SimCity 5, AKA "SimCity"

SimCity 5 was announced last month (Actually pithily titled "SimCity", without a number); and looking through the tech previews it blew my mind.

Due to be released in 2013, ten year after the last SimCity game, the development team now feel computers have the power to simulate every tiny element of a city. Using the new "Glass Box" engine, every individual citizen and unit of resources has an AI and a 1:1 function within the city. The tech videos below explain better than I ever could:

• Glass Box Engine: Introduction
• Glass Box Engine: The Economic Engine
• Glass Box Engine: Environmental Simulation (Taken with camera at convention, not yet released by EA)
• Glass Box Engine: Fire Simulation (Taken with camera at convention, not yet released by EA)

The simulation elements alone look jaw dropping. But as the Announcment Trailer shows (And also commented on by the designers), the game will be hosted in a fully online world, like Spore. Players will build cities next to one another, and interact with each other.

Thoughts?

I've always been a bug fan of the Sim City series of games, right back to the original Sim City. I'm looking forward to learning more about what this latest installment can do, what with the massive improvements in technology since the last installment, which I've played many times and it still never gets old.

btw its good to see a familiar name from the old OG board still around on the VG board.

Good to see you here too SU

Aye, I've been absent here since testing GB3, to focus on my business. It's good to be back :-)

Well then welcome back!



btw what is your business?

Thanks :-) It's a good feeling to see the forum's still here and some of the OG crowd are still active.

Nothing exciting - IT Consultancy. Lately I've freed up some time to pursue game making again (And actually release something this time), and some of that time's being spent keeping the pulse of the inde gaming community.

How about you SU, how've things been?

I'm just wrapping up an associate of computer science this month. I have just 2 classes left, going into the final exams, which I'll be writing next week. both my remaining classes are math classes so that's been a bit of a challenge for me, taking 2 math classes at once.

Grand! Glad to hear you're doing so well pursuing your passion. What computing field are you hoping to take up when you graduate?

Guh, I know what you mean; I often find the more advanced mathematical components of code difficult and tedious. But needs must.

I'm looking at starting out with something like web development, then going back to school part time to work on my bachelor's degree after about a year or so.

Anyways, I think we went a little off topic here



so getting this topic back on topic I'm definitely looking forward to Sim City (5) and checking out all the new features. About the only feature I don't like is requiring an internet connection even when playing in single player mode, as I sometimes like to play games like this in places where I can't connect to the internet.

Thankfully there are ways around a required-connection security feature, like security server emulation. The first major game to use an always-online DRM—Assassin's Creed II—had the security sever reverse-engineered and available for emulation within days of its release. Always-online DRM does nothing to deter pirates, and just ends up irritating legitimate users; it's a truly moronic mechanism that poorly informed executives seem to think is the magic bullet against piracy.

I love the idea of finite-resources, such as running out of coal in a city that relies on it. It creates an interesting dynamic normally reserved for strategy games that I think will work well on SimCity scale.

I agree. I also like that it creates more urgency to build a network of interconnected cities to facilitate resource trading, at least if that's still included in the new version... ?

Between cities in the online version, almost certainly. Offline, who knows; but I doubt they'd orientate the gameplay mechanics around cooperation online and not include some kind of supplementary system (Like an A.I to serve in lieu of players, or a border-trading mechanic like Simcity 3 had)

The border trading system in Sim City 4 was IMO the best they've come up with so far. IMO the main area of improvement would be to allow a chain of connected cities to trade with each other.

For example if City 1 is connected to City 2, and City 2 is connected to City 3, and is located between Cities 1 and 3 then City 1 could trade with City 3 directly, using their common connection to City 2.

It's too bad EA/Maxis had to botch this game so bad.

Sim City Review
After reading this any numerous other reviews and scathing customer reviews and complaints, I'll stick with my trusty old Sim City 4, the last true Sim City IMO.

[EA Rant]I'm getting pretty fed up with EA and all their subsidiaries releasing poorly planned, poorly tested, and incomplete games that end up being crap. And their The Sims 2 style releases, sell you a chopped-down partial (or demo-level)game for the price of a full game, then charge the price of a full game to get the features the game should have had in it right from the beginning.[/EA Rant]

I've preordered it and if it works it is fun BUT its not worth 50-70 Bucks

I would say its an 30 Bucks Game Maximum. It was still ok for me because of the Free Game (i took Dead Space 3) so i got another 30 Bucks Game Maximum

But Yeah Simcity 4 is still better in my Opinion but its not Bad (i would rate it with a 70-75 Score)

If the Bugs are fixed atleast

Have you had any of the server issues I've been hearing so much about?

From what I've seen of the game, the tiny city sizes is a big put off, in addition to all the major server issues most players have been having.