WTF EA, what did you do SimCity Societies?

[jalsonmi]

Avalach21 said:

jalsonmi said:

Avalach21 said:

jalsonmi said:
Yeah, I probably want Sim City 5 as much as I want any single other game. Sim City Societies is a major step down, even if it is in response to Will Wright saying "Sim City has boxed itself into a corner. The only people who can understand how to play Sim City games are people who played Sim City games." I guess in this one case I want them to go the ultra hard core route. I love the extreme complexity of Sim City games.

I have a ton of ideas for Sim City 5 if EA and Maxis want them....

In the meantime, I'll probably be picking up Spore for my Mac pretty quickly after it comes out. But it's not the same....

Are sim city games really that hard and unaccessable? Honest to God, I've found them to be too shallow and easy. It's not difficult, at all, to turn a profit and keep everyone happy. I loved Sim City 4, but there's just no challenge anymore.

I generally agree--I can pretty easily make a thriving city (and while I think you're too harsh on Sim City 4, it's true I haven't played it in ages), but I've also been playing the gams since when I first got Sim City on my SNES. I think the intricacy of NIMBY/YIMBY and the work you have to put into runing a transportation system can be daunting and overwhelming for some, and after a certain point leave then with a city with massive traffic problems and buildings that won't ever reach skyscraper level. Or buildings abandomed because of commute time and taken by lower income level sim citizens. Obviously if the game allows you to get to that point as a non-hardcore guy then it can't be that bad, but I do know the level of accessability was something Wright worried about, and was part of the reason EA made Sim City Societies.

Anyway, Sim City 5, idea one: the ability to create half zones (i.e. making a zone be two right trianlges put together that can be built in corners). It probaly wouldn't work to eliminate shape for zones, as the game would have to have incredibly advanced building drawing tools to create lots and buildings in the subseqeunt necessary sizes and shapes. But making a zone square that can be further divided into right triangles would do wonders towards that dream. It'd allow much more freedom of road direction. It'd allow a zone to be squezed elegantly into a diagonal road, or the ability to put in a half zone square park or such things. In otherwords, more things closer to realism in urban design. By going to this rather than eliminating shape altogether for zones, special buildings could exist specifically for appropriate lot shapes without taking the game too much. The game would just read the appropriate lot shape and plant only those appropraite buildings into place. And you could have things like the Flatiron Building as a lanmark.

Idea two: squares and plazas. Special road type that alows intersection on unothrodox angles and has aspects towards better traffic flow. Also: roundabouts. Traffic flow helpers with a park in the middle.

Idea three: usuable landmark buidlings. You build the Empire State Building it comes with potential office space a large nmber of sim citizens. Perhaps such buildings must be unlocked as the game goes on, like reward buildings.

Well I think that's fine. If you can get a decent size city as a beginner, but end up with low wealth residents and shops and tons of commute problems, that's fine. That's the whole point. You play, you learn, you get better. Next time you try something different. You try a different road layout, or you try to use bus depots and railways. That's what makes videogames my favorite hobby.

 

I like your ideas though. Do you think they could just get rid of the square grid all together at this point, if the made a 3D engine based Sim City?

Maybe, but I guess it goes back to what I was saying--how would they develop building sprites without a grid of some kind? I mean, it might work--the lot size doesn't have to be the buidling side, and the building could be any type of shape the sprite is inside any shaped lot. But I think it might get crazy--the game has been reliant on grid from the start (even in Sim City, where everything might as well have been a grid and each zone sized as a 3x3 grid). If they can figure out a way to make the gameplay work without a grid that'd be great, I just wonder if a building sprite generator absent grid would ne implimentable. If so, then yes, I'd prefer no grid to my halfway solution of half grids.

As for your original point, I agree, certainly, and want to see as complex a game as possible for Sim City 5, I'm just saying what Will Wright said. And really, that's my guess as to what a new player of Sim City would be able to do. Maybe they wouldn't even be able to get to that point. Regardless, and seperate from my feelings about, say, the Wii, I want to see as complex and true to life a similuator as possible with the sim City games. They are, after all, the flag bearers for simulation games as a whole (a title Spore might take away from them, if The Sims hasn't already. I never liked The Sims as much as Sim City, though).