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Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

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Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#21

Post by EricE »

rightbyte wrote: post #16
grawprog wrote: post #5

Not to anywhere near the level of this but i've been playing a map on city skylines where i've been trying to make it as dystopian as possible, though at first I was just trying to model my city, the sad thing is, on a superficial level, it still resembles it. Industrial areas lined with low income housing. A whole neighbourhood with schools next to oil refineries, a prison island that receives its drinking water fro…

Sim City 3000 might be the pinnacle of "Sim Cities" when it comes to the feeling of making a big scary city. I would rather play Skylines than 3000 today due to nice feeling and the roads, but the limit that 6 squares depth from the road is as far as housing will "grow" and that you can't make deep neighborhoods or more angled zones, is a sour thumb for what would otherwise be a perfect game. 3000 neighborhoods felt…

You can use zoneable paths to break some of the dependencies on roads. And with MoveIt, Anarchy and other mods you can pretty much bend C:S to whatever you want.

Well, with the Steam version anyway. It's the only version that has mods and access to the Steam Workshop with all the community created assets.

For example Sunset Harbor added above ground metro's but the modding community provided a solution years before.

I sure hope they come out with a follow on version that can scale more than the current version but even as it is I love Cities:Skylines!

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#22

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Kye wrote: post #17
bluedevil2k wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's cool and trendy to trash our current society and treat it like it's the worst time to be alive in human history, but in reality there's never been a better time to be alive in the history of our species. Poverty, infant mortality, childhood mortality, crime...all at all time lows. Literacy, income levels, food quantity, public health...all at all time highs.

Purchased on the credit card of carbon release. We might get lucky and see some technological or social innovation negate or stop the coming disaster, or civilization could snap back to where it was centuries ago.

The worst part is not the horror of mass extinctions and runaway greenhouse gasses might eventually resolve itself on geologic timescales, but that the society that rebuilt might find it impossible to get out of the stone age; much less through an industrial revolution: we've pillaged the highest-yield mines, germs have been developed into antibiotic-resistant superbugs, we've extracted the easiest-to-reach stored hydrocarbons, and replaced natural, hardy, diverse crops and the "basic 5" domestication-friendly animals with inbred monocultures.

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#23

Post by danbolt »

rsynnott wrote: post #18
joaomacp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have men be either gay or straight, but women to be bisexual There is some scientific truth to it: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34744903

I think they're reading a lot into a small survey, there... You could make a similar argument about men based on the Kinsey Report, but it's now considered fairly flawed.

Yeah, I think a lot of the ideas around women being more sexually fluid are hard to separate from societal pressures. Or, I think the ways men are expected to behave romantically is a big reason why we have the term "MSM" [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_who_have_sex_with_men

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#24

Post by danbolt »

dragontamer wrote: post #11
danbolt wrote: post #6

I think it's important to remember that a "system" in a video game is a work of art just like the game itself. The systems, in a lot of ways, reflect the ideas and thoughts of the authors of that game. Magnasati's highlights and flaws help illustrate that thinking, or what tax rates are best for doing well in the game. An example that comes to mind is Factorio, where solar panels are more tricky to operate than gener…

> I think both of those gameplay mechanics illustrate (or at least point to) the author(s) idea about the world. For good games, I don't think so. The #1 concern of any video game is "is it fun??". Case in point: Factorio oil is infinite and a renewable resource (pumpjacks never run out). This isn't there because of some preconceived notion of infinite oil. This mechanic exists because planting new pumpjacks is far m…

I think you're likely right, and that I'm being a bit overzealous in assuming that the mechanics are statements about the real world. Perhaps it might have been better to suggest from a "death of the author" viewpoint.

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#26

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Alphaville (circa 2000) forever rules as sim-anarchy's crowning achievement. Without moderation it quickly became saturated with the worst crimes people can come up with.

The Alphaville Herald was dedicated to it; the blog continued on for years, after the sim was shut down. This Salon article references the mag https://web.archive.org/web/20040217030353/http://www.salon....

Alphaville is one of my favorite pieces of internet history but it wasn't ever really documented. It's hard to find anything about it now.

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#27

Post by sandworm101 »

rightbyte wrote: post #16
grawprog wrote: post #5

Not to anywhere near the level of this but i've been playing a map on city skylines where i've been trying to make it as dystopian as possible, though at first I was just trying to model my city, the sad thing is, on a superficial level, it still resembles it. Industrial areas lined with low income housing. A whole neighbourhood with schools next to oil refineries, a prison island that receives its drinking water fro…

Sim City 3000 might be the pinnacle of "Sim Cities" when it comes to the feeling of making a big scary city. I would rather play Skylines than 3000 today due to nice feeling and the roads, but the limit that 6 squares depth from the road is as far as housing will "grow" and that you can't make deep neighborhoods or more angled zones, is a sour thumb for what would otherwise be a perfect game. 3000 neighborhoods felt…

So ready access to roads is preventing the creation of an urban nightmare a la Bladerunner? We better protect our road networks.

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#28

Post by burkaman »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #26

Alphaville (circa 2000) forever rules as sim-anarchy's crowning achievement. Without moderation it quickly became saturated with the worst crimes people can come up with. The Alphaville Herald was dedicated to it; the blog continued on for years, after the sim was shut down. This Salon article references the mag https://web.archive.org/web/20040217030353/http://www.salon.... Alphaville is one of my favorite pieces of…

I've never heard of it before, but the Alphaville Herald and all of its archives are still online: http://alphavilleherald.com/archives

Re: Magnasanti: The Largest and Most Terrifying SimCity (2010)

#29

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

burkaman wrote: post #28
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #26

Alphaville (circa 2000) forever rules as sim-anarchy's crowning achievement. Without moderation it quickly became saturated with the worst crimes people can come up with. The Alphaville Herald was dedicated to it; the blog continued on for years, after the sim was shut down. This Salon article references the mag https://web.archive.org/web/20040217030353/http://www.salon.... Alphaville is one of my favorite pieces of…

I've never heard of it before, but the Alphaville Herald and all of its archives are still online: http://alphavilleherald.com/archives

Nice. Thanks!
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