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Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

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Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#71

Post by teamonkey »

dm2 wrote: post #63
hdevalence wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does "ranking" work for a sandbox game? The concept wakes no sense. Simcity doesn't have kill/death ratios or something. You can't have a global leaderboard, because there's no winning. It's not clear that "cheating" is even a problem. If you want to play online with your friends with unlimited money, go ahead! Why the hell not?

Maybe they are trying to teach kids things like debt to income , budget management, loan basics, and concepts like "there is no redo in real life" rather than basing everything on a kill/death ratio. You can easily develop a way to rank how productive, profitable, clean, and happy cities in a game like SimCity are. If you weigh these factors and provide a number then you have a ranking. Maybe global leaderboard was a…

> "there is no redo in real life"

Psychologically speaking, failure is not a good teaching tool. Learning is much more effective through experimentation and success.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#72

Post by steveklabnik »

hdevalence wrote: post #58
dm2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing. Spreading around saved game files and using tools to mess with the games memory to cheat is something that has prevented a true Ranking system and online play in almost all games. These server-side requirements would mean that the $ is stored server side and it will be harder to cheat. It was pretty much either have always on connectivity or require punkbuster and disable many online…

How does "ranking" work for a sandbox game? The concept wakes no sense. Simcity doesn't have kill/death ratios or something. You can't have a global leaderboard, because there's no winning. It's not clear that "cheating" is even a problem. If you want to play online with your friends with unlimited money, go ahead! Why the hell not?

I agree with your sentiment, but one approach to 'winning' SimCity: http://www.vice.com/read/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-...

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#73

Post by derefr »

streptomycin wrote: post #70
Evbn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's completely the opposite of why games exist. If I didn't want a chance at forgiveness, I would just play real life.

Different games exist for different purposes. Not every game allows infinite saves and redos.

> Not every game allows infinite saves and redos.

I would argue that every single-player game is forced to allow infinite saves and redos, by the fact that virtualization with memory snapshotting exists. (For a networked game like this one, you must just first reimplement a "private server" for the client to talk to, and then run that within the same virtualized container, so that a snapshot tracks their combined state.)

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#74

Post by dm2 »

Evbn wrote: post #68
dm2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are trying to teach kids things like debt to income , budget management, loan basics, and concepts like "there is no redo in real life" rather than basing everything on a kill/death ratio. You can easily develop a way to rank how productive, profitable, clean, and happy cities in a game like SimCity are. If you weigh these factors and provide a number then you have a ranking. Maybe global leaderboard was a…

That's completely the opposite of why games exist. If I didn't want a chance at forgiveness, I would just play real life.

You would be the mayor/god of multiple cities? How?

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#75

Post by jlgreco »

nicksergeant wrote: post #67
jlgreco wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so what happens if I build lots of nuclear plants then let them all melt down? Does that affect neighboring cities that other people are actually playing?

I believe it is designed to affect neighboring cities, yes. And this is basically what happens in real life... and then war.

Any idea how they are going to handle griefers then? I can't imagine they are just going to ban people who habitually don't take care of nuclear plants placed on the map's edge.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#76

Post by devcpp »

nicksergeant wrote: post #66
taintlove wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly, EA is ruining what looks like an otherwise very promising game with DRM and DLC

I don't think they're ruining it. Some people don't care about DRM / DLC with gaming (like myself). I just want the best possible gaming experience.

The last two sentences you wrote are incompatible.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#77

Post by monkeypizza »

I love simcity, but recently played it and noticed it is really paternalistic.

The attitude towards development it has is very much like China - everything is controlled and all land is owned by the government, and the government's job is to manage zoning, roads, schools, education, in order to make people happy. Nobody actually has any property rights - even trees don't grow without government planting efforts. Farmers can't choose their own crops.

This is actually really different than what happens in the real world. Really, if a community doesn't have a school, people get together and start one. Small civic organizations evolve into permanent buildings, training schools, etc. Pickup sports leagues evolve into organizations that commission their own stadiums.

If there is no fire department, a volunteer one starts. People build churches, or start them at home, whenever they feel the need. But in simcity world, everything good comes from the government.

I love simcity, but I do think it's weird that there isn't a mode where you can just let people build whatever they want. I love the built-in, realistic needs people in it have - but where are the entrepreneurs who will actually start a society, or borrow money to build a building on their own? Where are the rebels who start a revolution if the government doesn't meet their needs?

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#78

Post by dontstealmyname »

nicksergeant wrote: post #66
taintlove wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly, EA is ruining what looks like an otherwise very promising game with DRM and DLC

I don't think they're ruining it. Some people don't care about DRM / DLC with gaming (like myself). I just want the best possible gaming experience.

Yeah, until they shutdown the server shortly after the next Sim City is released, making your old game unless. EA has a habit of doing things like that.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#79

Post by mattquiros »

monkeypizza wrote: post #77

I love simcity, but recently played it and noticed it is really paternalistic. The attitude towards development it has is very much like China - everything is controlled and all land is owned by the government, and the government's job is to manage zoning, roads, schools, education, in order to make people happy. Nobody actually has any property rights - even trees don't grow without government planting efforts. Farm…

I think you should be playing Civilization V.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#80

Post by wybo »

monkeypizza wrote: post #77

I love simcity, but recently played it and noticed it is really paternalistic. The attitude towards development it has is very much like China - everything is controlled and all land is owned by the government, and the government's job is to manage zoning, roads, schools, education, in order to make people happy. Nobody actually has any property rights - even trees don't grow without government planting efforts. Farm…

True to some extent. Though in many countries the government has to give planning/zoning permission at least. And notice how in all versions of Sim City most buildings do appear and 'grow' by themselves.

So it is not as bad as you make it sound.

Also in many European countries at least, schools and other educational institutions are commissioned and payed for by the government. The same for fire-departments.

Sports-stadiums, and churches are an edge case, but in most cases at least part of the funding is provided by government, and in most, if not all cases (all stadiums, maybe less so for smaller churches in industrial zones) special planning permission is required (for health and safety, noise, transport considerations, etc).

So yes, there is more paternalism in Sim City than in the real world, but it is not as far off as you suggest (not for Europe at least) (revolutions, or at least riots, would be a nice addition to the game)

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