of larger cities, the same city - Washington, DC or even New York City are prime examples - in the case of New York City, look at the differences between Brooklyn and the Bronx, or between either and Queens) - the *village/borough* concept is actually drawn from the real world. I'm actually expecting there to be more data available in SC 2013 than in SC4 (which is not exactly easy to manage on a whole-large-city level) - for that reason we as Mayors may actually be glad of the smaller village concept. If you get the chance, talk to a mayor of a small town - find out exactly what he has on his plate on a daily basis. (If you know of a town or city that also has a city manager, that's another person whose ear you should bend - a manager and mayor have overlapping responsibilities, and are required to work together to keep the town or city running smoothly; it's something that SimCity has implemented in the Advisory Council, which dates back to the original Sim City). Do you REALLY want to drown in Information Overload? (There are times that SC4 threatens to do just that - that is why there is a limit to how large I would let a city there grow.)

Do you realize what you are insisting on, compared to the intent of the developers? You are, in fact, basically insisting that your cities exist in a bubble (which has been the case with SC4 and previous), whereas the developers (Maxis/EA) are taking a more realistic and (believe it or not) honest approach by insisting that the cities be always connected. It has nothing to do with DRM; however, it has *everything* to do with how the agents work in the GBE (Glass Box Engine) and with the core concept (new with SC 2013) of regional/metropolitan play. In other words, "How dare SC 2013 be different!" In reality, no city or town exists in a vacuum (unless it's on an island). If you are that insistent on bubble cities, stick to SC4 or CitiesXL - neither of them are necessarily going anywhere. (However, because they actually ARE *bubble cities*, they are not realistic, either.) The "realism" argument is just marketing. Nothing more. It can't be used in any value statements or comparisons simply because it is just a marketing term. Beyond that, it is a pointless word to use either way because it is subjective. What is realistic to one, is fantasy shiny to the other. Look at subways in SC2013. Maxis states it is aiming for ultra-realism, but there are no subways. See? Plenty users will find that a perfect example of dumbing down the game (in methods and manners very similar to what was observed in the evolution of Civ V), others will find it better because they can embrace Kip's statements of how that allows for a more realistic challenge in the dealing with road networks. Yet others will simply try to insert the functionality regardless of reasons, though they may very well find that such deep third party interaction is not allowed. At the same time, just don't make the assumption that the agent system of Glassbox is a requirement for design goals. It can be turned off, it can be set to local data only. It's just that from a sales perspective enabling that does not make sense if your sales pitch relies to a high degree on making use of social gaming mechanisms. Cities not being bubbles has nothing to do with how the agents in the GBE work. The agent system is configured for design goals. Those are set by commercial requirements. What you are referring to as "how dare SC2013 be different" is a rather short sighted perspective in terms of commercial considerations. Consider the perspectives of user types who just want to puzzle, and build, on their own and in their own immersion. These are all user types that are incredibly substantial in terms of volume. Even just the state of SC4 today still demonstrates that. Discarding (depending what perspective is brought to the table) these potential customer groups as "not in tune with a new product" or "not interesting" is something somewhere between dumb and oblivious - in a business sense, obviously. I have seen a lot of deductions from what in reality are nothing more than marketing statements. It is interesting to see each time how consumers run with that, and after purchase find themselves in disappointment they should have seen coming - but because they spent coin most immediately fall prey to the syndrome of "have to defend the product as it equates to defending my purchase". The irony is that where consumers during the release of information (by marketing of gaming products or services) offset such information with reality checks and good communications of expectations and origins thereof back to the studio you tend to see a much easier road for synergy between the studio's efforts pre- and post release (a big example of that is for example Firaxis who are still building upon pre-release communicated required course corrections for Civ V - course corrections in perspectives that want to embrace the product yes, and not simply content or feature injections). If people just discard or shrug off other people's perspectives, especially those which lie at the basis of how an obsolute product got nurtured to a point where it provided the foundation for the viability of a succeeding product, that is at the least counter productive. If only because it allows marketing elements to essentially decide the interaction between commercial and design goals in a top down direction (as opposed to building something from the ground up, which is a manner that includes ability to both maneuver and complement). Now here is the funny thing, something which many of us in the gaming industry tend to forget. It is not about the intent of the developers. Realistically, the developers never matter unless they manage to capture the perspectives of consumers and cater specifically to those and not their own - while translating that into cases and presentations that keep the almighty suits happy. Without that, it is always the suits that decide. For them neither developers nor customers have any other meaning or weight that resources. So be very careful with statements like "Do you realize what you are insisting on, compared to the intent of the developers?". Developers (application, game or otherwise) have targeted customers; what many seem to want from the game isn't what the developers are targeting. Fair enough. However, that is provided by games that are not only out there - why would (or should) a developer re-invent the wheel? What the developer and publisher want does matter - as it determines whether i will have any interest in the game or not. As it is, my interest in SC 2013 is primarily due to it requiring me to take things into consideration that neither SC4 or CitiesXL do - specifically, the needs of other cities. While there has been the *idea* of other cities (and even an an entire SImNation) since SC2000, how well was it implemented in previous titles? The answer, of course, is rather simple - it wasn't. The idea/concept was there - however, there was no method to implement it. You compensated by building *bubble cities*. Never mind that it isn't realistic - it was *the only game in town*. Now, it isn't. You can build *bubble cities* - *semi-connected* cities, and even fully-connected cities (the last two are supported by SC 2013). The question faced by the long-time SimCity fanbase is this - are we willing to adapt to actually having something that's been hinted at since the early days actually available?

Do you realize what you are insisting on, compared to the intent of the developers? You are, in fact, basically insisting that your cities exist in a bubble (which has been the case with SC4 and previous), whereas the developers (Maxis/EA) are taking a more realistic and (believe it or not) honest approach by insisting that the cities be always connected. It has nothing to do with DRM; however, it has *everything* to do with how the agents work in the GBE (Glass Box Engine) and with the core concept (new with SC 2013) of regional/metropolitan play. In other words, "How dare SC 2013 be different!" In reality, no city or town exists in a vacuum (unless it's on an island). If you are that insistent on bubble cities, stick to SC4 or CitiesXL - neither of them are necessarily going anywhere. (However, because they actually ARE *bubble cities*, they are not realistic, either.)