SimCity did a lot of things right, especially the ability to upgrade your facilities rather than having to plop another whole one down like Cities: Skylines demands (apparently this is addressed in the upcoming sequel). And the 'specializations' in SimCity offered much more interesting industrial opportunities to pursue than anything in Cities: Skylines. Also the 'agent' system was used to simulate pressure over distance in the water and sewage systems, which made for interesting challenges in placing your pumps and treatment facilities. I still come back and play it every once in a while :)
I agree -- I still prefer the stark simplicity and pure fun of the original "classic" version of SimCity, as well as the rich multimedia graphics, sound, and music of SimCity 2000.
This 1996 talk by Will Wright to Terry Winograd's user interface class at Stanford takes a deep dive into SimCity 2000's design, what made it so successful, and how it compared to other less successful Maxis games. It includes a retrospective of SimEarth, SimAnt, and SimCity 2000, and a preview of The Sims (called Dollhouse at the time).
I attended the talk and took notes, which I had Will review, and years later (after working with Will at Maxis and EA on The Sims) updated it with more details and retrospective learned by developing The Sims.
Just this year I discovered that the Stanford Library had finally published the video of that talk and many others, so I made a transcript and updated the article with lots more quotes and screen snapshots and analysis.
Egregoria looks really cool and impressive, and I'm glad to see it carry on the tradition, benefit from the inspiration, and learn from the successes and shortcomings of the SimCity and City: Skylines franchises, and other great simulation games like Factorio.
Will Wright on Designing User Interfaces to Simulation Games (1996) (2023 Video Update):
>A summary of Will Wright’s talk to Terry Winograd’s User Interface Class at Stanford, written in 1996 by Don Hopkins, before they worked together on The Sims at Maxis. Now including a video and snapshots of the original talk!
Will Wright - Maxis - Interfacing to Microworlds - 1996-4-26:
>Video of Will Wright's talk about "Interfacing to Microworlds" presented to Terry Winograd's user interface class at Stanford University, April 26, 1996.
>He demonstrates and gives postmortems for SimEarth, SimAnt, and SimCity 2000, then previews an extremely early pre-release prototype version of Dollhouse (which eventually became The Sims), describing how the AI models personalities and behavior, and is distributed throughout extensible plug-in programmable objects in the environment, and he thoughtfully answers many interesting questions from the audience.
>This is the lecture described in "Will Wright on Designing User Interfaces to Simulation Games (1996)": A summary of Will Wright’s talk to Terry Winograd’s User Interface Class at Stanford, written in 1996 by Don Hopkins, before they worked together on The Sims at Maxis.
>The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
