Building a city on cheap, polluting resources is all too easy in the beginning. However, users will in many cases have to learn to be sustainable the hard way. And changing resource prices and a globalizing market might turn your city into Pittsburgh in the late twentieth century. Game designer Ocean Quigley has commented that the net effect of this is to steer players toward a sustainable city design a city built on the availability of volatile resources and industries such as oil is prone to devastating recessions, fuel shortages, and environmental disasters. All of this means that, for instance, if you start off in a playing field rich in coal and iron, your city might become like Pittsburgh in the late nineteenth century. Maxis, the game’s developer, is so intent on fostering this interconnection aspect that it is making online gameplay mandatory (a feature roasted by a columnist at The Atlantic Cities). Cities will also be interconnected with outer cities, and patterns of development, commerce, and cultural interchange will be derived from these connections. One other principal feature of the new SimCity is the availability of – and dependency on – specific natural resources. Do a good job and your sims will come together to honour you, mess up and they rally in protest. The simulation even includes individual police officers, doctors, and teachers too. Sims’ characteristics are randomized person by person for a more realistic overall city some are healthier than others, for instance, others may be prone to pickpocketing. This allows factors such as health, education, and sanitation and crime to be determined not merely by the presence of schools, police departments, etc., but by the actions of the sims. SimCity fans came out in droves to express their outrage about this on the game blog.Īnother development is a much more intricate simulation of individual citizens, or “sims” as the game refers to them. But at a recent Q&A session, game developers made the shocking revelation that, for the first time since the original SimCity, users won’t be able to place subways. Users have the option of implementing buses, lane-sharing streetcars, light rail, and commuter rail/heavy cargo lines. Regarding mass transit, the new SimCity has some pleasant as well as unpleasant surprises. Now, you can nice, gently arching streets, as well as zones that fit the curved street grid (there’s a whole explanation of how this works on the SimCity blog, sure to be entertaining for the programming-inclined). Previous SimCities were grid-based, meaning that you could easily create straight or even diagonal streets but curving them would be a headache. While the game has received plenty of buzz within the gaming public, how exactly does it relate to real world urbanism?įar and away the biggest change in this latest version of SimCity is the ability to add fully curved streets. Recently, a new version of the game was released: SimCity 5, or just SimCity for short. I myself have a soft spot for the game, kindled by many afternoons spent in front of an IBM 486 playing SimCity 2000 after a hard day of studying in the 3rd grade. Ask anyone involved in urbanism or city planning, and they will probably have at least some familiarity with the SimCity series.
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This was its golden age, when happy users collected a decade’s worth of images from their life, stored them and shared them online. Not long after, when digital cameras took off, the website turned to photo sharing. Back then, it allowed people to download professionally-shot photos to decorate their desktop computers with screen savers and wallpapers. WebShots has been around for a while, starting out in the 90s. For more information on the Company, visit. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings generates annual revenue of approximately $1.6 billion, and its products can be found in retail outlets worldwide. In addition to its product lines, American Greetings also creates and licenses popular character brands through the American Greetings Properties group. AG Interactive also offers digital photo sharing and personal publishing at and and provides a one-stop source for online graphics and animations at. American Greetings also has the largest collection of electronic greetings on the Web, including cards available at through AG Interactive, Inc. The Company's major greeting card lines are American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Gibson, Recycled Paper Greetings and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods and American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-wrap and boxed cards. For more information on Webshots, check out the newly re-designed site, the company's blog or visit them on Facebook and Twitter.įor more than 100 years, American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) has been a creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products that assist consumers in enhancing their relationships. The many benefits of membership include unlimited photo downloads, including high resolution and widescreen professional images, ad-free browsing, and a supportive and active community of photo enthusiasts. To truly enjoy the Webshots experience, consumers can purchase a year-long subscription for only $19.99. Members can now share photos on their or their friends' Facebook wall, and soon they can send their favorite images as e-cards to celebrate birthdays, holidays, and sentiments such as, "Wish you were here!" In addition to continuing to offer the finest collection of photography online, Webshots is also introducing more ways to enjoy the images. The redesign also brings our professional and member photographers together, enhancing the beautiful photography and sense of community that has made the site so popular." "We now offer more ways to explore and share photos, a new spotlight feature on our professional photographers, and regular Facebook updates of what your friends love on the site. "Our new design reflects what our community has told us is most important to them," said Radhika Balasubramaniam, Webshots senior brand manager. In fact, the passionate community helped drive many of the redesign's enhancements. The combination of both member and professional photography is what makes the Webshots community - more than 49 million strong - such a unique and appealing group. The site's redesign puts an added emphasis on picture quality by moving to a sleek, dark background to make the images really stand out, and introducing even more spotlights of its outstanding member and professional photographers. Members can upload their own interesting photos, browse those from other members, and enjoy thousands of professional images licensed from the world's top photographers. One of the first photo sharing sites, Webshots offers more than 671 million original shots from around the world, and its editors curate a new selection of inspiring images every day. Visitors can now effortlessly explore their world through photos thanks to a site redesign that features larger images, easier navigation, and new opportunities to discover the professional and member photographers that make up Webshots' ever-growing community. 27 /PRNewswire/ - Have you ever browsed through a friend's vacation photos only to wish you were there, too? Everyone enjoys taking in the sights of beautiful locales and exotic settings, which is why more than 17 million people visit, an American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) company, every month. |
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