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[Reelya]

Because game design. Every option needs pros and cons. Coal's downside was modeled in high levels of particulate pollution. Coal's Kilodeaths are actually modeled in that pollution drives down population. Nuclear in the game should also model real-world risks, and catastrophic meltdown is such a risk. There need to be meaningful pros and cons to each choice, that are fairly transparent to the player: "Oh I built too many fission plants, therefore I increased my chances of a meltdown". Coal plants kill lots of people gradually, nuclear plants are cleaner, but have a possibility of a catastrophic event. That's actually realistic.

Also, to be meaningful for gameplay, things in game do actually have to be condensed. This includes: time, distance, numbers of people, and chances of things happening. e.g. if the real-world average number of meltdowns per uranium reactor per year is 1/30000, then it needs to be like 1/100 in a game of SimCity for the choice to have a meaningful effect on player choice, and to represent how that decision affects the situation in the real-world. Basically, because simulation games are very granular and time-compressed compared to the real-world, very small actual chances need to be amplified to become meaningful game choices.

There are about 450 nuclear power plants in the world today, and there have been 99 nuclear power accidents since the 1950s. Sure, not all of them were actual Three mile islands, or Chernobyls, or Fukushimas, but for gameplay purposes to represent the effects of choices on the city, it would be reasonable if each nuclear plant had about a 25% chance of meltdown in 50 years.

[penguinofhonor]

I think this all depends on Tropico's goals. Maybe they don't want people managing a power grid for the entire game. Having a high-end "best" power source means you have to worry about electricity while you're working towards it, but once you become established it requires less attention.

At that point you've stopped the player from making compelling choices about their power system, but I wouldn't necessarily consider that bad. Maybe they designed the game to introduce different challenges, shifting your focus away from infrastructure and into another area like diplomacy. You want the player to always be making compelling choices, but they don't have to be the same ones the whole game.

[Max™]

>.>

If each nuclear plant in game had a 25% chance of a meltdown per 50 years, and those meltdowns killed, say, 400 of your simizens, then each coal plant would need to off 1.6 million of your simizens to be a reasonable representation of the risks.

[Loud Whispers]

Nuclear plants only break down if you have the Chernobyl DLC or Tsunami event

[Orange Wizard]

Dammit Paradox

[Loud Whispers]

Dammit Paradox

Only casuals won't sell a kidney to buy more paradox DLC

[Neonivek]

Ok I'll put my musing on the elitist nature of My Little Pony for later and just go with what I was watching today

So I was watching Everyone Loves Raymond and I noticed something really interesting.

Debra, who was a character that when I first started watching the show I 100% sided with. She had to put up with a lot of crud and no one gave her any sympathy.

Yet without actually changing anything... I've slowly grown to dislike her more and more until now where I just consider her the real villain of the show.

She kind of went from being the mature adult stuck in a crazy house. To the actual immature one who tries to throw tantrums to get her way.

[Harry Baldman]

She kind of went from being the mature adult stuck in a crazy house. To the actual immature one who tries to throw tantrums to get her way.

He who fights Barones must see to it that they themselves do not become a Barone. For when you gaze into the Raymond, the Raymond gazes also into you.

[Max™]

I like my headcanon that the raymond shit ended in a mass-murder-suicide.

[Neonivek]

I am still say that I had to buy The Sims 4 and experience it crushing my soul into a deep pit of depression to officially give up on the series.

A lot of people are like "I wish I never bought it" but I know me... No matter how bad the reviews were, no matter how much I learned about the game, I would have never been satisfied until it was within my own two hands.

It is a pretty terrible way for a beloved series to go out... and goodness EA seemed to just be disappointing people left and right back then.

at LEAST I wasn't a Dungeon Keeper fanboy (Thanks dungeon for killing my joy)... Because WOW did EA lift the biggest middle finger at them ever constructed.

[Orange Wizard]

How is cash grab formed

[Neonivek]

How is cash grab formed

The sims 4 was originally going to be a "social" game that was going to be perpetually online.

When SimCity failed (for obvious "it sucks" reasons) they immediately tried to backpedal and attempt to put the game back into... well... the game.

What we got is The Sims 4... Basically imagine if SimCity had an extra year where they tried to make it good again, but the damage was already done and they couldn't change too much.

[Reelya]

Around the time they would have been planning that, a lot of pundits were saying that single-player games were fundamentally doomed and everyone would want to be online, playing co-op or deathmatch, all the time.

I think they had a collective brainfart about the core reasons people actually play games.

There are playstation network / XBox Live stats on different games. E.g. single-player campaign completion rates. CoD 4, which was supposedly all about the multiplayer had one of the highest single-player completion rates: much higher than many comparable single-player only games on the network. It was also a huge seller, showing large numbers of people buy those games just for the single-player campaign. It's just that the online multiplayer community is more vocal about it (obviously). And those pricks all talk together and agree "get rid of the campaign mode". But, you know those guys aren't necessarily spending any more actual money than the single-player person, and they're actually costing you much more in terms of support costs, so pandering to them at the expense of people who like single-player games would actually lose money. I'd never buy a shooter which doesn't include a decent campaign.

Another reason is that multiplayer is objectively worse at delivering certain types of narrative. A game can conceivably be "like a movie" in terms of pacing and plot. While you can certainly make an online MMO look "cinematic", you can't really deliver the same narrative: in heroic fiction there is one hero, and that maps well to single-player games: you are the hero. In an MMO, you're basically a grunt doing what grunts do. You can't marry the princess and become the king, because that's the sort of thing that doesn't make sense with multiple protagonists. So, MMOs just can't go into the same narrative depth. People who like involved stories aren't necessarily going to want to play MMOs.

[scriver]

"Coop" the sims could probably be pretty popular though.

Edit: On second thought, "Deathmatch" the Sims would too

[Reelya]

I was just thinking that a LAN version The Sims 3 could be fun for couples and families, but then I thought about pausing / speed modes and realized it has the same issues that multiplayer Dwarf Fortress would have. You have to pause the game to build/decorate, and that would play havok with synchronized multiplayer.