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Electronic Arts bringing back ‘SimCity’ franchise after 10-year absence
- runn1ng 15y agoWhy do I see pictures of iPads and Steve Jobs on the side and top? Seems like a glitch in WP system.
- ilcavero 15y agoI was expecting that that the game was aimed to iOS devices because of those pictures, kept reading waiting for the revolutionary touch interface to be mentioned
- m3koval 15y agoI never thought about SimCity (or any city planning game, really) on the iPad. In hindsight, it seems like a great idea. Most of the game is placing long strips of transportation and utilities, like power lines and roads, or zoning large areas. Both of these tasks are well-suited for a touchscreen display. Unfortunately, it sounds like it will be PC-only (or PC/Mac, depending on which article you believe).
- thehigherlife 15y agoThere is a version of SimCity out right now for iPhone and iPad.
- estel 15y agoYep, there's a port of Sim City 3000 available on iOS and Android. It's not a bad port at all, to be honest.
- uptown 15y agoThe reviews of the iOS version are less than stellar.
- thehigherlife 15y agoI haven't had much problems with it, and have played it for quite awhile. It's crashed a couple of times, but never lost more than a couple of mins of gameplay. Definitely worth a couple of bucks.
- reefab 15y agoIt is due to the trend of putting as much unrelated content on articles to incite clicks to yet another slideshow/top X list and ramp up the almighty page view. Here is a screenshot of the page with the actual article content highlighted. http://demenzia.net/shots/online_journalism_nowadays.png http://demenzia.net/shots/online_journalism_nowadays.png On most screens, only the title is visible above the fold.
- runn1ng 15y ago(to clarify for future reference - there was a glitch in WP system that showed pictures of iPads instead of SimCity concept art. It is corrected now.)
- ajpiano 15y agoI was super pumped to see this headline, as just a couple of weeks ago I was browsing the wikipedia articles for the original series of games, and considered getting on some old school action, so I'm psyched that there's gonna be a new Sim City. I'm not psyched that the official site with the video links and new features, etc., is a gigantic mess of Drupal errors :( http://www.simcity.com/en_US/game/overview http://www.simcity.com/en_US/game/overview
- ajpiano 15y agoLooks like they got that straightened out.
- aggarwalachal 15y agotried to watch the trailer and other things on http://simcity.com http://simcity.com but landed onto a fatal error. I would really like to make a swimming pool without a ladder and a sim swim in it, and watch it drown evil laugh on the ipad.
- citricsquid 15y agoYoutube link for trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztNWdhRdnw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztNWdhRdnw
- freehunter 15y agoSimCity is not The Sims.
- viraptor 15y agoI like the idea of multiplayer, but I'm not sure how interesting would it be for cities to interact... sounds a bit too forced IMHO. But then I had a crazy idea. Could we have a sim-city + transport tycoon in one massively-multiplayer game where people choose which variant they want to control? I'd pay lots of money for the possibility to play that. Imagine the situation where you actually have to look profitable to other players for them to invest in further development of your city by providing their services...
- cahrens 15y agoI imagine that multiplayer interaction would be similar to the 'neighbor deals' system in Sim City 4, with a few additional features.
- tar 15y agoI am really excited about this game.
- jcromartie 15y ago> Bradshaw said the new title would simply be called “SimCity.” What's up with this trend? It seems like it's happening with every movie, game, and TV franchise more than 10 years old.
- TylerE 15y agoBecause they don't want to scare off people by implying that you need to play the older games first.
- freehunter 15y agoIt's called a reboot, they use it to start the series over with new design principles and modern technology. Calling it SimCity 5 would imply that it was successor tos SimCity 4 or 3 or 2000 etc... when it might not be. To take an existing example, Star Trek (2009) is not a sequel or a prequel to Star Trek (1966-2008). It's a new piece of work rendering the old line as complete.
- SimHacker 15y agoThe naming convention from SimCity 2000 => SimCity 3000 was not sustainable. The name SimCity 3000 was an over-promise, and should have been simply SimCity 2001. (See my above comment about Maxis almost running out of money trying to deliver on the promise of a version of SimCity 3000 that was 1000 years more advanced than the previous version of SimCity 2000.)
- philwelch 15y agoWhat I really want is a SimCity where I can build a "New Urbanist" city. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism The SimCity games I've played in the past rely too heavily on separated zoning and car traffic, often with broken transit AI (sims don't go backwards to reach a nearby transit stop) and no concept of walkability. While I don't think you should have to build your SimCity in a new urbanist style, it would be nice to make it an option.
- smalter 15y agoIn my experience, what you wrote is true. But the insane simcities that this guy built, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NTJQTc-TqpU http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N..., didn't have any streets.
- ginko 15y agoThis exactly. The rigid separation of zones drove me nuts when I last played SimCity 4. Here in Vienna it's completely normal to have flats, shops and offices in every building. As far as I know this is even more extreme in Asian cities. What I would love to see would be a triangle slider for zoning where you could for instance say this block should be 60% residential , 25% industrial and 15% commercial. Maybe some industries or commercial venues will require higher percentages to settle but this could also be an interesting tool.
- ChrisNorstrom 15y agoOr no zoning like in some cities in Texas. Where businesses usually, naturally gravitate towards busy intersections and shopping districts on their own.
- dfc 15y agoNo zoning? I do not believe it. Or do you mean no-zoning like 802.11 is "unregulated"?
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- raarky 15y agoI really hope they dont make this an Origin only release
- adrianwaj 15y agoI'd prefer to see a SimForum.. "will your online forum thrive or merely survive?"
- jack12 15y agoI don't get the Post's headline. EA published 'SimCity Societies' in 2007 and an expansion pack in 2008, they even mention it in the article. With the inevitable impact of The Sims' mass appeal, and the industry-wide interest in broadening their market by making games, well, simpler, perhaps the article writer feels that nothing has been a "real" SimCity game since Sim City 4, I guess? It's an important point, whether the series is returning to it's roots of complexity from ten years ago, or if it will be a continuation of the franchise's modern-day releases. But the article leaves a very confusing impression. I suppose they might mean to highlight this is the first SimCity game developed by Maxis themselves since 2003, but with Will Wright gone and 10 years of staff turnover, is there really much difference between a SimCity game being developed by "Maxis" instead of by any other outside developer?
- thetrendycyborg 15y agoSimCity Societies doesn't count. That's like saying "The Sims: Urbz" was a part of the Sims series. Different developers just using the brand, it played more like a really dumbed down version of Civ crossed with Spore.
- SimHacker 15y agoOh, owch. You had to go mention "The Sims: Urbz", didn't you? I was hoping that was long forgotten. But yes that's a very good analogy between SimCity Societies and Urbz. An unfortunate case of brand dilution: Societies was developed by an outside company, and it didn't have much to do with the original game.
- simplefish 15y agoTo be fair, SimCity Societies was an excellent game. But it was very much a spiritual decendent of Ceasar III and Pharaoh. I think the branding did it more harm than good; the people who love Maxis-style city games disliked Societies, and the people who love Impressions-style city games never bothered to pick it up assuming they would dislike it.
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- thetrendycyborg 15y agoI'm really looking forward to this. Simcity was my one of my first introductions to a computer, actually. (Yes, I'm young.)
- NathanKP 15y agoIs it just me or was SimCity a better game back when it was still 2D? Personally I lost interest in the series when they switched to full 3D. I might be willing to pay for an advanced SimCity game in the style of OpenTTD (http://www.openttd.org/en/screenshot/1.0/20101010_panswat_tongvorarat http://www.openttd.org/en/screenshot/1.0/20101010_panswat_to...) I really like OpenTTD but you don't really have direct control over the city, only the transportation.
- andyking 15y agoI don't think they ever did switch to full 3D, did they? Certainly, SimCity 4 was still in the top-down style. There was a competing game, Cities XL, which was fully 3D but never really gained much traction (partly because it was pants).
- SimHacker 15y agoWell, SimCity "classic" was 2D top-down square tiles with flat terrain. SimCity 2000 was orthographic with terrain elevation but essentially 2D sprite graphics. Maxis announced that SimCity 3000 was going to be full 3D, and in fact demonstrated early versions of it to the press, but the project was too ambitious, took far too long, and the technology was not quite there yet. Maxis almost ran out of money before they could ship it. At that point EA bought Maxis, fired all the people who had been fucking around for years trying to implement the full "VR Cyberspace" experience instead of just the next version of SimCity, reverted to the original design of a sprite based version of SimCity instead of full 3D, invited the reporters who they'd shown the 3D SimCity and explained that now it was going to be 2D like SimCity 2000 but with higher quality graphics, and they finally delivered SimCity 3000. Going 3D at that time in history meant that the quality of the graphic would take a huge hit, as well as the rendering speed, and fewer people would be able to run it because it would require a high end computer, so it was just not worth it. Using 2D pre-rendered sprites means that the artists can use as many polygons, rich textures and lighting techniques as they want in 3D Studio Max, and tweak them until the sprites look perfect, and that's exactly what the user sees. You just could not approach anywhere near that quality with 3D graphics at the time. Of course things are a lot different now! That was during the time that The Sims was also in development. One reason The Sims was successful is that it did not try to be full 3D, and ran well on low-end computers (the old computer that little sister inherits from big brother when he upgrades to a gaming machine). It used a hybrid 2D/3D system of z-buffered sprites, with an orthographic projection constrained to four rotations, three zooms, and only the characters were rendered with polygons into the pre-rendered z-buffered scene, using DirectX's software renderer. I developed the character animation system and content creation tools for The Sims, and when the EA executives were reviewing the technology to decide if they should buy Maxis, to justify our approach I bought them a copy of Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics, which explained a concept called "masking" -- http://www.themedianinja.com/glenn/legacy/default_links/anime_links/mccloud.html http://www.themedianinja.com/glenn/legacy/default_links/anim... ... Hergé's Tintin comics are a great example of how that works: The idea is that by making the background environment very realistic (i.e. rich pre-rendered sprites from high poly models), and the characters themselves more abstract (i.e. efficient real time 3d texture mapped low poly models), the readers (players) can more easily project themselves into the scene and identify with the characters. Much in the same way an abstract happy face can represent everyone, while a photograph of a person's face only represents that person. The other fortunate consequence was that it was easy for players to create their own characters and objects by editing the textures and sprites with 2D tools like Photoshop, without requiring difficult 3D modeling tools like 3D Studio Max, so that enabled a lot of user created content by kids instead of professional artists, which was essential to the success of the game. After looking at the "SimCity Announce Trailer Insider's Look" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T70evBJE93s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T70evBJE93s -- I have high hopes for the new version of SimCity, and I think it could be better than even the original ambitions of SimCity 3000. The best indication that it will be great is that Ocean Quigley is still the creative director, who's the original art director from Maxis, and he's also the one who came up with the hybrid "holodeck" idea that The Sims used. He's giving a talk about it at GDC called "Inside the Glass Box": http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/13473480/Inside_the_GlassBox_%28Presented_by_EA%29 http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/13473480/Inside_the_Glass...
- davidjhall 15y agoThe article references that it will be in 3D -- not a big deal to today's games, but I remember buying SimCopter because it allowed me to take my SimCity(2000 I think?) city and fly around in it -- including running missions through it. I hope they do something similar with the new build.
- binarycrusader 15y agoExcited, until I remembered it's published by EA, and will likely require their new digital distribution service, Origin. Bleargh.
- ChrisNorstrom 15y agoDammit, well.... EA has the Sims 3 and Sim City 4 on Steam. I think they only did it with massively high selling games like Battlefield because of Steam taking 30%.
- binarycrusader 15y agoTo add to this, buying the "limited edition" won't get you all of the content: http://www.31012.com/images/games/12/scpreorder.png http://www.31012.com/images/games/12/scpreorder.png Instead, you have to dish out $80 for the "deluxe digital edition" which is of course only available on Origin.
- verelo 15y agoohhhh this is terrible news!!! I am quiet possibly going to get NOTHING done as soon as this comes out. So long progress, relationships and work...hello lost hours and regrets.
- cahrens 15y agoI had an idea a few years back to build a multi-layer sim-world game You would have players create families of Sims, where they would have full control over their individual Home and families, then add on the ability to get elected to a sort of community leader role with control over neighborhoods, then elected Mayor with full control over the entire city. Maybe even add Governers that have some power over collections of cities to for a state and wold be able to build certain infrastructure between cities. Maybe add another tier above that where a few selected players would be able to become Leaders of Nations and create laws and create national Infrastructure and the like. Of course in this system, all players are elected to positions, creating a sort of Sim Government kind of thing. Theoretically such a game would appeal to a wide range of gamers, from the casual gamer just creating a couple Sim families to the hard-core gamer with being able to manage huge and complex societies amde up of other players.
- pessimizer 15y agoI've been fascinated with that idea for years - multi-layer largely independent games that affect each other. I've been playing with the idea in the board game space, for example, having a board game where the players are gods fighting each other, being played at the same time as a board game with the players as men competing against each other, with events in each game effecting the other. Does anybody know of any games (board or other) on the market that operate like this? I'd be curious to check them out.
- SimHacker 15y agoWell, Spore is a multi layer game, but it's "Massively single player", and it didn't manage to couple the layers as well as was originally hoped. One problem is that the different layers want to run at different time scales, so you have to decouple the flow of time of each layer, and somehow reconcile things when you move up and down between them. And of course a multi player game can't have the same clock for everybody, so players will get out of synch with each other. Spore avoids that problem by not synchronizing player time, just sharing user created content asynchronously.
- georgieporgie 15y agoSimCity 4 still brings my current laptop to its knees. If it wasn't for the inevitable graphics glitches (which may in fact be my video card overheating, who knows), I would still be playing it regularly.
- cahrens 15y agoIts probably because the game itself was designed for single-processor machines and was never adapted to SMP systems. The graphics glitches are likely because the game depended on certain features of older GPUs
- Bapabooiee 15y agoMaxis did an IAmA on Reddit about a day ago, and one of their responses addressed this issue: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qmi0w/iama_maxis_development_team_on_simcity_amaa/c3z2008?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qmi0w/iama_maxis_devel...
- thetrendycyborg 15y agoWhat led to the demise of games like this? More time-intensive, slow, thinking games; simulations like these have always held interest for a lot of people. I certainly didn't become less willing to buy them. Combat flight simulators are another thing that seems to have disappeared. I'm far more excited by this then by another mindless space-marine-kills-aliens game.
- ryanklee 15y agoYou may like Dwarf Fortress. Can't think of a more in-depth, intensive, slow, thinking game than that. http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
- philwelch 15y agoOnce you get off the low-hanging fruit like cities, small countries, and civilizations (SimCity, Tropico, and Civilization, respectively), simulation games require domain knowledge in order to be fun. Since commercial games are aimed at a mass market and require higher costs for things like 3D graphics engines and game assets, this means that anything that narrows the addressable market, like requiring tons of domain knowledge to play the game effectively, makes it a less profitable investment. So you have to go for things that lots of people have domain knowledge about already, something like professional soccer. Which is why one of the best selling time-intensive, slow, thinking games out there is Football Manager. I'm counting Football Manager over other sports games because in other sports games you actually control the players, whereas in Football Manager you only get to be the manager, and most of what you do in terms of buying and selling players, dealing with contracts, selecting players for a match, designing tactics and so forth are all classic sim-game stuff with lots of going through menu systems and toggling switches and moving sliders and none of the arcade stuff. Even matches you just sit there and watch (in abbreviated highlight form, or with an eye on match data), and occasionally make substitutions or tactical adjustments. If you didn't actually like soccer a great deal, you wouldn't really care; if you did, you might be willing to pay for new features and roster updates every year or two.
- winthrowe 15y agoCombat flight sims aren't popular, but recent ones do exist; DCS currently has nice A-10 and Ka-50 sims.
- j45 15y agoAnd I was just starting to get productive.... I was having a chat with a friend about Minecraft and how it's an "on ground" version of SimCity, at a much simpler level of building (literally) from the ground, out, and up.
- bane 15y agoAll I want is SC4, but with curved roads and properly lined up zones and buildings.