I love this game so much. One of the reasons I started to make a city builder* is because I don't like where the genre is going. The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia, or "food for imagination" that was a core element since the first SimCity. As a matter of fact, Will Wright used to say that the real simulation runs in the player's minds (or something like that). Sure, there's something great about Cities Skylines that (at least with very powerful hardware) can look and feel like reality. But at the same time the game engine, in order to make this photorealism of terrain elevations with infinite possible shapes of infrastructure, is so complex that the actual simulation is sloppy, and feels to me like a big downgrade from SC3000. Traffic, economics, zoning, crime, pollution. are so much practical to simulate (both in the computer, and in our mind models) in this classic isometric style. * https://microlandia.city edit: spelling
痛点为 AI 基于上游原始证据的初步提炼;未包含额外中国市场检索。
用户的核心痛点在于现代城市建造游戏过度追求写实画质,导致游戏引擎过于复杂,实际模拟效果反而倒退。一位用户(phaser)指出,现代游戏如《城市:天际线》为了支持逼真的地形和无限形状的基础设施,引擎变得极其复杂,使得交通、经济、犯罪等核心模拟变得“马虎”(sloppy),相比《模拟城市3000》是“大降级”(big downgrade)。这导致玩家无法获得像经典等距风格那样既在计算机中又在玩家心智模型中高效运行的模拟体验。用户原本期望的是富有想象力的城市模拟,但现代游戏却因技术负担牺牲了模拟深度和可玩性,造成了游戏体验的下降和挫败感。
External article summary
SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity. Its only problem is that it doesn
External article source
- Article title
- Thranpages :: How Did I Do :: SimCity 3k in 4k
- Host
- www.thran.uk
Selected HN comments
This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can build. As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy and warm. Ditto its music and art. Unfortunately for SC4, they proceeded to make all the advisors 3D-rendered Sims. For SC2K, well: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/simcity-advisors/4/ (that was the least offensive page to link; for the canonical experience start at page 1)
SC3K’s art was not “crafted pixel by pixel.” It was rendered from 3DS Max. Maxis released a version of G-Max called the Building Architect Tool that included a template with the same lighting rig that they used for the in-game assets. This tool rendered and exported the various zoom levels and orientations.
> SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity I disagree! SimCity 2K FTW. :) Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac. I'd love a retro-futuristic reboot.
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