Zoning
| General Ideas and Issues |
More Buildings - The Big Issue!
The one thing that every player has requested the most is for Maxis to provide more buildings in each zone and for each tile size. Whilst this is an easy request, the calculations don't stack up in favor of the game artists or computer processing power.
Rather than simply requesting "more buildings of any type", another options would be to simply suggest that Maxis include the following:
This calculates to 50 new buildings for each Building Set or a total of 150 new buildings.
Whilst this request is quite huge (people suggesting this can now understand how 10 additional buildings can stack up to a lot of work!), it is one that would make a lot of people happy and if used in conjunction with the landmark suggestion on this site, could provide an almost unique city every time.
City Center Effect
Debate continues over keeping or getting rid of the City Center effect in SC3000. Some players believe that it tends to cause unrealistic land value situations which ends up turning your city into one big "Richville". On the other hand, the City Center effect has allowed more solid commercial district to grow in SC3000.
If Maxis was to keep the City Center effect, then it needs to be modified so as to stop affecting development of zones outside of a specific radius. Players often like to produce realistic cities that consist of dirty industries and low density "run-down" neighborhoods. The City Center effect makes such representations almost impossible as eventually all buildings become high value estates or clean industries.
Derelict and Abandoned Buildings
Many players have suggested that the way these buildings are represented needs improving.One suggestion is to create a "dull" version of the building which makes it looked faded or old. The only issue with this is it may slow down the game as it constantly has to load the matching picture of the building.
Another way to address this issue is to provide more "colorful" alternatives to these buildings. Having a cities full of grey buildings is not the best way to represent this. Maybe a few buildings in different states of neglect would be better than different grey buildings as is the case in SC3000.
Road Alignment
Another issue players have is that buildings pop-up pretty much anywhere in a large zone. This causes the tiles along the roads to be mostly filer tiles. The formula that chooses where a building is placed should try to establish a building next to the closest possible road tile. This way the filer tiles end up mostly behind the building.
This better represents commercial plaza areas and backyards in residential areas.
Building on Hills and Slopes
Numerous ideas have been submitted regarding building on slopes. The problem with this is the leveling factor involved in SC3000. One idea that has been proposed is the use of "fill tiles" that act as supports for buildings that are built on sloping terrain.
Using the examples in the picture above, Maxis could use a special filler tile that is placed under buildings that are built on sloping terrain. The pier example could be applied to low and medium density buildings where as the solid concrete filler could be used for high density buildings. The use of these special tiles would work in the same manner as how piers are built over sloping shorelines for ports.
| Specific Ideas |
Residential No new suggestions
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Commercial No new suggestions
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Industrial Click here to view industry ideas and suggestions
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Seaport No new suggestions
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Airport Idea 1 The way airports are laid out could be improved with the addition of tarmac filer tiles. The fact that buildings align the whole runway does not seem realistic. Idea 2 Another option that has been suggested is that airports be divided into light (5x5) and heavy (10x10). These categories would have several pre-drawn airports (loosely based on realistic airport layouts) which can be built just like a building.
Idea 3 After downloading and using the airport tiles from Freeland, it seems that another way for airports to be built in a more realistic fashion is to allow the player to connect the components themselves. This way the player has a set of airport buildings, runways and facilities that they can places independently to create a custom airport. The down side to this is people may start to do silly things with the individual components. A way to avoid this happening is to still allow players to zone a patch of land for airport use, and then only allow the components to be placed in this patch of land. If people make small unrealistic patches everywhere then obviously the game variables should not respond to such bad designs.
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Waterfront This option would replace the marinas in SC3K. The problem with marinas is that they tend to look bland and the ongoing problem of making them look attached to the shoreline is not well presented. Waterfronts should be zoned in the same manner as seaports and piers should be extended out from the shoreline. Small restaurant structures, cars with trailers and boating facilities should be placed on the land based areas next to the piers. The piers themselves should have a non-industrial look in comparison with the seaport piers.
The picture above is a good example of how marinas should be laid out in the game. Walkways would extend from the shoreline (like seaports) and in some areas where walkways don't fit there would be boats aligned against the main pier. The example next to the picture would show how typical tiles would be laid out to form a marina in the same way a seaport is formed.
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National Park Quite a few people have suggested a "national park" type zone which would allow trees to grow rapidly in the designated zone. This would be handy as it can be hard placing trees tile by tile when creating large parks in the game. Such zoning would increase aura or land value slightly (kind of the same affect as building on high ground).
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Historical Historic zones are basically a way of selecting a large portion of buildings (excluding roads and specialized buildings) and making them historic in one hit.
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Landfill No new suggestions |
