Needs Fulfillment Mall

We all know space to build upon becomes scarce as a player reaches higher levels. As well, the challenge of covering various buildings with all possible needs fulfillment commercial buildings becomes ever greater. What if we could consolidate commercial buildings to reclaim available building space and increase coverage, once we reached a Level (say 40+) where this was a realistic need?

There is precedent in the real world: large metropolitan areas have long since consolidated various store types into malls, so that one location could serve a wider area without duplicate stores having to be built every dozen blocks. Building up instead of out to save or reclaim space is exactly what modern cities do. Such consolidation does not alter the effects of the stores, just their location and the average area it serves.

Suggestion is for a "Mall" to be available starting at Level 40. Five initial mall permits available, just like anything else; extra permits selling for 2,000 MM each one slightly more (like existing system). To build a Mall would require 1 million CCs cost, plus 1k each beams, wood panels, concrete, granite slabs, and ceramic tiles (examples only). The point is to make the Mall appropriately costly, not just a gimmie. Each upgrade level would rise costs comparatively to existing upgrade systems.

Each Mall would be 2x2 and would be a high rise style. A Mall would hold one each hollywood diner/bread basket/smoothie bar/beer garden/donut shop, and the amounts of products each held would be the same as if free standing...corresponding to the Upgrade Level. Initial coverage area would be similar to that of a high level ES item (i.e. water tank tower), increasing 2x2 for each upgrade level. Herein is the benefit: larger overall coverage area, and recovered available land by consolidating on a 2x2 base foundation. Otherwise, there would be no alteration of the existing system.

So, my fellow mayors, please cast your votes and speak you piece. I would like to see what everyone thinks, and what additional ideas you have and/or how you would modify my base idea. I think this is a workable solution to a legitimate issue, and if we get enough comments and votes maybe the devs will take notice and do something. Thank you fellow Mayors, for your time and input, and I hope support

 

I don't think it's a good idea because it ruins the idea of smart city planning

 

I'll just repeat what I said here:

https://board-en.risingcities.com/threads/making-your-own-mall.37677/

Not really. It's certainly more realistic to have a larger shopping center in a city, though huge malls tend to not be in the middle of them. Then, neither are stadiums.

Cities are alive. They evolve. Higher and denser is the trend of the future, for a lot of reasons.

 

Still don't know what it gives except for great excuse for some extra permits

 

why do u even read these idea's if ur against EVERYTHING EVERYBODY S say's???

 

Because if I don't read the idea, how can I say what do I think about it?

I'm against asking for profit but not against really useful gameplay improvement ideas.

 

Puts a smile on a Mayors Face, diversity, enlightenment, choice........ like a digestive biscuit dunked in your tea for just the right amount of time before it goes soggy and drops into the cup......a sense of accomplishment.....

 

It was clearly explained it would give extra space to build on by eliminating the need for five 2x2 buildings (placing them onto a 2x2 high rise thus clearing four areas of 2x2 for something else to be built on)....and better needs fulfillment by extending the coverage range marginally. City8936 has a good point, no disrespect intended; most of us could tell you what you do think about 99% of ideas here without you posting at all...which would be "We don't need that because it will ruin the game and give players something more to profit by"...ad nauseam.

Everyone's entitled to their opinions, but most of the time you just cruise through forum saying why everything everybody thinks up is bad and wrong and should not be done. You do make occasional good points, but for crying out loud already. It's not just that you disagree (which you have every right to do) as much as you disagree just to disagree so there can be all this argument about it, rather than constructive discussion on how to improve game features.You were against floating residences because water is not for living on (ignoring the houseboats where residents live on water). You were against additional play fields ever being added and claim game developers don't do that (ignoring the three additional fields we have been given in the past couple of years).

The mall does not give extra permits as you imply, unless you're saying every new set of permits we get as we level up also are extra and we should not get them. Arsuru also has an excellent point: this is good city planning, smart city planing, it is what real cities actually do. My home city of San Diego is full of large malls, and believe it or not the Padres Baseball stadium is smack in the middle of downtown, about six blocks from Horton Plaza Mall and the adjacent grocery complex, designed to serve the majority of the downtown area.Your assertion to the contrary is based on what?

Can you give good reasoning why these Malls would not be a positive addition to the game, why clearing up space and extending commercial building covering range is not a good thing? Or is your only reason for disagreeing the fact we'd get permits to build these? You claim you are not against "really useful gameplay improvement ideas" but your actions show otherwise.

 

I think giving players more profit doesn't actually improve the gameplay but in fact makes it worse.

 

Then using your logic. Then the perfect game would have no profit motif at all? Am i understanding you correctly. You say that that more profit does not improve the gameplay but makes it worse. Therfore less profit would make it better and no profit would be ideal.

Then what would be the purpose of playing the game. We all profit from the game in some form or other. If we just enjoy ourselves that is profit; If we accomplish a goal we set for ourselves that is profit; If we make a new friend or acquantence that is profit. Profit is not always monetary. Most of the profit in the game is not of the monetary nature. Yes Big Point makes a profit from us from playing their game, but we make a profit from playing the game or we would not be playing it.

 

You don't understand me correctly decreasing the profit is also the very bad idea

 

But who says what is the proper profit level and unless you are willing to tweak it how would you know if a slight increase or decrease would improve or harm the game play? To just say it is what it is does not answer the question. Big Point has alter the "profit" level in the game several times in the past and will do so in the future. I am quite certain. Some have been for good, and some have been for bad. In my opinion. So as players asking for a change is not unreasonable or necessarily a bad thing.

It is like a tax payer asking for lower taxes we always want them lower until we have to cut a service we use then we complain we can not cut that tax.

 

Sounds like a good plan. A couple of concerns I'd have:
I think 2x2 is possibly too small - malls tend to be larger spread out affairs (in my limited experience) - so 3x3 maybe?

Equally, the amount the coverage increases needs to be more than 2x2, because if you're covering 3x3 buildings, then you don't get much of an increase. So maybe make the coverage increase 3x3 or perhaps more, but start with slightly less coverage at L1?

Then the only problem will be supplying the mall, but that's a different thread.

 

Good points Malls do tend to be big and sprawing monstrosities, even Urban ones. 3x3 minimum, But they do tend to draw customers from a larger area than a local store or market.

I would suggest the supply situation could be handled by a drop down menu or a pop of all the shops in the mall. But will save for the new thread.

 

I agree with the coverage area...but I had based the concept on 2x2 to maximize recovered space (assuming the building would be 'larger' vertically rather than horizontally). Actually, comments on the mechanics (like how to supply it) are appropriate here...because that consolidates everything about the given idea (here, Malls) to make it easier for the devs (whom we hope will then look into implementing same). So please share those thoughts as well. A drop down menu sounds fine....but you can have tyhe same pop up the commercial buildings already have, just reduce or remove the graphics so it's essentially a drop menu contained in the pop up; each commercial building icon having the deliver and return to storage buttons like already is done....but as a multi-line list?

 

I'd imagined goods-selection for a mall using something like the production facility menu, but multiplied and smaller, kinda like the 'residents' area in the building information in the DD, with several in one menu. One for each slot you can choose a good for, including an empty option. I prefer the option to choose your goods rather than it being a specific set with more goods per level, though agree that perhaps not every building should be replaceable (i.e. mountain/water commercials and the stadium). Even art galleries and hotels can be found in commercial towers.

As for size, I agree that 2x2 seems small as far as the game and its scale goes, considering that it's smaller than the tower residentials. But then, the sky center is only 2x2. It's not a wholly unrealistic size itself though and there are some very dense tower malls in reality, though that may translate better as more coverage than a smaller footprint as far as RC. Like I mentioned in the other thread, a variety could be nice, as I rather like shopping arcades in style, which could be a 2x3/3x2 easily. As for coverage area I'll maintain that it'd have to be at least a bit larger than the largest single-commercial coverage of equivalent level.

One problem I foresee, especially as many building share the same needs requirements, is that it would be harder to control who gets what. This is why I really want a needs toggle per-building/direct from warehouse supply, as I've went on about before. I'd like to have my layout supply everyone, but due to the economy, not everyone is worth supplying. I've finally stopped giving even hefeweizen recently. T'was a sad day. That's another thread, but it's related to the increased placement-liberty and diversity a mall could bring.

@Krassandra

I get what you mean by 'smart city planning', but the thing is, it's already largely a non-issue and always has been. Consider that I'm now using only four lv. 1 smoothie bars and one lv. 2 (over three fields) for PP/EP because raspberries are the only thing I find viable from the farm. They have a range that exceeds what they can actually supply when full, which is a serious fault as I've stated elsewhere. I could upgrade to max and get this down to two easily, maybe even one or none if I move the buildings to one field and use some RIs/more PP/EP rent buildings. This is almost like having a mall already for my actual situation as far as functionality goes. It's the only commercial I need in order to keep PP/EP flow stable.

And as I've also stated before, there is absolutely no need for commercial buildings at all. If you don't mind sacrificing some variety, you can thrive with only homes that provide PP/EP for rent as the sole supply. So what you call 'smart city planning' is already entirely unnecessary save for the earliest levels, way before a mall would be available. A mall, available at a suitably high level (where let's be honest, many probably aren't using most commercials), makes perfect sense, even if it may be unnecessary as well. It gives diversity and freedom in a situation where you'd otherwise often end up with the same layouts of repetitive blobs.

In my case, it actually would not save much functional space as so few of my commercials are in use, but like a real city, I could still consolidate the other commercials (that now only take space as they aren't profitable/necessary), making more room for other things, not only houses. I could demolish them for the same effect, I simply like the challenge of maximum coverage. You may need to fill a lot of that freed space with decorations anyway because it may not be appropriate to give thousands of mood to entirely compensate the loss of other commercials, potentially limiting profit from too many more houses in their place as well.

Edit: smoothie bar correction/elucidation because evidently I forgot how many I use.

 

What girl would not want a mall in her city? I think this is a wonderful idea...and that it is very realistic given there are malls everywhere these days for exactly that reason (space shortage).

 

I like this idea, but still, a 2x2 mall is kinda small. Malls are a combination of multiple stores, so I think a 4x4/5x5 could be a perfect place, where you can "place" 4 commercial buildings on one floor. Every upgrade will give one more floor, which means place for 4 more commercial buildings. At the third upgrade stage, we would have space to place 12 commercial buildings and, on the top floor (after you upgrade it to level 4), a place for the stadium, since the girls can go shopping while the boys can play a little match . Also, if you noticed, the malls have shops which sells cheese, eggs, milk and fishery products, so we would be able to place a Floating market/restaurant in the mall from the coast or a Spaetzle Town/Al Gouda in the mall from the mountain. That could be good, if the devs decide to bring in more buildings that need to be built on shore/in water/on rock ground.
Also, forget about the coverage idea for the mall. Any playfield that have one mall will cover the entire playfield. Nowadays, malls tend to be at the edge of the cities, so, if you place a mall there and they have coverage, you will need more malls.

Of course, if you would have a mall (or shopping center) on the other side of the city could be a little frustrating, because you have to travel there to buy something, but still, this would be a good opportunity to develop the urban travel (buses and taxis).

 

Ummmmm....the point of 2x2 was to conserve land for other buildings...hence "high rise" style; 2x2 but a dozen stories (like the condo and tower blocks). I am unsure about 'placing' anything in the Mall...was intending it would just have the effect of the initial commercials, combined. I think if we over complicate it we're less likely to actually get it, and am unsure how workable it would be to have a building into which you place other buildings...but am glad you gave the input, because it does make sense.

 

We do have to have a negative impact for all the good we gain. So a larger foot print is not unreasonable. I also like the idea of being able to select which buisness we can place in the mall We each have our own needs and desires.