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SimCity |OT| It's not the simulation or city that matter, it's <parameter: string>

C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Rentahamster said:
I finally got around to trying out the one way streets mod. It got me to reinstall the game! :p

After an hour of tinkering....dang this is some neat stuff. All my kudos to the creator, and smh at Maxis.
Click to expand...

One way streets always make my head spin a bit. Do you basically put them parallel to each other in different city blocks?
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
chubigans said:
One way streets always make my head spin a bit. Do you basically put them parallel to each other in different city blocks?
Click to expand...

That's one way to go about it. It makes sense when you start playing around with it. I like how it allows you to direct traffic better.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Mr. Luchador said:
Has anyone made a larger plot mod yet?
Click to expand...

Rentahamster said:
No, but there's a mod that allows you to plop ploppables outside the boundary.
Click to expand...


Okay then, still not time for me to buy the game. The day I can build larger cities (double size or greater) next to each other in region view is the day I buy this. Hell I'd even pay full price.



...patiently waits for modding community.....
 
D

Dunan

Member
I'm looking at screenshots of this game and I can't believe how suburbia/automobile-centric SimCity has gotten. After really enjoying the all-streetcar cities of the SNES era and the high-density-from-the-get-go cities of SC2k and 3k, this game looks more like SimSuburb than SimCity. Have any mods or changes ever rectified this?
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Mengy said:
Okay then, still not time for me to buy the game. The day I can build larger cities (double size or greater) next to each other in region view is the day I buy this. Hell I'd even pay full price.



...patiently waits for modding community.....
Click to expand...

I highly doubt that's ever going to happen. IIRC, the game sees everything else outside the boundary as a simple wire mesh or (or in some detail that is much simpler than what is in the boundary), therefore the game cannot be made to do regular stuff outside the boundary to the extent that you can manipulate your city within the boundary. For example, the water table is non-existent outside the boundary.

Larger city plots is something that's going to have to come from Maxis themselves, probably....and they've already said why they can't do that.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Dunan said:
I'm looking at screenshots of this game and I can't believe how suburbia/automobile-centric SimCity has gotten. After really enjoying the all-streetcar cities of the SNES era and the high-density-from-the-get-go cities of SC2k and 3k, this game looks more like SimSuburb than SimCity. Have any mods or changes ever rectified this?
Click to expand...

There are mods that add subways and elevated rail. Unfortunately, you need the assets from the expansion pack in order to use them.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Base game + expansion on sale for 20 bucks on Origin.

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/182095/mac-pc-download/base-game/plus-edition

If 20 bucks isn't a big deal of money to you, and you haven't bothered with the game at all yet, I would say it's approaching a pretty decent value for your dollar, unless you still refuse based on ill will towards EA (which there is still a great abundance of)

The one way roads mod especially makes it an interesting experience.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Boom Boom Pow said:
are the major bugs fixed?
Click to expand...

Given the severity of Maxis' initial fuck up, there were a lot of things that went wrong, so I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to.

However, the ability to play offline now and store the data on your own PC solves a lot of the issues people had with always online play and dealing with Maxis' unresponsive servers.

There are still a lot of things I'd like to see changed or improved in the game, but 20 bucks for the base game and expansion seems pretty cheap to me.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Apparently a larger city map mod was released and pulled. Here's a reddit thread about it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/28bst6/going_rogue_heres_a_short_video_of_the_3k/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ6DSVm_ckM&feature=youtu.be

xoxcide101 said:
/u/niclistin is correct, most likely it will be released later this week pending further discussion behind the scenes on specific subject.

The community will get the mod. I promise and we promise. And without the drama.

Pending some further discussions we will release it soon to the public to enjoy. However 2 of the 4 sides work a little differently and if used correctly you can get them to zone with limited extended space

http://imgur.com/a/0EebT#0

One of the mods here shown by Niclistin is called All RCI and he will most likely release that mod which will work with the new extended boundary now that it doesn't cripple the internal working city which was the biggest problem 3 + weeks ago now.
Click to expand...

It seems like an evolution of the "Build Outside City Boundaries" mod, not necessarily a complete expansion of the box.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
More interesting posts from that thread:
Its not a secret to anyone whom has asked the question that maps are and were a very complicated and lengthy process. Its also just a fact that there is no SDK or tools out there. Their process for creating maps was very lengthy.

Some of us in devtest have had some pretty lengthy discussions with those whom made the maps and were interactive with the members getting feed back before the great extra map push out.

Each layer of data that becomes a map with the final visual aspects are only part of what you see.

The data is so detailed and drilled down that rain actually will collect in run off areas as a result of the complexity of the maps. There is a HUGE amount of data we do not see or that is presented.

What we know we can not see is at least 2 x that we know of and i'm pretty sure its 10 x that we could get if we knew what to look for.

DETAILED AND SLIMMED OR DUMBED DOWN is definitely Not what SimCity 2013 is in any sense of the term. The best way to describe it is a Reboot and a First attempt at Simulation with 1:1 cause and effect. If anything I think holding onto the lower 30% of computers by having a single threaded engine was the biggest mistake not agents.

GB 1.0 is an infant that many of us feel needs to grow up but could become very much a new direction in this type of "Digital Modeling and Simulation" genre of games.

What ever you think is only a fraction of what you see to be fair and honest. A few of us whom have been involved really have learned this over time and interaction and use as well as being nosy and asking questions.

You would not guess this by just looking at the game that everything from Heat Waves to Winter Storms exist EXCEPT for snow but are not represent in any way within the game from temperatures to rainfall.. its just not presented to the users. Yet you could have a very detailed topology of the city including rain and collection points if it were presented and collected correctly because it exists and is something caused by Weather Agents (something most people do not even know exist and take for tranted) Cloud Formation Agents (Another Unknown) combined with Wind Agents (which are seen only in direction but not known as an actual agent)

We asked for a weather bug type app / map but it was never added however IT VERY WELL COULD BE if someone had the time and experience in understanding the data layers.

COMPLEX and COMPLICATED in so many ways.
Click to expand...


Maps are not maps in the normal sense to be honest. There is a plethora of data required to give you maps and cities as you know them. Any building on areas not within the normal 2k region is mostly smoke and mirrors a huge chance with a lot of good luck.

Maxis does not have a normal SDK / Map and development kit to put this content together and take real models and maps and get them into the game.

At one point they were considering volumetric mapping however that didn't become part of the final. So.. WHY .. can't answer.. What it is? It's very complicated and someone out there will have to crack the concept of map making and figure out a way to offer new maps offline I guess.

Way beyond anything I have seen to date and my conversations with those whom were making maps at maxis say it was a very complicated task even for them with what they did have to use as resources let alone the end users.

They could have done more and the did experiment with bigger maps. Verd Jun is the test map or was the test map of that socal "Big City" experiment and if you look you can see where the 4k cities were. But it does us no good at this time. The same problems that faced them face us but WORSE.

They had the advantage of experience and programmers making changes to the core to create data driven values but we do not.

They spent 1.5 months on the project and the problem was the RCI Zone Development and automatic growth between D2 and D3 $ $$ $$$ where it just made the system come to a crawl.

YOU WILL with these mods come near to doing the same thing however we choose again 3k as a sweet spot and the fact only 2 directions are useable help with limiting the damage however you can still break the game trust.
Click to expand...
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Rentahamster said:
More interesting posts from that thread:
Click to expand...

So in summary: we are never getting larger playable maps for Simcity 2013.

Okay, I can stop keeping up to date on this game now, it's hopeless. At least now I know. Hopefully for Simcity 6 they make fun, creativity, and good gameplay priorities over simulation complexity.


COMPLEX and COMPLICATED in so many ways.
Click to expand...

Sigh, that doesn't make it better. :(
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I thought this part was interesting too:
The best way to describe it is a Reboot and a First attempt at Simulation with 1:1 cause and effect. If anything I think holding onto the lower 30% of computers by having a single threaded engine was the biggest mistake not agents.
Click to expand...

I do recall Ocean Quigley describing the game as a first try at a reboot with a new engine in his promos for the game before it came out. I do think that's a valid endeavor, but I'm still disappointed at how badly it came out. (And to think, much much MUCH of that could have been mitigated simply by EA management not being money grubbing assholes and shoehorning in always online).

The second sentence gives me pause because over the life of this thread we've made many speculations about how the single threaded nature of the programming was hampering the simulation engine, and now we have a statement from someone who has a pretty good idea about what he's talking about agreeing with it
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Well, here it is. Bigger city plot. Sorta.

Project Orion - 3k Extended Boundary
http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29650-project-orion-3k-extended-boundary/
  • You may have trouble to choose/claim other cities that closely together and borders may overlap each other, a little practice with a mouse hover on other city, you may get the change/claim city. (Minor issues)
  • The original map of land value, pollutions, water etc will be misaligned (visually). Example, you plop a $$ park, the land value indicates is slightly off set from the park itself. This offset issues does not effect residential or commercial buildings. Same goes to air pollutions, you may get your industrial pollutions few meters away from its original buildings, it does not effect residential even if its visualized so on pollutions map. What concerns me the most is ground pollutions, similar to air pollutions, it darkened the soil off set from its original buildings, Use Ground Scrubber to tackle this issues.
  • You need to improvise the happiness levels for each zones regarding off set map situations.
  • Off set also effects how you plant trees.
  • Yes you may plop buildings outside the default borders without using BoC, but you need Regional Streets or Regional UDoN to draw a road outside the default borders.
  • Yes you can zone residential, commercial, industrial outside, in one condition, you need connect the tile's original roads with the regional roads.
  • Using this mod, depending on the map, you can't plop buildings or zoning both east or west/north or south, some maps allows you to plop/zones outside default borders on the eastern side but not the west side. Example on Matisse Plains, Veridian Woods, you could plop and zones buildings on the North and East side of the map. Some maps works on South and West only. Vice versa.
  • As your city starts to growing, fully developed, you may noticed some lag, this is normal. A logic when you have heavy populace and industrious city based on the game's engine added with extra areas to fill.
  • In some cases, you may plop buildings underwater or at the side of the mountains, depending on the road layout with little limitations.
  • In game regional roads and train tracks cannot be demolish.
  • Buildings that include its small roads, like Garbage Dump etc can't be demolish even the main buildings is destroyed.
Click to expand...

It synergizes with this mod:

http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29651-rci-plop-mod/

This mod allows you to place any RCI building of any density into your city. This mod can be used with Procalone's BOC Mod and unless something has changed, the new 3k Extended Map Mod, Project Orion.

This mod can be used to plop RCI Buildings outside of the normal map boundaries.

Buildings provide agents, students, workers, shoppers etc.

Once you install the mod to your SimCity/Data folder you'll find the plops inside the Government Panel.

Buildings function just as your typically zoned RCI areas. They can catch fire and enjoy the comforts of the corresponding land values.
Click to expand...
 
O

OchreHand

Member
Got to hand it to the modders. I experimented with the UDoN mod and enjoyed planning a city with round abouts and one way streets. But as usual I hit a wall due to lack of space and end up bull dozing.

Gonna give this one a try.
 
M

Mik2121

Member
I decided to boot up the game now after over half a year without touching it and meanwhile thought about checking the OT... oh man...

I love how good it looks visually, and I like the free-form roads and all that stuff, but the size of the plots is just something I will never be able to get over with.
I think I will just jump into SimCity 4 with that mod for the massive plots and make some nice rural towns or something...

If only Maxis would make another SimCity and actually don't do all the stupid stuff they did here. How could they even think that those tiny land sizes were a good idea is beyond me.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Mik2121 said:
I decided to boot up the game now after over half a year without touching it and meanwhile thought about checking the OT... oh man...

I love how good it looks visually, and I like the free-form roads and all that stuff, but the size of the plots is just something I will never be able to get over with.
I think I will just jump into SimCity 4 with that mod for the massive plots and make some nice rural towns or something...

If only Maxis would make another SimCity and actually don't do all the stupid stuff they did here. How could they even think that those tiny land sizes were a good idea is beyond me.
Click to expand...

There were mods just released that enable larger sizes. Kinda. Check out my previous posts above. Also try out the one way streets mod.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Mr. Luchador said:
Cynic in me believes this is exactly what EA wanted; community patches to fix their game.
Click to expand...

No, what they wanted was an always online game that forced people into a multiplayer environment where EA could constantly "push" people towards DLC via advertisements and menu options. The gameplay was secondary to that, but the presentation was obviously more important and thus it got much more attention than the game mechanics or sim engine.

Maxis and EA did what they wanted to, it just didn't win people over like they thought it would. Greed, it can kill a game right quickly. :(
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Rentahamster said:
http://www.simcity.com/free-trial

Free Trial. Now's your chance, Mengy! lol
Click to expand...

Nah, I played the beta and I owned the game for a week back at launch, I won't buy nor play it again until:

1. Offline mode is implemented (GOAL MET!)

2. Larger cities are available (TBA)


Until we get larger cities I'd much rather just play Simcity 4 instead. Hopefully either Simcity 6 brings the franchise back to proper form or someone else develops a new game franchise to capture the playerbase. For now Banished has satisfied my "modern" city builder needs.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Mengy said:
Nah, I played the beta and I owned the game for a week back at launch, I won't buy nor play it again until:

1. Offline mode is implemented (GOAL MET!)

2. Larger cities are available (TBA)


Until we get larger cities I'd much rather just play Simcity 4 instead. Hopefully either Simcity 6 brings the franchise back to proper form or someone else develops a new game franchise to capture the playerbase. For now Banished has satisfied my "modern" city builder needs.
Click to expand...

You can do larger cities with a mod. I've been doing it, and it's wonky but neat. I put a post here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=868694

I just realized, though, that this trial is only for 4 hours, so that's kinda shitty still. The game is a LOT better than the beta.
 
S

spirity

Member
Mengy said:
Nah, I played the beta and I owned the game for a week back at launch, I won't buy nor play it again until:

1. Offline mode is implemented (GOAL MET!)

2. Larger cities are available (TBA)


Until we get larger cities I'd much rather just play Simcity 4 instead. Hopefully either Simcity 6 brings the franchise back to proper form or someone else develops a new game franchise to capture the playerbase. For now Banished has satisfied my "modern" city builder needs.
Click to expand...

Tilted Mill were developing Medieval Mayor, but that fell through and the project put on hold indefinitely. Shame as I was looking forward to that.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I've been messing around with mods, and I find myself having a lot of fun with this game again. Here are a few shots from a concept city I had in mind.

The concept: Pack over 700,000 sims into the city, have no mass transit, and keep traffic manageable.

Result: Pretty easy with a few choice mods. One way roads, and highways really help out in this regard. I can add all sorts of outlets for traffic so that the main roads don't get too congested. The regional roads mod helps out a ton too, since I can utilize the space outside of the city box for my road network, and leave more space inside the box for actual buildings.

Here is a bottom section of the city. The basic "neighborhood unit" is one giant one way street loop. It goes from the top of the pic to the bottom. the community college eats up the students, and the workers have lots of space to go to the factories. I've highlighted the tunnel where the road loops around and goes all the way back so that the sims can go home. You can also see the additional elevated highway that I have looping all around the city. It adds yet another path for sims to drive, which eases congestion.

cggpPkt.jpg
Click to expand...

This is the top section, so you can see the residential buildings that the sims came from. You can see each loop feeding back into itself. There are also onramps and offramps that connect each loop to each other seamlessly. Since ramps don't have traffic lights, traffic flows very smoothly between them.

0puD0LH.jpg
Click to expand...

Here is the bottom part of the city again where you can see more of the regional roads that I've put in that adds inlets and outlets from the main regional road. No longer am I bottlenecked by that tiny ass city entrance. I can add more entrances wherever I like.

VaUquW5.jpg
Click to expand...


For funsies, I also added casinos and landmarks to a section of the freeway, which adds even more cars. My layout can handle it with no problem, whereas in vanilla SimCity, this would probably kill your roads.

Everyone gets to work and school on time and then back home. During nighttime, the roads are clear since everyone made it back home very quickly.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
H1PSTER said:
This is on sale at the mo' and I'm really tempted to pick it up.

Do you guys recommend?
Click to expand...

How much is it on sale for?

If it's $5 or less then I'd say try it out, you will get at least a couple hours of fun out of it. The UI, music, and graphics are really well done, it's just the gameplay that is so severely lacking. If it's more than $5 then I'd probably not bother.
 
Q

QaaQer

Member
Mengy said:
How much is it on sale for?

If it's $5 or less then I'd say try it out, you will get at least a couple hours of fun out of it. The UI, music, and graphics are really well done, it's just the gameplay that is so severely lacking. If it's more than $5 then I'd probably not bother.
Click to expand...

$15 for std, $20 for deluxe.

Are there mod tools?
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Untalkative_Bunny said:
$15 for std, $20 for deluxe.

Are there mod tools?
Click to expand...

My recent post above involves some modding.

Here is where all the SimCity mods are hosted: http://community.simtropolis.com/fi...ort=1&sort_key=file_downloads&sort_order=desc

Here is a pretty good modpack, for simplicity's sake: http://skyestorme.com/skyepack-mod-pack/

Here is how to use it, and what's inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG5qr-tSnJ4&list=PLbCLzFKeiWkPwE7A1h4gTbC2PUgOrcYfL&index=30

Check the playlist on the right to see the earlier versions of the pack so you can get more info on what's in it.
 
Q

QaaQer

Member
Rentahamster said:
My recent post above involves some modding.

Here is where all the SimCity mods are hosted: http://community.simtropolis.com/fi...ort=1&sort_key=file_downloads&sort_order=desc

Here is a pretty good modpack, for simplicity's sake: http://skyestorme.com/skyepack-mod-pack/

Here is how to use it, and what's inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG5qr-tSnJ4&list=PLbCLzFKeiWkPwE7A1h4gTbC2PUgOrcYfL&index=30

Check the playlist on the right to see the earlier versions of the pack so you can get more info on what's in it.
Click to expand...

cheers. I'm still debating whether to get it. If EA made actual mod tools like Bethesda, I'd pick up right now.
 
H

H1PSTER

Member
Mengy said:
How much is it on sale for?

If it's $5 or less then I'd say try it out, you will get at least a couple hours of fun out of it. The UI, music, and graphics are really well done, it's just the gameplay that is so severely lacking. If it's more than $5 then I'd probably not bother.
Click to expand...

It was £7 but I think that is ok for me.
 
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