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HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer


http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines

Recently the people behind the Cities in Motion games (Colossal Order, published by: Paradox) released this video for a new city sim based off of the Unity engine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfeBpagvQw

Personally I wasn't sure what to make of it, but since Cities in Motion 2 I've been wondering why they didn't try to branch out into a more traditional city sim. So hey, lets see where this goes. Then I saw this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDJ-34uERZA

Now things are starting to get more interesting. My main complaint with Cities in Motion 2 was that while the game ran well, it was all kind of boring and lacked personality. Whereas with Cities: Skylines they seem to have taken one of the few positives left over from the Sim City series and inject at least a little personality into the game.

Not much is known so far about the game. So, I'd say it's still a definite wait and see, but if your interested in city sims there is definite potential here. If nothing else since this is the same people behind Cities in Motion we can at least expect the traffic simulator to function properly. Unlike the train wreck that was Sim City.

Features list (from the website)

quote:

- City policies: Set policies to guide how the city and districts develop over the course of your playthrough.
- City districts: Personalize city districts with names of your choice for variety and personality.
- Road building and zoning This includes curved roads
- Unlock buildings and services
- Taxation: Fine-tuning the city budget and services and setting tax rates to different residential, commercial and industrial levels and controlling -what kind of areas are more likely to spawn in the zoned areas
- Public transportation: Build transport networks throughout the city with buses and metros
- Outside connections: Make industry and commercial districts flourish with new customers in the neighboring cities
- Wonders: the ultimate end-game content that the players strive towards
- Huge maps: Unlock new map tiles with unique possibilities to expand the city
- Water flow simulation: Add new challenges to water services. :toot:
- Polished visual style and core gameplay
- Modding tools: Built in feature designed to encourage creative pursuits.
- Also worth noting that this game will likely be available on Steam, and not require any bullshit "cloud connectivity"

All this sounds good, but the main thing to watch will be how the modding tools are done. A lot of games have promised such things, and a lot of games have fallen on their faces delivering that. Much of how this game will turn out rests on that. After all, that is what has kept Sim City 4 alive after 10 years.

Gameplay videos

Not much so far, but here is what we've got:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-l4JeNfI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ2QjcIYwXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdlbLEh4A08

Official versions of those:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbsPHfNCOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2--bdE6ZY

*If you have any photos/info/videos you want added to the OP post them in the thread and I'll get them added

HappyHelmet fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Oct 1, 2014

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HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer

IRC channel created by Google Butt:

irc.synirc.org
#skylines

HappyHelmet fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Mar 11, 2015

A_Spec
Nov 2, 2012

Here's the first Dev diary about roads; http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?802639-Cities-Skylines-Dev-Diary-1-Roads

As for videos, use these;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbsPHfNCOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2--bdE6ZY

They're the official ones don't don't look like they've been wrung through a .JPG compressor at grade 4.

A_Spec fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Sep 30, 2014

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
I'm not terribly familiar with Paradox - what's their reputation for delivering good games? I really like what I see so far and I know they tend to make more spergy games than the usual games company (which is good news for me), so I'm hoping it follows through.

Luigi Thirty
Apr 30, 2006

Emergency confection port.

KKKlean Energy posted:

I'm not terribly familiar with Paradox - what's their reputation for delivering good games? I really like what I see so far and I know they tend to make more spergy games than the usual games company (which is good news for me), so I'm hoping it follows through.

Paradox isn't making it, Colossal Order is, same as Cities in Motion.

Samolety
Jan 27, 2008

I have returned from negotiations with Comrade Ignatov and have found him to be quite agreeable.
I believe it is peace in our time.
Paradox has been pretty good as a publisher, recently. They've pulled the plug on several games that they could tell were going to be bad and have overall just shown good publishing sense. Furthermore, while Paradox are not the developers, publishers are sometimes what stand in the way of mod support, and Paradox are certainly mod friendly. I can't say anything about the developer, but I do approve of the publisher and from what little has been shown so far this looks like it has a lot of potential. I'm cautiously optimistic.

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer

A_Spec posted:

Here's the first Dev diary about roads; http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?802639-Cities-Skylines-Dev-Diary-1-Roads

As for videos, use these;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbsPHfNCOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2--bdE6ZY

They're the official ones don't don't look like they've been wrung through a .JPG compressor at grade 4. Plus they're the official ones.

Added in this stuff.

Luigi Thirty posted:

Paradox isn't making it, Colossal Order is, same as Cities in Motion.

Now noted in the OP.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

quote:

it is possible to raise and lower the roads and this goes with every road type except the gravel road.
Dealbreaker right there. What good is there in being mayor if you can't build a twisting superstructure from hell and shovel gravel all over? :colbert:

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
I am excited to hear more about the public transit.

I remember in the early days of SimCity 2013 development, when buses were confirmed, I smartly deduced that since it was an agent-based system, there must be a whole interface of setting up bus lines and stops etc. I mean, what's the alternative, let the buses roam around the city randomly like a herd of confused zebras? (it was exactly that)

It'll be interesting to see how it's treated in this game.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Their previous 2 games entirely revolved around setting up transit lines, so I'm sure transit in this will be pretty good. In fact the lack of having to gently caress around with about 50 different fare types means it will most likely be better. What I'm pretty disappointed in is that they've said the game will only ship with bus and metro for transit. They've got 2 tram based games under their belts and they couldn't implement trams?? It doesn't look like we will have much for pedestrians and cyclists aren't even modeled either. What IS cool though is that it seems like parking is modeled in some way. I don't know if it's just visual, but a city builder that actually included parking would be revolutionary. Parking and parking policies are actually some of the biggest factors that shape cities, but it's always ignored. Also you can upgrade roads without having to demolish everything!

The art so far is a bit so-so too. Building repetition will be a major problem as so far there isn't any evidence that they'll have any sort of random colour/props system. Slight variations in building colour and signs and poo poo can make a single model worth 10 . But a highly detailed building, specially with lots of little details that grab your attention, repeated over and over looks awful.

It's also a game that allows free-form roads but still has square building that have to fit on a zone grid. So expect lots of empty patches and give up any hope at urban wall to wall buildings. Still even so far it looks better than Simcity 2013 in that respect.

So far I'm pretty optimistic about the game being a solid but simple city builder, with the potential to be awesome with mods. It's still way too early to tell, there's so much we don't know.

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer
If they do go the CiM route of setting up your own bus lines I hope they make it more streamlined. One of my biggest complaints in CiM 2 was setting up lines for buses to follow as the UI was so obtuse.

Provided modding support is as good as they've hinted at I wouldn't worry about building repetition as that will quickly get added to by modders. SC 4 doesn't have a lot of variety in the base game either, but thanks to modding it isn't a huge problem.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

HappyHelmet posted:

If they do go the CiM route of setting up your own bus lines I hope they make it more streamlined. One of my biggest complaints in CiM 2 was setting up lines for buses to follow as the UI was so obtuse.

Provided modding support is as good as they've hinted at I wouldn't worry about building repetition as that will quickly get added to by modders. SC 4 doesn't have a lot of variety in the base game either, but thanks to modding it isn't a huge problem.

They've said it will be as simple as plopping down stops, drawing the lines, and then it just goes. No dicking around with schedules or fares.

\/ That was CiM2's biggest problem, they increased the detail and complexity massively, but the interface got worse compared with CiM1. So to do anything you had to slog through multiple tabs and windows and tiny unintuitive buttons. It always felt more like using some technical transit planning suite than a game. So far Skylines interface looks pretty ok.

Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Sep 30, 2014

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer
I figured that. My hope is that it's all on the same menu, and easily accessed. In CiM 2 you end up poking through multiple menus, and with the not so great UI it made everything a chore.

ToastyPotato
Jun 23, 2005

CONVICTED OF DISPLAYING HIS PEANUTS IN PUBLIC

Baronjutter posted:

They've said it will be as simple as plopping down stops, drawing the lines, and then it just goes. No dicking around with schedules or fares.



Yeap. Basically you place stops and draw routes. You can increase or decrease the number of buses on the route by messing with the funding. That is about it. And really that is all it needs to be in a city builder.

Interestingly enough, this games seems more like a proper fix to Cities XL than a modification of Cities in Motion 2.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Yeah it's like if someone took the good aspects of cities XL and mushed them together with the good parts of CiM2.

I wonder if a city builder will ever attempt online play after the absolute disaster and subsequent back-peddling into single player of both Cities XL and Simcity2013.

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



I'm watching this game with interest, after the SimCity 2013 fiasco it'd be nice to get a new city builder that is up to date and actually improves over SimCity 4.

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer
I doubt we'll see anything like multiplayer again anytime soon. Though Cities: Skylines could possibly get away with it. By having it so that during the land claiming phase they showed off each person picks the land they want. Then they are free to develop their section as they see fit.

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord
With this and Citybound in development I'm pretty excited for city sims as a whole. Both titles seem rather similar but both look like they're going in bright, positive directions. I think everyone wins in this case. It's just a shame Simcity had to die such a brutal death for this to (presumably) happen. I hope one or the other lets me make convincing rural farmland towns. I've never been too fond of managing literal urban jungles.

Now if only theme park sims could start up again.

Nition
Feb 25, 2006

You really want to know?

Avocados posted:

Now if only theme park sims could start up again.

There's Parkitect. It's kind of a Rollercoaster Tycoon clone.

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer

Avocados posted:

With this and Citybound in development I'm pretty excited for city sims as a whole. Both titles seem rather similar but both look like they're going in bright, positive directions. I think everyone wins in this case. It's just a shame Simcity had to die such a brutal death for this to (presumably) happen. I hope one or the other lets me make convincing rural farmland towns. I've never been too fond of managing literal urban jungles.

Now if only theme park sims could start up again.

It will be interesting to see what EAs reaction will be if either Citybound or Cites see much success. City simulations may not have the largest market of players available, but EA basically had 100% of the market prior to the reboot. And they just threw it all right in the garbage because of their corporate policies. My guess is they will try to roll another reboot with features more in line with SC3K in the hope of winning some of the share back.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Simcity 2013 was probably the biggest fiasco of a great brand I've ever seen. Even if it isn't totally groundbreaking if these games are functional they'll do great.

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord

HappyHelmet posted:

It will be interesting to see what EAs reaction will be if either Citybound or Cites see much success. City simulations may not have the largest market of players available, but EA basically had 100% of the market prior to the reboot. And they just threw it all right in the garbage because of their corporate policies. My guess is they will try to roll another reboot with features more in line with SC3K in the hope of winning some of the share back.

I'd hope they don't come back. If they do, by default their next city sim will have to be run on Origin, have day one DLC, be $60 with a $80 LE version, be mod adverse, and be subject to EA's weird corporate policies. These practices are pretty standard now so it's not just EA being a hyperbolic villain, but it appears both Citybound and Cities intend to launch without already so much going against them.

mackintosh
Aug 18, 2007


Semper Fidelis Poloniae
I'm going to want to see thousands of late-gameplay videos before I consider giving Colossal Order a penny, let alone 30 or 40 bucks. CIM2 is a mess, with broken pathfinding, unoptimised gameplay and several longstanding bugs (there's a thread on the forum somewhere, it's worth a read). I simply don't trust them to develop a working city simulator. They're a very small studio with a shaky track record imo.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

HappyHelmet posted:

I doubt we'll see anything like multiplayer again anytime soon. Though Cities: Skylines could possibly get away with it.
Considering how good their netcode for CiM2 is, no. It's impossible to play without getting a lot of desynchs which makes the whole experience unfun and futile.

Arnold of Soissons
Mar 4, 2011

by XyloJW

Avocados posted:

With this and Citybound in development I'm pretty excited for city sims as a whole. Both titles seem rather similar but both look like they're going in bright, positive directions.

I don't know which will be better once they're out, but hopefully one of these will be the modern city builder we've all been waiting for

Skylines has a Steam page btw: http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/

A_Spec
Nov 2, 2012

And another segment has been released;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc4uNFhlQEw

HappyHelmet
Apr 9, 2003

Hail to the king baby!
Grimey Drawer

Poil posted:

Considering how good their netcode for CiM2 is, no. It's impossible to play without getting a lot of desynchs which makes the whole experience unfun and futile.

Ah, I never tried it so wouldn't know.

BAD AT STUFF
May 10, 2012

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because fuck you.

Poil posted:

Considering how good their netcode for CiM2 is, no. It's impossible to play without getting a lot of desynchs which makes the whole experience unfun and futile.

I only played a few times and my friend and I were working on different parts of the network (co-op), but I never noticed any desynchs.

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
Interesting that they're using a separate 'office' zone. I'm guessing the commercial zone is all retail?

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

It's still a bit depressing that in 2014 all city builders are still using 100% use segregated zoning. I know the excuses of "gameplay" and "simplicity" but if you can't figure out how to do basic urban zones and make your gameplay work I don't know what to say. "mixed use" isn't some weird new concept, hell it's the norm in 99% of cities outside of a post-war american suburb. Shops on the bottom, office or residential above.

xzzy
Mar 5, 2009

Conceptually it seems easy to add, certain commercial structures just get a set number of slots for residents to live in.

I wonder if their reluctance to do it is a result of generating issues with citizens finding work and businesses finding employees. Seems that if they weren't careful, it'd create exploits where you only need one type of building for a functioning city.

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.

Baronjutter posted:

It's still a bit depressing that in 2014 all city builders are still using 100% use segregated zoning. I know the excuses of "gameplay" and "simplicity" but if you can't figure out how to do basic urban zones and make your gameplay work I don't know what to say. "mixed use" isn't some weird new concept, hell it's the norm in 99% of cities outside of a post-war american suburb. Shops on the bottom, office or residential above.

Also a bit surprising given that they're going specifically for a north European focus.

I can see from the videos that each residential plot can hold a number of unique households, so I wouldn't have thought it particularly difficult for a plot to hold units of different types. Perhaps when they started coding it they backed themselves into a corner on that one though, and implementing it now would mean re-writing a whole lot.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Mimetic posted:

I only played a few times and my friend and I were working on different parts of the network (co-op), but I never noticed any desynchs.
It happened everytime when I tried to play. The most obvious was when he was building an elevated metro and only half of the track actually showed up for me. We were sitting at computers right next to each other so it was very easy to spot, and of course the connection speed was 100mbit lan.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I really wish that companies just didn't bother with multiplayer unless they are pro's and have solid experience with net-code. A poorly implemented multiplayer just for the sake of having it as a check-box on the feature list is such a waste of resources.

ToastyPotato
Jun 23, 2005

CONVICTED OF DISPLAYING HIS PEANUTS IN PUBLIC

KKKlean Energy posted:

Interesting that they're using a separate 'office' zone. I'm guessing the commercial zone is all retail?

Yet another feature that draws this closer to Cities XL than SimCity.

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
Parts 3 and 4 of their gameplay video are out. Part 3 seems to have already been mostly covered by their highlights video, but part 4 is more interesting and it covers the Q&A at the end of the session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzHdq88g7uE

* no mixed use (because gameplay reasons, but there'll be a visual representation, also maybe they'll let you mod it)
* no weather (not at launch anyway, but maybe later, and they want it to have gameplay implications, not just a visual effect)
* currently just one building tileset (but players can create and import their own architectural styles)
* you can build a hydroelectric dam (no visuals yet) and if you're not careful about it you can flood your city

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I'm really curious how the whole flowing water system is going to work. In the video it seems important on the river there for water intake and sewage outflow, and in another video we saw a mayor put the outflow on top of a mountain and create a sewerfall. I know it can take a lot of resources to real time do all these flows, dwarf fortress can barely handle it. Is it really worth the "budget" to have flowing water? How else will in impact gameplay? We've already learned there will be no seawalls or any sort of harbour or riverfront embankments or developments so the game just isn't very water focused in that respect.

Uh I'm also now remembering them saying something about the water not being real-time and flowing unless you're in the map editor, then it's static. But if so then how does the poo poo-falls and dam-flooding work?

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
My guess is that it's a static waterfall with a 'spring' for a source (i.e. magic water appearance point), and they just stuck a couple of sewage outlet pipes at the source to colour it brown/grey. I don't think much can be read into it - it strikes me more as a trailer joke than a feature plug for fluid dynamics :)

I am very interested in finding out how the flooding works though.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

True, we didn't see a poo poo creek or lake forming at the base of the outflow, just the cosmetic spray.

Actual proper water modeling would be cool though for like a "Sim Netherlands" sort of game where the focus is on both city building and flood/water control. Build up towns and farms and your dykes then see how you fair the next storm surge or river flooding. Also sim netherlands would have trams and bikes!

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Ghetto SuperCzar
Feb 20, 2005


It would be cool to see a city builder take on issues like community health, utilizing ideas like the 20 minute neighborhood. It would also be neat, gameplay wise, to have things like a certain entity in an industry get large enough that they can start making demands out of you (like intel in Portland or Boeing in Seattle), just to spice up and add a little flavor/challenge to the gameplay.

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