SimCity: The City Simulator

[BigJKO]

Is there are SimCity thread already? I did nothing but watch endless clips of the SimCity beta yesterday.

 

I'm really into the idea of roads being the lifeline of cities. Them costing money and zones not makes the early game more exciting, I feel. You have to operate like a real city, in a way.  You can't just structurally lay out the entire thing from the get-go, and then slowly build in zones.  This leads to more irregular, not thought out cities, I think, which makes it a bit more fun.  I don't know, maybe making money and just planning the entire region out is easy enough.. 

 

Anyway, can we talk about SimCity here now, so I don't have to go back and forth from the Stream and Podcast thread or wherever else you people talk about such things.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes, there is this: http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/7585-sim-city-v/

[BigJKO]

Oh, damn..

[Sno]

I want to ask if the new game would appeal to me, a person who has stubbornly believed that everything after 2000 was misdirected and awful, but i feel like i already know the answer.

I'd probably be happiest just playing 2000 again, can i even get that anywhere? (Edit: It's on GOG.)

[Frenetic Pony]

I want to ask if the new game would appeal to me, a person who has stubbornly believed that everything after 2000 was misdirected and awful, but i feel like i already know the answer.

I'd probably be happiest just playing 2000 again, can i even get that anywhere?

I, too, would like to know this. Not that I think 3000 or 4 were bad per se, probably spent a hundred plus hours on each. Heck I bought 4 on Steam in the winter sale and clocked up another 12 hours on it just for old times sake. Would probably clock another 12 if I ever clicked on it again. But I still feel 2000 was the best in a lot of ways.

 

Jesus fuck, I just convinced myself to buy it either way just looking at my post. I always think "oh, I like highly competitive online games the most, or RPG's, or"... and then I realize that when I play the right kind of building Sim I'll play for hundreds if not thousands (Rollercoaster Tycoon probably hit a 1000+ for me) without noticing.

[melmer]

Isn't it SimCity: The City Simulator

[BigJKO]

I want to ask if the new game would appeal to me, a person who has stubbornly believed that everything after 2000 was misdirected and awful, but i feel like i already know the answer.

I don't know, maybe? I feel like this is the natural progression of the idea of SimCity and it definitely feels more like a true sequel than 4 did. But I've seen plenty of people calling this out for not allowing big enough cities and what not.. I think the detailed simulation is much more interesting than having a huge city, but I can see why someone would want both.  I'm not sure it's just because of minimum system requirements (it probably is, to a certain degree) but also just a design ethos which is scaling things down, simplifying without sacrificing complexity.  It's an interesting choice, and in the end people can just go back and play SimCity 2000.  If this were just SimCity 2000+ it'd be a bit unambitious, IMO.

 

Mington, you're right. Why can't I change my thread title?

[toblix]

The language thing has me worried. EA is really bad at handling languages and respecting language settings, and I would be furious, though not particularly surprised, to learn that I can only play in Norwegian.

[Sno]

I don't feel like just doing 2000 again is the right answer, but i definitely don't like the places they've taken the series. Maybe this one features somewhat more inspired changes to the design, but that has unfortunately come with the looming specter of microtransactions and DRM.

Did i hear the Idle Thumbs guys floating out an idea where Sim City would be a game that was set across different distinct eras? Did that happen? Or are my memories of different podcasts starting to run together?

Either way, something like that, i listened to that and realized that is the kind of Sim City game i want. Having to adapt your city's infrastructure to meet the demands of the day as time marches on sounds like a fascinating possibility to me. It's the kind of thing that has always sort of been there in the series, but never really explored and expanded upon.

In their constant experimentation with trying to narrow and broaden your view of the city, i think time is kind of an unexplored avenue for the series.

[melmer]

Mington, you're right. Why can't I change my thread title?

You should be able to when you go into the 'Use Full Editor' mode

[Badfinger]

I want to ask if the new game would appeal to me, a person who has stubbornly believed that everything after 2000 was misdirected and awful, but i feel like i already know the answer.

I'd probably be happiest just playing 2000 again, can i even get that anywhere? (Edit: It's on GOG.)

 

What is it that you want out of the game? I've had the pleasure of playing both betas so far (when they were working), so I feel like I have a decent handle on what they're doing with a single city tile. The ~mystery~ is how much you and friends can do in a region with 5 tiles, or 10. A lot of fans of 3K and 4 have bemoaned the lack of subways and the small size of the footprint. I can feel the squeeze, but at the same time I only "filled up" a city once, and that was just mashing down new tiles every time there was demand for them instead of attempting to increase density.

 

Did i hear the Idle Thumbs guys floating out an idea where Sim City would be a game that was set across different distinct eras? Did that happen? Or are my memories of different podcasts starting to run together?

 

In old Sim City games they used to let you start in 1900, 1950, or 2000 which gave you different technology options (no nuclear power, no airports, etc). Is that what you're thinking of perhaps?

[BigJKO]

The language thing has me worried. EA is really bad at handling languages and respecting language settings, and I would be furious, though not particularly surprised, to learn that I can only play in Norwegian.

 

That would be a weird requirement of them.. It should be an option? Didn't they tell you so on twitter?

I spy on you on twitter, apparently

[Sno]

In old Sim City games they used to let you start in 1900, 1950, or 2000 which gave you different technology options (no nuclear power, no airports, etc). Is that what you're thinking of perhaps?

No, no... Somewhere i heard the idea suggested that Sim City should have distinct eras like an AoE game. I mean, and i don't think that would work, but things like how Sim City would gradually introduce things over the decades that would change how you approached your city, i always thought that was one of the coolest parts of Sim City, and i would absolutely love to see them go even further with that kind of thing. Have things falling in and out of favor as time passes, old infrastructure becoming obsolete and requiring overhauls. Seeing major shifts from early industrial up through the atomic age and into modern information age, creating situations that you have to respond to instead of merely having a new power plant unlocked that generates more power. How different are the ways a city is run now as opposed to a hundred years ago?

That is a city building game that i would probably play.

[Badfinger]

No, no... Somewhere i heard the idea suggested that Sim City should have distinct eras like an AoE game. I mean, and i don't think that would work, but things like how Sim City would gradually introduce things over the decades that would change how you approached your city, i always thought that was one of the coolest parts of Sim City, and i would absolutely love to see them go even further with that kind of thing. Have things falling in and out of favor as time passes, old infrastructure becoming obsolete and requiring overhauls. Seeing major shifts from early industrial up through the atomic age and into modern information age, creating situations that you have to respond to instead of merely having a new power plant unlocked that generates more power. How different are the ways a city is run now as opposed to a hundred years ago?

That is a city building game that i would probably play.

That sounds crazy! I honestly can't imagine how fantastically complex that would be. For all the griping from long time fans of the series about the small city size and the "dumbing down", it honestly seems fantastically complex to me. There are about 35 data layers you can look at. It's just nuts. I kind of can't imaging adding an obsolescence on top of what's already there.

 

 

 

 

https://www.box.com/simcity

 

Some insane person captured all the tooltip data they could get their hands on from the beta and posted it up on Box.

 

 

This insane person is going to root through it.

[toblix]

That would be a weird requirement of them.. It should be an option? Didn't they tell you so on twitter?

Oh, indeed they did! I didn't catch that, and for some reason I didn't get any notifications. Sounds like they won't be forcing any languages, then.

[Zederick]

I really love that "Eras of Sim City" idea (whoever came up with it first), and I'll add an idea that I was playing with in one of the episode threads:
 

Maybe I've watched too many political intrigue shows, but I'd really love to see/make a mod for the new Sim City that implemented a bunch of the awkward, local-political issues that make real city development messy. For example, if each district had an alderman who represented that area's interests, and you had to get a majority of the city council to approve a set of new changes, sometimes requiring entirely separate projects to build up good will or to alleviate concerns. With good systemitization, there could be very interesting systemic challenges and unpleasantly realistic frustrations that lead to the sort of odd city development that's made our own beloved cities.

For example, imaging your city is having a power crisis, so you need to build a new power plant. The council agrees that something has to be done, but none of the aldermen want it done in their district - one doesn't want the pollution in the area, another doesn't want the eyesore lowering their property taxes, and so on. The alderman in the oldest part of town is most desperate for it - her constituents are suffering the most from the power shortage - but the one location that would be perfect, an old warehouse, is technically a historic location so you can't build there.

As the mayor, you might include a set of other local improvements to convince an alderman that the plant will be a boon to their neighborhood specifically (in addition to the city as a whole), or you might appeal to the council as a whole to build it in the district of an unpopular alderman. Or maybe you'll just cut the budget to the fire department near the historical warehouse and wait for an "accident" to happen, then swoop in and build on the still-smoking rubble.

Sim horse-trading and sim corruption at its finest!

 

 

 

[brkl]

In our town, such buildings have tended to mysteriously catch fire. Must have been the insulation they used in uildings of that era.

[Badfinger]

Oh my lord I cannot WAIT to simulate a city.

 

Maxis Devs running a week-long live stream where they build (and/or destroy) a city based on votes from YOU, THE READER.

 

http://letsallbemayor.com 

[Petriefied]

Anyone interested in playing in a region with other thumbs?

[BigJKO]

Would love to, but I'm on a Mac. They better hurry up an release that version before everyone else stops playing.

[Dewar]

Some good...

http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630

and bad...

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/simcity-impressions-we-waited-ten-years-for-this/

inpressions coming in.

[Gormongous]

That Ars Technica article is so disheartening. I was hoping this would be the game that would force me to end my Origin boycott, but it sounds like there are some serious issues with the game as a long-term mass-audience phenomenon. No saving and reloading, really?

[Colourful Stuff]

I'm unsure whether it is possible for me to play this game. I live on my university campus so my internet is saddled with a restrictive firewall (designed to eliminate file sharing not boobs). I desperately want to curve a road.

[Frenetic Pony]

Giant Bomb: https://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-simcity/2300-7103/

 

Glad I hesitated in pre-ordering, it just sounds, too small. Like, you can quickly max out a city and then you just have to go do a new one, nor do the "region online" things sound interesting.

 

If a city was, like, 9 times bigger it might sound good. But if I want small scale simulation, then I'm probably sticking with Rollercoaster Tycoon.

[LazerBeast]

The whole small area to work with definitely bothers me the most.  It seems like to have the most successful city you will have to have it filled with tightly compacted residential high rises and industrial/commercial parks.  Hong Kong simulator.