Posted 5/8/2008 at 10:02 PMBy GamingShogun

Cities XL is an upcoming city-building title with strong online-featureset being developed by Monte Cristo. We got the chance to ask Project Director Patrick Marchal some questions about it. We would like to thank Patrick Marchal and everyone at Monte Cristo for the opportunity and for their hard work.

Q&A for CITIES XL™
GS: So let’s first talk about the change of names. Cities XL was previously known as Cities Unlimited. What exactly brought about the name change and has there also been a change in scope of the game with that change?
MC: We started talking to city builder fans back in June 2007. The aim was to feed our development with their ideas, criticisms and suggestions. At that time the game was still in its early stages of development and its internal codename was Cities Unlimited. Simple as that: we used the codename to communicate with the early community. Before we decided to go public with the project we started to question the relevance of the title and for many reasons, it seemed to us that Cities XL was a better option. The title had no influence on content and scope of the project.

GS: I wanted to give you the opportunity to squash a rumor going around various Internet forums where some folks say you doctor your screenshots with image enhancement programs before releasing them. What would you say to that claim?
MC: YES we used Photoshop…. to include the CITIES XL logo on the screenshots =). More seriously, what you are seeing is coming straight from the game engine. Time will prove this to be true.

GS: What kind of inter-player/city interaction will be allowed in Cities XL? Will there be inter-city trade and industry?
MC: It’s still slightly too early to give you precise details about the inter-player/city interactions. However, we can already tell you that players won’t be confined into their city's economy and will, if they wish, be able to participate in a global exchange. Import- export, specialization of cities … these are clearly areas where we think the genre can see big improvement.

GS: On the website, it says players will be able to ‘walk’ around cities. Does this feature place the player in a first-person shooter-style game? Minus the shooting, of course. If so, and you can interact with the environment, will players be able to meet each other’s avatars inside these cities? Perhaps inside restaurants and bars that have sprung up in the town?
MC: Yes, players will be able to walk around in their own cities using a first person camera. It’s a wonderful feeling to walk through your own creation and see how your citizens actually live and interact there. Moreover, players of the Planet Offer mode will have the opportunity to visit other player cities and meet other players’ avatars in their public places with classic 3D chat functionalities. We are expecting a lot from the social interaction of players as they will be able to more effectively discuss things like strategy, achievements and trade.

GS: Can you comment on the minimum and recommended system specs right now? Also, will it utilize DirectX 10?
MC: The minimum and recommend system specs are not yet defined. However, we know our audience doesn’t necessarily own the latest PC machine. We are aiming to run the game smoothly on older computers - of course, in that case, you won’t have the shiny effects you may see in the screenshots but player cities will definitively still be better looking than in current city builder titles.

GS: As far as city-building goes, how does building placement work? Will it be a ‘zone system’ ala Sim City, direct building placement, or something else?
MC: The construction toolset is one of the most important aspects of a city builder game because you spend most of your time using them to build your city. Some players focus on making sure the overall economy of the city runs smoothly and love to sit back after defining zones and placing services to see how the simulation behaves. Other players focus in the visual aspect of their cities. They generally start with a good idea of what they want to achieve (a sprawling but visually appealing city, an industrial port, a business downtown, etc.) and they cautiously place every single building or road.

As a response, we invented the Mass Placement Tool. In CITIES XL, you use the MPT to build a zone and pre-assign to this zone a mix of buildings thanks to a cool tag system. A tag can be visual (architecture style, colors…) or simulation- related (residence, industry, wealth, size…) properties.

We actually have a dedicated blog entry on the topic and we invite you to read more about it at http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?/content/view/16/24/lang,en/

GS: And finally, the question we always close these with: Is there anything you would like to leave our readers with about Cities XL or any other projects you are working on?
MC: We are ourselves city builder players and we want CITIES XL to be the game we always wanted to play. This is one of the reasons we started talking right from the beginning to other fans of the genre to make sure our ideas were close to theirs and eventually gather some other great suggestions. You can join our discussions on www.citiesxl.com if you are interested.