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One thing I would like to see in a city builder is the ability to commission certain developments. Letting markets fill in zones is cool, but sometimes governments make specific deals to build specific things, like the biggest skyscrapers, and other mega projects. See also: Public housing. It would be cool to see local markets react to a bunch of public housing, or a massive tower being plopped nearby. Actually, I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in NYC most really tall buildings and big developments need a ton of local government approval before they can even break ground. More so than smaller construction.
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 18:38 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 22:37 |
ToastyPotato posted:One thing I would like to see in a city builder is the ability to commission certain developments. Letting markets fill in zones is cool, but sometimes governments make specific deals to build specific things, like the biggest skyscrapers, and other mega projects. See also: Public housing. It would be cool to see local markets react to a bunch of public housing, or a massive tower being plopped nearby. Actually, I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in NYC most really tall buildings and big developments need a ton of local government approval before they can even break ground. More so than smaller construction. True. While SimCity 4 (and 3000) do have big, ploppable, monumental buildings, all they do is sit there and suck money while providing a bit of YIMBY effect. They don't actually provide anything to the city, be it homes or jobs. It'd be cool to have that kind of "projects" that required cooperation from public (i.e. player) and private investors to get off the ground. It could perhaps be initiated from either side, the player could indicate they wanted a monumental building and get bids from investors, or an investor could approach the player with a business plan. Ideally, these projects could also fail for reasons, maybe general recession, competition from other sides, private investor failing, or whatever.
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 18:52 |
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I'm still very wary of agent based traffic. It seems that some of the problems with SC2013 were entirely inherent to agents. For instance: How will an agent reroute to avoid heavy traffic? If the road segment doesn't know how much traffic it's getting, you can't really recalculate an A* or Dijkstra array with higher weights to avoid it. You are going to give your agents full knowledge of where they PERMANENTLY live and work, right? And agents won't simply be spawned as tabula rasa from buildings each morning and evening?
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 19:25 |
Iunnrais posted:I'm still very wary of agent based traffic. It seems that some of the problems with SC2013 were entirely inherent to agents. I think using traffic data from the previous simulation iterations would work fine. So the agents would sort-of base their route on how bad traffic was the day before. Perhaps give each agent a preference for shorter versus faster, perhaps also versus more scenic or other factors, so everybody wouldn't just cycle between two different routes every other trip.
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 19:58 |
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Where does that music from the Road to Alpha video come from? It's incredibly relaxing.
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 22:29 |
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Tytan posted:Just wanted to say it's great to see a developer who seems to really "get" what people want from a city builder, and I love that you're taking people's suggestions on board. I'm already planning on a park zone. They will then be generated procedurally. Marking buildings as historic would be a great way to keep procedural buildings that you like. nielsm posted:True. While SimCity 4 (and 3000) do have big, ploppable, monumental buildings, all they do is sit there and suck money while providing a bit of YIMBY effect. They don't actually provide anything to the city, be it homes or jobs. I'll think about I how I could incroporate such a mechanic. Iunnrais posted:I'm still very wary of agent based traffic. It seems that some of the problems with SC2013 were entirely inherent to agents. The road segments already know how many cars there are on them. I'm currently doing a kind of cached, distributed A* where routes are kept for other cars and are invalidated after a while. So the system might not instantly react to changed traffic and update weights, but after a while it will (which is also realistic). Citizens have permanent and unique homes and workplaces, their agents will travel between those. SC13's traffic simulation is actually more of a liquid simulation where homes are sources and workplaces are drains, in the evening the other way around. I will do none of that. Ofaloaf posted:Where does that music from the Road to Alpha video come from? It's incredibly relaxing. It's "River Meditation" by audionautix.com
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 00:27 |
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Between this and Enemy Starfighter it's like all of my childhood dreams are coming true. Anyway, in terms of density management have you considered letting demand determine density then allowing the player to paint height limitations? It might be a solution, and is kind of like an actual city. Or maybe controlling it in the negative with height allowances would be more fun?
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 02:52 |
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Onion Knight posted:Anyway, in terms of density management have you considered letting demand determine density then allowing the player to paint height limitations? This is exactly how density will work. Based on demand and a tool to paint max. height.
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 13:56 |
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I'm glad you posted this thread - I've been subscribed to your newsletter since you announced the game, and I can't get enough! Even though good ones are few and far between, I am crazy about city builders of any sort, and it's been a long time since there's been anything that tries to take on the macro scope the SimCity games usually have. There've been good micromanagement city builders (the Anno games, Tropico 3/4, and Banished) but I think SimCity 4 is still the last large-scale city builder that was any good. I know a million people have told you this already, but I can't wait to buy your game! e: Also, I love the laid back guitar in your devlog videos. Sumac fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Apr 12, 2014 |
# ? Apr 12, 2014 15:18 |
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So if we donate at least $6 on your site, we can show our support now, and will get access to the Alpha when it's available? If SimCity 2013 taught me anything, it's that I want to preorder a different city builder game.
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 21:51 |
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Yes, if you donate via PayPal, because then I have your email address and can send you the alpha when it's ready. I also don't like preorders, that's why I only offer this indirect way and don't market it as a preorder.
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 22:19 |
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Great to see this thread. I've been following the blog for a fortnight now and have been enjoying the updates.
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# ? Apr 13, 2014 17:23 |
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anselm_eickhoff posted:Hmm I don't think it would be feasible to collect all that information for each street section all the time, but you could start a query and get the exact result with maybe even more info after 1 ingame day. Just want to say I wish you lots of luck! And also will there be terraced housing in the game? I'd love to create a city like Copenhagen or London!
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# ? Apr 14, 2014 22:28 |
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New update, kind of: The Road to Alpha, Week 6 - Intermezzo & Community Activity (Sri.Theo: Yes!)
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 19:41 |
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anselm_eickhoff posted:I'm already planning on a park zone. They will then be generated procedurally. This got me really excited for some reason. I'm looking forward to seeing how the agriculture zoning works too. I'd like to make a nice rural town.
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:15 |
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Welp, I'm tossing in some names then.
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:19 |
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Hey, cool to see you join here and make a thread. I saw your original post on the simcity subreddit announcing you'd be making this and have loosely followed updates to your website. I just want to direct your attention to a thread in Ask/Tell here about traffic engineering, it is long so skip or flixk through it but I think it could be a bit of inspiration or a place to ask actual traffic engineers a few questions (of course your making a game and some stuff in the thread would be too realistic and perhaps not fun to do) http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3177805&pagenumber=265&perpage=40
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:45 |
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Awesome thanks, I will use it for reference and if it is still active maybe ask something myself.
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 21:05 |
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Just wondering how you'll set the game up, being from Germany you'll probably call trams Trams or Light Rail and (hopefully) not streetcars, but will there be an option to have left hand drive cities or roundabouts or even bikelanes as a road/vehicle type?pistolshit posted:I notice you say in the FAQ that roads will be customizable. Can you go into any more detail on what you mean? It would be really cool if you could essentially build a road out of a kit of parts either in plan view or as a cross section. Something like the below image. Where you could maybe drag and drop things like drive lanes, bike lanes, medians, Right-of-way(to allow for future expansion), planting strips, side walks, etc. And then make them wider or narrower based on your preference. Certain aspects of the road could then inform what kind of buildings pop up. Wide lanes and no side walk creates out-lot style commercial, narrower lanes with a bike lane and a wide sidewalk would create something akin to new urbanism or traditional development, etc. You might like this website then, allows you to customise a cross-section of a street, add lanes, bike paths, tram tracks and dividers and street furniture. http://streetmix.net/-/124828 http://blog.streetmix.net/
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# ? Apr 16, 2014 10:18 |
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drunkill posted:Just wondering how you'll set the game up, being from Germany you'll probably call trams Trams or Light Rail and (hopefully) not streetcars, but will there be an option to have left hand drive cities or roundabouts or even bikelanes as a road/vehicle type? There will be all three: there's an option to switch to left hand driving, you will be able to build roundabouts and there will be bike lanes. Streetmix has a nice interface, but I will do it differently. You'll see when I get around to it.
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# ? Apr 17, 2014 00:48 |
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anselm_eickhoff posted:Yes, if you donate via PayPal, because then I have your email address and can send you the alpha when it's ready. I did this, plus threw in a little extra as a tip. Really loving the way this is shaping up.
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# ? Apr 17, 2014 17:42 |
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Just wanted to stop by and say good luck! I have many fond memories of the SimCity series, and while SC4 is still theoretically usable I find I don't have the patience to baby it along these days. I've enjoyed some other vaguely similar sim games in the meantime, like Cities in Motion and Anno 2070, but it doesn't seem like anyone's come out with a really good integrated, full-scale city simulator yet. So, looking forward to seeing how this turns out! I like a lot of your ideas and it seems like there's a lot of potential here.
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# ? Apr 22, 2014 21:13 |
Our hopes and dreams are with you Anselm, I salute you.
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# ? Apr 22, 2014 21:41 |
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drunkill posted:Just wondering how you'll set the game up, being from Germany you'll probably call trams Trams or Light Rail and (hopefully) not streetcars, but will there be an option to have left hand drive cities or roundabouts or even bikelanes as a road/vehicle type?
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# ? Apr 22, 2014 22:01 |
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New Update! The Road to Alpha, Week 7 - First Signs of Gameplay Detected
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 01:26 |
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This looks so promising and again, it's nice to see a developer so involved with the community. Made a small donation to show my support.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 01:46 |
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Dude. This looks fantastic.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 01:47 |
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IceLicker posted:This looks so promising and again, it's nice to see a developer so involved with the community. Made a small donation to show my support. Much appreciated! Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 01:58 |
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Combining statistical simulation with agents sounds like a fantastic idea. It'll make up for the wonkiness of pure-agent based simulation while combating the tendency of statistical simulations to become static.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 02:14 |
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I'm really liking what you've shown so far. And the size. I like the size.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 04:00 |
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Nice update. In the video you touched on the demands caused by neighbouring cities, any idea how that will work in the future? Will they require a physical connection at some point (highways, ports etc)?
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 04:00 |
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Yay competent city building! I'm looking forward to this and good luck to you with it!
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 08:45 |
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I'm still skeptical of agent based simulation for large scale simulations like a city, but... I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Right now, you have things being provided by "neighboring cities". Are you going to offer region based play like SC4, or will all neighbors be implied, as in SC2k? I'd prefer a hybrid of the two... a "SimNation/SimWorld" outside your region, and then a region that is all your own. I'm assuming that you are intending to require neighboring connections, and that neighbors won't be able to just magically supply you with food/resources/etc?
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 15:14 |
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Jamfrost posted:I'm really liking what you've shown so far. And the size. I like the size. That's what she said. Iunnrais posted:I'm still skeptical of agent based simulation for large scale simulations like a city, but... I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Right now, neighboring cities are abstract and invisible, but they will require connections. Additionally there will be regional demand that is unlocked by train stations/highways and global demand that is unlocked by air or seaports. Later on there might be the ability to connect multiple player-cities together.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 18:25 |
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Question about Agent/Statistical interaction. Grocery Stores, right now, grow based on the statistical availability of food. What happens when there exists, according to the statistical model, a vast abundance of food... farms as far as the eye can see... but due to major traffic issues, only a tiny fraction of that food can actually reach your downtown area. Abandonment? What would prevent other supermarkets from trying to pop up based on the statistics? Will there be a sea of abandoned supermarkets downtown?
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 18:39 |
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Iunnrais posted:Question about Agent/Statistical interaction.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 18:43 |
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Additionally to the global demand, there will be something that models very local demand (could just be "heatmaps" or something similar). So even if there is a global demand for food sales, vendors won't move in if there is no place that is easily/quickly reachable by customers.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 18:44 |
Looking forward to this game a lot. Looking awesome so far. I assume electricity and water are given, but do you have any plans in terms of government services/quality of life stuff like hospitals, education, parks, police etc.?
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 19:17 |
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When your doing videos in the future can you record the game while in a small resolution? Or atleast when your pointing fine UI details. Because in your latest video I had to switch it to HD resolution and the fullscreen for me to be able to easily read the RCI graphs.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 19:37 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 22:37 |
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Please include some kind of pedestrian infrastructure too! Most cities in the world have large pedestrian downtowns, the typical Simcity model where everything is next to a big road only exists in a few American cities.
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# ? Apr 23, 2014 20:16 |