How to fill a city with life

[charlesnew]

Yes, I am the kind of person that loves little details in a city. I like to watch my cities a lot.
Now this is not much of a request, but more of an idea.

One think that I find when making a city is that once a building or road is built, it's built. In real life, people have to maintain buildings and roads to keep them in good quality. This is something I think would be nice to see in CSL. Some examples are: streetlamp/traffic light bulb fixing, window cleaning, janitors maintaining, window replacement, repainting, pipe fixing, e.t.c. These sort of things can be a sort of rare thing to see (if you see it too much, it would look weird). I just think that it shows, the city's not perfect.

Another thing is variety. I think it would be nice to see people doing different things. Like, when someone is walking, they could be on their phone (either calling or texting), or they could be with another person and talking to them.
And a variety of people on the streets, like: Mailman delivering mail, police man having a break, security guards guarding, people feeding pigeons, birds flying around, people chatting in a group, different types of trucks/vans delivering different types of things blah blah blah...

And last, signs of happiness/sadness.
Happy: Lawn mowing/gardening, children playing on streets/parks, kids skateboarding/on scooters, people cycling and stuff...
Sad: The lack of these things.

And yeah, I don't think this really has to be in the game. This is a city builder after all, but it would be nice. I love looking at what's happening in my city.

 

[TotalyMoo]

One think that I find when making a city is that once a building or road is built, it's built. In real life, people have to maintain buildings and roads to keep them in good quality. This is something I think would be nice to see in CSL. Some examples are: streetlamp/traffic light bulb fixing, window cleaning, janitors maintaining, window replacement, repainting, pipe fixing, e.t.c. These sort of things can be a sort of rare thing to see (if you see it too much, it would look weird). I just think that it shows, the city's not perfect.

This is an amazing idea! I know it's been said much, but seeing this in a mod would be so cool.

 

[theegamerdotcom]

I guess you all know that city webcams from towns and cities all over the world. I for one enjoy to watch those from time to time as it is a bit like sitting in a cafe watching life rolling by. Sitting on a dock at the bay...
Although a city builder consists mostly of... building (duh!) I guess we all like to sit back and just watch our "ant farm" buzzing with life. Many components combine themselves to that chaos of modern civilization, small and big cities alike. Since it was confirmed that we won´t have neither weather nor different day times, I have a feeling the list grows short. Let´s see what´s left:
- Traffic: Without any fluctuation you will have the same traffic all the time. In CXL I found that pretty boring. How could this made be interesting without different day times?
- Pedestrians: People walking around, doing stuff. That´s the basic principle of any human settlement. Would be nice if those "agents" would really enter vehicles and shops, maybe interacting with each other. Diversification is another factor here. Seeing the same people over and over again breaks the immersion.
- Ambience: Trees, animals and stuff. The wind blows through trees, birds get feeded in the parks and roam through the air, deers in the woods.
I would like to get some more opinions on this and maybe some more suggestions. A balance needs to be found between gameplay functions and graphical display. A city with many working moving parts is nice, but visually it will get static after a while. Don´t you think?

PS: Don´t argue with DLCs or mods because neither one is guaranteed to come. Despite all announcements the possibility must be considered that we have to play the basic game as it is.

Ant Farms, i love watching those. Watching how the whole colony works with one another to build, destroy and get along.

I am going to use Sim City as a reference, as it is more well known. And they could of went so much further with that game. They limited theirselves with the possibilities of what is achievable and what people want.

What you have put here, is everything i want in a city building game.

I salute you Sir/Madam!

Yes, I am the kind of person that loves little details in a city. I like to watch my cities a lot.
Now this is not much of a request, but more of an idea.

One think that I find when making a city is that once a building or road is built, it's built. In real life, people have to maintain buildings and roads to keep them in good quality. This is something I think would be nice to see in CSL. Some examples are: streetlamp/traffic light bulb fixing, window cleaning, janitors maintaining, window replacement, repainting, pipe fixing, e.t.c. These sort of things can be a sort of rare thing to see (if you see it too much, it would look weird). I just think that it shows, the city's not perfect.

Another thing is variety. I think it would be nice to see people doing different things. Like, when someone is walking, they could be on their phone (either calling or texting), or they could be with another person and talking to them.
And a variety of people on the streets, like: Mailman delivering mail, police man having a break, security guards guarding, people feeding pigeons, birds flying around, people chatting in a group, different types of trucks/vans delivering different types of things blah blah blah...

And last, signs of happiness/sadness.
Happy: Lawn mowing/gardening, children playing on streets/parks, kids skateboarding/on scooters, people cycling and stuff...
Sad: The lack of these things.

And yeah, I don't think this really has to be in the game. This is a city builder after all, but it would be nice. I love looking at what's happening in my city.

As i said in comment above this quote, this is exactly what people want.

No game is going to capture everything exactly to what we want. What we people actually want, is something as close to the things we want as possible.

I Salute you too, Sir/Madam!

 

[Crotalidae75]

No game is going to capture everything exactly to what we want. What we people actually want, is something as close to the things we want as possible.

I Salute you too, Sir/Madam!

Let's just hope CSL will be moddable enough to actually add everything we actually do want, though. From what I can tell, that might just be the case.

 

[TotalyMoo]

Let's just hope CSL will be moddable enough to actually add everything we actually do want, though. From what I can tell, that might just be the case.

That is our goal. As mentioned in another thread, due to Unity, we have to create a lot of custom tools to enable modding. This means that, for example, there might appear a need for more tools after release as modders find more ways they need / want to interact with the game - which we in turn then start developing. It will be a hand in hand process to make this game as awesome as can be!

 

[Goldiva]

Em, please kindly explain "due to Unity" - due to Unity's limitation? Sounds like there are multiple mod tools? Very curious, and excited too.

I hope at release there will be sufficient basic tools for modders to have something to do. Actually it's a good idea to get some diehard SC4 CXL modders at XLnation and Simtrop on board to co-dev and polish up the mod tools before release. It'll help generate custom content faster. Note that some of them are preoccupied with SC2013 mods, some may even be under Maxis commission so...

 

[TotalyMoo]

Em, please kindly explain "due to Unity" - due to Unity's limitation? Sounds like there are multiple mod tools? Very curious, and excited too.

I hope at release there will be sufficient basic tools for modders to have something to do. Actually it's a good idea to get some diehard SC4 CXL modders at XLnation and Simtrop on board to co-dev and polish up the mod tools before release. It'll help generate custom content faster. Note that some of them are preoccupied with SC2013 mods, some may even be under Maxis commission so...

Basically, as far as I have understood, vanilla Unity doesn't support much modding at all. So we have built custom tools to be able to interact with more parts of the game, I can talk to CO and try to get a more specific example, otherwise we're going to talk more about modding soon - so you'll get your answer then ^^

We're ready to work with our players and modders prior to launch, and will most likely do so in some way or form.

 

[co_martsu]

Em, please kindly explain "due to Unity" - due to Unity's limitation? Sounds like there are multiple mod tools? Very curious, and excited too.

Unity is a very closed engine and this prevents traditional modding without developer intervening. We're developing tools that would open the engine up for custom content and modifications. We'll be working closely with the modding community before and after the release to improve these tools for Cities: Skylines.

 

[TotalyMoo]

Unity is a very closed engine and this prevents traditional modding without developer intervening. We're developing tools that would open the engine up for custom content and modifications. We'll be working closely with the modding community before and after the release to improve these tools for Cities: Skylines.

I didn't even have to ask for it. Mariina reads my mind.

Ooooooo

 

[Goldiva]

Cool. Thanks for the explanation. Can't wait for more info on mod tools.

Continuing on topic...

And last, signs of happiness/sadness.
Happy: Lawn mowing/gardening, children playing on streets/parks, kids skateboarding/on scooters, people cycling and stuff...
Sad: The lack of these things.

Sad/ Pissed: drunken walk, listless youth, homeless, police car/ ambulance rush to park outside residence too often...

We definitely need animation import tool.

 

[co_martsu]

We definitely need animation import tool.

Importing animations is a beast that we might not be able to tackle before the launch I'm afraid. But we'll keep this in mind!

 

[charlesnew]

Sad/ Pissed: drunken walk, listless youth, homeless, police car/ ambulance rush to park outside residence too often...

We definitely need animation import tool.

Good ideas

 

[General Slobby]

Another good animation for a poorly ran city would be beggars sitting in the commercial areas of town. Having these beggars disappear as the town becomes better managed.

 

[charlesnew]

Yeah, I agree.

 

[MN121MN]

I hope at release there will be sufficient basic tools for modders to have something to do. Actually it's a good idea to get some diehard SC4 CXL modders at XLnation and Simtrop on board to co-dev and polish up the mod tools before release. It'll help generate custom content faster. Note that some of them are preoccupied with SC2013 mods, some may even be under Maxis commission so...

This ... is actually a good idea, a second/third place where Paradox could maybe open up shop for modding, if things are done right ofc.

 

[Bipin]

Animations would also be neat for dynamic, electronics ads like those in NYC at Times Square. Additionally, I'd also like to see animations in the context of VMS signs on highways. That'd be pretty cool!