"Sim Feedback? What on earth's that!" I hear you cry. Well, Sim Feedback is your Sim's way of letting you know what they want/like/need or don't want. (If you came to this page looking for a way to tell me what you think of this site then you want the link in the frame at the bottom :) ).

One of the major improvements that I think should be made to the feedback model is that it should be sensitive to locations. If you build a Casino on the opposite side of the map to your city, Sims may still complain but they certainly shouldn't complain as much as they would if you built it right smack bang in the middle of a residential area.

Advisors

Advisors should provide you with context sensitive information about their area of expertise. This sort of worked in SC3000, but not completely. I think the advisors should be more helpful. For example, instead of saying "we need more Police Stations" they should say "This would be a good place for a Police Station because blah blah". Similarly, the Transport advisor could say "It might be an idea if we changed this road into a highway" or "This might be a good place for a Subway Station". This would be much more helpful.

Newspapers

Bring back newspapers, definitely. They were a great way for Sims to subtly let you know what's what, where-as the news ticker (see below) is better suited for informing you of more serious events. The newspaper also adds a comedy element to the game, I can't imagine how long I've spent reading 'MisSim says...' the problem page column (which is, in some cases, hysterically funny).

News Ticker

The introduction of the news ticker in Sim City 3000 was a neat way of condensing all the information that had previously been displayed in newspapers. Unfortunately, a lot of the information in it wasn't particularly useful. I think the news ticker should remain in the next version of SC, but it should only display major news like disasters or destruction of power plants etc.

Petitioners

I liked the idea of petitioners in SC3000, but in practice it got a little silly. Petitions should be submitted to the mayor by the Sims when they (or some of them) feel very strongly about a subject. In SC3000, you would get petions such as 'hospitals overcrowded'. Fair enough. You build some hospitals. 5 seconds later, you get a petition saying '<city name>'s citizens are the healthiest in SimNation. Your Sim's wouldn't write a petition like that.

Petitions should be used for things like lack of water; hospital overcrowding; people complaining about a major pollutant or building they don't like such as a garbage tip, toxic waste disposal thingy etc.; people wanting an extra road somewhere to reduce traffic where they are; people objecting to the building of a major highway; etc. etc. you get the idea. As I said in the rewards section, I think petitions should be presented to you via the town hall.

Contributors: Eleanor Fountain, "Emily".