Poll of the Day > You know how small cities are in games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

They need to be more realistically sized

I legit agree with this... makes me wish the larger cities in The World Ends With You and the Shin Megami Tensei games were more explorable
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Would be nice, yeah, if the hardware and software were capable of this. But theyre not, so they wont.

I mean, hell, can you imagine a realistic GTA V with an exact size ratio and an npc count of around 4million? My pc would melt at this and it has no trouble with most new high performing games.

It would be awesome, but it's probably not possible rn because what wasteland said but hopefully one day in our lifetime
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As cool as it would be to explore a 1:1 scale of Los Angeles in the game, I don't think it would be enjoyable spending hours getting from point A to point B. Not to mention could you imagine LA with realistic traffic in a game? It doesn't matter how fast the car you steal goes, you're not going anywhere fast
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I'd like a game that could pull off fairly detailed procedurally generated cities. Something like SimCity but at ground level
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I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

Zikten posted...

I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-strange-tale-of-a-cities-skylines-town-with-only-one-house/

That one FFVIII town did a great job of that.

Lindblum too.

TheWorstPoster posted...

Zikten posted...

I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-strange-tale-of-a-cities-skylines-town-with-only-one-house/

That website is trash on mobile
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WastelandCowboy posted...

Would be nice, yeah, if the hardware and software were capable of this. But theyre not, so they wont.

I mean, hell, can you imagine a realistic GTA V with an exact size ratio and an npc count of around 4million? My pc would melt at this and it has no trouble with most new high performing games.

I'd like a Los Santos with more interiors that you can actually get into!
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Zikten posted...

I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

drive around a big city at night and you'll find out theirs not enough houses for all the people in real life.
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Google maps.

CarefreeDude posted...

As cool as it would be to explore a 1:1 scale of Los Angeles in the game, I don't think it would be enjoyable spending hours getting from point A to point B. Not to mention could you imagine LA with realistic traffic in a game? It doesn't matter how fast the car you steal goes, you're not going anywhere fast

Pretty much. If I wanted to drive around a realistically-sized city, I'd hop in my car. Putting that kind of realism into a game just gets in the way of playing it.
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Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

its always why I wished GTA would have a game based in a smaller city that was also crime ridden. like Durham NC. I doubt they'd still be able to get the full city in, but they'd be able to get a lot closer than say new york. and since gta uses fake names I already have a great name for that, Bull city. some people do call durham that since they are semi famous for the durham bulls baseball team.
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I'm thinking that instead of doing a 3 cities thing or a city + countryside thing like SA or 5, they could take all that space and just expand the city. You know, just one giant city. What would that be like?
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streamofthesky posted...

Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

Fast travel.
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You either get small cities where you can go inside every building, or huge cities where you can't.
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FinalFantasyVII posted...

That one FFVIII town did a great job of that.

Lindblum too.

Carry on
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Zareth posted...

You either get small cities where you can go inside every building, or huge cities where you can't.

Open world sure but I can see a large city in an RPG game letting you go in every building.
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I would like this but imagine how hard that would be to make. Cities take decades and decades to build up to their size and youre expecting someone who isnt even a city planner by trade to design a virtual city of the same scale, density, complexity, and architectural diversity as a real cityscape? Its virtually impossible.
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Solid Sonic posted...

I would like this but imagine how hard that would be to make. Cities take decades and decades to build up to their size and youre expecting someone who isnt even a city planner by trade to design a virtual city of the same scale, density, complexity, and architectural diversity as a real cityscape? Its virtually impossible.

We don't have the technology for it but in the future they would just hire actual city planners.
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Revelation34 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

Fast travel.

Yeah, it's necessary at that point.
But all you're doing then is having size for the sake of size.
You have to traverse the area once or a few times, then get a fast travel point and never have to deal with all that garbage on route again. What compelling design!

Cities should only be enormous if there's actually a ton of worthwhile stuff (from a gameplay perspective, not "realism" perspective) filling that space.

Otherwise...why not just have small "sectors" that are densely packed w/ things, and then each sector has defined boundaries. You cross one, it's like going to a new screen in the original LoZ.
You were in "Industrial Zone" before. Now, by stepping through that boundary, you're in "Residential Zone." The trip between the two areas took your character quite a while and covered a mile or three, or so the game tells you. To you, you just moved to a new screen.

That's basically what fast travel is, but why even keep the stupid pretense that the in between stuff matters at all? Fully remove it and save the player wasted time walking through a bunch of dull urban sprawl that's only there for the sake of making the city "to scale."

streamofthesky posted...

Revelation34 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

Fast travel.

Yeah, it's necessary at that point.
But all you're doing then is having size for the sake of size.
You have to traverse the area once or a few times, then get a fast travel point and never have to deal with all that garbage on route again. What compelling design!

Cities should only be enormous if there's actually a ton of worthwhile stuff (from a gameplay perspective, not "realism" perspective) filling that space.

Otherwise...why not just have small "sectors" that are densely packed w/ things, and then each sector has defined boundaries. You cross one, it's like going to a new screen in the original LoZ.
You were in "Industrial Zone" before. Now, by stepping through that boundary, you're in "Residential Zone." The trip between the two areas took your character quite a while and covered a mile or three, or so the game tells you. To you, you just moved to a new screen.

That's basically what fast travel is, but why even keep the stupid pretense that the in between stuff matters at all? Fully remove it and save the player wasted time walking through a bunch of dull urban sprawl that's only there for the sake of making the city "to scale."

Well as I said in my other post it really could only work in an RPG. They're actually designed for exploration.
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streamofthesky posted...

Revelation34 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

Fast travel.

Yeah, it's necessary at that point.
But all you're doing then is having size for the sake of size.
You have to traverse the area once or a few times, then get a fast travel point and never have to deal with all that garbage on route again. What compelling design!

Cities should only be enormous if there's actually a ton of worthwhile stuff (from a gameplay perspective, not "realism" perspective) filling that space.

Otherwise...why not just have small "sectors" that are densely packed w/ things, and then each sector has defined boundaries. You cross one, it's like going to a new screen in the original LoZ.
You were in "Industrial Zone" before. Now, by stepping through that boundary, you're in "Residential Zone." The trip between the two areas took your character quite a while and covered a mile or three, or so the game tells you. To you, you just moved to a new screen.

That's basically what fast travel is, but why even keep the stupid pretense that the in between stuff matters at all? Fully remove it and save the player wasted time walking through a bunch of dull urban sprawl that's only there for the sake of making the city "to scale."

I've had that idea before. Provided switching screens doesn't take too long of a load screen I'd be down for it
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mooreandrew58 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Revelation34 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Having to traverse all that area to get around? No thanks.
It's enough just dealing with the obscenely vast empty sandboxes of the outdoors, don't make the populated areas like that, too.

Fast travel.

Yeah, it's necessary at that point.
But all you're doing then is having size for the sake of size.
You have to traverse the area once or a few times, then get a fast travel point and never have to deal with all that garbage on route again. What compelling design!

Cities should only be enormous if there's actually a ton of worthwhile stuff (from a gameplay perspective, not "realism" perspective) filling that space.

Otherwise...why not just have small "sectors" that are densely packed w/ things, and then each sector has defined boundaries. You cross one, it's like going to a new screen in the original LoZ.
You were in "Industrial Zone" before. Now, by stepping through that boundary, you're in "Residential Zone." The trip between the two areas took your character quite a while and covered a mile or three, or so the game tells you. To you, you just moved to a new screen.

That's basically what fast travel is, but why even keep the stupid pretense that the in between stuff matters at all? Fully remove it and save the player wasted time walking through a bunch of dull urban sprawl that's only there for the sake of making the city "to scale."

I've had that idea before. Provided switching screens doesn't take too long of a load screen I'd be down for it

Ideally it'd be just as quick as switching between screens in LoZ or close to it. It should be something that the player can just haphazardly go back and forth as he pleases. If it had a 15+ sec, the player would likely start getting annoyed any time he accidentally crossed the boundary...

But hey, I'd trade graphics for frame rate and quick/no loading any day, and most developers...think the opposite.

streamofthesky posted...

Ideally it'd be just as quick as switching between screens in LoZ or close to it. It should be something that the player can just haphazardly go back and forth as he pleases. If it had a 15+ sec, the player would likely start getting annoyed any time he accidentally crossed the boundary...

But hey, I'd trade graphics for frame rate and quick/no loading any day, and most developers...think the opposite.

Well loading screens are usually because of out of date game engines.
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Revelation34 posted...

streamofthesky posted...

Ideally it'd be just as quick as switching between screens in LoZ or close to it. It should be something that the player can just haphazardly go back and forth as he pleases. If it had a 15+ sec, the player would likely start getting annoyed any time he accidentally crossed the boundary...

But hey, I'd trade graphics for frame rate and quick/no loading any day, and most developers...think the opposite.

Well loading screens are usually because of out of date game engines.

PS4 seems to have a lot of lengthy loading screens, even for games that are remasters of much older/weaker system titles.

No thanks. Los Santos to Sandy Shores was tedious enough.

Revelation34 posted...

Open world sure but I can see a large city in an RPG game letting you go in every building.

Not a modern day city.
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DeathMagnetic80 posted...

No thanks. Los Santos to Sandy Shores was tedious enough.

It wasnt that bad. Just take the highway.

Zareth posted...

Not a modern day city.

Depends on the scale and if it's just fast travel between sections.
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Andromicus posted...

TheWorstPoster posted...

Zikten posted...

I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-strange-tale-of-a-cities-skylines-town-with-only-one-house/

That website is trash on mobile

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WastelandCowboy posted...

DeathMagnetic80 posted...

No thanks. Los Santos to Sandy Shores was tedious enough.

It wasnt that bad. Just take the highway.

I mean, it didn't take FOREVER or anything, but that's about the upper limit I can go between places and not start getting bored at the tediousness of it.

Suppose VR will help with this once it hits a good level.
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bulbinking posted...

Andromicus posted...

TheWorstPoster posted...

Zikten posted...

I always wonder where everyone lives. there is usually not enough houses for all the people in town.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-strange-tale-of-a-cities-skylines-town-with-only-one-house/

That website is trash on mobile

Ha, that was a good article.
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