Sazime
03-20-2009, 01:07 AM
Cities Online Preview
Title - Cities Online
Platforms - PC
Developer - Monte Cristo (http://www.montecristogames.com/)
Editor - Sam "Sazime" Sorensen
The Basics
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8579/onlinef.png
Cities Online (also known as Cities XL) joins a series of games by Monte Cristo by similar names. Before this, there was City Life. Both are built around a similar premise: build a city and keep it running and growing by keeping all of the citizens happy and using resources created by your economy to keep building and expanding.
Not only can you get a massive birds eye view of the city, you can also zoom down to street level to see how your citizens are reacting to what is going on around them. From crime to skiing, you can see exactly what your citizens are up to and even see how they feel about the environment around them.
Unlike other sims, which (to me) seem a bit ambiguous as to what is needed to keep your factories working, your houses full of tenants and your economy generating revenue, Cities uses a pretty straight forward set of resources. You'll find yourself building housing and providing jobs and services for your different citizen types. From low level workers to the highest paid executives, they all have different needs and wants, as do the different business types. While before you had to manage all of this on your own, you now have the option of getting a little help.
The Online Experience
When going online to a server, you are shown an entire world, continents, oceans and all, where you can select the desired location for your city. Depending on where your city is located, you will have more (or less) contact with other cities allowing you to easily trade resources. There are also areas with beaches or mountains which will give you the ability to develop GEMs (more on that later). Plans are to charge $5 a month for the online service, mainly as a way to present this as a supplemental MMO.
Each world will contain ~10,000 cities of which 5 you can use for your own purposes. When your city is created, its information will also be posted to your own online profile. As you build, the stats of your city update online on the Cities Online website. At any time you can access this page through a good 'ol web browser to see what your city is producing and even conduct trade.
If you like, you can even visit your cities with your own custom avatar. Having the ability to zoom in as far as you like, you can even get a close look at store fronts and structure to see what your neighbors are building. And even if you do not have the content packs for different structures for your own cities, you can still take a look at them while travelling throughout the world.
City building in this respect is highly cooperative. While leader boards will be available to see where you stand next to your friends online, there is no real direct competition. You can play solo on the server, but there are huge incentives to work with others to create the best run city you can. The best way to do that is to swap resources to keep your well oiled machine running.
Trade
As your city grows, and as you gain access to new structures, you will also need resources to keep everything running. You will generate and need to utilize water, power, fuel, your workforce, entertainment, transportation, etc. If you have excess material or need more you can trade with other cites to keep functioning.
Not only can resources be traded in game in the main engine, but also through the online social network. Traversing through the web site is simple enough, with resource finding as simple as a search. After finding someone with the suitable resources, you can set up a contract (one time or over a period of days) and the offered can accept, or make a counter offer. From there, the resources can be allocated to your city.
Mega-structures
The current plan for Mega-structures is to have, on a weekly basis, a lottery of blueprints. Each blueprint represents one of the many Mega-structures and gives you the ability to place the basic foundations of the structure in your city.
Building the structure takes place over a series of stages, each requiring its own set of resources. You can try and build it yourself, but because of the amount of material needed you are better served working with others to complete the work. Otherwise, construction that could take a matter of weeks may take much much longer.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9227/megasf2.png
Already have a blueprint or do not want the one you current have in hand? You will also have the ability to trade blueprints with other players for other blueprints, resources or simply give them away. The special buildings and points of interest based on the Statue of Liberty, Colossus of Rhodes, Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower and more. Each city can have one of each, and each structure has its own economical and social benefits, as well as drawbacks that you will be required to deal with.
GEMs
GEMs (Game-play Enhancement Modules) are another new addition to Cities Online. These small special areas are essentially the theme parks and tourist attractions of your city. Currently two are planned: the Ski and the Beach Resorts.
Think of GEMs as a way to generate entertainment for your populace as well as a tourist spot for citizens of other cities to visit. They play like their own little tycoon mini game.
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3712/gemsf2.png
Ski Resorts will have you setting up runs of different difficulties, motels and even large jumps for tourists to enjoy. Are the runs too hard? Make some easier ones for the less experienced skiers. Motels not pulling in enough dough? Raise the prices.
With the Beach Resorts, you'll deal with much of the same. One big difference is the need to set up swimming areas and other forms of entertainment like outdoor volley ball courts or outdoor swimming pools for those who find ocean water too salty.
Like I said, it's a tycoon game within a city builder. Later on, they would like to add GEMs for other types of resources such as trains, fully customizable airports, zoos and theme parks. It's just one of the many modular pieces in the game that you will be able to purchase after the game's initial release. It is not known whether or not any GEMs will be included with the retail version.
The Social Network
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3485/avatarfi.png
At the center of the massive online environment is the large social network. You can use it to initiate trade, make friends, look at your stats as well as others and see what other cities are up to.
The main function of the network, currently, is to initiate trade and check up on game status. There are also a variety of RSS feeds that update throughout the day as to the goings on in the world at large.
Content
On release, Cities Online will contain around 500 structures as well as multiple single player maps. Over time, Monte Cristo plans to release additional content, such as the aforementioned GEMs, as well as the distinct possibility of additional buildings and other in game structures.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6126/basicf2.png
The entire engine, build from the ground up for the new online game as well as the expanded game types, will also allow for Monte Cristo to develop a variety of GEM types to constantly give us more types of game play. We have yet to see exactly what this means, but with the ability to walk a avatar around at street level, they're not too far from giving you a car to tool around in as well.
Solo Play
Even if you don't want to play online, Cities Online still lets you choose a map and create your own city offline. All of the same items available online (sans trading) are available in the single player experience. This includes any additional content that will be made available after release. So fret not, those of the lone wolf disposition! You can still be as isolated and alone as you want to be.
In Conslusion...
Cities Online will be a city building experience unlike any other we've seen up to this point. Sure, the simulation aspects are in line with other games, but the simplified structure of resource building and managing makes this experience feel much more approachable. It has all the deep and rich game play that a sim and tycoon player would want, without all of the scary numbers and graphs that can scare away some players.
The planned co-op experience looks spectacular. The amount of work that has gone in to making it a real community experience is great to see. It just feels like a online co-op experience that we haven't seen yet, and I can't wait to see more.
Title - Cities Online
Platforms - PC
Developer - Monte Cristo (http://www.montecristogames.com/)
Editor - Sam "Sazime" Sorensen
The Basics
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8579/onlinef.png
Cities Online (also known as Cities XL) joins a series of games by Monte Cristo by similar names. Before this, there was City Life. Both are built around a similar premise: build a city and keep it running and growing by keeping all of the citizens happy and using resources created by your economy to keep building and expanding.
Not only can you get a massive birds eye view of the city, you can also zoom down to street level to see how your citizens are reacting to what is going on around them. From crime to skiing, you can see exactly what your citizens are up to and even see how they feel about the environment around them.
Unlike other sims, which (to me) seem a bit ambiguous as to what is needed to keep your factories working, your houses full of tenants and your economy generating revenue, Cities uses a pretty straight forward set of resources. You'll find yourself building housing and providing jobs and services for your different citizen types. From low level workers to the highest paid executives, they all have different needs and wants, as do the different business types. While before you had to manage all of this on your own, you now have the option of getting a little help.
The Online Experience
When going online to a server, you are shown an entire world, continents, oceans and all, where you can select the desired location for your city. Depending on where your city is located, you will have more (or less) contact with other cities allowing you to easily trade resources. There are also areas with beaches or mountains which will give you the ability to develop GEMs (more on that later). Plans are to charge $5 a month for the online service, mainly as a way to present this as a supplemental MMO.
Each world will contain ~10,000 cities of which 5 you can use for your own purposes. When your city is created, its information will also be posted to your own online profile. As you build, the stats of your city update online on the Cities Online website. At any time you can access this page through a good 'ol web browser to see what your city is producing and even conduct trade.
If you like, you can even visit your cities with your own custom avatar. Having the ability to zoom in as far as you like, you can even get a close look at store fronts and structure to see what your neighbors are building. And even if you do not have the content packs for different structures for your own cities, you can still take a look at them while travelling throughout the world.
City building in this respect is highly cooperative. While leader boards will be available to see where you stand next to your friends online, there is no real direct competition. You can play solo on the server, but there are huge incentives to work with others to create the best run city you can. The best way to do that is to swap resources to keep your well oiled machine running.
Trade
As your city grows, and as you gain access to new structures, you will also need resources to keep everything running. You will generate and need to utilize water, power, fuel, your workforce, entertainment, transportation, etc. If you have excess material or need more you can trade with other cites to keep functioning.
Not only can resources be traded in game in the main engine, but also through the online social network. Traversing through the web site is simple enough, with resource finding as simple as a search. After finding someone with the suitable resources, you can set up a contract (one time or over a period of days) and the offered can accept, or make a counter offer. From there, the resources can be allocated to your city.
Mega-structures
The current plan for Mega-structures is to have, on a weekly basis, a lottery of blueprints. Each blueprint represents one of the many Mega-structures and gives you the ability to place the basic foundations of the structure in your city.
Building the structure takes place over a series of stages, each requiring its own set of resources. You can try and build it yourself, but because of the amount of material needed you are better served working with others to complete the work. Otherwise, construction that could take a matter of weeks may take much much longer.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9227/megasf2.png
Already have a blueprint or do not want the one you current have in hand? You will also have the ability to trade blueprints with other players for other blueprints, resources or simply give them away. The special buildings and points of interest based on the Statue of Liberty, Colossus of Rhodes, Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower and more. Each city can have one of each, and each structure has its own economical and social benefits, as well as drawbacks that you will be required to deal with.
GEMs
GEMs (Game-play Enhancement Modules) are another new addition to Cities Online. These small special areas are essentially the theme parks and tourist attractions of your city. Currently two are planned: the Ski and the Beach Resorts.
Think of GEMs as a way to generate entertainment for your populace as well as a tourist spot for citizens of other cities to visit. They play like their own little tycoon mini game.
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3712/gemsf2.png
Ski Resorts will have you setting up runs of different difficulties, motels and even large jumps for tourists to enjoy. Are the runs too hard? Make some easier ones for the less experienced skiers. Motels not pulling in enough dough? Raise the prices.
With the Beach Resorts, you'll deal with much of the same. One big difference is the need to set up swimming areas and other forms of entertainment like outdoor volley ball courts or outdoor swimming pools for those who find ocean water too salty.
Like I said, it's a tycoon game within a city builder. Later on, they would like to add GEMs for other types of resources such as trains, fully customizable airports, zoos and theme parks. It's just one of the many modular pieces in the game that you will be able to purchase after the game's initial release. It is not known whether or not any GEMs will be included with the retail version.
The Social Network
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3485/avatarfi.png
At the center of the massive online environment is the large social network. You can use it to initiate trade, make friends, look at your stats as well as others and see what other cities are up to.
The main function of the network, currently, is to initiate trade and check up on game status. There are also a variety of RSS feeds that update throughout the day as to the goings on in the world at large.
Content
On release, Cities Online will contain around 500 structures as well as multiple single player maps. Over time, Monte Cristo plans to release additional content, such as the aforementioned GEMs, as well as the distinct possibility of additional buildings and other in game structures.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6126/basicf2.png
The entire engine, build from the ground up for the new online game as well as the expanded game types, will also allow for Monte Cristo to develop a variety of GEM types to constantly give us more types of game play. We have yet to see exactly what this means, but with the ability to walk a avatar around at street level, they're not too far from giving you a car to tool around in as well.
Solo Play
Even if you don't want to play online, Cities Online still lets you choose a map and create your own city offline. All of the same items available online (sans trading) are available in the single player experience. This includes any additional content that will be made available after release. So fret not, those of the lone wolf disposition! You can still be as isolated and alone as you want to be.
In Conslusion...
Cities Online will be a city building experience unlike any other we've seen up to this point. Sure, the simulation aspects are in line with other games, but the simplified structure of resource building and managing makes this experience feel much more approachable. It has all the deep and rich game play that a sim and tycoon player would want, without all of the scary numbers and graphs that can scare away some players.
The planned co-op experience looks spectacular. The amount of work that has gone in to making it a real community experience is great to see. It just feels like a online co-op experience that we haven't seen yet, and I can't wait to see more.