December 20, 21007

SOCIETIES  UPDATES AVAILABLE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21 AT SIMCITY.COM

THREE NEW STRATEGIC MODES OF PLAY - INCREASING CHALLENGE

WHO:               SimCity Societies from The Sims Label, Electronic Arts

WHAT:              Feature updates available for SimCity Societies at SimCity.com including three new strategic modes of play - Basic, Hardcore and Nightmare - plus gameplay enhancements, new modding capabilities and general updates.  Details for the updates are as follows:

•        Strategic Modes – Basic, Hardcore and Nightmare

o        It’s more challenging to keep Sims happy

o        Buildings carry an ongoing maintenance cost

o        Recycle gains are reduced, making shrewd planning critical

o        Work and visit durations are long – Sims can go to fewer places in a single day, so players must plan wisely

o        Unhappy and Rogue Sims are more likely to act out, produce negative special Sims, or transform into negative special Sims

o        Rogue Sims are much less placated by the act of shutting down a workplace, and will remain unhappy or even on the verge of becoming rogue again, so beware

o        Achievements and monuments must be earned separately for each of the modes of play  

o        Hardcore and Nightmare Modes must be unlocked by winning a trophy in the preceding Strategic Mode

•          Gameplay Enhancements

o        The number of subways and bus stops in a city has been enhanced – with a limit of 50

o        New base models have been added to some buildings to address some cases where the terrain would appear over the base

o        Early rising Sims who arrive at work before hours no longer disappear

o        When graphics card or drivers don’t meet the minimum requirements an updated message provides help

o        UI textures can now change with your society.  Modders can use this added functionality to make more radical changes

•          New Modding Capabilities

o        Additional additive XMLs

o        All attributes of a building XML in the mod folder now take priority over the original, so mods can meddle with all aspects of existing buildings

o        The camera settings XML has been moved into its own folder so that it can be modded

o        New versions of packages with the same names as old packages now overwrite the old package when installed

o        Building textures can be modified directly from the building xml, no more need to use the custom profile textures

•          General Updates

o        Streaming textures provide improved performance and lower memory use-age, particularly in large cities

o        Saving takes much less additional memory now, which should solve the out-of-memory errors during autosaves that some users were experiencing

o        Fix for a rare crash which could happen on removal of a cultural prop

o        General improvements to Sim AI performance

o        Fix for a lock-up (which could sometimes lead to a crash) involving pathfinding and public transit

o        Fix for memory overwrites (which could sometimes lead to a crash) involving Sim and building selection, building scripts, and the lighting system

o        Fix for a crash on exit

WHERE:            Available for download at www.SimCity.com

WHEN:              Beginning Friday, December 21

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