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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.
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.
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.
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!!!
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?
>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
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.
No, actually, you run into the problem of micro-macro management.
It's something that the creators of MOO3 (is that still coming out?) have been wrestling with.
A mayor can't realistically change individual lives (except for maybe his personal one). Instead, he has to implement policies that get carried out. He doesn't direct traffic, or catch criminals.
It's quite the same in a game. If you are going at normal speed, then too much happens while you are manipulating their house. If you cause the speed to slowdown to manipulate individual lives, what is to say they won't just move out next month... and what effect does one individual's life really have on a city anyways (unless they implement policies).
It's the fallacy that total control=better game. It actually just creates a micromanagement nightmare.
I really hope Master of Orion 3 comes out. It fixes many problems, mostly involved with (micro/macro)management. You, the emperor only get so many command points a turn, regardless of the size of your empire. Therefore, you can take a fixed number of actions, so a smaller empire is run more efficiently than a larger empire. Not only does this fix the per turn time difference in multiplayer turn based strategy games that make them boring in multiplayer, but it also more realistically models real life.
If you are going to make a macromanagement game, then macromanage. Let me do lots of cool stuff, like bike paths, and water, and subways, and roads, and airports, and stuff... but please don't add micromanagement. Don't fool yourself. Whether or not I break up with my girlfriend or not isn't going to change my city. Why should it matter in Simcity?
-=Lothsahn=-
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.