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[jay-ell]

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3160151&sec=PREVIEWS

Also

http://simcity.ea.com/

and this month's PC Gamer. 

Is anyone else having heart palpitations over this?  This is the game I wanted when SC2K came out.  Maxis went a different direction with it, but I still loved 3K and 4...but now...

My life is complete.  Or will, be, this holiday season, provided my family loves me enough. 

Edited to paste Press Release (for the lazy):

Featuring an all-new, revolutionary feature set, SimCity Societies allows players to create their own kinds of cities, shape their cultures, societal behaviors and environments. Build an artistic city, an Orwellian city, futuristic city, green city, spiritual community or any society you want! With more accessible and innovative choices than before, SimCity Societies is the most versatile city building game.

Features:

    * SimCity Societies is the most versatile city building game.
          o SimCity Societies provides the ultimate building block tool kit, allowing players to combine, connect and re-arrange elements of their city like never before
          o This innovative, modular approach to city-building makes SimCity Societies accessible to players of all levels, while at the same time provides tremendous new possibilities to players familiar with the SimCity™ series.
    * Revolutionary new resource management: control the societal energies of your city.
          o SimCity Societies introduces new kinds of resources for buildings to produce or consume, called "societal energies."
          o How you mix and match these energies—knowledge, creativity, spirituality, obedience, wealth and industry—determines the core attributes of your city. Will your city be happy and creative, spiritual and knowledgeable, will it be wealthy and powerful or obedient and fearful? Its fate is in your hands.
          o A new system in SimCity Societies picks up on cultural cues and adjusts lighting, music and the appearance of your city on-the-fly!
    * Make an artistic city, an industrial one, a police state ….or anything you want.
          o Build your own kinds of cities! Strive to create an Orwellian Utopia, a city of technology, a city of contemplation, a candy land filled with gingerbread houses and chocolate factories or wherever your imagination takes you.
    * Build out the city with unique homes, workplaces, leisure-time venues and parks.
          o Choose from more than 350 unique buildings which can be combined, connected and re-arranged in almost limitless combinations.
          o Inspiration comes from the wide range of architectural styles, ranging from the realistic to the fanciful, from rural to urban, from industrial to futuristic.
          o Each structure reflects its name and nature, and many offer a click-on action for you to play upon!
          o As your city evolves, you’ll be able to unlock new buildings to help advance your society.
    * Share your own unique cities with your friends online.
          o SimCity Societies allows you to create your own unique cities to share with your friends online.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Its been awhile since I was excited about a game release. I have always loved the sim series of games (i've lost way too many hours to sim tower) this one looks like itll fix the errors of SC4 and I love the new graphics and 'social energies' stuff.

[jaydub]

As long as the Laffer curve remains central to Sim City, it will always have a place in my heart.

[jay-ell]

Yeah...it's reminiscent of the addition of aspirations to The Sims 2, but moreso...I wonder if there will be a compatibility layer between SCS and TS2?  Where you can import the personalities and appearances of Sims and follow them around the city?  Am I misremembering them doing this with SC3K and TS1? 

jaydub, you get a can for knowing what the Laffer curve is, means, and does.  This can is on behalf of my dad, who teaches econ to high school seniors. 

[Arachno-capitalist]

The Laffer Curve is a logical fallacy. The assumption made is that it its a continuous and predictable curve from end point to end point. When in reality, actual data reveals this picture:

[jaydub]

The Laffer Curve is a logical fallacy. The assumption made is that it its a continuous and predictable curve from end point to end point. When in reality, actual data reveals this picture:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  But its a useful illustration of the fact that your can't raise revenue endlessly by raising taxes.  You drive up the cost of doing business and sensible companies leave, residents move out and your economy stagnates.  This is a crucial lesson that more folks need to appreciate.  Sim City and the like are wonderful tools for communicating this concept.

Boo for pissing on a libertarian mainstay A-CAP!

[CortJstr]

I never got into Sim City but I enjoyed "playing" Maxis's El-giraffe. At first my parents thought it was stupid that I was tying up the computer for hours breeding, evolving, and most of all, rendering giraffe. But then they realized that the 3 hours it took to animate one giraffe was 3 hours that I was not connected to AOL running up a huge bill.

[theinevitable]

simcity 4 is awesome, but the data views bother me. They don't have the types of views I want, and they turn themselves off in shitty situations (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PLACE SUBWAY STATIONS WITHOUT SEEING UNDERGROUND?). Otherwise, my cities are basically badass.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Me piss on libertarianism? I say nay sir! surely you know me better than that.
the problem for me is that the mathematics of the laffer curve put the optimal tax rate somewhere around 80%. The logic behind it, that lower taxes and less government means more business and wealthier people is A OK, but I can't endorse something that is designed to bring in maximum revenue to the government as opposed to maximum revenue to the individual.
But this is a thread about a computer game, so I've met my quota of political self-expression.

[jaydub]

I can't endorse something that is designed to bring in maximum revenue to the government as opposed to maximum revenue to the individual.
But this is a thread about a computer game, so I've met my quota of political self-expression.

Well, the point of the game is sort of local government simulation.  Your title is, after all, is Mayor.  Also, 80%??!!  I'm pretty sure that the various invocations of the Laffer Curve disagree on where the optimal is located (depending on political affiliation, no doubt).  If you mean that Sim City's optimal is at 80%, that's troubling.  Personally, I like to run with as thin a bottom line as is possible, once an adequate reserve for disasters is built up.  IRL, governors who crow about their bonanza budget surpluses are stupidly promoting their bad management, IMO.

Whee, bracketing Intarweb acronyms.  Also - I knew you weren't pissing on libertarianism; just goring a sacred cow for excessive simplicity.

[Ben-San]

In other SimCity-related news, Dr. Wright from the SNES version of SimCity has been confirmed as an assist character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. When activated, he zones the ground directly under your opponent for skyscrapers, which launch the enemy into the air.

[jay-ell]

In other SimCity-related news, Dr. Wright from the SNES version of SimCity has been confirmed as an assist character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. When activated, he zones the ground directly under your opponent for skyscrapers, which launch the enemy into the air.

Oh my goodness this is too good to be true

if its not dont tell me

dont ruin the moment

i need this in my life

[Ben-San]

For serious.

[Nabubrush]

There are too many games that I love that basically look at my computer and think to themselves "that will be sufficient . . . only to render the dialog boxes for this game." I wish I had the balls to buy a crazy, planet-destroying supercomputer.

[Doc]

Man I haven't been into sim city since 2000 (my first computer game ever by the way). The newer ones just looked a bit too shiny for me, but this does look cool. But really I mean when Spore shows up that's all the game we'll ever need, right.

Also: Ben-San thank you for totally making my day.