new "real" Sim City in 2013

[Pat]

Certainly since hackers love a challenge ... but from the moment that you have to download part of the code to perform this becomes a little more difficult.!

They cracked World of Warcraft, they'll probably crack this.

Indeed look at this way Blizzard has since caved, they allow the addons but grudgingly soo... As with Sim City 4 look at this way we have modded this game to be more then a game it is today, its like SC4 Expansion Turbo which would be like WoW's MoP lol

[jdenm8]

Certainly since hackers love a challenge ... but from the moment that you have to download part of the code to perform this becomes a little more difficult.!

They cracked World of Warcraft, they'll probably crack this.

Indeed look at this way Blizzard has since caved, they allow the addons but grudgingly soo... As with Sim City 4 look at this way we have modded this game to be more then a game it is today, its like SC4 Expansion Turbo which would be like WoW's MoP lol

Really? Last time I heard, Activizzard was still showering operators of Alternative Servers with Cease and Desist letters.

[Reginasunrae]

That said, I also think Windows 8 is getting unfairly hammered. I mean, all it clearly shows is that people are afraid of radical change.

I'm in agreement there. I finally got the opportunity to put my hands on Windows 8 yesterday. I went into it pretty blind, intentionally not reading any how-tos and such because I wanted to see if it was difficult to use. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, there's a learning curve. Yeah, it's ugly as sin with all those flat tiles. HOWEVER! If a person has any experience at all using a computer and knowing what they SHOULD be able to do they could figure it out with just a little effort. I think any new user would also benefit from a little bit of experience with a tablet OS like Android, which I have had. Windows 8 is actually pretty simple as long as you remember to use the Windows key on your keyboard and that there's a line of "charms" on the right-hand side of the monitor to get into various places you don't see right off the bat.

Another thought I had in reference to MS going to a possible walled garden set-up. How long do you suppose it will be before Google releases a version of Android that's a full operating system rather than something just for smartphones and tablets? I can see it happening.

AMD just needs to pull its collective act together and get back in the game as a serious contender. I always loved AMD and I know they can pull it off if they set their minds to it.

[jdenm8]

How long do you suppose it will be before Google releases a version of Android that's a full operating system rather than something just for smartphones and tablets? I can see it happening.

They wouldn't because it'd cannibalise the incredibly small install base of Chrome OS.

[Haljackey]

SimCity Interview on the Noon show

Scroll to 6:45 in.

http://www.youtube.com/v/qste9iwWGzo

[Haljackey]

New SimCity Video from Ocean Quigley... rocking an awesome Movember stache http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_vg_mdi5w6?docId=1000856141

[Lowkee33]

Get it while it's hot

List Price: $59.99
Price: $59.96 

[Haljackey]

This looks like a $70 Facebook game now.

[z]

It looks like we don't have to worry about their putting us out of business.

[Aaron Graham]

Your so right about that this game has nothing on Mother Sim City 4. So happy this new game is not better than Sim City 4, I have been doing so much batting I have no time to play the game any more, maybe when I decide to stop batting building for Sim City 4 I will have the time.

[mike3775]

Its looking worse and worse the more they show. 

[sunv123]

Looks like a weird mix of Farmville crap and Cityville.


Seems like you need Facebook to play this....... and show your face.

[vortext]

I wonder if this social aspect will catch on. Most people I know which play facebook games do so to kill some time, in their lunchbreak, during commute or over a cup of coffee. In any case, most if not all play do not play these games because they're truly interested. Besides, it sounds great you can build a city together but as is clear from this and earlier screenshots it's simply not possible to build one, large city together. There'll always be these weird gaps inbetween. Honestly the regional aspect - or lack thereof - is still the biggest drawback for me. That said, here're two more screenshots. Looks like seasonal flora will be included from the start.

[RickD]

This so called "region" view is ridiculous. But I have to say that those last two small town pictures are actually not that bad.

[Serkanner]

I actually am really looking forward to this game ... perhaps because I expect it to be not like simcity4 ... or simcity3000 or any other game. I will judge it on its playability. If it's not fun or I don't like the way it looks only then will I judge it negatively and definitely before it is released. I have played ALL simcity versions and enjoyed them ALL. To me that means the producers have quite a bit of credit.

[CasperVg]

I actually am really looking forward to this game ... perhaps because I expect it to be not like simcity4 ... or simcity3000 or any other game. I will judge it on its playability. If it's not fun or I don't like the way it looks only then will I judge it negatively and definitely before it is released. I have played ALL simcity versions and enjoyed them ALL. To me that means the producers have quite a bit of credit.

Yup, that's what I'm thinking as well. I've pre-ordered it, not at all expecting it to be like SC4. I'll judge it's playability when I get it; doesn't make sense to completely write it off while no-one of us (except Dirk and ill_tonkso) have played it a single second. I'm kind of looking forward to the depth that the simulation/datamining/Glassbox will add, for example. On the other hand, the regional overview doesn't look entirely convincing either. I can understand their choice for the big 'empty' areas in between sections for the multiplayer, so there wouldn't be too much interference from region connections and everything, but for the 'singleplayer' I hope we'll have more customisation option than what that one picture is showing.

[sunv123]

The town pic is okay, I still see some repletion in it, especially with the blue house. But looking at this pic really changes my view of the game so far.


Looks like the NAM team will have some more stuff to work on when it comes out, where's the turning lanes guys!

Her's the new gameplay Video

[dragonshardz]

I played a bit of their early early demo at PAX Prime 2012. It was pretty good, though there were a lot of options missing.

I've been kicking around the idea of a voxel-based city sim, but right now my programming skills are not up to the task.

[Tarkus]

Looks like the NAM team will have some more stuff to work on when it comes out, where's the turning lanes guys!

The NAM Team is an SC4 content development group, so we're not really thinking about the new game, and it doesn't factor into our plans.  It's also not set up to handle modding out of the box, though that's not much different from SC4's rollout.  The main tools that made this community possible weren't available until close to a year after release.

I haven't really decided if I'm going to buy the new SimCity, though if I do, it probably won't be until several months after release, when the game's longer-term trajectory is clearer.  It's very rare that I'll buy a game right out of the gate.  I didn't buy SC4 until about a year after its release, when the Deluxe Edition came out, and it had the features I've always wanted out of a SimCity game.  (And when SC4 doesn't have something I want, I can (in most cases) mod it into the game.)

To their credit, the development folks at EA Maxis seem quite enthusiastic about what they've created, and I think there are a lot of nice things they've done with the new game.  The GlassBox engine is pretty astounding, and I'm quite glad to see that they've incorporated some NAM ideas with respect to their transportation options.  I'm mixed on the predominantly multiplayer focus.  It's an interesting idea, and somewhat of an experiment in a genre that has traditionally been very much about single-player experiences, but the big question will be how much "churn" they have among the userbase.  The aspect that makes me the most reticent is the way regions are handled.  The idea of only 16 4km² tiles, with all that dead space between them, is not particularly appealing to me.  While I'm trying very hard not to make value judgments about the game based on SC4, after experiencing the strong appeal of the region play paradigm of SC4 for so many years, it's very hard for me not to do so (especially considering that, to my knowledge, there are limits on how much can be stored in the Origin cloud).  If this changes in the future, perhaps by, say, adding an "annexation" feature, which could really add an intriguing layer to the multiplayer focus, then my interest level would spike. 

But with their really detailed simulation at the smaller levels of hierarchy, it may become a resource drain quite quickly to make regions work more like SC4.  Even with the increases in computing power over the past 10 years, to the point where a true-3D retail city-simulation game is actually feasible, there are still limitations.  This genre of game is very demanding of hardware, and in different aspects of it than your average state-of-the-art FPS or MMORPG, toward which gaming hardware design tends to be skewed.

-Alex

[ACEfanatic02]

But with their really detailed simulation at the smaller levels of hierarchy, it may become a resource drain quite quickly to make regions work more like SC4.  Even with the increases in computing power over the past 10 years, to the point where a true-3D retail city-simulation game is actually feasible, there are still limitations.  This genre of game is very demanding of hardware, and in different aspects of it than your average state-of-the-art FPS or MMORPG, toward which gaming hardware design tends to be skewed.

-Alex

Difficult, yes, especially with the tools Maxis has available, but by no means impossible.  IIRC, they're a C++/Lua shop, which makes concurrency really hard.  (And the only way to improve CPU-intensive calculations is to spread them around threads.)  I could see, though, a game engine built in something like Rust doing a really good job of farming out pathfinding and development to separate threads and working quite well.  (If only Rust were mature enough at this point to do it.)

Also: man, so much /raeg in this thread.  There are some things we all need to keep in mind here:
- Maxis is an EA shop
- EA is in the business of publishing *games*.

SimCity, up through SC4, is a simulation that happens to be fun to play with.  It isn't a game.  (Though you can see definite signs of EA's push towards gamification in SC4 as well -- the Sims tie-in and U-Drive-It.)  SCS was a game.  This new SimCity is going to be a game.  It's entirely the opposite approach of earlier editions.  This is neither a good nor bad thing. I expect this new game to be more fun to *play* than SC4 is at the moment, but it's going to have a lot less depth to tinker.  EA's goal is maximizing profit, Maxis developers have to eat.  EA says jump, devs ask "how high?" -- that's just how it works.  Scale your expectations back to reality.

Will we see any new real city simulations going forward?  Probably.  I hope so, at least.  But wouldn't expect it from Maxis.  (There is a reason Will Wright jumped ship a few years back.)

(Also: Long time no see, guys.  Has it really been 3 years since my last post?)