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Archived from groups: alt.games.simcity (More info?)
I had time tonight to really play the game. Maybe others have already
mentioned this, but here are my main irritations:
In my line of work, I spend a lot of time on the streets of a city and I
know how they're laid out, and I know how traffic moves through them.
The bigger, wider and smoother the street, and the higher the speed
limit, the more people travel on them. You see more traffic on
four-lane avenues, and less traffic on side residential streets. That's
not how it works in SimCity 4.
In SimCity 4, the sims seem to take the shortest path between to points,
not the fastest path between two points. Streets are utterly useless in
this game. You might as well completely ignore the streets and just use
roads right from the start because you're going to end up converting all
your streets to roads, anyway.
Get this: From west to east is an avenue. At Block A, there's a nice,
wide avenue with smooth-flowing traffic. Block B is a street. Block C
is a road. Block D is a street. Block E is a street. Block F is an
avenue. Now you'd think that someone coming from three blocks south of
West2East Avenue, and one block east of Block A would go directly to
Block A Avenue, then go north three blocks and make either a left or
right turn. Not so. SimRetard will actually drive north on a Street,
going through all the stupid stop signs, and then turn left or right on
West2East Avenue. How dumb is that? He could have saved several
minutes by doing what normal people do -- take the fastest route to the
better road and go with it.
Also... what's up with the amount of traffic going on in this game? My
gosh, it's like rush hour all day long on residential streets. I know
time is compressed, but real residential streets just don't have traffic
like this. You just don't see cars lined up in rows of ten waiting to
be the next to go. But you see that all the time in SimCity. Why are
people cruising the streets like that in the middle of a workday?
Well, we certainly can't play the game in realtime or we'd be bored to
death. Can you imagine actually having to play the game for a whole
month to get an extra couple hundred dollars to get a few more squares
of crucial road construction done? If time compression is the reason
for Hellacious traffic on residential streets, then when we're in super
turbo mode, maybe a single workday could pass in the time of ten years,
but we get the funding of ten years, and we see time pass as if only a
day has gone by in that ten years. We see traffic come out in the
mornings, spike at lunch as everybody rushes to Chick-Fil-A, die down a
little, then peak at the 5-o-clock rush hour. A bunch of people go
home, then they come back out and we see traffic increase in light and
medium commercial areas where people go to have a little nightlife. It
would be nice if we could zone for different types of commercial space
-- like offices, shopping, restaurants, etc..., but maybe that'll be out
in SC7.
Now... another irritating thing is the way the streets are laid out
automagically for me. OKay, that wouldn't be so bad if the generated
streets actually made sense.
Again, I work in the streets. Houses are usually numbered even on one
side, odd on the other. 1101, 1103, 1105, 1107, 1109, 1111, 1113. In
SimCity4, you'll probably never see a house with a number higher than
1113. In real life, you'll see many houses numbered 1135. I think the
traffic on SC4 is WAY too dense to be realistic, and far too many
streets and roads are needed. This game should function with 1/3 the
number of streets that are currently "required" lest you want to be
plagued with unrealistic traffic problems.
The ONLY places I've ever seen streets that close together is in the
oldest part of town. Newer parts of town have more space between
intersections running, say, north and south, while still being spaced
somewhat close together running east and west. Still newer subdivisions
have streets that curve all around with little cul-de-sacs. Come to
think of it, that might be a cool thing to have in a future version of
SimCity... the ability to lay out streets using node editing tools. You
pick out that you want a residential street with single family homes.
You use node editing tools to adjust the curves the way you want them.
Your lots will be laid out on the sides of the street so you can tell
when the lots are going to overlap with the lots of another street
(they'll turn red when there's a problem) and once you have it the way
you like it, just click the "set" button and watch the people start
building the homes and moving in.
Something like that might be a few versions away, but I think it'll come
eventually. I'm actually surprised that we still see "blocky edges"
when we build diagonal streets.
Oh, and personally I'd like to see a version that gives me a little more
control over what gets built where. Just zoning commercial isn't
detailed enough. I'd like to zone for shopping, restaurants,
entertainment. Industry I'd like to zone for factories, petroleum,
textiles, transportation, etc.... ANd for residential, I'd like to zone
apartments, trailer parks, small homes, medium homes, large homes.
Maybe create neighborhoods with specific rules like we have today in the
HOA. Such rules usually keep property values high.
IMHO,
Damaeus
I had time tonight to really play the game. Maybe others have already
mentioned this, but here are my main irritations:
In my line of work, I spend a lot of time on the streets of a city and I
know how they're laid out, and I know how traffic moves through them.
The bigger, wider and smoother the street, and the higher the speed
limit, the more people travel on them. You see more traffic on
four-lane avenues, and less traffic on side residential streets. That's
not how it works in SimCity 4.
In SimCity 4, the sims seem to take the shortest path between to points,
not the fastest path between two points. Streets are utterly useless in
this game. You might as well completely ignore the streets and just use
roads right from the start because you're going to end up converting all
your streets to roads, anyway.
Get this: From west to east is an avenue. At Block A, there's a nice,
wide avenue with smooth-flowing traffic. Block B is a street. Block C
is a road. Block D is a street. Block E is a street. Block F is an
avenue. Now you'd think that someone coming from three blocks south of
West2East Avenue, and one block east of Block A would go directly to
Block A Avenue, then go north three blocks and make either a left or
right turn. Not so. SimRetard will actually drive north on a Street,
going through all the stupid stop signs, and then turn left or right on
West2East Avenue. How dumb is that? He could have saved several
minutes by doing what normal people do -- take the fastest route to the
better road and go with it.
Also... what's up with the amount of traffic going on in this game? My
gosh, it's like rush hour all day long on residential streets. I know
time is compressed, but real residential streets just don't have traffic
like this. You just don't see cars lined up in rows of ten waiting to
be the next to go. But you see that all the time in SimCity. Why are
people cruising the streets like that in the middle of a workday?
Well, we certainly can't play the game in realtime or we'd be bored to
death. Can you imagine actually having to play the game for a whole
month to get an extra couple hundred dollars to get a few more squares
of crucial road construction done? If time compression is the reason
for Hellacious traffic on residential streets, then when we're in super
turbo mode, maybe a single workday could pass in the time of ten years,
but we get the funding of ten years, and we see time pass as if only a
day has gone by in that ten years. We see traffic come out in the
mornings, spike at lunch as everybody rushes to Chick-Fil-A, die down a
little, then peak at the 5-o-clock rush hour. A bunch of people go
home, then they come back out and we see traffic increase in light and
medium commercial areas where people go to have a little nightlife. It
would be nice if we could zone for different types of commercial space
-- like offices, shopping, restaurants, etc..., but maybe that'll be out
in SC7.
Now... another irritating thing is the way the streets are laid out
automagically for me. OKay, that wouldn't be so bad if the generated
streets actually made sense.
Again, I work in the streets. Houses are usually numbered even on one
side, odd on the other. 1101, 1103, 1105, 1107, 1109, 1111, 1113. In
SimCity4, you'll probably never see a house with a number higher than
1113. In real life, you'll see many houses numbered 1135. I think the
traffic on SC4 is WAY too dense to be realistic, and far too many
streets and roads are needed. This game should function with 1/3 the
number of streets that are currently "required" lest you want to be
plagued with unrealistic traffic problems.
The ONLY places I've ever seen streets that close together is in the
oldest part of town. Newer parts of town have more space between
intersections running, say, north and south, while still being spaced
somewhat close together running east and west. Still newer subdivisions
have streets that curve all around with little cul-de-sacs. Come to
think of it, that might be a cool thing to have in a future version of
SimCity... the ability to lay out streets using node editing tools. You
pick out that you want a residential street with single family homes.
You use node editing tools to adjust the curves the way you want them.
Your lots will be laid out on the sides of the street so you can tell
when the lots are going to overlap with the lots of another street
(they'll turn red when there's a problem) and once you have it the way
you like it, just click the "set" button and watch the people start
building the homes and moving in.
Something like that might be a few versions away, but I think it'll come
eventually. I'm actually surprised that we still see "blocky edges"
when we build diagonal streets.
Oh, and personally I'd like to see a version that gives me a little more
control over what gets built where. Just zoning commercial isn't
detailed enough. I'd like to zone for shopping, restaurants,
entertainment. Industry I'd like to zone for factories, petroleum,
textiles, transportation, etc.... ANd for residential, I'd like to zone
apartments, trailer parks, small homes, medium homes, large homes.
Maybe create neighborhoods with specific rules like we have today in the
HOA. Such rules usually keep property values high.
IMHO,
Damaeus