Category: News

Simcity Livestream Recap: Great Works, Attractions, and Traffic Simulation

Here’s a recap of the Livestream chat, there’s some stuff we missed but we included most of the major details.

Ploppable buildings can also come with extra modules and “unlockables” to help further customize that building. You can add more police cars, or fire engines and other features.

Power options that are available include coal, wind, solar, nuclear energy, etc… GlassBox can also generate a real time wind map that controls the wind currents. This is something you should keep in mind when placing the wind turbines.

So far the only disasters revealed are tornadoes and a dinosaur attack.

Residential, Commercial, and Industrial zoning is back, but to make it simpler, only one type of zoning is available. Zone density will be based on the types of roads and traffic surrounding that area.

For multiplayer, each player will control their own city. In fact, you can control multiple cities in the same region. You can collaborate with other players to create “Great Works.” One such example was in the E3 Demo where 3 players would cooperate to create an international airport. Other “Great Works” include a space shuttle, arcologies, and a solar farm. More “great works” are to be revealed later.

You can keep track of your friends through a leaderboard-like function called the “City Log.” This sound’s like Simcity’s answer to Need For Speed’s Autolog.

Several types of roads are available, some of them include the standard roads, avenues, and avenues with light rail. However, the most interesting feature is the inclusion of curved roads, now Simcity is finally off the grid!

Traffic simulation can get very complex, but thankfully, the Glass Box engine covers it all. Each Sim you see will have somewhere to go and something to do. They will add to the traffic simulation by using various modes of transportation. Even at pedestrian crossings, the Sims will wait for the light signal to change before crossing the street. To add further to the detail on what Glass Box is capable of, break lights will light up as cars slow down at intersections. Simultaneously you may see school children walking home from school or Sims leaving their houses as they head off to work.

The level of detail in Simcity even goes down through the supply chain. Commercial businesses can go out of business if they no longer receive shipment from Industrial zones. Factories not only ship to commercial buildings, but can also deliver goods to ploppable buildings as well. However your city doesn’t have to include all three zones, you can rely on your friend’s cities to provide workers for factories in your city.

Expect to see various attractions around the city such as large parks and casinos. At the E3 demo, a specialized tourist city can have another type of attraction like a stadium. So far there are two types of stadiums available, a large “pro” stadium, and a small “convention center.” Landmarks are also returning, but this time they will provide jobs and can attract Sims to your city.

Simcity: Build Arcologies, International Airports, and Shuttle Launches

Kip Katsarelis, Simcity’s lead producer, shared some information about Simcity along with exclusive new footage on Spike Tv’s E3 All Access Live.

The game was visually inspired by tilt shift videos to create this toy model like world. This effect is achieved through a depth of field blur.

The game’s simulation is powered by an engine called “Glass Box” bringing life to the every day activities of your city. Every single sim in your city has a place they live, and a place to shop and work. Traffic is generated in real time. There will be several “data layers” to help you understand the underlying activities behind your city.

All of your Sims have wants and need. To see how well you are doing, there will be a happiness rating and your Sims will constantly give you feedback.

In multiplayer, everything you do has a rippling affect across the region. Other players’ cities will affect yours in some way. Players can work together to build “Great Works!” These include features like a international airport, a shuttle launch, or even an arcology. Players can compete in their own way through leaderboards and challenges.

Another route you can take is to create specialized cities, there will be around 5 to 7 different types of cities you can create. You can customize these cities even down to the street level with each individual building. For example, you can create a sports city.  Every few days, a major sporting event will occur, and your goal as mayor will be to attract as many Sims as possible to your stadium. You’ll also need to provide infrastructure to help your Sims reach the stadium in the first place, so build up your roads, highways, and public transportation.

Simcity Details at E3: Gather Resources, Play Offline Briefly…

As today’s E3 comes to a close, videogame news sites have started releasing their impressions and interviews. Here at Simcitizens we’d rather cut out all the fluff and jump straight into the juicy details:

  • You can have multiple regions with multiple cities within them.
  • Cities can not be reloaded to a previous save to do-over mistakes you’ve made. 
  • There will be a cheat mode that allows you to quickly build up cities. Achievements will be disabled though.
  • Simcity features “cause and effect” gameplay. For example, industry pollutes the water supply leading to sick Sims.
  • The simulator causes every activity in the city, from opening and closing doors, to smoke stacks triggering pollution in the city.
  • The simulator decides whether an action can take place. A Sim who’s very poor will not suddenly decide to go shopping on a whim. However, if they are broke, they could decide on finding a job.
  • The game keeps track of what you do and how you are playing then reflects this upon the city. You may even see challenges pop up because of it.
  • If you are disconnected from the internet, you won’t be kicked out of the game right away, it will allow you to play “offline” for a few minutes until you reconnect.
  • You can now build curved roads. The lots themselves can even point towards the direction of the sidewalk.
  • There’s a rendering technique known as “interior mapping,” this creates the illusion as if you can see inside a building.
  • There’s even a rendering technique that allows them to create thousands of Sims, it’s somewhat related to this “interior mapping” but details are unknown.
  • Like in Simcity4, a fire truck must actually drive to a burning building to extinguish a fire.
  • An arsonist will also set fires just for the hell of it.
  • You can gather resources like wood, oil, trees, and fish and export manufactured products from them. You can sell them to the global market or trade them with neighboring cities.
  • Each city starts with a few pre-existing resources. You can manufacture these resources to something else to increase their value. For example, you can combine resources to create engines, or combine them with other resources to create cars.
  • Combining these resources adds to the complexity of the supply chain, There’s even a risk of failure that could be detrimental to the city if you are manufacturing expensive products.

 

Reactions

The online-only component is again causing a flurry of negative reactions. The news of not being able to reload a previous version of your city is troubling many potential buyers. Now, some players think the game is too restrictive compared to the sandbox style of previous Simcity titles.

[via gamespy, pcgamer, kotaku]

Simcity Social Details and New Screenshots

Simcity Social was announced hours ago at E3, however the launch trailer was brief and vague about the game features. In an interview with VentureBeat, Lucy Bradshaw shed some light about some of the details in the game. Simcity and Simcity Social are two seperate games meant to provide two different flavors. Simcity Social is a lighter more social experience.

In summary:

  • Simcity Social is a collaboration between Maxis and the Playfish studio in Beijing.
  • Cities are player driven, they react to your decisions.
  • There is no set path to make a city, you can make them in any style you’d like.
  • Crimes, fires, and pollution are some of the negative things that can occur in your city.
  • The graphics are meant to reflect the original Simcity but visually looks closer to Simcity 3000.
  • You can do mean and nice actions to other players cities.
  • Events can affect the city over time.

 

Simcity First E3 Screenshots

The first Simcity gameplay footage was shown just briefly at E3. We took screenshots of the first trailer in case you missed it. Of note, the way you plop buildings and transmission towers is sort of interesting. It basically floats and spins around as if someone was holding it in mid-air. EDIT: It appears some buildings will grow naturally and other service buildings like power plants are ploppable.

The trailer also showed a disaster where a dinosaur trampled down city buildings.

Additionally, they showed multiplayer footage of an airport that needed to be built in between two cities. You can actually see the other cities off to a distance too. We’ll have more details when it becomes available.

Simcity 2013: Data Layers More Visual and Animated

Taking a look back at data layers in the past Simcity series, they were generally colored tiles that indicated whether a tile was powered, watered, polluted, etc. These data layers were pretty boring to look at, but, the new Simcity plans to change all this by rethinking how the data layer is represented.

Taking some inspiration from infographics, Simcity aims to mix data visualization with modern design. The intent is to create animated data visualization so the player can see it flow in real time.

In this screenshot above, the water table is visible underneath all buildings. The more bluer areas contain more water. When the water tower is placed and pipes are laid down to different buildings, the player will see the water (agents) flow to different buildings.

Christian Stratton, User Experience Director for Simcity, gave an example of how you’ll see power travel down power lines. When you place a power plant down, the player will see power flow away from the plant to nearby buildings. If there’s any breaks among those lines, the player would immediately see and recognize it. If the power plant isn’t capable of providing power to a far location, you will see the power get “eaten-up” before it reaches there.

The data layers are also integrated into the game itself. As you place down a fire station, you’ll see a basic data layer that will give you a general idea of where you should place the fire station. There’s also the option to see a more in-depth data layer if the player requests it.

New Simcity Footage on Spike TV June 4th, 2012

SpikeTV and EA has announced they will be broadcasting a one hour special live on Monday June 4th, 2012. The special titled, “The Download: EA 2012 Preview” will be hosted by Geoff Keighley, will be a part of Spike’s “E3 All Access Live” program.

During the special event, EA will offer never-before-seen footage and world premieres of highly-anticipated games like SimCityTM, Crysis® 3, Battlefield 3TM, Medal of HonorTM Warfighter, Madden NFL 13, FIFA 13 and other unannounced projects currently under development at EA.

We’re hoping to see that one of the unannounced projects is the rumoured Simcity Facebook game.

EA 2012 Preview

  • Date: June 4th, 2012
  • Time: 4PM Eastern / 1PM Pacific.

Simcity: Concern over Specialized Cities

One of the worries with this current generation Simcity is its focus on specialized cities. Specialized cities were a concept used in previous games like Simcity Societies where players could make an authoritarian city. This changed the environment to make the city feel as if it is being controlled by a dictator.

In Simcity (2013), players can specialize their cities to create a “casino” city or focus on “coal,” etc.

In an interview with IncGamers, game producer Jason Haber shed some light on the issue to make it more clear. IncGamers asked if you can freely choose your own specialization, or if your are limited to what the game decides to place in your city:

You’re never going to be pushed down a certain path, but there are those that will require you have certain resources available to you. For example, for coal specialisation you need coal in your box. However, having coal in your box doesn’t mean you have to use it, you can ignore it and do something completely different.

There’s no reason for you to follow a rigid route, this is still a sandbox game…

Well you can rest well knowing that you don’t have to make your city one particular type and stick with it to the end.

Simcity 2013: How Water Simulation Affects the Economy

Today, Simcity released a new video describing how the water simulator affects the economy. Like the previous videos, each step has a cause and effect, and you’ll see these things in real time.

In the water table map you can see which areas on the map have water. The bluer areas naturally have more water.

This makes the terrain green and lush, but the drier areas are brown and barren.

Place the water pump in an area with more water. As it pumps it subtracts water from the water table map.  Once the water is pumped, it is sent down the pipes as an agent to provide water to buildings. Periodically, the buildings will request more water, which will be replenished once the water agent reaches the buildings again.

But as the water agent reaches industrial zones, it will come in contact with ground pollution. In previous games, this ground pollution would reduce the amount of water dispersed. However in this game, ground pollution will now affect the water supply.

 

As the ground pollution spreads to the water tower, it will pump this dirty water to residential zones. When water is polluted it carries germs, and as Sims drink this water, they become sick.  Sick sims will leave work and head home, thus less income is generated. You can cure them by placing hospitals nearby.

As you can see, Simcity’s Glassbox Engine is a live simulator that is intricately integrated with different functions and services. One feature can detrimentally affect the other.

Simcity: The Economic Interaction Between Zones

Today Maxis released another video of their Glassbox Engine which is the fundamental layer powering the Simcity simulation. Today’s video focuses on the economic loop of the game’s engine. The simulation sends out “agents”, these agents can do various tasks, like for example, they can send out “help wanted agents” that request workers to either drive to work or walk to work.  Agents can carry resources and travel to different zones. Some of these agents aren’t shown on the screen while you are playing but they will travel along the roads and paths  you created.

 

In the video, the factories in the industrial zone opens at 6AM. However, these factories currently have no workers.  They will send out invisible “help wanted” agents that travel down the road and search for residential zones. They will figuratively “knock on their doors” to inform that zone that there is a job opening. Residential zones will then send out cars that will search for the first available job.

As enough people show up to work, the factory turns on and starts manufacturing products. Air pollution is triggered as a result of the manufacturing. In addition, freight trucks will spawn and send goods from the industrial zones to the commercial zones.

This is just one example of how Residential, Industrial, and Commercial zones interact to one another.  The point being that each thing you see in Simcity is something actually happening.

As this screenshot is illustrating, as factories are manufacturing goods, they will write to the air pollution map. This in turn triggers the smoke animation and sound effects at the same time.

[via simcity]