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SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

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Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#201

Post by AshamedCaptain »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #198
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing SimCity 4, not SimCity 3000. The SC3k tool is not entirely 2D, but it does mostly behave like one (with emulated voxels instead of pixels). And while I cannot confirm what Maxis was doing internally, I am quite sure no-one was using 3DS Max for rendering game assets in the 90s considering it had just been released and well into the 2000s it was still humongously slow.

The art looks very rendered, with pixel cleanup in something like photoshop. I was using 3ds Max on my norma PC circa 2001-2002. Game studios should definitely have had 3d studio in the mid to late 90s on their actual workstations if they were Windows based (or lightwave). Crucially, The Sims (3ds max) released quite close in time and we know 4k was also 3dsmax, so I think it’s fairly safe to say Maxis was a 3ds shop…

In the 2000s SC4 was already using 3DS Max, but here we are talking about a game that started development in 97. And they already had 3D games before it...

In SC3k sprites you can also clearly see two different grid sizes, so at the very least the retouching and some props are "pixel art".

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#202

Post by hdgvhicv »

doublerabbit wrote: post #175
hdgvhicv wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Chelsea tractors belong in Chelsea, certainly not here in the country where they are completely unsuitable given the size However he lost me at > I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking lanes. If you are in this lane it’s because you are overtaking slower moving traffic in inside lanes. If you aren’t, then you need to be lo…

And to those who cruise in the middle lane at 60.

If they’re overtaking lorries doing 56 in the inside then that’s fine.

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#203

Post by alt_422568 »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #122
foo12bar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tailgating in a massive SUV is not disrespectful, it's dangerous to other person. Why encourage this behavior by immediately letting them through?

Or how about you get the heck out of the fast lane when someone is approaching you going faster? Tailgating is an acceptable and common way to tell someone to gtfo of the way. That is common courtesy in most states in the U.S.

That's completely wrong. Tailgating is prohibited in all 50 states. Driving fast while too close behind another vehicle is a major cause of serious accidents. This is real basic stuff that every driver is expected to know.

Trying to normalize tailgating, as you are doing, also tells us something about your attitude. Do you generally try to intimidate others into doing what you want, or only when driving?

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#204

Post by [deleted] »

HeckFeck wrote: post #176
phaser wrote: post #59

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 some…

Looks pretty cool. Reminds me also of Metropolis 1998, which is also going for the isometric style - with a lot more detail, i.e. you can design individual homes and see the lives of "sims" too, something like if SimCity and The Sims were merged. https://yesboxstudios.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZHI2bCCpl0 It has a demo on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/ It's quite pla…

[deleted]

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#205

Post by danielheath »

phaser wrote: post #153
danielheath wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spent a bit of time with it. Biggest peeve so far: It's very easy to build the 'premium' version of a building (eg police HQ instead of police station) and utterly annihilate your city budget - with no ability to cancel / undo. "Click on the correct-looking-but-actually-wrong button functionally ends your game" is... not great. Other than that, I'm really enjoying it.

I see. I'm adding an option to "disable" a building, so you'll be able to suspend a city service due to budget constraints or any other reason.

I more meant "I had 200m in the bank and accidentally spent 170m of it to start constructing a police HQ".

If you bulldoze a building when it's only 2% of the way through being constructed, you should probably be able to get 98% of the resources spent back - whether housing demand, money, whatever you spent.

Possibly 100% back until you hit 5%, just to allow for those mis-clicks.

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#206

Post by expedition32 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #60
dylan604 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I still dream about arcologies even after 9/11 and London's Greenfeel Tower fire? The vertical living seems very strained to me after events like that. Sure, they are not common issues, but there's always that thought in the back of my mind of what if.

The Grenfell fire was caused by petty corruption. Someone involved in its construction used a cheaper flammable cladding material instead of the (slightly!!) more expensive fire resistant version. It’s very on-brand for places like Russia and China but clearly western countries are not immune to this kind of thing either. After the fire there were investigations into towers constructed here in Australia. Many used th…

Grenfell was iirc social housing.

A contractor is less likely to fuck around with people who can afford very good lawyers.

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#207

Post by SpecialistK »

arjie wrote: post #12

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 d…

> like Brentwood in Canada's BC... it reminds me of the wonders we can build.

But still can't make a fountain that doesn't destroy the grout on the tiles next to it :P

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#208

Post by indemnity »

butlike wrote: post #186
phaser wrote: post #59

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 some…

Your game looks good. A special 'thank you' for porting it (building it?) for macOS.

I know macOS is not considered a gamer platform, but I appreciate enough that he built for macOS too that I purchased a copy!

(Speaking as someone who also owns a Windows 11 RTX 4090/9950X3D gaming monster… sometimes I like gaming on my MBP!)

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#209

Post by foo12bar »

shmeeed wrote: post #167
foo12bar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can hide and worry about protecting yourself in an ever more dangerous world, or join people like him and me and take a stand against bad behavior. If enough people do it, it will make a difference.

No it won't. You're not "taking a stand". This isn't a bar fight. You're mistaking responsible defensiveness for cowardice, and passive-aggressiveness for civil courage. There is zero chance they'll recognise your dominance, let alone moral superiority, and walk away changed from a teaching moment. They're not even seeing you as a person. They only see your car as one more obstacle among so many other "idiots", and i…

I wrote if enough people do it. Of course, it would make a difference, then.

Re: SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

#210

Post by hdgvhicv »

jmkni wrote: post #188
hdgvhicv wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Chelsea tractors belong in Chelsea, certainly not here in the country where they are completely unsuitable given the size However he lost me at > I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking lanes. If you are in this lane it’s because you are overtaking slower moving traffic in inside lanes. If you aren’t, then you need to be lo…

There's a small caveat to this, technically in the UK the police are allowed to speed if they are heading to an emergency, they don't need livery on their cars or even sirens So if you're in the outer lane and the person behind you wants to go faster than you and get past, get out of their way. It's safer anyway, and also you don't know who they are or where they're going.

You keep left unless overtaking. If an unmarked police car is behind you then that doesn’t matter, you still only sit in lane 2/3/4 when overtaking slower traffic in lanes to the left.

There are a few exceptions of course - when lanes are diverging for example (so 12 going off one way and 34 going another).

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