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E3: SimCity 4 Preview Goodness
Anonymous Coward writes "Wowie! The folks at Electronic Arts look to be working hard on the next installment of SimCity! Although there's no official, dedicated release date, they plan on demoing it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Gamers.com has an article, as does GameSpot, and both seem to have a number of screenshots. Interesting: there now seems to be a nighttime mode, and perhaps there's some weather effects? The note from MaxisJoseph claims there will be a personal angle to every high-level action taken; will there be a chance for dynamic screenshots of our cities during, say, lightning storms, blizzards or sandstorms? And will they ask Koch or Guiliani for endorsements?" I know I'm not the only one who wants to play the Sims in the SimTower in the SimCity on SimEarth with the pesky SimAnts in the balcony garden.
Look's like I'd better tell the g/f that I'll be incommunicado for a few weeks after this game comes out. And I had just got over my Civ III addiction too.
Hi, my name's Bill, and I'm a gameaholic.
Damn, wouldn't that be cool?
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
I hope they will bring back the SimCity 2000 ability to have riots burn down your entire metropolis. I used to have endless fun watching the rampaging proletariot storm the abodes of the fat capitalist running dog lackey bourgeoisie while screaming 'Viva la Revolution!' Until my parents yelled at me to go to sleep.
"Burn! All of you burn!"
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
Are they in talks to merge the SimFranchise with Clue?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Not to troll or anything, but SimCity 3000 was a bit of a disappointment and a waste of my money as it was really just a graphics-enhanced version of SimCity 2000. From what I can see from the prelininary screenshots, SimCity 4 will not be like it's older brothers and will breathe fresh air into a game that has always rocked.
:)
One feature I really want is the ability to work with other Sim players. Net support in the game would rock because you could work with other players on water, garbage, and electricity deals and also work on transportation plans together. Hell, even have sports teams competing against eachother.
Another is to have what SimCity 2000 with Streets of SimCity and have the ability to drive through town. Have it simulate actual traffic at certain sections and make it so you can determine, for real, what areas have problems.
I'd like to play a Simcity game where I could build a car-free city. I want a button for bicycle paths. I want to mix residential, commercial, and industrial without zoning. I think the fire department should operate without trucks. I want a city with 95% green open space, and a community-supported agricultural belt. Where's the button for farm? In Simcity, it is assumed that farms are "over there", far from the glorious car temple you are constructing.
In short, I want the Simcity people to exercise some imagination.
"Then they made SimCity 3000 and The Sims and now they're not cool anymore."
Yeah.. the Sims is the best selling PC game of all time because it totally sucks. How uncool.
I wonder if they'll include the Airplane Crash disaster from previous versions. Just think of all of the people who would demand to see the game banned from stores!
Combining all the various Sim* into one game would be tricky, but we came up with a better idea.
A Sim* MMORPG. Some people could play Sims, others could be mayors, others would build life-forms, others could control ants, and the building managers, and so on.
It could be a really cool MMORPG...
I think we all know what made the original SimCity so great:
*The ability to get more money by holding down SHIFT and typing F-U-N-D-S.
If Maxis simply returns to its roots by including this in SimCity 4 they'll have a sure-fire hit on their hands!
:)
PS. You have to remember not to do it to many times in a row though... otherwise you cause a 'Natural Disaster'... Ooooh WATCH OUT!!! It's a GIANT LIZARD!!!
Myst was the previous best-selling PC game of all time, and it sucked big time, at least IMHO.
I think most people would be rather SimGolfing than locked up managing some city, no matter how posh their office was.
Start with a computer, a cool idea for a game that simulates a city and a meager budget to develop and market your game to the masses.
If you're successful, your little software company will be bought by a gaming conglomerate headquartered on a Silicon Valley landfill. Can you keep the corporate types happily rolling in dough while still producing games that please your fans? Can you balance the budget in a recession, survive earthquakes and avert costly developer food riots?
This time around I hope they forgo the $30 patch....I mean Expansion Pack, and actually finish the game before shipping it.
It's sad that you had to buy two Sim City 3000 titles to get the functionality of Sim City 2000.
Now, all we need is a Constructor sequel (or a version of Constructor that will function on XP) and a expanded version of Capitalism 2 (brilliant game, BTW)
>Yeah.. the Sims is the best selling PC game of all time because it totally sucks
Another person already mentioned Myst. How about other top-sellers like Deer Hunter?
Windows (of various flavors) is the best selling operating system of all time. Does this mean it doesn't suck?
Should we mention the music examples of NSync and Britney Spears? They sell an assload of records. Do they suck?
I'll even push a few folks' buttons: The Phantom Menace made a TON of money. It's #20 on the top 100 grossing American films list, adjusted for inflation. (Full list here: http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice.html ). Was it a great movie?
Being popular doesn't mean it doesn't suck.
-l
For me, The Sims has the same problem that every other "Sim" game has had: It's fun to first build up what ever you are building as normal, then fuxx0r it up. Or in the case of The Sims, just trying to figure out how lousy living conditions are good enough.
Anyway, the point is that at least I get bored with the games before long, because there is no real objective. It's a fun "toy program" that you can play with for a while, but maintaining "growth" always becomes too much of a hassle at some point.
Being popular doesn't mean it does suck, either, though people who seem to pride themselves on their cool-outsider status often loudly proclaim otherwise.
BUT is there a point to it? all the sim cities havebeen build watch, repeat. BORING. I should hope that there would be a point to the new one.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
The game was really fun when it first came out but they've stretched the premise way too thin without introducing much innovation. The Sims was a bit overrated too if you ask me. When I watched a guy spend 3 hours playing the Sims in a local Internet cafe, doing nothing but forcing some woman to drink coffee over and over and piss on herself, I knew this software had hit the wall.
These people need to come up with something new and interesting.
I don't think you could integrate SimEarth into that...unless we get to see the Sims evolve from tiny eukaryotes. Maybe we could see insect or cetacean Sims?
A game of Sim City would fit in a few microseconds of Sim Earth. It just woulnd't work.
When are they finally going to stop using the grid-like roads that only allow you to create an american looking city? Why not use vectored roads, with realistic curves, so you could recreate Paris, or Amsterdam, or some mountain town, or whatever.
That would be a game I'd buy immediatly.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
The Sims sells incredibly well all over the world.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Dear Maxis, I'm a grown man with responsabilities, a job and a family! Who the heck is going to take care of my family if you release this? Can you seriously claim that you have considered the consequences of such a release? Please Maxis, calmly reconsider, put down the mouse and take two steps back from that compiler...
A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist...
Bloody screaming coming from your speakers, "The volcano burned off my legs! If you love me, you'll kill me quickly!"
What, like this?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
For instance, a thriving business district in a city neighborhood is a precarious thing. There area ton of things you can do to screw it up:
Let's say you tear down a low-end commercial building and build a city parking lot. Your goal is to increase the number of people who can visit the area:
Let's say you decide to ban parking along the business distruct people complain that it takes too long to drive through it.
The Fire service claims that they need to widen the street to get the new longer fire trucks through. It's only a couple feet per side so you take it off the sidewalk.
The original poster made a good point, there's a lot of cities in the world and throughout history that do not follow the 'American Suburban Model' of Bubble Zoning that has brought sprawl.
SimCity was the original popular "simulator game". If they want to continue to surprise and delight us, they should better explore the relationship a neighborhoods success and transportation. In cities especially, people LIKE not using a car for every little thing. The continued suburbanification of cities won't make them more successful and SimCity should explore that.
My father is a blogger.
Sounds like you need a beowulf cluster of sims.
Ba-BumBum!
:)
Karnal
- Arbitrary road placement - It looks like it's still always tied to the grid. This makes it really hard to do any development on anything but flat land.
- Drive-Thrus - It's hard to really get a good feel for your town. Imagine being able to have a car simulator where you get to experience what traveling is like in the city first-hand.
- Resident Profiling - I'd love to take a random Joe Schmoe from a house and find out what he thinks of the city and his neighborhood, what he does, where he works (drive it?), etc.
- The Sims Integration - An extension of the resident profiling, why could I take a random family from the city and micromanage them? They'd be able to explore the whole city.
Oh well, there's always SimCity 5..Josh Woodward
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the majority of cars you see on the streets of New York are indeed privately owned passenger cars, not emergency services and cabs. And you forgot to mention trucks, because the city's food and other supplies sure don't get delivered by subway.
Apparently lots of people do need to get around the city in cars.
Don't get me wrong, I love the New York Subway, and wish we had something more like it in Philadelphia. But it's not the end-all and be-all of transportation. Alternatives are good.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I still have the screenshots of the orginal SC3k saved on my computer at home. I come across them now and than and wonder if that kind of sim will ever become a real product. I can tell from those screenshots that my GF4/4400 would probably handle the job quite well.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Otherwise, how can I simulate Japan or Seattle?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Get a SimLife!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
It is sad to see people play with reality.
I just watched the World Premiere of Digby Goes Down here at the Seattle International Film Fest. And they show overhead shots of NYC - with not a single shot remaining (very noticeable "jump" in the film pan) of the WTC towers.
It was sad.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
People don't carpool. Despite overwhelming benefits, not to mention the unbelievable cost a car puts on a person per year, the overwhelming number of cars on the highways during commute times have precisely one person in them.
Well I seem to recall there was an option for tolls and one for HOV lanes. It would be interesting to see if driver behaviour changed as you altered those - for example, if I implement toll lanes for new HOV lanes, will it fail? if I implement toll lanes for non-HOV lanes, with free lanes for multi-passenger, will it work better? And if I cut down on cops, will some of the cars start having dummies in the passenger seat as people cheat on the HOV lane multi-passenger option?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I've purchased:
+ SimCity Original
+ SimCity Color Upgrade
+ SimCity 2000
+ SimCity 3000
But I'm not buying this one unless they get rid of the 90 degree grid and the fixed elevations.
(And just maabyee I'm a little bored of the gameplay by now. It's still a good idea, but they really need to add new aspects to the simulation rather than just adding some slick disaster effects.)
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Being popular doesn't mean it doesn't suck.
I don't think you understand. Whether or not something "sucks" is entirely subjective. All the things you listed that you think suck are obviously very "unsucky" to a large number of people.
Actually, popularity is the ONLY halfway decent measurement of whether or not something sucks on a non-personal level. If you disagree, then how would you define it (non-egocentrically)?
Your statement should have been: "Being popular doesn't mean it doesn't suck to me."
Note: This has to be the stupidest exchange I've ever partaken in on Slashdot. I wish I could say that I am drunk, but it's way too early for that.