Success or Bust? With the first screenshots out, do you think Societies is a bust or going to be a success? What interests you a lot? What turns you off?
I dunno. It looks interesting, but I don't know if Tilted Mill will be able to pull it off. The biggest problem I see with it is that each building is going to have to be a mesh. In a city, this would require a lot of meshes--therefore, they'll have to be low poly count. Considering that putting things in 3D already has negative effects on graphics, having low poly meshes on top of that doesn't sound too appealing.
You may be on to something Ok, I'm on track now. I'm an avid gamer and have a comp sci background in realworld urban related computer modeling. (But this is my first post! Hopefully you'll dig it) JohnEz you're on to something there. 3d is alot more restrictive when you're dealing with RTS or non-FPS. Here's the deal. It's because of the state of the tech. We have processors of capable of running simulations that can model a city down to the last detail, every citzen, all of the infrastructure. population tracking, supply/demand, traffic patterns etc. BUT executing those demands on the CPU can actually be less of a challenge for developers than getting the computers of today to DRAW it. When faking a city (as all of these games do), we basically have a *******ized model of an actual city, the cpu can push through many more calculations (when it comes to modeling a city's behavior) than a video card can draw, it's that simple. Here's what I mean, moving cars about on highway from point A to point b no big deal. Modeling physics to have them take corners stop at intersections get stuck in traffic no big deal (unless there are hundreds). Pushing a couple of million verts through the video card, it's a bigger deal. Especially when you consider that to be one sliver of what is happening on screen. Yes you can push milions of verts through video cards of today without much trouble, but also consider the textures and the post post effects as well. 256 meg only goes so far. 3D with no first person, non one view point (free camera) games is still in it's infancy it will only get better. People may expect more than can actually be given because of the society on demand that we live in and to a large extent the marriage of cinema and gaming as a blanket form of entertainment for the masses. (more on that later) All games lie to us. But they lie in different ways. Is a locked view of a city with no perspective or cast shadows more real than a toally 3d environment...depends...on the user and what they expect/perceive. Or, in turn, are willing to accept. The root question is; Will people accept being deceived (divergent from reality) by a 3D game when they are already so comfortable being deceived by a 2d game. It's all a matter of perception. I hope to post more thoughts, but I may space out and forget.
A very well-thought out post that raises excellent points. They're all things to be considered--I hope Tilted Mill has sufficiently done their homework in this case. Well, we'll see. Only a few months to go, verdad?
