Reaction, and some things I'd like to see in SCS

[Elodia]

I've been playing Simcity for a long time, and I've enjoyed all the incarnations of the game. While I have some concerns about the changes to the game, there are also some features in this game I find quite intriguing so far. I'm willing to reserve judgement until I have more complete information about the game. That being said, there are some specific features of previous versions of Simcity that I would hate to loose in SCS:

1. Terraforming: I certainly hope the game has robust terraforming tools. Some of the screens are promising in this area.

2. Ability to build on rough land: The majority of screens so far have been flat. Most of the hills have been very short on development, but I hope we will be able to wind our cities up the hill.

3. Transportation Network: If you take away all other networks in the game, I won't mind, but the Transportation system needs to be robust. The layout of Roads, Rails, Highways, subways and other transportation features forms the lifeblood of any city. If the player does not have control over this, what is left of a city simulator?

4. Scale: Simcity 4 got this right, even if the execution was clumsy. The scale of the game should allow for unlimited regional construction, not just a single city tile. We should be able to grade from Urban downtown, through suburbs to industrial areas, then through farms, then back through suburbs to another downtown with a completly different social focus. There should be room for completely natural areas.

As I say, I'm willing to reserve judgement until I see the full details. I just hope it will be a good game!

[Cirugo]

Completely agree with all of your points. Like I've said before, I don't mind the "social energies" thing in ADDITION to the type of SimCity gameplay we've all come to expect but NOT at its expense.

[JuliaSet]

1. Terraforming: I certainly hope the game has robust terraforming tools. Some of the screens are promising in this area.

2. Ability to build on rough land: The majority of screens so far have been flat. Most of the hills have been very short on development, but I hope we will be able to wind our cities up the hill.

Welcome Elodia!

If you are not familiar with the TM's previous work (also as the Impressions team) they have had a means to add elevation to a land mass. Waterways were also possible by subtracting elevation below sea level. I would like to see more extrusion in the land mass, and perhaps a wire frame to pull up or down, and a means to paint rivers and coastlines.

I would love to make something like Athens, rather like its ancient city plan and watch it evolve. To make the Parthenon, Temple of Karnak, The Coluseum in Rome, would be such fun to take those cities through history and see if one could influence development so that they look more like the cities of today.

As for the tree house and chocolate factories. I might make some cities with such an odd addition, if only out of curiosity to see just what influence it has on development.

[Dale]

If you are not familiar with the TM's previous work (also as the Impressions team) they have had a means to add elevation to a land mass. Waterways were also possible by subtracting elevation below sea level. I would like to see more extrusion in the land mass, and perhaps a wire frame to pull up or down, and a means to paint rivers and coastlines.


The only problem with that is rivers in mountains. You had to create a massive cavern in SC4 to form a river in a mountain, or use one of the waterways packs from Simtropolis (Pegasus's comes to mind).

[JuliaSet]

Hi Maestro Dale!

I wonder what it would take to make a water spring for high mountain terrain?

Hope to see you around here a lot more.
Julia

[Romaq]

In order to get the Nooksack River, Lake Whatcom and other natural water features for the Whatcom County Region, I will have to use PEG's water. The DEM data I'm using shows surface water as flat, and all surface water of course is above sea level. I'm currently using the Edmonton plopable water to 'draw' on the surface of the map guided by free topographical maps offered by USGS, and even though those maps are out of date they are fine for my purpose. I'm using underwater pipes in 'data mode' to see where my grid hits the ground, and 'drawing' the water in. I then slap PEG's plops over the Edmonton water, and in another 25 years or so I'll have all the water ways of Whatcom County.

Actually I'll only do that process city by city as I have interest in a particular area of work, and then use SVN to make a 'save' of the waterways at that point. As I fill cities in with water, a person would be able to fetch the 'waterways only' version for their own enjoyment and *not* have to do the work.

Or SC5 could impliment above sea level water and a way to 'paint' water over the region using a template. It would be much easier for me to apply water using a template made from the topo maps, or I could use TIGER data from the USGS to create such a map.

--Romaq

[deathtopumpkins]

Tilted Mill, and people complaining about the water in SC4:

For an example of making water above sea level, i suggest you look to, of all places, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Any sort of depression can be filled with water by clicking in it. This would very good for SCS so we can have mountain lakes and streams.
I wish we had that for SC4, and i would download the things that allow you to, but im very careful and have little custom content.

Just a little advice.


PS: Romaq, would this be easier for you?

[shren007]

I think the game would be great..but a graphics are a bit of a turn off for me...maybe ill go for city life 2

[offspring_dude]

I think the game would be great..but a graphics are a bit of a turn off for me...maybe ill go for city life 2
Man, I agree.

[Aushun]

Tilted Mill, and people complaining about the water in SC4:

For an example of making water above sea level, i suggest you look to, of all places, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Any sort of depression can be filled with water by clicking in it. This would very good for SCS so we can have mountain lakes and streams.

True, it's one of the only games with terraforming I've played, where you truly feel like you're in control of the environment. Not only could you fill any depression with water, but by clicking on the desired spot on the side of the depression, you could indicate to what level you wanted the water to fill up to. Plus it had heaps of other useful terraforming options, like snapping tiles to the closest edge, and smoothing-down-terrain options, very useful after terraforming-gone-wrong incidents. :) Yeah, as deathtopumpkins said, Tilted Mill and all interested, check it out.

[Romaq]

Click-n-fill water would be good. Even better if I could simply use a template to indicate where water 'ought' to be, even as a guide to 'paint' with.

In the case of fantasy maps made by World Machine (http://www.world-machine.com/) I can create an 'erosion' map. The more material moved, the darker a line I get. This could be used as a guide to indicate where rivers and streams 'might' be, depending upon the tastes of the person creating the terrain.

For maps based on 'real life' terrain, The TIGER database (http://tiger.census.gov/) will show the locations of streams and the boundaries of rivers and lakes. While not 'too' terribly accurate to meter precision, it's quite useful as a guide. And while having *something* for filling depressions with water is better than having a finger in the eye, a means to import a 'water template' of my own choosing and being able to work based on that template would help a great deal.

http://libremap.org/ has all the topographical data from http://www.topozone.com/ available free for download, and the projection of the maps matches the data from the USGS. Even though the data is out of date (last revision on one map is 1994), it provides an excellent framework from which to build.

And that is where I'm using the LibraMap images scaled to match my SC4 DEM data as a guide, using water pipes for in-game grid and Edmonton Water for sketching out where I will plop Peg's water tiles. Then I have the game monitor next to the Topo Map monitor, and go to it. The work is tedious, painful and slow, but it gets me where I want to go. It would surely warm the cockles of my cold, cynical heart (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-coc2.htm) if SC5 could provide a much better means for me to do what I’m working on with SC4.

--Romaq

[deathtopumpkins]

Yeah, that game has the most useful terraforming tools, alothough the click-to-fill with water does have problems. I have had my entire computer crash by accidently clicking on a random part of the map, and then the game tries to flood the entire map.

[Chris Beatrice]

Another useful thread guys, thanks.

-Chris

[Korwen]

Chiming in on this thread in support of the original post, especially the transportation.

All the screen shots I have seen of the game have four lane, two way roads. Even though this game is throwing precedent to the wind for the most part, please please please have a great transportation system, and give us planning tools for it too ;)

[John Travolta]

When a user clicks on the water icon a pencil cursor come up that allows the user to draw water courses on the map. It seems more accurate and more efficient than continually selecting a water plop. Then if the person holds down the cursor the water will continually flow downhill filling in the low spots?

[parmenio]

It's been said elsewhere that transportation systems, and networks in general, are at the heart of Simcity. This is absolutely true, yet it is incomplete. Realism, options, and mircromanagement are also at the center of what sets Simcity apart from other city-building games. While the latter two have been cited by many as a source for making the game overly difficult, in reality the game has offered various levels of involvement, ranging from a simple, casual-gamer-friendly experience to a more difficult one that caters to those of us who like such things. One could play the game from a city management aspect or simply play in sandbox mode to recreate an existing city or to create one derived from fantasy. And the BAT and lot editor make for an open-ended game that, with the help of communities like Simtropolis and others, have kept the title fresh and new even years after its initial release. Overall, the game has proven flexible, and it is this flexibility and its endless possiblities that have made Simcity the great game that it is.

Unfortunately, from everything that I gather about SCS, it looks as though transportation and other networks have been scaled down for the sake of simplicity, realism has been replaced with cartoonish graphics to allow for a three-dimensional experience, and options and micromanagement curtailed to broaden the game's appeal. In other words, because the very heart of Simcity has been labeled as too complex, the heart has been removed and replaced with with the system seen in SCS. This is all needless in my opinion, considering, as I mentioned earlier, Simcity has traditionally offered varying layers of complexity without sacrificing its base. The idea of culture playing a role in city development (a truly great idea and one that has always been missing from the game) could have been simply another layer of difficulty. Instead, it would appear it has acted as a replacement for the other aspects.

As far as what I would like to see in SCS, it looks like it is too late. I would like to be able to create a city I can immerse myself in, perhaps recreate my hometown. I would like to build a region in which I can influence my sims by means of taxes, varying levels of funding for social programs, ordinances, etc. I would like to have a BAT-like program that would allow me to build a realistic model of this or that building which I happen to like in the real world. Basically, I'd like an updated, improved version of Simcity, not a Caesar set in modern day.

Then again, I guess the inclusion of gingerbread buildings will all but make up for all the deficiencies SCS appears to have.