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'Cities: Skylines II' Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords (www.wired.com)
submitted 2 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/upliftingnews@lemmy.world
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[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 74 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

In the same vein, Simon Librande, lead designer of Sim City, decided to pretend that basically all plots above low density just have absurdly huge, invisible (underground) parking lots, otherwise a car centric city very often just turns into half parking lots.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240506163714/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-philosophy-of-simcity-an-interview-with-the-games-lead-designer/275724/

Geoff Manaugh: While you were making those measurements of different real-world cities, did you discover any surprising patterns or spatial relationships?

Librande: Yes, definitely. I think the biggest one was the parking lots. When I started measuring out our local grocery store, which I don't think of as being that big, I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.

Manaugh: You would be making SimParkingLot, rather than SimCity.

Librande: [laughs] Exactly. So what we do in the game is that we just imagine they are underground. We do have parking lots in the game, and we do try to scale them -- so, if you have a little grocery store, we'll put six or seven parking spots on the side, and, if you have a big convention center or a big pro stadium, they'll have what seem like really big lots -- but they're nowhere near what a real grocery store or pro stadium would have. We had to do the best we could do and still make the game look attractive.

EDIT: I got some details mixed up, corrected and expanded now.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think I would love a game where you start with a car-centric city or region and then can either try to build it up continuing with the status quo or try to convert it to something that doesn't depend so much on cars.

[–] lurker2718@lemmings.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The only game I know where you have to consider parking is "Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic". I haven't provided any private cars to the people from my Republic yet. But from what I have seen, you need to provide parking lots close to their home and their destinations.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Do you know if it stimulates individual cars filling up the lots or is it just a "is there parking available?" check that doesn't go deeper to see if it's enough parking?

Sounds like an interesting game even if it's not to the level I'd like to see (which I'm not even sure is feasible for a real time game).

Edit: lol "stimulates", gotta get the cars all hot and bothered before they can park! I'm leaving it, but I do see it now.

[–] lurker2718@lemmings.world 3 points 2 months ago

I think it simulates each person going to their (a?) car and driving this car to another parking lot with free spots. So they do really fill up. However, I do not have first hand experience. In our glorious republic walking an public transport is all we need. So not even the most loyal party members get cars.

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

SimCity 2000 had scenarios of pre existing cities with specific goals, and though it did not have as many or as elaborate mass transit systems as later city builders, I think a few of them required you to both grow and reduce traffic, basically requiring you to build a working mass transit system.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I meant with accurate car storage. Being able to reclaim that space for other uses would be pretty satisfying. It would need to simulate at the individual level, so I'm not sure how technically feasible it would be (I think cities skylines does this to a degree, but I don't know if they simulate the full population or just a portion of it).

It should also include accidents, including "truck tried to drive under bridge it didn't fit under" and "incompetent boat operator takes out bridge" style ones.

It would be neat if the simulation was good enough to be able to see realistic effects of various policies and changes. Something that could capture unintended consequences without the high level pattern bring coded into the simulation directly. Like how high speed roundabouts are death traps, base that on when conflicts would become visible and the reaction time available to avoid an accident rather than just "high speed roundabout = x accidents per y time".

It would be an engineering tool as much as a game at the accuracy level I'd like to see, but I'd have a blast playing around with something like that.

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ah.

I am not aware of any games/sims that do that.

It might be possible to heavily mod such things into Cities Skylines 1 or 2, but it would be a ton of work and basically no fun to play for everyone other than masochistic uber nerds (I am counting myself as one).

It would be comparable to the percentage of players that play Kerbal Space Program vs the percentage that play KSP with the full suite of Realism Overhaul, Realistic Solar System, and all that.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 40 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How is it uplifting? This is a game, it would be uplifting if it was in real life

[–] ToyDork@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Because now it's undeniable. Landlords are economic liabilities to cities. If the math and the simulation resolution are this high, it's mathematically extremely unlikely that the influence of landlords is truly positive, and thus you can say "the simulations say you're a financial leech and you won't let your ledgers be scrutinized to prove them wrong, so clearly you know EXACTLY what you're doing" when your landlord tries to fuck you over.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We all knew that already, and a game isn't exactly a flawless simulation of the real world that they would accept anyway. Even if they agreed that they were a leech, they would still most likely stay landlords oir of selfishness.

[–] ToyDork@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Look, if I have to hear one more "you're stupid because I disagree with your proposal" then I'm fucking done with the Fediverse. I was IMPLYING "tell your landlord that he's an asshole and when he admits it, burn all his properties down" because CANADA LITERALLY HAS A HOUSING CRISIS.

Is "destroy houses to hurt landlords and then get arrested" reasonable? No. But until people start demanding free homes on penalty of death, we will never again have enough housing because NOT HAVING ENOUGH HOUSING IS TOO PROFITABLE.

So either start burning down your landlord's houses, or fuck off, because people are literally homeless because of worthless pieces of shit like you.

I am now blocking you. Go die.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

Its the only solution, otherwise it optimizes for profits as opposed to capacity ensuring a provisional floor of everyone having a basic standard of shelter that allows them to focus on productivity and improvement as opposed to surviving this month's rent

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

I will say, when this update hit (June) I very rarely notice rent issues now. However, the reworked economy is WAY different, actually had to take out loans and scrape pennies just to stay afloat.