SimCity 5 Passed Off From Maxis

CVG is reporting that Maxis, makers of the venerable Sim City series, has passed development of Sim City 5 to another company. The new developer, Tilted Mill Entertainment, will be finishing the game. In a departure from the series, it is not going to be a realistic urban simulator. President & Director of Development Chris Beatrice responds to criticism of that choice: "...I do not want to mislead anyone: This SC is not a realistic urban simulation, which I understand, to many, represents the heart of what SC is. No one is blind to that. And if you're just completely turned off, even angered by the mere notion of any game called 'SimCity' that is not a detailed, realistic urban simulator, I absolutely understand that viewpoint, and absolutely respect it. I do want to say, though (with no insult intended to die hard SC fans) that we are absolutely thrilled to be a part of this venerable series, are extremely proud of what we have put together, and make no apologies about what we have managed to create. And while our past experiences (including contributions from many of you) certainly inform all our ongoing efforts, this SC is its own unique creation."

RTFA

[Shihar]

They are not going to call it SimCity 5. They are currently searching for a new name BECAUSE it will be so unlike the other SimCity games. The name they are working for SimCity Societies. What the hell the game is going to be about if it isn't a quasi-realistic city simulator is beyond me, but it looks like they are not going to just notch the counter up one. Think Fallout Tactics instead of Fallout 3. Though, comparing anything to Fallout Tactics is probably not a good way to reassure a fan of the original game.

Re:Strange?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you RTFA, you'll notice it is NOT being called SimCity 5, but "SimCity Societies" because since it is such a radical departure they did not want to increment the number by 1, but rather give it a completely different name.

Re:Sounds like that old sim village concept

[Zironic]

Actually all that was in Sim City 4. It basically simulated the lives of every single little Sim in your city. You could even place up to five Sims for you to keep track of personally.

Re:Just can't win with some people...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Nobody's complaining that they're "trying something new". The complaint is that they are taking an established name (SimCity), and increasing the version number (4 -> 5), which would imply that it is substantially the same game with some improvements

From TFA:

According to an unamed EA exec, the reason behind the Societies name is that it's "completely different from SimCity 4, so they're trying to come up with something different than just calling it SimCity 5."

As you can see they're not just calling it "SimCity 5", they're going out of their way to give it a variation on the name, which is line with the variation on the theme (after all, it's still going to be essentially a community-building simulation of sorts). There's no evil conspiracy here.

Re:Fine by me

[Anonymous Coward]

SimCity 2k and 2kSE are currently available for OS9 as abandonware at the macintosh garden.

http://mac.the-underdogs.info/ [the-underdogs.info]

Great if you have classic emulation installed or don't mind installing it.

Re:Fine by me

[Oopsz]

SC2k runs great in dosbox [sf.net]. and I've run the mac classic version under sheepshaver [beauchesne.info] without any major trouble (enabling sound makes it dog slow).

Re:Fine by me

[mikael_j]

We'll see what they do with it. I doubt I'll buy it. I still the think the game reached perfection with 2k. Heck, if I could buy a copy of SC2K for OS X I'd do it right now.

I've actually been thinking along the lines of what you wrote here. If there were OS X versions of SC2k and TTDLX (perhaps with some of the OpenTTD [openttd.org] improvements) I would buy them in a heartbeat. And if there were also modernized sets of artwork and other little things like that...

/Mikael

Re:RTFA

[SQLGuru]

It sounds like it could be a multi-city management simulator with leanings towards things like Sim Theme Park (or even, for that matter, Civilization) where you have to keep the townspeople happy. Instead of doing the "micro"-management, you do it on a more macro scale. You provide the town the proper resources and the right zonings to build the town.......

If it's not, I bet a game like that would appeal to the same crowd.

Layne

Re:RTFA

[paganizer]

I found another review, that includes a screenshot.
http://www.1up.com.nyud.net:8080/do/newsStory?cId= 3160086 [nyud.net]
I'm getting the impression that this is essentially going to be the game city life, with integration with the sims 2 game.
which actually doesn't sound like a bad game. City Life got boring fast, this might not.

Re:Open Source SimCity-alike?

[p_quarles]

There are two, actually: LinCity and LinCity NG (more graphically advanced). They both need work, so if you have skills, go at it.

Re:Fine by me

[Mattintosh]

I've had no problem with SC4 performance on my PC. It's an Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton) on an A7N8X Deluxe, 1GB DDR333, with Radeon 9600XT (8xAGP), running Win2k. It's not top of the line, but it was when SC4 came out.

The main problem with SC4 is that it's horribly unbalanced. You can't keep anyone happy without spending money that you can't recoup. Occasionally, your town will just stop growing. Period. The only way to get it growing again is to tear the holy living crap out of something, get everyone pissed off at you, then put it all back. This somehow elevates you to "awesome mayor" status, since Sims apparently have no long-term memory. The problem is, it also costs money that would've otherwise bought the hospital or police station that you actually need. So then your city starts growing again, but they're mildly pissed, and you're short on cash. Worst case (and unfortunately, also the most likely case), you'll have a population boom you can't afford. That spells imminent doom and decay for your city, and probably another growth stall. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Swinging the balance the other way is the "region" thing. You build a corner of a town with nothing but residential areas. Go to the town next to it and build nothing but industrial areas and power plants. Connect them with roads, and you get a happy, employed residential population with 0 pollution, and a polluted industrial area with 0 population to complain about it. Pump water in the residential area and pipe it to the industrial area and you can almost get a balanced cash flow in both areas (as well as clean water in a polluted area). Almost. The residential area will soon grow to unstable proportions, and the industrial area will soon be swimming in cash you can't transfer to the residential area that needs it. The water payments won't make it possible, either, so you're pretty much screwed at this point. I'd love SC4 if money didn't become such a limiting issue so soon.

And that's only made worse by the way city services shut down (teachers/doctors strike) when they're underfunded or overloaded. If you could just tell the citizens to make do with poor services, that'd be one thing. But if you try, the services shut down completely and everybody gets pissed. Yet another stupid balance issue.

Argh! I wish they'd just fix the old one. I'd even pay for a SimCity 4 v2.0 if they'd just fix it! Don't wow me with graphics or new gimmicks! Just make the already good game better! ARGH!!!

Oh well...

[Cctoide]

Sigh. I wasn't keeping my hopes up for SC5 since they'd already stated they might "dumb it down" as it had become "too complex". Personally, I'd like even more complexity - I realize some people will disagree, but they could at least have a "simple" and an "advanced" mode. Now with this "Societies" crap I'm afraid the franchise's gone into the trashcan.

I just wish Maxis would at least release a patch for SC4 to make the hardware renderer work with current-generation cards. I've got a really great gaming box but I can't use it for SC4 because the hardware renderer craps out lines and dithered textures on my 7950GT.

Re:RTFA

[strstrep]

Remember Streets of Simcity?

Horrible game, horribly buggy, great music.