masochist

Replies: DCMetro34 - Thanks! That picture was just an experiment in photoshopping; could've came out a bit better, but that's okay :-P. And yeah, I don't know why I started pronouncing it that way (especially since no one really calls that freeway in Houston "The Eastex," it's just "59" to the locals)...but there you go! Thanks for the comment! :-D Jchan_777 - Thank you! Hope you enjoy this update! All right! Three more random pictures: 1.) (Looking south) This city, located in the northwest corner of Condor Bay, was the last one I ever built on in the region...and in SimCity 4 in general, actually (except for the airport). It was a definite exercise in building on slopes (and I didn't have a slope mod, else it wouldn't've worked at all). It also turned into an exercise in using the wide-radius curves--in fact, of all the roads and avenues in the city tile, there is exactly one non-wide curve (maybe two, not sure). Definitely the first time I used them so much. I love the way you can actually see the elevation change in the road winding through the mountains in this shot. But I don't like bland uniformity of the trees...something I hope to change in a new region, should I ever start one . 2.) (Click through for 1440x900 pic) My first city from Cities XL, called Buonocitta. I'm a big fan of the game and some the freedom it affords you as opposed to SimCity 4. I worked hard on Buonocitta for a good long time, but I can't seem to get it to transfer over to CXL '11, and it's kind of dampened my spirits with the game just because of how much I love the city (it won me my first Trixie ). Hopefully, though, I'll get back into it with a new city (Praeocia); in the meantime, I'll try and put up an overview of Buonocitta, which is where the vast majority of my CXL pictures will come from. This picture was taken in the original CXL, before mods became popular (as you can tell by the default-textured streets), but it remains one of my favorites. I think someone actually used it as their desktop background. 3.) I'm pretty sure I shouldn't like this picture as much as I do...but I do ! There's a lot of Maxis and old B.A.T.'s and such...but I think it's just the lines and the levels that draws me to it. And that Maxis El-Train really fits with the colors of it, which helps. I don't know...even years after I've taken, it still remains a personal favorite of mine. BONUS! Tilt-Shift in SC4! I figured having it candy-colored would make the effect a little better . That's all for now. Leave a comment if you want, yeah? Random Fact - I spread the nickname Mas to give people an alternative to my full screen name "Masochist," which is a bit...shocking to some. I pronounce "Mas" like the Spanish word for "more"--'mahss'.

Replies: DCMetro34- Thanks! The same could be said of your comments...they certainly are inspiring ! Been a while, right? Lots of exciting stuff going on in my life...but since I have a bit of time, I'll throw up three more pictures : 1.) (Looking East) Emerald River, from Power City. This is just an example of the suburbs I used to make way back then; that neighborhood on the west side of the river (bottom of the picture) is actually the very first suburbs I ever built on SimCity 4 Deluxe. That happened back in December of 2005...dear goodness! I can't believe it's been FIVE-AND-A-HALF YEARS since I started playing this game and have been part of ST...man. Good times... 2.) (Looking South; reversed) A reversed shot of the courthouse near Condor Beach in Fordville (Condor Bay). This picture is one of my favorites from the CJ, just because it's one of the ones I did the least amount of editing to, but it came out rather well. I think I just softened it a bit and reversed it...perhaps changed the contrast a bit. I used to darken pictures to post online, but this is about when I embraced brightening them instead. The park behind the courthouse is pretty weird, though. It's pretty...just, what's the point of the diagonal plazas? 3.) LOL, this picture ! This is a picture of an early version of Condor Bay that never really made it beyond the first city tile (because I actually had no idea how to go about building on mountains back then; I still don't). The picture itself is a terribly un-interesting shot, but...that water. I cropped everything but the water out of the original, then used a bevel-type filter to get it to look like that; then I just added a light-source somewhere off the picture (I really wish I'd've put a bit more yellow/orange in it). It's hard to tell, but I also blurred everything except the three hotels in the foreground, which also took a bit of work (because I cropped out the hotels in order to fade the rest of the pic). All in all, I did A LOT of work on a picture that, in all honesty, isn't all that interesting to begin with . Oh, well...I did it FOR SCIENCE ! That's all! Perhaps the next update won't be so long coming. Please leave a comment if you so desire!

Replies: iuri99 - Hahaha, you know, I've never thought of doing that...but I'm a bit protective, so there'd have to be a specific terrain and size and such. But if you want to know, some of those names (including Power City) actually come from other people's cities . Thanks for the comment! nico15821 - Nice! The largest population I got in a single (large) city tile was probably 220,000 or so. Never got that close again! AIX - The wait is over ! Thanks for the comment! Okay...so [that first entry] wasn't really random, I admit. This one will be. Not so much introduction, just three pictures: 1.) This picture is from [Condor Bay (Fordville)]...Condor Beach, to be exact. I was trying to combine three different effects in this picture: the fade-to-blur, keeping the Marriott hotel in focus), and the sun-glaring-off-building. I had tried the first two effects in different pictures before, but never together...and I'd never done the sun glare before this, so I wanted to try it out. The blurring effect came out all right, I think, and it makes the Marriott really stand out; the sun glare isn't all that cool simply because the picture wasn't taken at the right angle to be able to see the sun in the picture. Also, the parking lot in the back is kinda wonky there. Oh, well ...other than that, it ain't so bad a picture, methinks . I might add that the Marriott is one of my favorite B.A.T. buildings, not only because it looks awesome, but also because it's actually floating on top of a very small lot, which means I can put it on hills and such and it doesn't look to bad . 2.) This is the suburb of Livingston, in the Oasis River Valley (Power City) region. Livingston represents my first attempt at creating a suburban-to rural tile (back in my early days of SC4 Deluxe)...and, well, you can see how well that turned out . The problem was the north/south running freeway (and the fact that I didn't really know how to handle farms back then)--if I hadn't built that, I probably wouldn't've felt the need to build up around it . Don't know if you can tell from so far away, but there's a huge jump in time between the stuff on the right side of that freeway and the stuff I built on the left. The right side has all the streets close together because I was trying to emulate the suburban style that I had started out with in an adjacent tile, and I was still experimenting with diagonal streets, because those were fairly new back then (showing my ST age ). The left side of the freeway happened way later, and shows the more open-street design I adopted after playing for a while--the streets are farther apart, and there are open spaces in the middle of some the blocks of houses. Also, the tall buildings near the interchange are plopped--tried to make a bit of an edge city there (again, because of the freeway). And don't get me started on that industrial area.... 3.) This is the central business district of Oasis Delta as seen at night. Now, Oasis Delta is a suburb of Power City, which actually makes this an edge-city, or a satellite business district, that falls very close to a major freeway interchange (if you live in Houston or Dallas, TX, you know exactly what I was going for here ), which explains why it's rather small in area. As it is, however, it's the largest concentration of commercial jobs in the entire region, and the only area in which I zoned high-density commerce in a region of 440,000 sims, which means that it grew up A LOT taller than it should've...in fact, to this day this is the tallest commercial district I have ever managed to grow in SimCity 4. Rest assured, you'll probably see A LOT of pictures from it in this CJ . As a side-note, somewhere in this picture is [P.D.A.'s Clark Tower], which was one of the very first skyscrapers I ever downloaded from the STEX, and remains one of my very favorite B.A.T.'s ever . ...And that's that! Hope you enjoyed it...let me know what you think! Random Fact- I pronounce STEX as "East-ex," and the only reason I can think of for doing so is because of the Eastex freeway in Houston.

Ooooh...haven't done this in a while! Right, ALL 16 PICTURES on this page will be destroyed, starting...now! Terring: I absolutely adore the repetition! Nine instances of the same ugly building in one picture should be the style of city that every SC4 builder shoots to attain! You've hit gold with this one...fool's gold, that is. And if that weren't enough, you threw the Robot Building in the middle of all the Art-Deco and *shudder* Brutalist architecture. A very worthy entry into this Hall of Shame . -7.2/-10 - The best thing that could happen to your city is if that Robot building came alive and destroyed it all a-la Transformers. Elemented9: A road that leads to nowhere. How romantic an image that is, and how defiled it is by its inclusion in your picture. Love the "Lombard St." imitation that farm road makes; interesting, because it looks like there are diagonal roads in your picture, and yet you don't employ them on the one street that could probably benefit from them. You also don't employ longer road curves. I suggest you do. -6.5/-10 - Take a drive down the short end of that road. Don't stop when the pavement runs out; the trees might do you some good . IL.: You know, I would almost say that the town is picturesque; it's a good thing that gigantic bridge over nothing changes my mind. Also, do your tennis courts have a love affair with retaining walls? One's on the (waaaay) low-side of one, and the other brings one up (on a beach, no less!). And I'm certain that the windmills with no power lines coming from them are absolutely useful . -6.8/-10 - I can only hope that the computer that holds this city's files were on one of the boats in your first picture. Logintime: Trees? We don't need no stinkin' trees! We'll just build our tiny town on a fjord surrounded by snow-laden mountains that seems to serve no purpose other than simply having a tiny town on a fjord surrounded by snow-laden mountains. And no trees. And no roads leading to or from the town, either...but we have a bridge! -7.5/-10 - Save the world; PLANT A @#!* TREE ! Terring (again): Oh, dear goodness . The Gherkin is one of the most beautiful and loved buildings in London, and here it is, an eyesore in your city worse than Montparnasse. And you didn't even bother giving it water! Oh, and there's the train-tracks to nowhere, the hospital not connected to any roads, and the same single tree planted 200 times. Grid, pause border, mayor menu, zots...oh, dear goodness. -10/-10 - It's amazing, really, that in a picture with only 13 structures, you still managed to fit in multiple instances of repetition. Bravo.... Towerdude: Awesome! One of my favorite cities on the planet reduced to...this. Make those edges any softer and I won't be able to tell whether this is SimCity or you playing with your frogurt. I love how none of those towers are casting shadows on that pure white parking garage, and compared to everything else, the black glass textures on that white building leave much to be desired (realism, for starters). -5.3/-10 - This picture almost single-handedly makes me not want to visit Hong Kong, for fear that it turns out to be an accurate representation . Nathanthemayor: If this picture is anything to go by, your username is a definite misnomer. I'm certain those people in the neighborhood towards the bottom of the picture definitely appreciate their mayor for building a busy six-lane highway directly across the street from them, and then a huge amusement park directly beyond that, with not a single highway wall anywhere in between. Also love the solid commercial sidewalks along those streets (as opposed to, you know, grass sidewalks that one might usually find in a normal city ). -7.8/-10 - If I road that coaster to its highest point and saw the surrounding area, I'd throw myself off of it, and into oncoming traffic. And then roll right onto someone's doorstep, because, you know, I could do that. Terring (a third time): You again? Right...Epicland!? ...funny. Pause border still there, mayor menu still there, and I'm certain if I zoomed in, I'd probably see the grid, too. Skyscrapers rise up in the middle of residential areas with retaining walls that almost double their height, and that Spaceship has to have the world's best alien pilot in order to maneuver in between the world's largest eyesores. -8.2/-10 - You must be a masochist just like me. Those space aliens must be, as well, if they're visiting one of your cities. Kccl35: No. No it isn't. There's a bridge and a huge marina that takes up one entire side...for what? Ten houses, a church and a parking lot that takes up a fifth of the island? That's what people are going to see? I think I'd have more fun watching the aliens park in between those uber-tall towers in Terring's picture above you. -7.3/-10 - So much fanfare for so little substance...both your post and the island in your picture . MamaLuigi945: Geez, another bouncing rainbow sheep ? Oh, well...it's much better than looking at that abomination of a picture. Repetition, no color, repetition, mayor menu, repetition, trash in the streets, repetition, ugly uniformed blocks, repetition, all Maxis, repetition, no variety whatsoever...and rampant repetition. -9.8/-10 - I see you have the NAM, so you've discovered the STEX; ever think of using it again? _marsh_: It's a ditch. I'm looking at a picture of a ditch. Dear goodness, did you actually put work into this!? Random house is random; random cows are...cows? Those are cows in the middle of that forest all by their lonesome? And quite a few leafless trees surrounded by non-leafless non-evergreen ones. Must be dutch-elm disease...or maybe they wanted to die before being featured in this mosaic. -4.9/-10 - Let me let you in on a little secret: much like human excrement, a beautified ditch is still just a ditch (and I use the term "beautified" very loosely). (On a serious note, _marsh_, what terrain and rock textures do you use? Also, to answer the question in your status: yes. Yes it is ...) steelersfanforlife: No. Just...no. Dear goodness, no. No no no no no no no. N-O, NO. Noooooooo- is that an airport in the middle of all that!? -16.8/-10 - ...no. All right! All done...and I wouldn't do that to all of you without a shot at revenge, so...DO YOUR WORST :

Replies: samerton- Thank you, I'm glad you think so! Kevin- Hahaha, I'd imagine! I'd love to visit that park in real life, actually...I imagine it would be very picturesque (especially considering the setting). Sorry for the long wait; got caught up in school and Portal 2 . More pictures: 1.) *Looking North; click through for full-sized picture* This is the overview of Buonocitta I promised an entry or two ago. This isn't Buonocitta in its most current form, but it's the only overview I have (I don't want to take one now because I've been deleting so much stuff to try and get it over to CXL 2011). It's the first city I ever created in CXL (it was my Planet Offer city ), and it remains the largest one I've created in the game, at somewhere north of 100,000. The odd thing about it is that I never even got to the "main" part of the city--that's almost all suburban sprawl and edge cities! 2.) A picture from Fordville Int'l Seaport. I don't know why I edited it like that, really...probably because I just wanted to. I will say, though, that building and sharing the seaport in the CJ was really fun ! 3.) I've only once ever dabbled with the M.A.P.P., and the fruits of that dabbling, known as Onyx Park in the Emerald Plaza area of Power City, have been lost for years now, remaining only in the form of pictures. This, of course, is one of those pictures. I think I really just like the way the Cyclone sits against the freeway there. I'll probably show some other pictures from the rest of the park sometime in this CJ, but we'll see ;-). BONUS! *click through for full-sized pic* Buonocitta at night. I think I just really like the angle of the road in this picture (and the fact that it's the most European thing I've ever done in either CXL or SimCity ). ...and that's all, folks! Leave a comment if you wish, please!

Replies: DCMetro34 - Hmmm...maybe that's why enjoy it so much. I always do enjoy a nice urban scene, especially one at sunset or at night. As for my full screenname...well, it was just a word I thought was cool at the time. I didn't understand the connotations of it, nor did I get how offensive some people might take it. In fact, I'm surprised the admins let me keep it ! Thanks for another great comment ! Reikhardt - Thank you! I hope you enjoy this update, as well! Hey, I was up on the front page for a couple of days ! Good stuff...three more random pictures: 1.) (Looking west) This is Coco Park, in a section of Power City known as Emerald Plaza. This picture is insanely nostalgic for me. I think this is the first one I can remember being truly proud of, even as unremarkable as it seems to me now. Coco Park is an amazing B.A.T., one of my absolute favorites, but everything else in the picture is pretty lazy (and thank goodness for Dedgren and those smooth Maxis curves now!). Oh, well...I still like it . Also...this was the picture I first used when I created the picture contest on SC4D. I've tried entering it three times, and all three times it lost on the first round. 2.) (Looking north) This is Travis Park in Western Fordville, named after SC4 community member Travis. Not only is it the only modular park I've ever built in SC4 (other than the raised plazas in the same city tile), but it also marked the first time I'd ever used both Peg's Pond pieces and ShadowAssassin's bike paths in a city. I was pretty happy with the results . That fountain at the south part of the park is a memorial for Mark Dixon-Kennedy, a.k.a. OnlyPlace4. 3.)(Click through to the full mosaic) A mosiac of Condor Valley International Airport in Fordville. Probably don't have to mention that this is the only custom airport I've ever built in SC4. It's not done, either; I had planned to have an update in the Condor Bay CJ about it, but that never came to fruition (and now the CJ thread is locked). Oh, well...I'll probably show quite a few things I never showed in the CJ ;-). ...And that's that! Leave a comment and let me know what you think! Random Fact - My favorite City Journalist ever is Aleking.

Well...mosaic didn't come out how I wanted it to, but I'll have to fix it in a bit--I'm late for work! [b][EDIT][/b] [i]- Fixed![/i]

Hey folks, thanks for commenting on my CJ! I'll try and get better at directly replying to comments, but for now, you can find my replies at the beginning of [url="https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/journals/2255/entry-10644-2-mas-panic/"][b][the next entry][/b][/url].

Right...as any of the 50 or so people in the entire SC4 Community who visited the SimCity Mild Enthusiasm forum may or may not remember, I had a journal wherein I did nothing but post 3 or so random pictures and talk about them. So yeah...that's what I'll do here. Any picture in my entire SC4/CXL back catalogue may or may not be posted here, just whatever I feel like posting. Really, this journal is an attempt at easing myself back into the community from which I've been absent for so long (read up [here]). All right, enough of this. Here we go...three random pictures: 1.) (Click through for larger picture) This is my first region on SC4 Deluxe, Oasis River Valley, a.k.a. Power City (don't ask about the strange name). Power City is a city that I had great success with in SimCity 3000 Unlimited, so I decided to carry that city over to the SC4 platform...and, as it turns out, this remains my most populous region (441,724 residents). Let's see...if you take the big river (Oasis River) from the ocean, you cross quite a few bridges (and a city boundary line). The group of tall buildings on the southside of the river between the fourth and sixth bridges is the most dense commercial area I've ever built in SC4 (and you will see MANY pictures from it, trust me ;-)...). Running north from Oasis River is Emerald River, towards Emerald Lake. The area directly to the west of that river is the first area I ever built in SC4 Deluxe (lots of nostalgia for me looking at it again). Good times... 2.) This is Condor Bay (a.k.a. Fordville). This was the subject of my first ever City Journal. This region only ever managed to make it up to 148,261 people, but I consider it to be my most successful region due to all the things I learned, all the new things I accomplished (note the custom airport and seaport), and how satisfied I was with it. You can see two beaches along the western coast: the southernmost one is Royal Beach, which I never did anything with; the other is Condor Beach, which I did more with than any other single area of that city other than perhaps the seaport. I was happy with how it turned out (and I have the pictures to prove it). The airport never actually made it into the city journal (which is locked now, I think, because someone posted in it over a year after I had abandoned it), but I think most people have seen pictures of it by now...and if not, you'll definitely see some in here . 3.) This is a map of the country I created that contains all the fictional cities I've ever worked on in SC4. You can see Fordville and Power City along the coast of Willow Bay (which oddly enough isn't named on this map, but it's the big body of water that splits the country), and you can also see other cities that you'll probably hear about from time to time: Fredricksburg (the capital of the country), Concorde (one of the first towns I worked on in the vanilla SC4), and Valecita, which is the name of the city that lies in Meredith Valley (my next region, three years overdue). The nation doesn't have an official name yet, but the working name for now is Aurella. I'm also working on getting a more official, computer-drawn map out. Since it's without a legend, the basic rundown is that cities with a triangle have at least 1,000,000 people within the city limits, and dark squares with white squares in the middle have between 500,000 and 999,999 people. The only cities on here that have less than 500,000 are state capitals (circled); the national capital is encased in a diamond shape. Rivers are blue lines, state boundaries are green lines, coastlines and national borders are black lines. So yeah...that's it for now. That's how it's gonna go. Hope you enjoy this a bit!

I managed to actually pull off some things that I really liked (somehow). For those who might remember my old CJ, there was Condor Beach: ...and then from the early days of CitiesXL (before mods or 2011 or anything), there was this picture (you can click it to get to 1440x900 version): Wow...nostalgia.

Zzyzx (and the more famous road that leads to it)--5-10 miles outside of Baker, California. Definitely the last place name in the nation; perhaps in the world.

3. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 9. Becky Thatcher

There aren't regions in CXL. Every city is separate and stand-alone insofar as they don't effect each other in any way unless they have a trade agreement with each other.

All right, I'll bite. Be ready for this! SimCity - The Beginning *Layville I played the SNES version of this game. It wasn't even the first SimCity game I'd ever played, but I didn't realize that SimCity 2000 had a sequal :-P. I was big into drawing city maps in middle school (oddly enough), so the SimCity series was a perfect fit for me. What I really remember about this game, though, was that it was one of the first video games to truly suck my life away. I'd stay up during all hours of the night building cities...plenty of them. And to me, my cities were successes if I made it to 100,000 people, because I always went for city design as opposed to having a huge population. I can't say where this would rank in terms of the series for me, so I won't try. Liked: - Laid down the foundation upon which pretty much every other modern-day urban planning game (Maxis or otherwise) would build upon - Simple, easy to learn, fun to play - Didn't take itself too seriously (Dr. Wright and Bowser were testament to that!) - The music - The stages of town growth (Village, Town, City, Capital, Metropolis, Megalopolis) - Was the basis of quite a few cities I carried throughout subsequent games Disliked: - Only two transportation options - Hard to relieve traffic if rail system is already in place - Coastal Flooding SimCity 2000 Special Edition - The Next Generation *Laytonville SC2K was the first SimCity game I played, back when I first discovered the series. Oddly enough, though, it's my LEAST favorite of the entire series (though it's often the one that shows up on all those "Best Games Ever" lists. But I do have some fond memories of it, especially when it comes to a city called Sea City. And then, of course, SimCopter and Streets of SimCity were pretty fun (I've been waiting for the opportunity to drive around my city a-la Streets of SimCity for some time now, and the closest I've come to it is Cities XL). Even though I didn't play this one nearly as much as any of the other games in the series, it was still an integral part of the SimCity experience for me. Liked: - Isometric perspective - Draggable zones - Increased transportation options (freeways and diagonal roads!) - Expanded utilities/infrastructure - Terraforming - Spinoff games - Signposts Disliked: - Bad soundtrack - Building roads/changing terrain destroyed properties - Tedious utilities (especially pipes) - No ground highways or avenues - Inability to build on hills - The feel of it, really... SimCity 3000 Unlimited - My Obsession *Power City This is it. This is the game that stole my childhood...well, maybe not childhood, but of every video game I ever played in high school, THIS is the one that racked up the most play-hours (which is an amazing feat, considering that I played some of the most memorable games of my life throughout high school). Three years I had an obsession with this game, and three years I played relentlessly, creating some of the best cities I have ever created in any SimCity game (and definitely the largest, by far!). I don't play it much anymore, but this definitely ranks as probably my favorite of all the SC games, simply for the amount of my life I spent on it . Liked: - Different terrain textures - Different tilesets - Better graphics - Smooth road curves - Easier UI - Better infrastructure system than SC2K (with implied infrastructure) - Individual building names, and the ability to personally name reward buildings (which for some reason was a big deal to me) - The music - Advisors - Many, many running gags and inside jokes - Being able to plop any building using a cheat - Took the worst parts away from SC2K and kept everything good about it, making quite a bit better Disliked: - Still no ground highways or avenues - Advisors - Inability to rotate plopped buildings (which never really bothered me in SC2K) - Lack of American Football field SimCity 4 Deluxe - The Great One Oh, boy. What can be said about this one that hasn't already been said a billion times before? If I recognize SC3KU as my overall favorite, then I recognize SC4 Deluxe as the undisputed best of the series (and there's a difference, believe me). Everything that wasn't in any SimCity game before it was in this one: seamless terraforming, the ability to build on hills, ground highways and avenues, INCREDIBLE atmosphere (terraforming in God Mode awes me to this day), and most importantly, the ability to truly build any size city you wanted to, by way of regions. Add to that the addition of gigabytes upon gigabytes of incredible custom content and game-breaking modifications (NAM, anyone?), and you have the means to truly build any modern city you could ever possibly dream of...even if they aren't on Earth! I personally have over 3 gigs of custom content, but I feel as though I still haven't scratched the surface of what this game could possibly offer. The few cities I spent my time on (Power City and Condor Bay) never matched the size of any of the cities I created in SC3K (or even SC2K), but they were more immersive and satisfying than any other cities I've ever created (or will create) in any other game. Liked: - Regions - Even more transportation options - The return (and refinement) of lots as opposed to blob zones (as seen in the original SimCity) - God Mode - THE MUSIC...Oh, that music! - Mods/Custom Content - Lot editor - The UI - U-Drive-It - The ability to change the name of any building whatsoever - The scope of the game, and its intricacies - Vastly improved graphics Disliked: - The wasted potential of U-Drive-It - Load times - Square lots not really made for diagonal streets (didn't bother me so much in SC3K) - Building repetition (again, didn't really bother me in SC3K) - Less emphasis on the funny bits (all the carried-over inside jokes and running gags from SC3K are hardly noticeable) - The fact that it wasn't in 3D So...that's my take on the entire SimCity franchise (I've never played Societies, and I don't plan on it). CitiesXL '11 is pretty awesome, and for a game made by a totally different company, comes as close to being on the level of any SC game as I could ever hope for, but I think it's simply missing the immersion factor that Maxis's series is able to give you. Also, it seems to do a reverse of SC2K and 3K in that ground highways are the default, but now there are no Elevated ones. Oh, well.

Amazing port, sir!  Excellent realism, and some amazing lot editing.  Good work! :)

Hello, GlobexCo! Perhaps you've answered these before (and I apologize if you have), but I've got two questions for whenever you have time to answer them: 1. Are the buildings that are being unlocked functional, or simply eye-candy? 2. Are the smaller Freeway on/off ramps (without roundabouts on the ends) included in this, or were they not in the files of CXL11?

If you were around during the early, early stages of "Cities Unlimited," you might remember that Monte Cristo had plans for a totally customizable road feature called the Mass Placement Tool similar to the one you proposed. It would've allowed us to choose the number of lanes on each side of the road, designate what each lane was for (vehicle traffic, busses only, bike lanes, HOV, etc.), whether or not to have sidewalks, among other things. It wasn't implemented into the final game, obviously...but maybe that's a good thing. It doesn't have to be that complicated...for example: Have icons for the basic road types: Expressways, Large Avenue (small sidewalks/large sidewalks); Small Avenue (small/large sidewalks); Road (grass sidewalk/non-grass sidewalk); Street. Eight icons total. Each road type only determines what kind of median/sidewalks each has (Large Avenue has a split median; Small avenue only has double lines, Expressways have the barrier, etc.). Then, using the options menu that you get when you click and hold on each icon, allow us to change how many lanes for regular traffic (up to x amount on each side for each road type), how many lanes dedicated for buses, median/sidewalk decorations, etc., all using drop-down menus. And if you don't change any options, you get the default amount of lanes/median/etc. (and of course, one-way options would remain the same as they are now). If it were that simple, I'd be ridiculously happy with just those options, to tell the truth.

The closest thing they have to it is clicking on a car and following it around...as in, if you click on a car in traffic, the camera will be attached to the back of it, and it'll automatically follow the car while you're free to look around. You can't control the car, however...it's just for fun. Still...it's nice once you get a nice city built up to be able to see it from the ground as a sim (or a Bobblehead, as I've heard it referred to) would.

The closest thing they have to it is clicking on a car and following it around...as in, if you click on a car in traffic, the camera will be attached to the back of it, and it'll automatically follow the car while you're free to look around. You can't control the car, however...it's just for fun. Still...it's nice once you get a nice city built up to be able to see it from the ground as a sim (or a Bobblehead, as I've heard it referred to) would.

You want a perspective from the 2009 beta to CXL 2011? Well... - Subways - Bus lines - Linear zoning - Trade fixing - No online - Plenty of new buildings - Achievements - Almost 50 maps - Mods supported - More balanced simulation - More road options That's just off the top of my head. You've missed a lot, so you actually might not appreciate the changes and additions as much as someone whose been through every iteration of the game.

That picture doesn't depict a game-created city--it's an amalgamation of pictures of REAL cities (I'm inclined to believe). You can see both the John Hancock Center and one of the Patronaus Towers in there. But yeah, that's simply a pretty picture (Maxis has been doing it for years; remember the 3-D opening video of SC3K Unlimited?)

Thought I'd pop in to say... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GLOBExCO!