Build and Destroy: Detailing Disasters
Hi everyone! I’m Alex Peck, a development director on SimCity. The first time I saw the original SimCity at a friend’s house, I was so intrigued by it that I snuck away from his dinner party to get some more time on his computer. Ten years later, I was privileged to work on SimCity 4 and SimCity 4 Rush Hour, and now ten years after that I’m here at Maxis working on a new take on the series.
SimCity is a game that really satisfies our creative urges. But it’s always had a darker side in the form of disasters. Random disasters are good at shaking up a city and keeping things from becoming too static. And user-controlled disasters are for the player who likes to kick over his own sandcastles; you know who you are.
Our first prototype disaster in the new SimCity was the meteor shower. It started out as just a single meteor smacking into a residential suburb, but upon seeing it in action, we immediately decided to dial it up to see what would happen. We added some tension by having most of the meteors burn up before they hit the ground—we call these “fizzlers”—but an unpredictable amount of larger, damaging meteors may appear during the sequence.
While we were creating this, out of sheer curiosity I checked to see how often meteors actually cause damage, and it seems rather rare. Wikipedia only notes a few human injuries, a dog in Egypt, and one extremely unfortunate cow. Guess the solar system that SimCity is located in must have far more debris than our own!
UFOs in particular resulted in a fun brainstorming session. Rather than simply wantonly raining destruction from above, we thought UFOs should have a bit of a mysterious flavor to them. They will enter your city with various agendas to carry out, perhaps simply leaving if they can’t find what they are looking for. What are the aliens going to do with that poor Sim they abducted? I leave it to your imagination.
For this incarnation of the game we also decided to add some physics to the mix, resulting in buildings that shatter into pieces and fall to the ground. This paid off when someone said “Can the UFO cut a building in half?” and our physics programmer Robert Perry said, “Sure!” Robert will be going over physics next week on our blog, so look out for it!
Whether it’s an earthquake, a meteor shower, a tornado, or even the simple demolition tool, we have provided a number of tools to cater to your darker side.
Comments
Will UFOs bring back the
Will UFOs bring back the people they Abducted?, That would be nice :)
I just came across your blog
I just came across your blog and wanted to say how impressive it is. Great photography of fish and scenery and good content. Great job, keep it up!
And what's about this guy?
And what's about this guy?
http://s14.radikal.ru/i187/1210/2f/26bc90c8783a.png
We've only revealed 4
We've only revealed 4 disasters so far (Meteor Strike, Earthquake, Tornado, and UFO), but we have a few surprises left! ;)
Does that mean I can be Zuess
Does that mean I can be Zuess and fry my sims alive with my lightning, and melt all their belongings while they sit and watch defencisly while wondering where the volcano next door came from? Or be an arsonist? I hope yes!
When can we expect to see
When can we expect to see these 'Few Surprises'?
And of-course the Dr. Vu's
And of-course the Dr. Vu's Giant Robot, zombies, an other :D
I would love to see flooding
I would love to see flooding be an available disaster again. I used to love flooding my cities for fun.
Oooooooo! Sounds fun to
Oooooooo! Sounds fun to dround your sims! SC4 didn't have the flood.
I think flooding is a great
I think flooding is a great idea. I'd love to see some hurricanes tear through the city.
Will meteors deform the
Will meteors deform the ground when they hit?
That's great but i'm a little
That's great but i'm a little disappointed with the tornado. I was hoping for a build up to it, large clouds descend over the city, hail stones and then the tornado coming down.
What about having floods in the game? Again, large clouds descend over the city with thunder and lightning and heavy rain creating floods and lightning setting (randomly may or may not) set things on fire?
Just thoughts of mine :D
Can't wait for the beta and the game, Thanks.
I like your ideas! Hope they
I like your ideas! Hope they include your thoughts int SC
Into, jeeze!
Into, jeeze!
Hell yeah!!!!! My city will
Hell yeah!!!!! My city will be smack dab in tornado alley;). But I'd also love to make kabooms with a volcano? Or become an arsonist? I'd also like to become Zuess and shoot lightning rods at my little defensless sims. No biggy (for me:) Muahahahaha.
Hey, if we set off the earthquake or the tornado, could they also cause damage to a nearby city, as in suck up part of their city, or just knock some of it over? I hope yes;)
Floods, please!
Floods, please!
as long as the disasters
as long as the disasters actually are random this time...
If buildings fall over and
If buildings fall over and smack into other builds/structures, do they cause collateral damage and start a horrifying chain reaction or do they merely disappear harmlessly and only those builds directly hit effected?
Personally, I'd like to see
Personally, I'd like to see some more physics happen with these disasters. SC4 always seemed awkward with how buildings just fell into the ground without affecting other buildings. I thought it was stupid that road chunks would disappear, rather than stay around and become cluttered with rubble and debris... Which by the looks of it here, they actually do that this time.
Personally, I like the meteor shower disaster out of the ones revealed so far. The tornado disaster is not all that unsurprising, since this is a game built by Californians who think that as long as you don't touch the funnel cloud, you're safe... So yeah, Hollywood style tornadoes. UFOs seem to have a nice new spin on them, and the earthquake is well... meh.
Some disasters I'd actually like to see added or used are:
- Lightning strike
- Monster attack of some sorts
- Whirlpool
- Locust Swarm
- Llama or AMAZING TECHNICOLOR EQUINE stampede...
Speaking of llamas... WHERE ARE ALL THE LLAMAS IN THIS SIM CITY? I'm quite upset by the sheer lack of llamas and reticulating splines...
Maybe now that we can
Maybe now that we can actually reticulate our own splines as we create networks of curved roads, they don't need to bring it up?
What about having season
What about having season changes? A winter blizzard rolls through and slows down traffic and causes more accidents? Streets need plowing, and you need to allocate funds to snow plowing or else the roads will remain a mess! Spring could bring lots of rain and tornadoes, and summer could leave the farms dried out, affecting the availability of crops, or summer blackouts from overuse of electricity.
YYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! We
YYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! We MUST see this, bro!
LOL farms. XD
LOL farms. XD
Do they occur randomly or
Do they occur randomly or only by your choosing? I wouldn't mind either.
Riots would be great... that
Riots would be great... that could also be associated with a happiness scale or something like that.... Riots on one side parades on another?
I think that might actually
I think that might actually be something that will occur in this version...
I hope there will be a way to
I hope there will be a way to disable disasters occurring naturally, because I do not want my city to be destroyed suddenly.
Sandcastle kicking? Me?
Sandcastle kicking? Me? *shifty eyes* lol
Sim city 4 randomly had
Sim city 4 randomly had everything catch on fire, and while you are placing down a park, it randomly teleports you across the city and causes you to place the park on a skyscraper, causing it to explode, and the fires got over used and annoying.
This is all well and good...
This is all well and good... but I think most people are going to be majorly pissed when they find out that game saves and everything is online... meaning just like other games EA felt they needed to shut down, or during their very annoying down server times, peoples cities will not be available. This needs to be addressed LONG before disasters becomes worthy of a mention.
Give US the choice in the options:
1) local save, or
2) online save, or
3) backup mode, that keeps them in both places, but can be re-downloaded in case of a PC crash
Do NOT force us into online only mode and then give us the boot when EA decides the servers are no longer worth keeping....
If it's anything like the
If it's anything like the other online games I've played, I'm pretty sure we're going to have local save files alongside online saves to double up the backup needs. If the servers were to go down, you could play your local version, and when the servers come back up, the online regions you have will automatically update to reflect the changes made while offline.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I read, there is absolutely no way to play this game if the servers are down. Not only will there be always-on DRM (which can theoretically be bypassed) but much of the simulation takes place server side. Whether this server-side siming is limited to regional and economic matters or if even some of the minutiae of your cities are calculated on the server, it seems likely that w/o the servers, the game will be unstable at best and unplayable at worst.
That said, EA is a huge company that can easily afford the sort of server redundancy necessary to prevent embarrassing downtime. Though the always-online feature isn't a deal breaker per se, it would be very reassuring to know if EA has an exit strategy for when it no longer becomes profitable to support the servers (which in the absence of dlc or subscription fees pretty much occurs after a year when game sales taper off)
I'm a big fan of the walking
I'm a big fan of the walking dead and would love a disaster like that. A little research lab tampering with the laws of nature and a hoard of undead released on the city.
i generally do not buy games
i generally do not buy games at their full release price but this is the one game that is the exception. I love the original sim city....although 2000 was my favorite. especially trying to get the buildings to become futuristic. i did hate destroying my city though......but maybe this time i will be a little evil.
how about worms.....Tremors style!
when do we get the beta
when do we get the beta
I hope we can get a giant
I hope we can get a giant monster to smash through the city and destroy anything in it's path! Maybe eat a sim or two....
I think it would be coller if
I think it would be coller if Maxis add more disasters like volcanos , floods or pest infestations
I think it would be coller if
I think it would be coller if Maxis add more disasters like volcanos , floods or pest infestations
I hope they come out w/ any
I hope they come out w/ any Sim City version for the PS3
Hopefully the few suprises
Hopefully the few suprises are new disasters like, flooding, hurricane, tsunami, severe thunderstorm, and hailstorm. those would be pretty cool to see!!
can you give us any hint of
can you give us any hint of any new disasters? (tsunami or hurricane possibly)?
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I have to say that this is
I have to say that this is the creativity this is the real effort to build something like real.
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Please start the beta.
Please start the beta. Please. I'll be your best friend.
Can we slowly raise the water
Can we slowly raise the water level?
Also, just an idea, but it would be awesome in the global game if water levels started rising due to thousands of playing using non-green energy!
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