SimCity News

I saw a tweet from SimGuruDelsyn earlier today. If you are in the area, be sure to attend! Sounds amazing, I'm a bit bummed I can't be there myself!

Retweeting this from yesterday. If you're in NY this Thur., stop by ComicCon for our "Designing for the Future" panel/nycc13.mapyourshow.com/5_0/sessions/s…

Some info from the website:

Date: Thursday, October 10
6:15 pm - 7:15 pm

Location: 1A17

Description:
How do game and art designers develop a game with future themes? How much do you let your designer imagination run wild and how much do you play into expectations about the future derived from pop culture? A panel with developers from The Sims 3 Into the Future and SimCity Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack will discuss these topics and more and walk attendees through the new future worlds with concept art and in-game footage.

Here is the first official trailer for Cities of Tomorrow. Me likey!

Today EA announced the first expansion pack for SimCity. It's called Cities of Tomorrow and looks promising! Check out the press release:

SIMCITY CITIES OF TOMORROW EXPANSION PACK COMING NOVEMBER 12

Speculative Technologies, New Specializations, and Massive MegaTowers Take Gamers’ Cities to the Future

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – September 19, 2013 – Bring the cities of today into the world of tomorrow. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced that the SimCity™ Cities of Tomorrow* expansion pack is currently in development for Mac and PC and will be arriving November 12. Built upon the foundation of the ultimate city building simulation that has more than 2 million players worldwide, SimCity Cities of Tomorrow gives players the ability to transform their cities as they take them on a journey 50 years into the future. Using new technologies and experimental urban planning techniques, mayors will shape the destinies of their cities, thriving in a utopia of clean technologies, or a dystopia of hyper-commercialism.

“Will the world of tomorrow be a utopia powered by clean energy or an industrial society consumed by mass commercialism?” said Patrick Buechner, General Manager, Maxis Emeryville. “With SimCity Cities of Tomorrow, players can build the future as they imagine it. Transport your Sims on MagLev, power your cities with fusion reactors or tidal wave generators, manufacture a legion of drones to serve your Sims and build massive MegaTowers that dwarf modern skyscrapers. We’re giving you plausible technologies to take your cities onto a journey 50 years into the future. What will you create?”

SimCity Cities of Tomorrow gives players an entirely new way to dream about their city of the future. New regions, new future technology, new city specializations and new transportation methods will transform the way that cities take shape and evolve. Will they create a utopian society underpinned by clean technology under the auspices of the Academy, or encourage giant corporation OmegaCo to strip-mine natural resources and pollute in the name of feeding consumerism? For the first time in the history of the franchise, cities can be built vertically with enormous multi-zone MegaTowers that extend high into the sky and dwarf the rest of the city. Education and research will help players discover new technologies that make their cities less polluted, less reliant on natural resources, managed day-to-day by service drones and fueled by green energy. As the population increases, Sims will live, work, and play closer together. When players have finished deciding whether they want their Sims to live together in harmony, or as members of an exploited workforce, they can rain chaos upon them by unleashing an all-new disaster exclusive to this expansion pack.

The SimCity base game is available now on Mac and PC and developed by Maxis. SimCity is cross-platform compatible, so all players play together across the same servers. Players can play both versions with the same Origin account, allowing them to seamlessly continue their cities, achievements and leaderboard progress across the Mac and PC. Since its launch in March, SimCity has had seven major game updates that have made upgrades to the core simulation and provided game content and features at no additional charge.

SimCity Cities of Tomorrow will be available for Mac and PC and is not yet rated for the ESRB. Pre-orders will begin soon at www.SimCity.com.

It's taken over half a year since the PC launch, but Maxis has officially launched SimCity for Mac today. If you purchased the game already, there's no need to do it again: all copies of SimCity, whether digital or retail copies, can be used to play the game on both PC and Mac. To play the game on Mac, start Origin on Mac and install the game as usual.