Simcity fans might be interested in this

[Maximilian]

Or you guys might already know about this.

http://www.citiesxl.com/

That company that made the game "city life" which they said was sort of a go between for simcity fans while they waited for simcity 5 is making city life 2 but theyre calling it "cities XL" and it looks good from the two videos at that website, no more square cities with grid iron road patterns it seems, no more sitting mashing with the "lower/raise/flatten terrain" buttons in a vain effort to get a tunnel through a hill either. Hopefully this game will be as deep as simcity 4 without being overly complex about things or having horrendous bugs, setting up a mass transit system is just fucking unreal in simcity 4 lol, they wont use the damn thing unless its outside their door, thank the community for that network mod...

By the way did anyone play city life? I havent, whats it like compared to simcity 4? Ive got the urge to build instead of destroy for some strange reason.

EDIT: New zoning method

That link shows cities XL's take on zoning, very interesting. I had a problem in simcity 4 where dirty and manufacturing industries kept popping up in the high land value industry i zoned near the residential areas, the tags would prevent that and kind of mimic the planning departments job in the UK.

Online Capability
I guess i should have mentioned this before, but you can go online with cities XL and build/trade with neighbour cities who are built by other people. This may be a subscription based service so i would expect it to be good and not simply a tacked on multiplayer. It mentions it here:

Cities XL FAQ

Read under "What is the ?Planet offer??" for the online info.

Post release update
Its shit

 

[wanderer27]

Yeah, I heard they were working on it. Looks like they're targeting early next year.

The water looks really good, and the terrain does as well.

I like the flexibility they demonstrate with all the road building options.

If this has the complexity that SC4 does I'll probably be picking it up. Looks good.


The only real issues I have with Mass Transit in SC4 is they get way over used (>400%) and I have a lot of it in my current city.

Road pollution bites too. I never have found a really good way to get rid of it.

 

[Czar]

looks amazing

 

[Bateluer]

Well, that does look pretty slick. Maybe we'll see the first good city builder in many years. City Life was kinda lackluster, though, or so the grapevine says.

 

[Maximilian]

Looks like the developer (Monte Cristo) is taking ideas and suggestions from their forums and the forums over at simtropolis, which have the same layout as the anandtech forums which ive never seen anywhere but here before. Its good that they actually seem to be taking the community seriously as the simcity community isnt full of smacktards with game wrecking ideas (like on blizzards diablo III forum) so this shows a lot of promise.

 

[Bateluer]

Sim City fans have been hankering for a good city builder for years. Sim City 4 had serious issues that were never resolved by EA. Sim City Societies was a steaming turd, Caesar IV left much to be desired. The market is definitely ripe.

 

[acheron]

Agreed, though I liked Caesar IV... it had its problems, but on the whole I still had a great time with it. Will probably play it again once I get a computer upgrade done, since I had to play it on semi-low graphics settings.

Will definitely check this one out.. I remember hearing about City Life but never tried it.

A few months ago I got Sim City 2000 working in DosBox, and had fun playing that again.

 

[MrPickins]

Looks good. Can't wait to try it.

 

[teb468]

I wish they'd come out with another Sim Isle though. For some reason I always get the urge to play it but never feel like trying to install it on a newer machine.

 

[DannyLove]

Looks nice. Last sim game I ever played was Sim Tower... back in the day!

 

[flashbacck]

Wow, the road placement tools is nice, but the mass placement tool is totally revolutionary for a city building game.

 

[nerp]

I will buy this.

Thanks for the linkx.

 

[DomS]

WOW. Yeah simcity 4 never quite became what it could've. SOOO much potential but they never fixed the bugs, and the mass transit system was ridiculous.

I mean honestly, you don't JUST board buses at stations. You board them at stops too. THey should've had it that main stations increased the # of buses you had out there, and the more funding you dumped into it, the more stops along routes the buses made and the more people could ride them.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: DomS
WOW. Yeah simcity 4 never quite became what it could've. SOOO much potential but they never fixed the bugs, and the mass transit system was ridiculous.

I mean honestly, you don't JUST board buses at stations. You board them at stops too. THey should've had it that main stations increased the # of buses you had out there, and the more funding you dumped into it, the more stops along routes the buses made and the more people could ride them.

Yeah, bus stops that ive seen are built on the sidewalks, no demolition required. Not to mention how simcity 4 dosent automatically take account for zones that have had their road access cut off (like what happens when you build a bus stop in a zone) i hated the whole road access system it was just a pita. Simcity 2000 did it better where things just developed near roads regardless of access.

 

[Regs]

Geometry in road construction? No way! (Come on Sim City 4, this was the major bust IMO)

 

[SunnyD]

Curved roads and zoning... finally!

 

[oddyager]

Wow. The water and terrain textures look amazing. Am I also seeing trees on the elevated highways?

 

[BladeVenom]

Definitely looks like it could have potential.

 

[imported_Champ]

This looks freaking amazing...i was a fan of simcity since 2000 (although i was like 6 so i didnt understand)...simcity 4 was amazing but still had too many bugs and you needed several mods to hit above 1 million people...the roads were unimaginative and the tiles were too small, there was no emphasis on creating good cities, instead it was about highrises instead of suburbs...one feature I really hope is here is the ability to infinitely expand your cities boarders to create sick super cities...that and a total reworking of demand and economic mearsures

But serosuly those roads were sick...tunnel-bridge-tunnel-bridge was amazing...i can't wait for this to be out

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: oddyager
Wow. The water and terrain textures look amazing. Am I also seeing trees on the elevated highways?

We can forgive some clipping issues in pre-release media, though when the goes gold, little things like this should not exist.

 

[oddyager]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: oddyager
Wow. The water and terrain textures look amazing. Am I also seeing trees on the elevated highways?

We can forgive some clipping issues in pre-release media, though when the goes gold, little things like this should not exist.

I'll be interested to know how big a variety of buildings and lots there are. Vanilla Sim City 4 and Rush Hour was bland and you have to admit with its few "short comings" it has an INCREDIBLE modding community which makes the game that much more better. I hope that experience can be reproduced here.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

ohhh purdy

 

[LittleNemoNES]

definitely need to keep an eye out for this one.

 

[nerp]

I really hope they go with a modular design so it can be modded. I want millions of building possibilties. THere should never be the same building more than a couple of times in a city. SC4 was decent at mixing up props, but you'd get these downtown areas that were indistinguishable after a while. Relying on ploppable user-created structures is great but I'm one of those players that really wants things to evolve organically. I hate placing megaskyscrapers in the midst of blank zones and flea markets.

There is a big market for this type of game and if this studio pulls it off Maxis might be bumming that Simcity has finally been usurped as the city sim of choice.

 

[acheron]

Originally posted by: nerp
There is a big market for this type of game and if this studio pulls it off Maxis might be bumming that Simcity has finally been usurped as the city sim of choice.

Fortunately they will be able to comfort themselves with their huge piles of money made from the 10,000 Sims expansions.