tr0ub1e
12-16-2007, 03:29 AM
CitiesUnlimited Conceptual (CUC) articles
Your votes are needed. Let Monte Cristo know what the fans want in CitiesUnlimited!
www.cuplanet.com (http://www.cuplanet.com)
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
CitiesUnlimited Conceptual (CUC) articles are essentially a collection of documents which collaborate the ideas that have been floating around the existing SimCity fansite communities since the release of SimCity 4, for the next generations of city-building simulators. A way of extracting, bringing together, sorting and organising all the little hidden golden nuggets of information nestled away in the suggestions forums, while the original discussion threads at the forums become more chaotic.
These communities of once-loyal SimCity fans appear to have been abandoned by Electronic Arts, disillusioned by the change of direction that has been taken with SimCity: Societies, while Monte Cristo has made great attempts to engage intimately with the city-building simulator fans with the intention to incorporate what we really want into such a game.
Consider these articles to be similar to a fully-structured encyclopaedia of the ideas from various city-building simulator fansite communities for the next great city-building simulation game: CitiesUnlimited! Ultimately, this is all about how Monte Cristo can improve upon what is currently the best city-building simulator, SimCity 4, by expanding upon the realism and the dynamics, giving a greater gaming experience to all players.
Within these forums, you will find a collection of articles created for the sole purpose of making sense and order out of what the SimCity fans abandoned by EA would actually want from CitiesUnlimited, collectively.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
A little background information...
A long time back, and way before SimCity: Societies was announced, I thought it would be a good idea for a leading SimCity fansite to have articles on their main website detailing suggestions for future game releases which are still in development. The articles would be based only on the most popular and plausible suggestions, perhaps decided by polls. There would be a selection of explanatory but concise well-written articles, covering the entire scope of any particular idea or suggestion that the fans would like to see included in the game. Links to the articles can then be added to the website’s main pages, ranked in order of popularity.
The hope would be that some Maxoids would surely want to visit the site to gain the feedback and ideas from the communities of fans. Having detailed but straight-to-the-point articles about ideas for the upcoming new game releases, with popularity ranking, would be invaluable for a game developer’s research into what the fans really want from their games. It would portray a much clearer picture, as opposed to the developers looking through hundreds upon hundreds of threads with countless posts in the suggestion forums at fansites of the game.
I later realised that it would be better to set up my own site for this, with regards to SimCity 5. I felt that maximum publicity was needed, which meant there had to be a close relationship with all SimCity fansites, while my site stood independently and non-integral to any one fansite.
The idea was that with any luck, high-traffic from SimCity fansites, and lots of participation in the voting, Maxis would not be able to ignore this site and would take note of what was happening. Ultimately, it would have benefited them just as much as we, the fans, would benefit if they managed to incorporate what the fans actually wanted into SimCity 5.
Since that time, SimCity: Societies was announced and destroyed the ambitions of the website.
The website was already under development, but has since been abandoned not only due to fact that EA appear to have abandoned what SimCity used to stand for, but also because of technical problems with the site's development.
I have now decided to focus the attention on Monte Cristo and CitiesUnlimited as I feel they have already proven as a company that they are extremely interested in interacting with the fans, to find what we want, and incorporate those ideas into the game - whereas Electronic Arts appear more interested in dumbing-down SimCity and making the quick buck. EA have well and truly dropped the city-building simulator ball, and Monte Cristo have most certainly picked it back up!
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
REGISTER AT CUPLANET.COM & VOTE TODAY!
Article Links:
The Bigger Picture
CitiesUnlimited World (aka 'Planetary Idea') (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11581/catid,6/lang,en/#11581) - Expanding the scope of city-building beyond SimCity 4's "regions". Connecting regions together into nations on an entire planet.
Multiplayer & Online Play (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11586/catid,6/lang,en/#11586) - Developing entire regions of your own, alongside human or AI players developing their own. All put together making up the world at large.
Improving Regional Integration (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11596/catid,6/lang,en/#11596) - Improving the way different cities and municipalities interact with eachother, and how they affect their surrounding areas or entire region.
Scale & Proportion (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11967/catid,6/lang,en/#11967) - Adjusting the sizes and proportions of Buildings and Lots, the distance of commutes, and the coverage of facilities; to bring the scale of a city-building game closer to reality.
Difficulty / Complexity Level (aka 'Standard and Advanced Options') (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,6/id,12327/lang,en/#12327) - Introducing a 'complexity' setting, because city-building games are enjoyed on a number of different levels by different types of individual players. There should be a better option than just having difficulty settings, so that the game can be enjoyed at both a complex, and simplified level.
Provincial, City & Neighbourhood Borders (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12330/catid,6/lang,en/#12330) - Removing the restriction to "square" municipalities akin to cities in SimCity 4, and instead allowing the player to draw them as any shape. Adding the additional abilities to mark out town/city borders, which can in turn be divided into neighbourhoods; and to mark out and name notable features in our cities.
Geology & Natural World
Climate & Weather (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12466/catid,6/lang,en/#12466) - Having an optional setting to include visual climate and weather in the game, and the option to include their positive and negative effects on your cities.
Seasons (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,6/id,12718/lang,en/#12718) - As an extension to bringing climate and weather into the game, the seasonal effects throughout the year should also be incorporated.
Buildings & Landscaping
Buildings & Architecture Style Tilesets (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,7/id,12720/lang,en/#12720) - More varieties of building architecture style for all types of buildings and allowing the player control over which styles are developed.
More Zoning Options & Control (aka 'Quasi-Zoning') / Local Government's 'Planning Department' (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12795/catid,7/lang,en/#12795) - Giving the player more control over what attributes buildings must have to be permitted development within a zone (instead of being restricted to the vague choices from SimCity: residential / commercial / industrial and low-density / med-density / high-density).
Mixed-Purpose Zoning and Lots/Buildings (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,13947/catid,7/lang,en/#13947) - Allowing our zones and buildings to have mixed-uses between different types of business; and also the mixed-use of residential and business within the same buildings.
Transportation Networks
Interchange Builder/Editor for Roads & Highways (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,9/id,13948/lang,en/#13948) - Providing an in-game Interchange Editor where we can build and adjust our own interchanges using a collection of pieces which snap together in any way the player desires. The saved interchanges can then be plopped anywhere in our cities.
Industry & Trade
Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supplies (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,0/func,view/catid,7/id,14642/lang,en/#14642) - Incorporating a background simulation for local food supplies affected by the amount of farming and fishing, which will in-turn dramatically affect residential demand and desirability.
User-Interface, Data Views & Tools
Trade Data/Information for Industry & Business (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,7/id,14677/lang,en/#14677) - Resurrecting the Industry & Trade bar chart from SimCity 2000 allowing changes to tax rates on individual industries; and in addition showing showing the levels of trade & demand in different industry sectors and of different materials, the workforce sizes, and the levels of importing/exporting.
Your votes are needed. Let Monte Cristo know what the fans want in CitiesUnlimited!
www.cuplanet.com (http://www.cuplanet.com)
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
CitiesUnlimited Conceptual (CUC) articles are essentially a collection of documents which collaborate the ideas that have been floating around the existing SimCity fansite communities since the release of SimCity 4, for the next generations of city-building simulators. A way of extracting, bringing together, sorting and organising all the little hidden golden nuggets of information nestled away in the suggestions forums, while the original discussion threads at the forums become more chaotic.
These communities of once-loyal SimCity fans appear to have been abandoned by Electronic Arts, disillusioned by the change of direction that has been taken with SimCity: Societies, while Monte Cristo has made great attempts to engage intimately with the city-building simulator fans with the intention to incorporate what we really want into such a game.
Consider these articles to be similar to a fully-structured encyclopaedia of the ideas from various city-building simulator fansite communities for the next great city-building simulation game: CitiesUnlimited! Ultimately, this is all about how Monte Cristo can improve upon what is currently the best city-building simulator, SimCity 4, by expanding upon the realism and the dynamics, giving a greater gaming experience to all players.
Within these forums, you will find a collection of articles created for the sole purpose of making sense and order out of what the SimCity fans abandoned by EA would actually want from CitiesUnlimited, collectively.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
A little background information...
A long time back, and way before SimCity: Societies was announced, I thought it would be a good idea for a leading SimCity fansite to have articles on their main website detailing suggestions for future game releases which are still in development. The articles would be based only on the most popular and plausible suggestions, perhaps decided by polls. There would be a selection of explanatory but concise well-written articles, covering the entire scope of any particular idea or suggestion that the fans would like to see included in the game. Links to the articles can then be added to the website’s main pages, ranked in order of popularity.
The hope would be that some Maxoids would surely want to visit the site to gain the feedback and ideas from the communities of fans. Having detailed but straight-to-the-point articles about ideas for the upcoming new game releases, with popularity ranking, would be invaluable for a game developer’s research into what the fans really want from their games. It would portray a much clearer picture, as opposed to the developers looking through hundreds upon hundreds of threads with countless posts in the suggestion forums at fansites of the game.
I later realised that it would be better to set up my own site for this, with regards to SimCity 5. I felt that maximum publicity was needed, which meant there had to be a close relationship with all SimCity fansites, while my site stood independently and non-integral to any one fansite.
The idea was that with any luck, high-traffic from SimCity fansites, and lots of participation in the voting, Maxis would not be able to ignore this site and would take note of what was happening. Ultimately, it would have benefited them just as much as we, the fans, would benefit if they managed to incorporate what the fans actually wanted into SimCity 5.
Since that time, SimCity: Societies was announced and destroyed the ambitions of the website.
The website was already under development, but has since been abandoned not only due to fact that EA appear to have abandoned what SimCity used to stand for, but also because of technical problems with the site's development.
I have now decided to focus the attention on Monte Cristo and CitiesUnlimited as I feel they have already proven as a company that they are extremely interested in interacting with the fans, to find what we want, and incorporate those ideas into the game - whereas Electronic Arts appear more interested in dumbing-down SimCity and making the quick buck. EA have well and truly dropped the city-building simulator ball, and Monte Cristo have most certainly picked it back up!
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
REGISTER AT CUPLANET.COM & VOTE TODAY!
Article Links:
The Bigger Picture
CitiesUnlimited World (aka 'Planetary Idea') (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11581/catid,6/lang,en/#11581) - Expanding the scope of city-building beyond SimCity 4's "regions". Connecting regions together into nations on an entire planet.
Multiplayer & Online Play (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11586/catid,6/lang,en/#11586) - Developing entire regions of your own, alongside human or AI players developing their own. All put together making up the world at large.
Improving Regional Integration (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11596/catid,6/lang,en/#11596) - Improving the way different cities and municipalities interact with eachother, and how they affect their surrounding areas or entire region.
Scale & Proportion (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,11967/catid,6/lang,en/#11967) - Adjusting the sizes and proportions of Buildings and Lots, the distance of commutes, and the coverage of facilities; to bring the scale of a city-building game closer to reality.
Difficulty / Complexity Level (aka 'Standard and Advanced Options') (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,6/id,12327/lang,en/#12327) - Introducing a 'complexity' setting, because city-building games are enjoyed on a number of different levels by different types of individual players. There should be a better option than just having difficulty settings, so that the game can be enjoyed at both a complex, and simplified level.
Provincial, City & Neighbourhood Borders (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12330/catid,6/lang,en/#12330) - Removing the restriction to "square" municipalities akin to cities in SimCity 4, and instead allowing the player to draw them as any shape. Adding the additional abilities to mark out town/city borders, which can in turn be divided into neighbourhoods; and to mark out and name notable features in our cities.
Geology & Natural World
Climate & Weather (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12466/catid,6/lang,en/#12466) - Having an optional setting to include visual climate and weather in the game, and the option to include their positive and negative effects on your cities.
Seasons (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,6/id,12718/lang,en/#12718) - As an extension to bringing climate and weather into the game, the seasonal effects throughout the year should also be incorporated.
Buildings & Landscaping
Buildings & Architecture Style Tilesets (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,7/id,12720/lang,en/#12720) - More varieties of building architecture style for all types of buildings and allowing the player control over which styles are developed.
More Zoning Options & Control (aka 'Quasi-Zoning') / Local Government's 'Planning Department' (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,12795/catid,7/lang,en/#12795) - Giving the player more control over what attributes buildings must have to be permitted development within a zone (instead of being restricted to the vague choices from SimCity: residential / commercial / industrial and low-density / med-density / high-density).
Mixed-Purpose Zoning and Lots/Buildings (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/id,13947/catid,7/lang,en/#13947) - Allowing our zones and buildings to have mixed-uses between different types of business; and also the mixed-use of residential and business within the same buildings.
Transportation Networks
Interchange Builder/Editor for Roads & Highways (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,9/id,13948/lang,en/#13948) - Providing an in-game Interchange Editor where we can build and adjust our own interchanges using a collection of pieces which snap together in any way the player desires. The saved interchanges can then be plopped anywhere in our cities.
Industry & Trade
Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supplies (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,0/func,view/catid,7/id,14642/lang,en/#14642) - Incorporating a background simulation for local food supplies affected by the amount of farming and fishing, which will in-turn dramatically affect residential demand and desirability.
User-Interface, Data Views & Tools
Trade Data/Information for Industry & Business (http://www.cuplanet.com/index.php?/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,6/func,view/catid,7/id,14677/lang,en/#14677) - Resurrecting the Industry & Trade bar chart from SimCity 2000 allowing changes to tax rates on individual industries; and in addition showing showing the levels of trade & demand in different industry sectors and of different materials, the workforce sizes, and the levels of importing/exporting.