Small SimCity Updates Tells Us There's a Bigger Picture in Store for All
posted Saturday Mar 31, 2012 by Nicholas DiMeo
As promised, I bring an important, albeit small update from Maxis and EA regarding their upcoming SimCity title that was announced at GDC a few weeks ago.
SimCity's Facebook was completely redone this week in-line with their Timeline transition and we got to see a new cover photo and a few new status updates. More importantly, Ocean Quigley, SimCity's Creative Director, posted on the fan page late Friday afternoon a message to all fans about how the cities in the new SimCity game will interact and connect with each other. Everything looks to be pointing to another game that will require an active Internet connection to play and keep the game updated.
Of course, users will always be up in arms over a change, and you can read about that on their fan page. However, we have the message and a new screenshot from the game after the break.
Quigley wrote,
SimCity - The Connection Between You and the World
Real cities don't live in bubbles, real cities are connected to each other.
People and resources flow from city to city in regional economies. Neighboring cities directly affect each other, and through markets, their actions affect other cities across the world.
Because cities are connected, they specialize and differentiate. That's possible because they're all playing roles in a larger economy. Cities look different because they make a living doing different things. Clusters of cities working together do things that no city can do in isolation.
From the beginning, we built this SimCity to deal with this stuff realistically. We're not just simulating the internal mechanics of cities, we're simulating how cities relate to each other, to resource markets and to the natural world around them.
These are things that we have to do if we're going to model real cities with integrity.
The larger environment that cities live in, and the global markets that they are participating in are all being simulated on Maxis' servers. We're running the underlying simulations that enable cities to transform their regions, to interact with each other, and to move markets. We're tracking the accomplishments of cities and their effect on each other and the larger world.
This is true whether you're playing by yourself, or if you've invited a bunch of friends to come and play with you. Your impact on the larger world matters, and the larger world in turn influences your city. This will be visible in lots of different ways, from changing commodity prices, to leaderboards to global and regional opportunities.
Here's what this means in practice - Your cities won't all look the same, they'll take on specific roles, and it's just awesome to create a region with your friends. It's magical to see Sims come from their city to yours. It's fun to make stuff and send it to a friend when they need it.
When you see the connection between your city and the larger world, your city is more real than it's ever been before.
That's why it's an online game. We'll be showing you more of this at this year's E3 Expo in June.
-Ocean Quigley {Sim City Creative Director}
As you can see, we now have a glimpse of what's to come in the next iteration of the game. Connected cities, more realistic city development, a feeling that your doing is part of something bigger and finally, a real uniqueness to each and everything you create.
I am very excited to see what will be shown at E3 and I will continue to keep everyone updated. For now, enjoy a new screenshot that Ocean gifted to us.
Image courtesy of SimCity official fan page.
