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Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

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Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#71

Post by ajuc »

Danieru wrote: post #34
hueving wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be more interesting if they had that option just too see how often players would resort to something like that.

All of them. It is a common accepted reality in game design that players will take any shortcut offered. Players will go so far as skipping content just to "solve" a challenge with the fastest method. Players would jump at genocide if it solved their problem. It would be an interesting result if it was not so predictable.

Depends on the game. See people role-playing nethack as vegans or pacifists for a counterexample.

Or look at few chapters of some The Witcher 2 let's play.

If your game is abstract puzzle (like simcity) then sure - few people would roleplay chess after all.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#72

Post by Vexs »

blueskin_ wrote: post #68
popeshoe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember it just makes his family and friends upset, and anybody who witnesses the death, which is usually always preferable to him going mental and sentencing your master metalworker to death because he refused to make -=* platinum trumpets*=-

He gets sentenced to prison, which is inconvenient, unless you don't have any space for him, then he gets sentenced to hammering (exactly what it sounds like), which is what kills or maims him, but it is possible to survive. Giving important dwarves (or just-sentenced ones) armour, removing Urist McHammerer's hammer or replacing it with a nonlethal one, or just walling him up somewhere are all viable strategies to ke…

I think this is one of the few areas of DF where players don't actually choose the most optimal path, but instead choose the most amusing, or dwarfiest, path.

I mean, you see countless arguments about stair shaft vs single floors, trap paths vs artillery paths, optimal pumps, delegation of jobs, etc, but everyone agrees that nobles should go in the lava.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#73

Post by spdustin »

ajuc wrote: post #69
simonh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life…

There's value in giving people choice and making them uncomfortable with the consequences of easy options. The Witcher series is famous for that, and I'd like to see more games took that approach (show what can be done, even give in-game bonuses for evil behaviour, don't judge but show consequences). DF skips over this problem because it's more abstract, and it's just not this kinds of game. Another example - Crusade…

Bioshock was the first to make me uncomfortable with a choice. Do I harvest the Little Sister, and get more powerful? Or do I "rescue her", which itself looks a bit like torture at first, and send her off in a place that is filled with psychopaths who'd want to kill her anyway.

Later in the series, when I experienced what it's like to BE a Little Sister, it almost made me regret "rescuing them" before, because the way they see the world as a Little Sister is quite beautiful, and they did serve a profound purpose.

The final choice seems to be a moral absolute, but it was a deeply unsettling choice, for me, to make, and to revisit again later.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#74

Post by spdustin »

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

The Sims let me have neighbors over to swim in the pool, and then I could delete the ladder leading into it.

Like in most video games, characters don't know how to climb, so the poor saps died in the 4' deep pool.

It was surprisingly easy to be evil in Sims, I don't see why one can't be evil in Sim City. It can be cathartic, and nearly everyone has those "dark thoughts", even if they don't care to admit it.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#75

Post by zanny »

popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

> it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enjoyment and it's a problem that is not obvious to solve.

This tough boss is impeding my enjoyment of this RPG because I can't mindlessly beat it.

This tough level in an FPS is impeding my enjoyment of later levels because I can't beat it.

I can't place first in this tough racing track and that is impeding my ability to enjoy it.

Homelessness is a challenge to approach however you want. It only becomes a problem in huge cities with rapid middle and upper class expansion, ie, the late game. So if you get stuck and have a skill wall in front of you to overcome but can't, that is not a deficit of the game, that is the whole reason the game exists, to impose challenge and difficulty to overcome.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#76

Post by popeshoe »

zanny wrote: post #75
popeshoe wrote: post #11

It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enj…

> it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enjoyment and it's a problem that is not obvious to solve. This tough boss is impeding my enjoyment of this RPG because I can't mindlessly beat it. This tough level in an FPS is impeding my enjoyment of later levels because I can't beat it. I can't place first in this tough racing track and that is impeding my ability…

I basically agree, it's more of a problem if the rampant homelessness is due to bad code that makes it too common (as opposed to imperfect design of your city), which given the history of the game isn't beyond the realms of possibility, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g418BSF6XBQ

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#77

Post by cturner »

7952 wrote: post #28
davidw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's rewrite it. Say it's some conservative commentator like Bill O'Reilly: "To me video games are the so-called 'real France,'" he said. "The real France operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is socialism" That doesn't strike you as overtly and primarily political in nature? Beyond that, it's simply inane.

There is a tendancy to treat real world problems in an overly abstract way. That you pursue an argument because of a particular dogma rather than actual empathy for the victims of a problem. For example people love to debate funding of healthcare (which we can all disagree on) whilst loosing site of its actual purpose (which we mostly agree about). The same is true of homelessness where it is easy to discuss it in br…

[Getting this in early - I'm not an American.]

  > healthcare .. which we mostly agree about
Reading this brought to mind a Reagan speech. Found it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKC9E04Sck), complete with propaganda slides. The final example he gives goes right to it.

Social democracy is the mainstream worldview at the moment in educated debate. Even the US moves in that direction. A social democrat will look at opposition to public healthcare with disbelief, "can anyone really be so mean?" Or disbelieve it altogether as you do.

Well-funded public healthcare is central to the socal democrat worldview. It's easy to argue towards at the moment, because it aligns with the momentum of public policy.

For freedom-centric people, it's uncomfortable. The person opposing it will often be inarticulate, to the point of appearing to be crazy. Their task is hard: they are not merely opposing one policy, but the whole momentum of worldview that's driving it. That's hard to do well. But beneath the rambling, there's probably a legitimate philosophical position that's not understood properly even by the speaker.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#78

Post by sukilot »

RobertKerans wrote: post #56
V-2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the original Civilization, if your political system was Democracy, there was no Corruption :))

My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of 'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.

There is no Statue of Liberty in Civ 1. :-)

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#79

Post by TeMPOraL »

the_af wrote: post #65
frobozz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Sim City really closer to real life than GTA? I am no more the near-omnipotent mayor of a new town than I am a crook for hire with a penchant for running over ISKCon members.

I don't know about GTA, but Sim City is certainly closer to real life than Dwarf Fortress. I agree with the person you're replying to: having the "final solution" in a city management game would be extremely unpalatable to say the least. We do not expect mayors and city planners to behave like that.

I'd actually love to see a game going in that direction. If you try to set up some evil scheme for dealing with homeless, you'd have riots on your hand and citizens storming with guns into your office.

Or say, you decide to create a police state, with full surveillance and all the like. You see everyone is happy... unitl the whole thing goes to hell - because people weren't actually happy, your metrics just were wrong.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#80

Post by shanusmagnus »

ajuc wrote: post #69
simonh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life…

There's value in giving people choice and making them uncomfortable with the consequences of easy options. The Witcher series is famous for that, and I'd like to see more games took that approach (show what can be done, even give in-game bonuses for evil behaviour, don't judge but show consequences). DF skips over this problem because it's more abstract, and it's just not this kinds of game. Another example - Crusade…

Great comment. The critical part is "show consequences."
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