To the vector belong the spoils

[Romaq]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY is a useful metaphor for the discussion of this image:
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/1261/scsscreenshot03curvedx5.jpg
vs. this image:
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9779/45curve02pi5.jpg
And yes, I know that the second image is custom content you don't get out of the box with SC4. The arguement remains, however, SC:S should be a step forward rather than a step backward with respect to transit.

[John-SJ]

...SC:S should be a step forward rather than a step backward with respect to transit...

Why? Transit is only part of the game, not the whole. Why must every city builder expend ever greater amounts of energy on transit? Is it not possible to make a good game by expending the majority of "development energy" elsewhere?

[Nakia]

While I am not going to base my decision to buy or not to buy on whether the roads have bends or curves I would like them. Since we have to have roads because this is a modern city. :sigh:

Based on past experience once I start playing the game I am going to be saying to myself and my cats "Gee, I wish they had done this, or why didn't they put this in." Further more based on my experience with CotN (which I dearly love) and Caesar IV (which I like very much) I will be using language I am not allowed to post here. :D Just remember that the staff of Tilted Mill is evil. (And that is part of the reason I love 'em.

[Romaq]

Why? Transit is only part of the game, not the whole. Why must every city builder expend ever greater amounts of energy on transit? Is it not possible to make a good game by expending the majority of "development energy" elsewhere?

Why have SC:S focus on having 'real 3d'? I mean, shouldn't SC:S be more about gameplay and less about having a non-fixed camera view? Isn't the 'prerendered' 3D view in SC4 good enough? After all, it's about gameplay, right?

Transit is only part of the game, this is true. But energy is being spent on having buildings and effects visible from every angle without 'prerendering' as is done with the level of detail (LOD) views of SC4. It would appear that some effort is being made to have the buildings look creative, enchanting, engaging, and interesting from multiple perspectives. From the 'eye-candy' perspective, some love needs to be applied to those roads. From the 'game play' perspective, the speed, convenience and capacity of transit have serious impact upon the movement and flow of assets referred to as 'social energies'. Since these 'social energies' are meant to be a model, a reflection of what occurs in real cities in a simplified form most people can grasp and interact with, the flow of these assets through transit are, if not crucial, then I would say very highly tied into how the gameplay will actually manafest at release time.

Again, there are two sides to the transit issue:

1) If 'eye candy' is important, and it appears to be, transit needs some love.

2) If 'social energies' are a gameplay manafestation, a model if you will of the interaction between the flow of people as employees, customers and materials, that flow is due to transit, and transit has a crucial impact upon the ability of employees to get between homes, jobs and venues.

The Soviet Police State had wheat rot in the fields for lack of transit while people starved at empty markets. Las Vegas, the city of entertainment, has most roads three lanes both ways 45 mph. Meridian is 35 mph with four terribly crowded lanes plus a turn lane. Bellingham is growing as a city, but there is a great deal of noise on how and where to accomodate that growth due to... you guessed it, transit issues.

To the extent that 'SimCity: Societies' has any simulation relationship to any form of human 'city', tranit is a very, very big deal. A huge deal. A deal that, at some point, really needs to be addressed within the game beyond what we have been able to gleen from screenshots thus far.

There may be more to transit than what we have seen. I surely hope so. I'm on pins & needles waiting for it. 'Tiz only my opinion, but I believe my opinion concerning transit, both as 'eye candy' and as a factor in game play makes it a big issue.

--Romaq

[Aushun]

I thought you were making a comparison on atmospherics before reading it was on transit, in which case SC:S would appear to win. The roads must, and I think will, be improved, beyond their current singular and angular form.