Region Play Featured In Chat Event With SimCity 4 Producer Sean Decker

Thank you to everyone that attended the chat event. If you were unable to make it, the transcripts are now available at SimCity.com.

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Maxisdevinoch says, Howdy everyone! Welcome to the latest in our series of online chats with members of the SimCity 4 team. Today we have producer Sean Decker with us, who's here to talk about Region play! Say hi to your fans Sean!
agentdecker says, ola
maxisdevinoch says, And now for our first question! Remember, keep submitting those questions to me!

The speaker is presented with question #6 from managerjosh: What is Region Play in SimCity 4?
agentdecker says, Getting right down to the meat of the chat.....Region play is a way for your cities to interact with each other in a much deeper way than in previous SCs. Cities have economic as well as political implications to each other now.

The speaker is presented with question #4 from jqocosm: What are some new gameplay possibilities that regions introduce?
agentdecker says, In previous SC your city had to have everything in it. Everyone had to work there, live there, shop there, etc. Now your sims can commute to other cities, get there goods other places, etc. You don't have to have the biosphere mentality. This means that you can specialize your cities. You can create an all industry city or a resort town. You can change your taxes so only the rich or only the poor will want to live there. You dream it. You make it.

The speaker is presented with question #15 from centurygamer: How many regions do we get to play in?
agentdecker says, We are shipping the game with 6 regions, 4 real world and 2 we have created. You will also be able to make regions from scratch using the terrain editing tools in the game. Another possiblity is for you to use data from SimCity.com (not available yet) and create any region in the USA with that data. Sorry-rest of the world, we've only gotten good data from the US government so far.

The speaker is presented with question #30 from salvadorpatino: Can we build inter region highways and other ways to have all our region connect?
agentdecker says, Not at this time. All of your play has to be contained within a region. You can, of course have that highway go throughout your region (from one city to the next).

The speaker is presented with question #35 from salvadorpatino: If we want to have a small island in our region, how could we connect it to the rest of the region without having to build a huge industrial port?
agentdecker says, Great question. You can connect your island by building a bridge/causeway (like the real world).

The speaker is presented with question #36 from jqocosm: Do land values of a city affect other cities in the same region?
agentdecker says, Not per se. Cities do effect the demand for places for high wealth people to live. So if you have a great, rich community that is meeting the needs of the rich in your region, the demand for housing for them in other cities will be low.

The speaker is presented with question #46 from space_fighter: Can you propose 'deals' with other cities or will the game automatically do it like in SC 3000 Unlimited?
agentdecker says, Deals are completely up to you. The nice thing in SC4 is that you can "chain" your deals. So, in one corner of the region you could have a city that supplies a lot of power. This city makes a deal with the next city. This city in turn makes a deal will all of the ones it is connected to and so on. So you could have centers of power, water and garbage collection for your entire region, if that's what you want.

The speaker is presented with question #50 from 1337smurf: Can a region have one Airport and Seaport that all cities in the region can share?
agentdecker says, Airports and seaports increase the ability of the city they are in to grow commercial and industrial businesses. So, if you are going to have a largely industrial city, locating it on water would be wise.

The speaker is presented with question #65 from frontenac: Will we be able to see "MySim" traveling from one city to an other, and will we know in which city this "MySim" is working and/or traveling?
agentdecker says, Yes. If your sim has a job in another city, you may catch them at work (usually 9-5). When commuting, you will see them driving to the edge of the city you are in and off to their job.

The speaker is presented with question #75 from frontenac: I saw an example of a regional map. All the cities did not have the same size. How does it work? Can we decide the size of each city/region?
agentdecker says, So each region is diced up differently. Players will be able to dice up regions they create into whatever pattern they choose (as long as it fits the overall region size).
maxisdevinoch says, Just one minute here, folks. Sean's run off to get something.
agentdecker says, Cliff really wanted a coke.
agentdecker says, so i had to go get it for him, sheesh

The speaker is presented with question #97 from smirkozor: As you can only place 5 mysims in ur city, are you able to place 5 mysims in each region that you have built in?
agentdecker says, You can place 5 Sims in each city within a region. So if you have 40 cities, that's 200 Sims in that region alone.
maxisdevinoch says, Actually, it was just water, but you'd be surprised how friendly people are here at Maxis. =>
maxisdevinoch says, And I figured producers don't have all that much to do, really. =P
maxisdevinoch says, Actually, we were busy figuring out this question....

The speaker is presented with question #100 from andromedaroach: How much real-world land does the entire region represent?
agentdecker says, Per Billy Hsu, our Development Director, there are 16,777,216 meters in a region.

The speaker is presented with question #122 from space_fighter: Once you've diced a region can you change it or is it stuck like that forever?
agentdecker says, It is "stuck" like that. You can, of course create a new one.

The speaker is presented with question #144 from lancer088: How many city sizes are there? How do they compare to SC3K Cities? Is there only 1 size for regions?
agentdecker says, There are 3 sizes (small, medium, large) which are the same as SC3k cities. There are different size regions.

The speaker is presented with question #157 from salvadorpatino: can we have national (or regional) parks in our region? Areas like a made up grand cayon that atracts turists, or other natural wonders?
agentdecker says, In a different way than that. We have rewards that can only be achieved when certain requirements are met for a region. Examples would be the Tourist trap or the Major league stadium. No National Parks at this time.

The speaker is presented with question #78 from jennao: Will there be automatically generated neighbours (like in SC3K) or will you have to make them all yourself?
agentdecker says, No. You will make every city in your region. It is totally up to you as to what cities are there and what their makeup is.

The speaker is presented with question #166 from jqocosm: If there is infrastructure on both sides of a city border, will it still be possible to 'reconcile edges'?
agentdecker says, So this brings up an interesting point. Lets say you build a city and then go to a city next door. In this new city you decide to do a little terrain editing. Make a river, raise a mountain, whatever. When you go back to your original city, if the cities are to mesh up, you can reconcile the edges. In doing so, you make destroy some of your infrastructure. You will be show (with a graphical overlay) what areas of your city will be effected. You can, of course, choose not to reconcile and have the differences in height remain.

The speaker is presented with question #181 from space_fighter: How exactly do you switch between cities in a region? Or even switch between different regions?
agentdecker says, The old traditional way. You exit your city and go to the region mode. You can then go to another city or another region.

The speaker is presented with question #146 from trekker2000: Is SC4 designed to be expanded on in the future with expansion packs as you did with The Sims?
agentdecker says, What do you think?

The speaker is presented with question #187 from trekker2000: As region play is going to probably consume a lot of hard drive space, can you give an estimate of how much we should expect to use up on our hard drives for SC4?
agentdecker says, 1 Gig is the HD space for the game itself. Regions are taking up about 5-25 MB depending on the number of sims living there.

The speaker is presented with question #188 from andromedaroach: If you're building a city in a map at the edge of the region, can you make transportation connections to the greater SimNation?
agentdecker says, Yes. Any connection to an unincorporated city within your region or off the region will connect that city to the SimNation\

The speaker is presented with question #197 from doggyspew: how many citizens can occupy the region (in it´s largest form)
agentdecker says, Ummm.....how many months straight do you have to play this game? Millions. Lots. Many, many, many.

The speaker is presented with question #206 from headchef0: Is SC4 designed to be played online?
agentdecker says, We have something in the works right now on that very subject, but its too soon to talk about details.

The speaker is presented with question #229 from jennao: Is there going to be a "region exchange"?
agentdecker says, Players can send each other regions and Maxis is working on a way to help players facilitate that exachange.

The speaker is presented with question #195 from salvadorpatino: can we have cities that are totally dependent on agriculture in our region?
agentdecker says, Yes. We really wanted to make farm towns a feature in SC4. In fact there are rewards that you can only get based on the amount of farms in a given city or the region.

The speaker is presented with question #243 from salvadorpatino: could you tell us what you think is the best feature in region play?
agentdecker says, Personally for me, it is making specialized cities. Making a university town. Making my own High tech Silicon Valley. Making a resort town. An industrial powerhouse. All of these cities work within the context of each other an help my region grown. So I have to look at how I build a city on a much larger level.

The speaker is presented with question #249 from van_de_graaf: what are region economics like. do big cities support your farms , is there a trade balance?
agentdecker says, There are two major factors to consider, demand and desirability. Demand is spread throughout cities, so if one city has a lot of industrial job and not enough sims to fill those jobs, there will be demand for residences. If you started a new city next door, then the demand would transfer over. Now, in order for the Sims to want to live there, that city has to be desirable. It has to have the services they want. Schools, fire protection, etc. So yes, there is a balance of jobs, people and commerce.
maxisdevinoch says, Just one or two more questions and then we'll have to let Sean get back to fetching me wat.... I mean, back to his hard work.

The speaker is presented with question #199 from 1337smurf: What if you have cities on opposite sides of your region, will it be possible to make connections with them?
agentdecker says, You will actually have to create those connections through the interveaning landscape with rails, subways, highways, etc.

The speaker is presented with question #272 from nina_kanina: how difficult will it be for a beginner to learn the game?
agentdecker says, Actually we focused a lot of our UI effort in making it easy for someone who doesn't know the game to get in and play. Every button in the game has an extensive tool-tip on it. Almost a mini-manual, which tell you what it is and when to use it (this can be turned off at anytime). The simulator anticipates what you want to do. If you are drawing a road and start going over water, it will pop up with instructions on how to create a bridge. We have made it much easier to get a city started, but more difficult to get to and maintain large cities.
maxisdevinoch says, Thanks to everyone who turned out for the chat and thanks to Producer Sean Decker for taking time out of his hectic schedule to swing by and answer all your questions!
agentdecker says, Thanks all for the chance to talk to you about SimCity 4. Our release date is mid-January, so look for it in stores at that time. It is a wonderful game and I know you will be very pleased with it.
agentdecker says, Thanks again.
mayorsteven says, Thanks for coming, guys!
maxisdevinoch says, Don't forget to tip your waiters and waitresses on your way out! Enjoy your afternoons/evenings!