Over 20 years of city building games...

[mooncancook]

That'll be a neat feature, like in Sims 3 my wife enjoy playing the sims while I find fun in building homes.

Another approach that might be simpler for the developer is to allow customer object import similar to The Sims. Users can create custom 3D buildings and vehicles and plants and assign attributes to them, and then they can be shared and imported into the game.

 

[BoberFett]

Such games aren't made or sold any more, they lack mass market appeal. Couple high development costs and support to relatively low sales, its easy to see why publishers don't waste the time money making them. People want first person, modern military games, set in the eastern hemisphere.

Really? What are games like Farmville other than city building for n00bs? The market is there, it just needs to be cultivated. (no pun intended)

 

[bentheman939]

Really? What are games like Farmville other than city building for n00bs? The market is there, it just needs to be cultivated. (no pun intended)

The hell it wasn't!

 

[zinfamous]

Such games aren't made or sold any more, they lack mass market appeal. Couple high development costs and support to relatively low sales, its easy to see why publishers don't waste the time money making them. People want first person, modern military games, set in the eastern hemisphere.

I find these games preposterously boring, vapid, and pointless. ....and I'm talking as far back as the release of Doom. :\

But I get the popularity, as my description of the quality of these games can be applied to the quality of the majority population.

 

[Lorne]

I want one that you design a world setting, Maybe a random of geological resorces, Landscape and weather that fits the area, Then you drop a lifeforms in areas and they evolve, Build and resurch for them selves. (This sounds oddly formiliar)

Have small settings in the lifeform adjustments or they can naturally learn wether to be bumbs, Agressive or warlike to eachother or neihbors. (OMG, Im sure of this game before)

Have it run calculations durring screen blankers.

 

[sactoking]

I find these games preposterously boring, vapid, and pointless. ....and I'm talking as far back as the release of Doom. :\

But I get the popularity, as my description of the quality of these games can be applied to the quality of the majority population.

Agreed. The only FPS that I ever enjoyed was playing Duke Nukem 3D via modem with my buddy in high school. Otherwise FPS games just blow taint.

I bought a Wii with my wife a few years back not because the Wii was great compared to the PS3 or 360 but because the Wii was the only console that didn't have a game library consisting of 05% FPS games.

 

[mmntech]

Sim City 2000 had one pack that came with the app needed to create buildings, it was a lot of fun, I used it a bunch.

Unfortunately it was still very limited in how it varied the building designs.

The Urban Renewal Kit. Came with the special edition. Came with a bunch of different pre-loaded themes too. I loved the future one.

I wish EA would put out a proper Sim City sequel. Societies doesn't count. An architect mode would be awesome... and guess what, The Sims already has it. Not a huge leap to add it.

I would love to see greater integration with Sim City and The Sims in the future. Sim City 4 touched on it a bit... but imagine having your sim live in the city you're building. You could switch back and forth, and your city's structure would effect their happiness.

 

[bentheman939]

The Urban Renewal Kit. Came with the special edition. Came with a bunch of different pre-loaded themes too. I loved the future one.

I wish EA would put out a proper Sim City sequel. Societies doesn't count. An architect mode would be awesome... and guess what, The Sims already has it. Not a huge leap to add it.

I would love to see greater integration with Sim City and The Sims in the future. Sim City 4 touched on it a bit... but imagine having your sim live in the city you're building. You could switch back and forth, and your city's structure would effect their happiness.

Eww! Future theme! With all those gross purples and neon yellows. The "future" looked like an 80s acid trip. The Urban Renewal kit was great though: a very useful expansion.

I would LOVE a city builder based around modern hardware. My favourite part of this genre is how it (attempts to) model reality, and your decisions are rewarded based on pragmatism. A modern city builder could mine tons of data behind the scenes, and for example trace the route of each citizen on their commute - where they need to walk, take transit, drive, etc based on their income. This data could be used to determine how satisfied that citizen is with their infrastructure. Similar data could be used for all other kinds of determinants, all of which is kept track of dynamically in real time. Changes you make would have real and instant effects on your city... like a GOD!

 

[Bateluer]

I find these games preposterously boring, vapid, and pointless. ....and I'm talking as far back as the release of Doom. :\

But I get the popularity, as my description of the quality of these games can be applied to the quality of the majority population.

My heavily sarcastic comments went over a lot of people. I also find those Generic Soldier games that are cranked out for every platform today boring. Honestly, I think the last FPS I bought that I enjoyed was Half Life 2, maybe Battlefield 2 and that was because I played it at several LAN parties.

I'd love a good city builder, modern or ancient world. But face it, even if you sold 400K copies of one, you'd still fall short of the tens of millions of copies Call of Duty 7: Modern Warfare 8: Chernobyl Edition. People complain, and then promptly turn around and drop $65+ on the next piece of shovelware EA/Activision/Ubisoft/etc release.

 

[paperfist]

My heavily sarcastic comments went over a lot of people. I also find those Generic Soldier games that are cranked out for every platform today boring. Honestly, I think the last FPS I bought that I enjoyed was Half Life 2, maybe Battlefield 2 and that was because I played it at several LAN parties.

I'd love a good city builder, modern or ancient world. But face it, even if you sold 400K copies of one, you'd still fall short of the tens of millions of copies Call of Duty 7: Modern Warfare 8: Chernobyl Edition. People complain, and then promptly turn around and drop $65+ on the next piece of shovelware EA/Activision/Ubisoft/etc release.

Hmm I was going to say no PC game historically ever came close to those numbers or ever will, but it seems I'm wrong. The Sims sold 16 million copies and interestingly enough down to the middle of the list Roller Coaster Tycoon III sold 6.3 million copies AND Sim City 3000 sold 5 million copies.

So there's obviously a market for builders.

 

[shortylickens]

The GOTY SimCity 3000 let you build your own custom structures.
Things went downhill with SC4.

 

[Elcs]

Sounds like the perfect excuse for a basic EA game with a thousand $5 DLC's with different skins.

Like the idea, loathe the probable business model.

I would LOVE a city builder based around modern hardware. My favourite part of this genre is how it (attempts to) model reality, and your decisions are rewarded based on pragmatism. A modern city builder could mine tons of data behind the scenes, and for example trace the route of each citizen on their commute - where they need to walk, take transit, drive, etc based on their income. This data could be used to determine how satisfied that citizen is with their infrastructure. Similar data could be used for all other kinds of determinants, all of which is kept track of dynamically in real time. Changes you make would have real and instant effects on your city... like a GOD!

You might want to look at Cities in Motion.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Frankly, I'd be more concerned that developers aren't developing city building games at all anymore. Aside from Cites XL, which from most all accounts is terrible, the last good game was SimCity 4, which came out in 2003.

Agreed. I don't understand why a SimCity 5 has yet to be released. Was it not a majorly successfully series?

I'd love a SimCity 5 that keeps the isometric view of the previous ones, and just attempts to approach photo-realism. I hated Societies with its shitty cartoon feel.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Eww! Future theme! With all those gross purples and neon yellows. The "future" looked like an 80s acid trip. The Urban Renewal kit was great though: a very useful expansion.

I would LOVE a city builder based around modern hardware. My favourite part of this genre is how it (attempts to) model reality, and your decisions are rewarded based on pragmatism. A modern city builder could mine tons of data behind the scenes, and for example trace the route of each citizen on their commute - where they need to walk, take transit, drive, etc based on their income. This data could be used to determine how satisfied that citizen is with their infrastructure. Similar data could be used for all other kinds of determinants, all of which is kept track of dynamically in real time. Changes you make would have real and instant effects on your city... like a GOD!

SimCity 4 pretty much does this actually.

 

[Throckmorton]

Yep, SimCity 4 is an actual urban planning game. It's not about "building" cool looking stuff. The point is designing functioning cities.

 

[shortylickens]

Yep, SimCity 4 is an actual urban planning game. It's not about "building" cool looking stuff. The point is designing functioning cities.

Which is exactly what SimCity 1, 2, and 3 did. For almost 20 years.

Are they ever gonna challenge the system they created?

 

[Throckmorton]

Which is exactly what SimCity 1, 2, and 3 did. For almost 20 years.

Are they ever gonna challenge the system they created?

They did. They made a simplified game where you just made a cool looking city, Simcity Societies. It was a piece of shit and it flopped.

The whole reason the SimCity franchise was so successful was that it was about urban planning. They're like sandbox games where you can try out real life principles. Each sequel was more advanced and better than the last. Then they decided to abandon that to appeal to a "broader audience" and as usual that lead to failure.

If you just want to make a nice looking city, try Cities XL.

 

[pandemonium]

:'(

RIP fun

Indeed. The fact that SC4 Deluxe was the last city builder and it was deemed "too difficult" and The Sims took over priority of development is incredibly sad.

The market for intelligent design as of late has slimmed while incredibly easy to play games have taken over.

I loved all of the Sim Cities and 4 actually took me more than a couple hours to master. Games like this just don't exist any more. :/

Also, 4 was more about communities of cities, not just single cities. They could've expanded on the system and made multi-player communities work really well. I'm surprised they didn't, honestly. It was a shoe-in for it.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Agreed. I don't understand why a SimCity 5 has yet to be released. Was it not a majorly successfully series?

I'd love a SimCity 5 that keeps the isometric view of the previous ones, and just attempts to approach photo-realism. I hated Societies with its shitty cartoon feel.

I completely agree with using the isometric 2D graphics. I don't understand why everyone making an RTS feels the need to use 3D; it hardly improves the gameplay, and you end up with far worse looking graphics than you could if you had used 2D. SimCity 4 still looks more realistic than most modern RTS games, and it came out 8 years ago!

 

[zinfamous]

Indeed. The fact that SC4 Deluxe was the last city builder and it was deemed "too difficult" and The Sims took over priority of development is incredibly sad.

The market for intelligent design as of late has slimmed while incredibly easy to play games have taken over.

I loved all of the Sim Cities and 4 actually took me more than a couple hours to master. Games like this just don't exist any more. :/

Also, 4 was more about communities of cities, not just single cities. They could've expanded on the system and made multi-player communities work really well. I'm surprised they didn't, honestly. It was a shoe-in for it.

I loved that format in SC4. I would build my main commercial and residential city in a central block, then a neighboring city would become my industrial shit-hole connected with highway and light rail. THen another city would be a recreation-focused, vacation town of sorts. medium density residential and commercial, mountains, etc.

I liked keeping high concentration industrial in another block, as you wouldn't get too much bitching about pollution in the actual city.

From SC1-SC3000, I rarely built roads. traffic and pollution complaints were so bothersome, I'd just build rail and nothing else. Force PT on everyone! It's more expensive to build, but less maintenance, really reduces pollution, and zero traffic problems! I was able to get major 20mill+ metropoli this way (way more with the Archos in SC2000).

 

[-Slacker-]

I completely agree with using the isometric 2D graphics. I don't understand why everyone making an RTS feels the need to use 3D; it hardly improves the gameplay, and you end up with far worse looking graphics than you could if you had used 2D. SimCity 4 still looks more realistic than most modern RTS games, and it came out 8 years ago!

I fully agree with the RTS part, although most people would freak the hell out at the thought.

But I like my city simulator to be pictoresque and all that, so that when I get a break from frantically trying to put out fires, contain disease outbreaks and generally trying to fix stuff while expanding the economy, I can take a look at my city from any angle I want and admire the view.

 

[silverpig]

One thing I'd like to see in a hypothetical Sim City 5 is more of an active external environment for your city. With SC4 you could build connections to neighbours, and then build those neighbour cities yourself. It might be neat to have some cloud/server/CPU/peer control over those.

Let's say you get a 3x3 chunk of land (3 maps wide by 3 high, for 9 cities you can build yourself) and this is your region. You can make neighbour connections and all that just like in SC4. Now put your region in the cloud and make it interact with other players' regions.

Now add a server/cloud/CPU layer of "state" and "federal" governments. You can petition them for funds for a highway or rail line, they can offer to build jails or army bases in your towns (sort of exists in SC4, but there's no external control over it).

You can even get together with other players to ask for a highway. Say you are growing really quickly and are a port city. Another player several hundred miles away is a mining town. Together you ask the cloud government for funds to build a rail line or highway to transport the resources to the port.

 

[Maximilian]

One thing I'd like to see in a hypothetical Sim City 5 is more of an active external environment for your city. With SC4 you could build connections to neighbours, and then build those neighbour cities yourself. It might be neat to have some cloud/server/CPU/peer control over those.

Let's say you get a 3x3 chunk of land (3 maps wide by 3 high, for 9 cities you can build yourself) and this is your region. You can make neighbour connections and all that just like in SC4. Now put your region in the cloud and make it interact with other players' regions.

Now add a server/cloud/CPU layer of "state" and "federal" governments. You can petition them for funds for a highway or rail line, they can offer to build jails or army bases in your towns (sort of exists in SC4, but there's no external control over it).

You can even get together with other players to ask for a highway. Say you are growing really quickly and are a port city. Another player several hundred miles away is a mining town. Together you ask the cloud government for funds to build a rail line or highway to transport the resources to the port.

That would be so much fun... its what i was hoping for with cities XL but the game was nowhere near in depth enough to rival any previous simcity. I would've built my city on a beautiful coastal/riverside location and then turned that water black with pollution Coal power, prisons, military bases, casios, landfill, heavy industrial zones, it would have it all! Plus a massive wall of garbage around the city limits!

Alas my dream of polluting a region i share with other players online goes unfulfilled

 

[magomago]

I loved that format in SC4. I would build my main commercial and residential city in a central block, then a neighboring city would become my industrial shit-hole connected with highway and light rail. THen another city would be a recreation-focused, vacation town of sorts. medium density residential and commercial, mountains, etc.

I liked keeping high concentration industrial in another block, as you wouldn't get too much bitching about pollution in the actual city.

From SC1-SC3000, I rarely built roads. traffic and pollution complaints were so bothersome, I'd just build rail and nothing else. Force PT on everyone! It's more expensive to build, but less maintenance, really reduces pollution, and zero traffic problems! I was able to get major 20mill+ metropoli this way (way more with the Archos in SC2000).

wait how did you force people to take PT and NOT drive their own cars

That shit killed me so much, I just gave up to a degree, threw trees and parks EVERYWHERE and then lived with rush hour traffic fubaring things up. Even if I built highways into my commercial areas, made plenty of on and off ramps, tried my best to distribute the mutliple ways to enter and exit a busy area, it never got better.

 

[zinfamous]

wait how did you force people to take PT and NOT drive their own cars

That shit killed me so much, I just gave up to a degree, threw trees and parks EVERYWHERE and then lived with rush hour traffic fubaring things up. Even if I built highways into my commercial areas, made plenty of on and off ramps, tried my best to distribute the mutliple ways to enter and exit a busy area, it never got better.

did you miss the part where I said that I never built any roads?

Rail only.