In Sim City 4 I’d spend hours and hours just terraforming the entire region before I’d even start building my cities. I’d build massive cities on the coasts surrounded by satellite cities that spread out over an island archipelago, cities on top of giant mesas or divided by huge canyons. You could make these incredibly massive metropolitan areas on top of fantastic landscapes and it was awesome. Outside of the original EverQuest, I’ve never spent more time playing a video game.
And now the more I read about the new one the more disappointed I get. Maybe it will still be fun in its own way but it doesn’t look to be at all what I was hoping for.
Exactly. Although I would use greyscale height maps to quickly create the region. My cities were huge. Typically 2-3 large cities made up the central business district. Typically an entire large city of mostly industry. Next was a ring of large cities of mostly light and medium density suburbs and industrial zones. And surrounding that farmlands and small bedroom communities.
Plus SC4 had a great modding community for custom buildings and whatnot.
CONSTRUCTIBLE WORLDS
Creative and customizable world that offers unique gameplay benefits, all with a fun tactile interface.
SIMS MATTER
The Sims in your city speak to you directly and it’s up to you to respond to their needs. Will you listen and be the toast of the town? Or abuse your power for fame and fortune?
SPECIALIZE IN WHAT YOU LOVE
Mold your city as a casino resort, manufacturing hub, educational enclave, and more, and then watch as a unique look and feel spread throughout your city.
MULTIPLAYER
Build a region with friends for the first time! Collaborate or compete in regional and global challenges and make decisions that impact the greater SimCity World.
GLASSBOX ENGINE
SimCity introduces GlassBox, the revolutionary simulation technology that gives you the power to impact individual Sims lives, manage city level simulation, and balance multiple city simulations at once.
FYI, the game is scheduled for release on March 5, a week from tomorrow. I’ve pre-ordered the deluxe version that includes several city sets, although I don’t know how useful they will be.
I played every version of SimCity obsessively. It was just about the only computer game I ever got into. Most shooters bore me. Even The Sims, Spore and the other Sim extensions bored me. So I’m looking forward to this.
Also, to help you in planning your cities, here is a Wired magazine article on real planned cities around the world. Some of them look very much like SimCity cities, particularly the more rectangular ones like La Plata. (It was hard to make smoothly curving streets in SimCity, so most of my cities involved rectangular or square blocks.)
Total Biscuit is streaming the game right now in case you want to watch.
It’s frustrating because he keeps trying to make roads that aren’t straight, but they keep snapping to the guides! Everyone in the chat is telling him to turn off guides so the road won’t snap to them, but he’s not looking at the chat!
Yeah. Luckily I had a coupon, so it still came out to $60 for me. But I like the idea of different styles to my cities, and the super hero/super villain thing sounds cool too
Damn you EA!
I’m just waiting for the Sims3-like DLC store were they can drain us of our retirement funds $2.99 at a time.
I missed TotalBiscuit’s live stream, but the recorded video is still available on his site. However I am past the point that I’m satisfied with watching others play the game and want to play it myself. Tuesday can’t come fast enough!
From what I can gather from various threads, there are a good number of us who have pre-ordered the game or will be getting it soon after release. I’m thinking we should get together to build our own SDMB region.
