SimCity V: Coming March 5!

[Juiposa]

In the standard fashion, I'm going to EB Games on Saturday and preordering this. No way in hell am I going to be stopped from getting this game. I love SimCity 4 and still play it occasionally, absolutely going to get this game.

 

[Juiposa]

I'll never understand why people seem to think PC gaming is dead, it isn't. Just look at the number of Steam users, that's a pretty good indication that people still play PC games. And way more games survive on PC than just MMO's and niche games. RTS, turn-based strategy, RPG's both action and turn based, simulators and FPS's, just to name a few.

The reason the Sims ended up on consoles was because EA wanted to milk that cow for all it was worth. They are still doing it, the latest expansion pack is $40 or $50 if you want a bit of Katy Perry in it, that's insane. If I were to buy all the DLC on Steam today while it's one sale it would cost me $200 plus the cost of the game itself. Having played the Sims on both console and PC, I can't see why anyone would bother with the console version. The controls suck majorly on the console version, and that's true for many games.

The reason Spore flopped had nothing to do with the console, it was just an awful game. I, like many other Maxis fans, were beyond excited for the game since it promised so much. What we got was a kid's game with some adult humor in it and the ability to make creatures, building and spaceships look like penises. The game was so simple it was mind-numbingly boring. The only phase that any work was put into at all was the space exploration phase, and even then it was pretty poorly done. Spore also shipped with a horrible DRM system which put off a lot of gamers, they either didn't buy it or downloaded it because EA said they had made an unpiratable game and they accepted the challenge.

Maxis's roots are PC gaming and it what they do best. While SimCity 2000 ended up with a console version, they next installments didn't because there is no really good way to make a city building game console friendly without making it dumb. The consolification of games made for both PC and console end up making one platform horrid to use. I'd rather companies stuck to either consoles or PC's for games like this. FPS's, most RPG's and some strategy games work find on consoles and PC alike, but city building games, ya not so much.

Kudos. I do love my PS3, but nothing in the world can make me stop playing PC, it is in so many ways superior. Plus PC has a lot more good exclusives that will never make it to console, and emulators, so I can still play console on my computer

 

[theotherspongey]

In the standard fashion, I'm going to EB Games on Saturday and preordering this. No way in hell am I going to be stopped from getting this game. I love SimCity 4 and still play it occasionally, absolutely going to get this game.

I kind of recommend not doing that. Only because we don't know squat about the actual gameplay.

This could be a Societies 2 for all we know.

 

[Ibonibo]

I want it now.

I still play simcity 2000 sometimes.

Awesome stuff.

Managing for the win

 

[Davidies]

Dont post images from real life...



JK, JK.

 

[Robin]

@Joey

I hear what your saying Joey but when you look at major AAA releases of well known franchises its suicide to just release on PC, plus most publishers like EA would never allow it because the want to rake in the cash on as many platforms as possible. While it may be true that if they focus on only a PC version the quality might be better I don't think that it necessarily means it will be terrible if its also on consoles. Spore might not have been all that great a game but if it was multiplatform it would have sold a hell of a lot more regardless.

People say we are living in a more technologically aware society but I think many people are actually getting more technologically inept, they want to stick a game in to a machine and have it play. I would love to see the general population tinkering and upgrading PC parts, most don't even know how to open the case! Apple has contributed to this dumbing down of the PC world and desktop gaming has started to become the preserve of people who know what their doing.

The PC will always have its gaming market but I still feel its much smaller than it used to be, just look at how cheaply PC versions of games can be picked up compared to their console counterparts and look how few physical shops actually stock PC games now. Most of the stuff on Steam is smaller independent stuff, classic games or ones which can also be bought on consoles. All these RPG's, Turn based games, sims etc on stream aren't AAA blockbuster type games. There aren't many killer COD volume selling PC only games out there and that's a testament to the strength of console gaming these days.

I stopped PC gaming when I bought my PS2 because the titles were so much better, I didn't have to upgrade my computer every year worrying stuff wouldn't work and also PC versions of multiplatform games at the time were known for being the terrible glitchy ports and that it often true even today as the lead platform is nearly always consoles.

But as I also touched apon RTS' on consoles need not suck, you can use a keyboard and mouse if the dev's bother to code it in. Sim City could run exactly the same as its PC counterpart. I do however understand where people are coming from wanting to keep it PC only.

Robin.

 

[McLaren]

@Joey

I hear what your saying Joey but when you look at major AAA releases of well known franchises its suicide to just release on PC, plus most publishers like EA would never allow it because the want to rake in the cash on as many platforms as possible. While it may be true that if they focus on only a PC version the quality might be better I don't think that it necessarily means it will be terrible if its also on consoles. Spore might not have been all that great a game but if it was multiplatform it would have sold a hell of a lot more regardless.

EA would never allow it? Is that why beyond the core title released on every platform & The Sims 3: Pets, every single expansion has been developed exclusively for PC & EA Mobile?

This is where PC Gaming thrives & why SimCity V will more than likely remain a PC game at its core. Modding, expansion packs, it's all easier to market towards the PC crowd than the console guys.

People say we are living in a more technologically aware society but I think many people are actually getting more technologically inept, they want to stick a game in to a machine and have it play. I would love to see the general population tinkering and upgrading PC parts, most don't even know how to open the case! Apple has contributed to this dumbing down of the PC world and desktop gaming has started to become the preserve of people who know what their doing.

This is an age-old, beat-to-death-horse argument about always upgrading the PC. This argument has been brought up for years & years, and yet, the PC Community continues to thrive on the newest games.

The PC will always have its gaming market but I still feel its much smaller than it used to be, just look at how cheaply PC versions of games can be picked up compared to their console counterparts and look how few physical shops actually stock PC games now. Most of the stuff on Steam is smaller independent stuff, classic games or ones which can also be bought on consoles. All these RPG's, Turn based games, sims etc on stream aren't AAA blockbuster type games. There aren't many killer COD volume selling PC only games out there and that's a testament to the strength of console gaming these days.

Because nearly every single PC game can be downloaded now, directly from Steam, EA, or another source. Why the hell would gaming shops want to invest in having a large portion of the store filled with PC titles if most folks will just download them. WoW is about the only title that brings people into gaming stores & that's merely because Blizzard doesn't offer a download-able expansion pack.

I stopped PC gaming when I bought my PS2 because the titles were so much better, I didn't have to upgrade my computer every year worrying stuff wouldn't work and also PC versions of multiplatform games at the time were known for being the terrible glitchy ports and that it often true even today as the lead platform is nearly always consoles.

So, your experience>all others?

You speak of upgrading PC parts, yet last I checked, we're living in an age where you have to upgrade to brand new consoles every 5-7 years to play the newest game. A PC gamer who thinks ahead can go that time frame without any major upgrades to their rig.

But as I also touched apon RTS' on consoles need not suck, you can use a keyboard and mouse if the dev's bother to code it in. Sim City could run exactly the same as its PC counterpart. I do however understand where people are coming from wanting to keep it PC only.

Robin.

It could, but it won't. It would suffer the same fate as The Sims 3; the core game would be released on consoles, but it would die quickly as the PC population receives updates, new expansion packs, & user-created content.

 

[Sach]

Oh man, awesome news. I can't wait for this. 👍

 

[E28]

Oh man, awesome news. I can't wait for this. 👍

Hopefully it's better than the piece of 🤬 societies was...

From the trailer it does look like you place things, not zone things. IMO I much prefer the zoning system, otherwise you can literally start the game and fill your cities with skyscrapers, whereas building a city filled with skyscrapers felt like an achievement in 4.

 

[TypeRDC5]

I play 2 games on my laptop ,football manager and simcity 4.
Ive lost count how many years ive been playing simcity 4 on and off and although this is great news that there will be a new simcity i unfortunally wont be able to get too excited as i dont think my laptop will be able to run it.

Still nice to see another simcity game and ill make sure when i get a new laptop it'll have the specs to run it.

 

[theotherspongey]

Hopefully it's better than the piece of 🤬 societies was...

From the trailer it does look like you place things, not zone things. IMO I much prefer the zoning system, otherwise you can literally start the game and fill your cities with skyscrapers, whereas building a city filled with skyscrapers felt like an achievement in 4.

Plopping and Zoning have both been confirmed.

simtropolis.com

 

[Juiposa]

I kind of recommend not doing that. Only because we don't know squat about the actual gameplay.

This could be a Societies 2 for all we know.

I can and would cancel if that were true. Don't worry, I've done this countless times xD

 

[Jay]

You speak of upgrading PC parts, yet last I checked, we're living in an age where you have to upgrade to brand new consoles every 5-7 years to play the newest game. A PC gamer who thinks ahead can go that time frame without any major upgrades to their rig.

Indeed, I built my rig in December 2008 when the i7 was just released, i7 920 OC 4Ghz, 6 gig ram etc. Still runs strong and haven't found a game I can't run yet with max settings (maybe drop AF and AA down a tad) yet. I feel it still has a couple good years in it.

From the trailer it does look like you place things, not zone things. IMO I much prefer the zoning system, otherwise you can literally start the game and fill your cities with skyscrapers, whereas building a city filled with skyscrapers felt like an achievement in 4.

Yeah exactly, I really prefer Zoning, after all it's more of a realistic simulation that way.

Plopping and Zoning have both been confirmed.

simtropolis.com

Oh, that's great news then.

EDIT

Just watched the videos you linked (thanks for sharing) and they have alleviated pretty much all of my concerns, SC5 is looking fantastic. 👍

 

[Sach]

This thread has me back messing around in SC4.

 

[Robin]

EA would never allow it? Is that why beyond the core title released on every platform & The Sims 3: Pets, every single expansion has been developed exclusively for PC & EA Mobile?

Yeah, the core title came out on everything which was my point, who was talking about expansions? Most games don't even have large expansions like that and most normal DLC comes out for consoles anyway and EA makes sure people have access to it that's for sure.

This is an age-old, beat-to-death-horse argument about always upgrading the PC. This argument has been brought up for years & years, and yet, the PC Community continues to thrive on the newest games.

'Thrive' is open in interpretation, PC gaming may well thrive on the MMO, F2P, micro transaction games but not so much with the traditional AAA games in terms of sales. Release MW3 on PC only, see how well it sells. Also you often hear complaints about the PC version of a AAA titles being buggy, glitchy and underdeveloped because the dev's focus is on the console versions and the PC versions are ports often parcelled out to other studios.

Because nearly every single PC game can be downloaded now, directly from Steam, EA, or another source. Why the hell would gaming shops want to invest in having a large portion of the store filled with PC titles if most folks will just download them. WoW is about the only title that brings people into gaming stores & that's merely because Blizzard doesn't offer a download-able expansion pack.

Same goes for consoles games... so why stock them either? You can buy them just as easily through PSN (like they have ME3 for DL right now). The reason why is because console gaming is so popular that stores like GAME can base their entire operation on it, there is more than enough demand to facilitate both digital download and physical copies whereas some big PC games don't even get retail boxed releases any more.

So, your experience>all others?

I was stating reasons for why I personally switched to console gaming, jeez stop trying to be argumentative and making stuff up that people never said.

You speak of upgrading PC parts, yet last I checked, we're living in an age where you have to upgrade to brand new consoles every 5-7 years to play the newest game. A PC gamer who thinks ahead can go that time frame without any major upgrades to their rig.

And how much did said PC gamer spend to ensure a rig will last 7 years?.... exactly!

 

[theotherspongey]

This thread has me back messing around in SC4.

It has me messing around in SimCity 3000

 

[Jay]

Heh I also had my 8 year old neice playing SC 3000 yesterday, was having great fun but came and got me after half her city had burnt down and didn't know what to do.

 

[CMvan46]

This thread has me back messing around in SC4.

Me too, bought it in a Steam Sale sometime ago and only put a little while into it. I just reinstalled it

 

[Jay]

I must say I am a little concerned with the maximum size of each region, SC dev said the largest (for SC5) will be roughly the size of a SC4 medium region tile. I feel SC4 regions were already too small and having to switch between them in SC4 is the thing I hated the most about SC4. This is the biggest reason SC3000 is still my favorite SC.

 

[theotherspongey]

^

A region will be the size of a SC4 Region.

A city will be a medium sized tile from SC4.

You can combine tiles in SC5 to make a larger city.

 

[Jay]

^

A region will be the size of a SC4 Region.

A city will be a medium sized tile from SC4.

You can combine tiles in SC5 to make a larger city.

Yes, which is my concern, I like one city that I build large (SC1-3), not have to switch between different cities within a region to make it large. IMO medium sized tile in SC4 was small.

 

[McLaren]

Yeah, the core title came out on everything which was my point, who was talking about expansions? Most games don't even have large expansions like that and most normal DLC comes out for consoles anyway and EA makes sure people have access to it that's for sure.

YOU are the one who said EA would never allow never release major AAA titles on just the PC, yet it's quite clear that was their intention with The Sims 3 & will be with Sim City V.

'Thrive' is open in interpretation, PC gaming may well thrive on the MMO, F2P, micro transaction games but not so much with the traditional AAA games in terms of sales. Release MW3 on PC only, see how well it sells. Also you often hear complaints about the PC version of a AAA titles being buggy, glitchy and underdeveloped because the dev's focus is on the console versions and the PC versions are ports often parcelled out to other studios.

This goes both ways.

Same goes for consoles games... so why stock them either? You can buy them just as easily through PSN (like they have ME3 for DL right now). The reason why is because console gaming is so popular that stores like GAME can base their entire operation on it, there is more than enough demand to facilitate both digital download and physical copies whereas some big PC games don't even get retail boxed releases any more.

Not even close.

The MAJORITY of console games are bought by the case, not by download b/c it is not efficient. Consoles have limited hard drive space compared to most PCs, esp. the Xbox 360 & most games available for download are not new titles; they are old ones.

I was stating reasons for why I personally switched to console gaming, jeez stop trying to be argumentative and making stuff up that people never said.

You never said it, but you damn sure hinted at it, esp. by using age-old arguments against the PC, right? Esp. that little claim that PC titles today are still often glitchy ports?

And how much did said PC gamer spend to ensure a rig will last 7 years?.... exactly!

And how much does he save in the long run compared to you who bought the previous console & the next generation console to keep running the newest games whilst he's still running the same setup from 7 years ago.

As you said, EXACTLY!

 

[E28]

I must say I am a little concerned with the maximum size of each region, SC dev said the largest (for SC5) will be roughly the size of a SC4 medium region tile. I feel SC4 regions were already too small and having to switch between them in SC4 is the thing I hated the most about SC4. This is the biggest reason SC3000 is still my favorite SC.

In SC4 you can make bigger regions yourself using a few tools (can't remember the names, haven't played on SC4 for ages) but you'll have to terraform them.

 

[Jay]

In SC4 you can make bigger regions yourself using a few tools (can't remember the names, haven't played on SC4 for ages) but you'll have to terraform them.

Yeah I remember playing around with it and still wasn't happy with the size, unless I missed something. I still played SC4 quite a lot but I always go back to SC3000 these days when I feel like playing.

 

[Sach]

Me too, bought it in a Steam Sale sometime ago and only put a little while into it. I just reinstalled it

You can spend hours just going through the mods at Simtropolis, or just terraforming your terrain.


What's the largest population you guys have achieved in SC4?

 

[theotherspongey]

In a city, 4,560,000.

In a region, 102,009,000. (It was a modified *in size* Region)

 

[Sach]

In a city, 4,560,000.

In a region, 102,009,000. (It was a modified *in size* Region)

Nice. I've got a bunch of mods installed that basically grow anything you want (RCI). Toughest challenge is really just traffic. I'm sure I could get a ridiculous population going in my region if I just stacked it full.


It gets a bit old though after a while. What I like trying to do is to create something more unique with character. Sometimes I'll purposely make the road system a bit more randomized to mix up the grid a bit.

 

[Joey D]

New Trailer from E3:

 

[omgitsbees]

Looking really awesome! Nice to finally get some in-game footage.

 

[CMvan46]

That looks very good. Zoning was still confirmed though right? I hope they keep the mix of zoning and the placing for large structures like in Sim City 4.