Maxis Will "Eventually" Increase SimCity's City Sizes

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Ickabod

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May 29, 2008
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In other words... We're going to make you pay for it. jerks (stronger word needed)
 

GoldenShadow

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May 13, 2008
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I watched TotalBiscuit's stream of SimCity last night. It made me want to play this game. So I preordered it from GreenManGaming. You get 7 dollars cash back. I don't care about the extra stuff in the origin exclusive deluxe edition.
 

Nimcha

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Dec 6, 2010
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I've played the beta and had to conclude this is not the sort of Simcity I enjoy. It's grativated more towards a puzzle game than an actual model of city building. Shame, but I do think the game is well made for what it's supposed to do.
 

ThriKreen

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May 26, 2006
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GoldenShadow said:
I watched TotalBiscuit's stream of SimCity last night. It made me want to play this game. So I preordered it from GreenManGaming. You get 7 dollars cash back. I don't care about the extra stuff in the origin exclusive deluxe edition.
Did you laugh when the giant lizard started nomming on the garbage dump than dug into the pit?

Granted it was just playing the disappear animation at that point, but the coincidence of when and where, especially when it was after eating just made my day.
 

RicoADF

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Jun 2, 2009
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Well EA has done a great job killing my interest in the game, just canceled my pre-order and put the money on SC2: HoTS.
 

minimacker

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Apr 20, 2010
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ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
 

GoldenShadow

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May 13, 2008
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The main issues are with EA's business model and the small city maps. I don't understand all of the attacks on the gameplay. Gameplay looks fantastic.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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SimCity 4 had different plot sizes for cities for this exact reason - if your PC cannot run the larger ones, you'll just have to run the smaller ones.

I'm tired of EA's excuses. I haven't bought SimCity (I really fucking want to) because I morally refuse to partake in EA's business.
 

Sargonas42

The Doctor
Mar 25, 2010
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minimacker said:
ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
Your statement is incorrect in various ways, starting with "Animations are pre-rendered". No, they are not. They are generated in realitime, much like an action game, not a pre-rendered cut scene. I'm not even going to begin to break down the holes in your logic here because I don't want to get started in a pissing match. I just want others to know you are shooting from the hip and they should do some research themselves before taking this silly argument at face value. When you make assumptions in an argument and come up with baseless explanations, you are doing a great disservice to the audience.

And yes, they literally *did* mean "your dads computer" in terms of the one sitting in your parents house no one has upgraded in half a decade.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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Sargonas42 said:
minimacker said:
ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
Your statement is incorrect in various ways, starting with "Animations are pre-rendered". No, they are not. They are generated in realitime, much like an action game, not a pre-rendered cut scene. I'm not even going to begin to break down the holes in your logic here because I don't want to get started in a pissing match. I just want others to know you are shooting from the hip and they should do some research themselves before taking this silly argument at face value.

And yes, they literally *did* mean "your dads computer" in terms of the one sitting in your parents house no one has upgraded in half a decade.
Put SimCity4 back on the shelves and let us with real machines have the real games then.
 

Sargonas42

The Doctor
Mar 25, 2010
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Sansha said:
Put SimCity4 back on the shelves and let us with real machines have the real games then.
Done!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/

Only $19.99 too!
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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Sargonas42 said:
Sansha said:
Put SimCity4 back on the shelves and let us with real machines have the real games then.
Done!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/

Only $19.99 too!
Can you even have Steam on computers that old? And this is assuming your dad has it and knows how it works. But, fair point.
 

Sargonas42

The Doctor
Mar 25, 2010
123
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Sansha said:
Sargonas42 said:
Sansha said:
Put SimCity4 back on the shelves and let us with real machines have the real games then.
Done!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/

Only $19.99 too!
Can you even have Steam on computers that old? And this is assuming your dad has it and knows how it works. But, fair point.
I know that was a playfully rhetorical question, but for people reading this who you made stop and wonder, I'll go ahead and point out SC4 came out in Feb 2003, and Steam came out in November 2003 so while it does predate it, not by much!

And now I'm going to gag and cringe while I think about the first year or two of what the steam experience was like....ugh.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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Sargonas42 said:
Sansha said:
Sargonas42 said:
Sansha said:
Put SimCity4 back on the shelves and let us with real machines have the real games then.
Done!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/

Only $19.99 too!
Can you even have Steam on computers that old? And this is assuming your dad has it and knows how it works. But, fair point.
I know that was a playfully rhetorical question, but for people reading this who you made stop and wonder, I'll go ahead and point out SC4 came out in Feb 2003, and Steam came out in November 2003 so while it does predate it, not by much!

And now I'm going to gag and cringe while I think about the first year or two of what the steam experience was like....ugh.
*vomit* oh gods, I have no idea how that system got popular and succeeded.
 

minimacker

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Apr 20, 2010
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Sargonas42 said:
minimacker said:
ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
Your statement is incorrect in various ways, starting with "Animations are pre-rendered". No, they are not. They are generated in realitime, much like an action game, not a pre-rendered cut scene.
My statement got lost in translation. You still knew what I meant, though. There are no real-time physics involved. But the problem is that I do sort of want to know why they're skimping on it; What theoretical difference there is between the Simcity agents and how units pathfind in Dwarf Fortress?

You're obviously experienced enough to tell me.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
1,726
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minimacker said:
Sargonas42 said:
minimacker said:
ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
Your statement is incorrect in various ways, starting with "Animations are pre-rendered". No, they are not. They are generated in realitime, much like an action game, not a pre-rendered cut scene.
My statement got lost in translation. You still knew what I meant, though. There are no real-time physics involved. But the problem is that I do sort of want to know why they're skimping on it; What theoretical difference there is between the Simcity agents and how units pathfind in Dwarf Fortress?

You're obviously experienced enough to tell me.
I'm actually curious about this myself; what differentiates pre-rendered to real-time animations?
 

minimacker

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Apr 20, 2010
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Sansha said:
minimacker said:
Sargonas42 said:
minimacker said:
ThriKreen said:
Computer power: It might LOOK like a simple graphics engine, but believe me, there's a crap load of stuff going on. Every object is its own object agent, it's not abstracted like in SimCity 4 then represented as an animated texture.
Not impressed. Animations are pre-rendered, there are no physics involved, so the CPU load of pathfinding shouldn't be a problem for a AAA developer. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The single coder has been doing this since 2006. And it calculates everything, always.

They must have been literal when they meant "your dad's computer." My dad hasn't upgraded his in eight years.
Your statement is incorrect in various ways, starting with "Animations are pre-rendered". No, they are not. They are generated in realitime, much like an action game, not a pre-rendered cut scene.
My statement got lost in translation. You still knew what I meant, though. There are no real-time physics involved. But the problem is that I do sort of want to know why they're skimping on it; What theoretical difference there is between the Simcity agents and how units pathfind in Dwarf Fortress?

You're obviously experienced enough to tell me.
I'm actually curious about this myself; what differentiates pre-rendered to real-time animations?
Honestly, I don't know what I talking about at the time. I think I was trying to differentiate, say, the destruction of a building with visible falling pieces from a programmed "sink into the ground" like we've seen in the pre-release videos except in AI form. I guess the best word I could use is a "dynamic AI".

The AI seems to take the shortest route, which makes me wonder if they react to things. They don't seem to take detours if there's a pileup ahead. Neither do they change course until it's too late. From what I saw from Node's LAN Party pre-release of the game, they have a very poor pathfinding. Which means this shouldn't be as taxing on the CPU as you mentioned in your first post.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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you know what. take a loot at OTTD. yes, do google that. you dont need powerful pc to run a very complex and detailed HUGE cities game. all you need to do is some optimization and give preference for functionality over looks.
if your runing a high end grahpics game, make it for high end PCs
if you are runing for low end pcs, make it a low end graphics and isntead add functionality.
you cant have both.

and the "many citizens" is no argument. OTTD can have you runing litterary 10.000 individual cars every one with tthier individual route and patchfinding and it a average laptop runs it with such ease you can easily do everything else meanwhile. what you need is stop trying to make too much silly things into a model your not going to ever show except for that 1 time ap erson zooms in to see how it looks.
 

GundamSentinel

The leading man, who else?
Aug 23, 2009
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Never been much of a Sim game player. This latest SimCity looked great and I could get it for half price, so I thought it was worth a shot. The only thing that bothers me right now it the implementation of multiplayer. I've watched some streams and an LP, and the map size didn't really bother me. But I am afraid of how much of my game will depend on the cooperation of other players. I don't like that...
 

Colt47

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Oct 31, 2012
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Wait, so EA is making a game that has to be run from a server? As in an always online internet connection? (Gets out his popcorn and gets his youtube search terms ready) Oh, this is going to get good. I wonder what flavor of error we are going to get on this one?

I'm not against them adding multiplayer to SimCity: I think leader boards and the ability to have human generated cities to cozy up with is kind of neat. However, the game should allow a player to play off-line without the need of a server connection. Plus, they could easily have a CPU take over if a person is offline, then just update the adjacent cities when the player goes back online.