making content on STEX more accessible

[astronic 0]

Hello,

at the moment enhancing your SimCity installation by content from STEX is rather tiresome and not without pitfalls:

1) You'll sooner or later end up in dependency hell, which makes you download countless files and makes you keeping track of what files you already installed.

2) Some buildings seriously hurt the game balance by providing services much too cheap and some buildings are useless because they provide services much too expensive. If you know the in-game values and if the download page tells you about a building's stats in advance you can of course avoid some of these cases, but it will still frequently happen that you have to download a building and all its dependencies, install it, find out it's unsuitable and deinstall the building and all its dependencies.

3) Some buildings are seriously bugged in some way and sometimes these bugs show up after it is too late. For example, in one of my cities I found out after countless hours of playing that using some school from STEX prevented my city from getting an university, even though all criteria were met. Unfortunately even replacing the custom schools with original ones from Maxis didn't help.

After all I think that enhancing your Sim City installation by custom content from STEX can be a really frustrating experience, especially for the casual user. I think these problems could (at least partially) be addressed by providing a package of highly rated, well tested and balanced content including its dependencies. This way everybody could profit from the greatest STEX content by just downloading one big ZIP file without having to spend countless hours of manually fetching single BATs/lots/etc. and its dependencies and installing/testing/uninstalling the content.

It might also help, if users could vote on content more differentiated than just giving stars (which primarily tend to be given for nice looks). Furthermore maybe service buildings such as schools, hospitals etc. can be marked with a "preserves game balance" tag to avoid problem 2) for those of us who like their game to be balanced.

The grand solution would of course consist of the introduction of a package manager (as it can be found in Linux distributions for example), but I guess that would require more effort than can be reasonably expected.

Regards,

Stefan

[Tolomar 5]

with so much content uploaded and so much of it being differnt (some ppl like the unbalanced stuff and the radical mods) it be impossible to do this...best bet....download the SC4Tool program..scan the lots and maybe edit the stats to your personel likeing to any buildings you like the look of (well thats what I do anyways)....about the only realistic  thing to do...everyone has differnt tastes on what is consider a "good" or "proper" lot...some play with loads of custom stuff...other are very little

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER!  hold true on the STEX , your lover, your music, theatre,art..etc etc etc just about everything in life.

[callagrafx 3]

Originally posted by: Tolomar BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER!  hold true on the STEX , your lover, your music, theatre,art..etc etc etc just about everything in life.quote>

With the possible exception of Sloppet's Slipknot Avatars

Seriously, the STEX is a superb resource and there is a trend now, especially among the Grand Masters of STEX (NDEX, BSC et al) to create MEGA PROPS packs of dependencies. I love the fact that because some of the lots are unbalanced it adds to the fun and unpredicability without which, the game could very easily become boring.

[Skyfire2275 23]

As for your comment of stuff not working or screwing up the game, well... That's the risk you take using user-made content for anything. This is not the official SC4 website and the stuff available here is not tested for compatibility nor endorsed by Maxis/EA. It is created by fans for fans and if you don't want to risk messing up your precious cities, back them up or teset the lot first in a "sandbox" city that you can just play around in. Some downloads, specifically modds have a list of known issues/bugs with them. Conflicts are common and if you need help resolving them, just ask. People here can help most of the time... it helps to keep your plugins folder neat and tidy and to keep a list of what you have installed. Also, only install one thing at a time so that you know what causes a malfunction. Aside from that SC4 seems to be an unstable game at best anyways. It's very picky.

By the way, welcome to Simtropolis!

[paperboy15 4]

astronic, you're thinking way too much. It would be better for all of us if you would use your brains in Gmax and the BAT.

[Voar Tok 4]

Originally posted by: astronic After all I think that enhancing your Sim City installation by custom content from STEX can be a really frustrating experience, especially for the casual user. I think these problems could (at least partially) be addressed by providing a package of highly rated, well tested and balanced content including its dependencies. This way everybody could profit from the greatest STEX content by just downloading one big ZIP file without having to spend countless hours of manually fetching single BATs/lots/etc. and its dependencies and installing/testing/uninstalling the content.quote>

Actually, we have something like that.  The STEX CD is a compilation of popular uploads that people can find on the STEX.  To get a CD, click on the banner above this page, and follow the instructions listed.

[astronic 0]

Is the content on the STEX CD tested regarding bugfreeness and game balance and does it provide a nice installer? If the answer is indeed yes, I'll order my copy as soon as I can. Otherwise it seems that there is not much interest in streamlining the installation of custom objects in Sim City here. Of course since all of you provide your wonderful custom objects free of charge I have no right to demand anything, but that doesn't change the fact that the installation process is pretty much a mess and the absence of QA can really hurt if you spend countless hours of playing and then have to trash your city because something is broken. I think the task at hand is very similar to what Linux distributors have to accomplish and the solution is quite obviously the same: A package manager which keeps track of installed packages and their dependencies and a package repository with QA'd packages for easy installation via the package manager. I think that could broaden the audience of Simtropolis similiar to how Linux distributions broaden the Linux audiences compared to LFS only. I concede that implementing such an infrastructure may not be worthwhile for Sim City 4 because this game is too old to be of much interest to the masses anyway, but remember, Sim City 5 is on its way. Regards, Stefan

[moganite 4]

I try to do my own quality Assurance but it takes time and with the spammers here alot of people have been putting out stuff that can be done quickly.

The qulity assurance takes time and it is cut when someone doesn't know what they are doing are new or are trying to keep up with the spammers. I have learnt dont bother just release you files when you have 5 and release them over 5 days. yhat way you will have a bit of persistence and then give people a chance to comment etc. The other thing is if it is bugged crashes my machine i llok at the support section to see if i have done anything wrong Quite often there is no readme included with BATS mods etc and i am inclined to rate the file down if i see annother isntance of mssing readme files. We arent mindreaders and we dont all hvae photgrapgic memories.

What i do is i post a version of the read me in anything that is not a map.

[Tolomar 5]

@Astronic  So are you volenteering to do this then  ?

[deadwoods 542]

Astronic, all valid points, and many discussed many many times in the forums here at ST. The BSC team was originally formed to focus on improving the quality and "game-worthiness" of lots. We spend a lot of time internally testing lots so they don't screw up the game (even if one or two do slip out from time to time). We also use installers and have our own standards as to where to put files in the quagmire that is the plugins folder. I know PEG does the same thing with his installer-based downloads and PEG has a team of dedicated alpha- and beta- testers that do a lot of work. I can't speak for other users/teams. But you can be reasonably comfortable with quality with BSC/Pegasus lots (yes, I know that sounds like self-promotion).

As to dependencies, that is a hot topic and has been for some time. IF we didn't have dependencies, all lots would use the same buildings/props/textures that Maxis has provided, and that was getting old at the time the BAT came along. Unless you build a model that covers the entire lot, or you want a very plain looking lot, you need some level of custom props. I can't imagine the quality of CS and Industrial lots without RippTide's brilliant props, as an example. As mentioned by others the older teams are now trying to consolidate their props in to MEGA packs and you'll see most of the latest BSC lots refer to a fairly standard set of MEGA prop packs (normally in one folder; plugins/BSC/BSC Props) It's not perfect but it is improving.

Oh, and welcome to ST.

[hamsterTK 93]

In my opinions dependencies would no longer be an issue if we had some easier ways to deal with them, like maybe a special utility that scans your plugins folder and tells you what you have and dont have and can track down duplicates or things that are redundant due to mega packs being installed. Maybe doublekiller could be handy for that but i havent used it yet.

As for buildings that do weird things/unbalance the game, true there are some real stinkers on there, particular the more n00bish lots from way back.. But 99% of is fine and i wouldnt worry about anything screwing up your city if you just read the readme.

As for some mega pack with everything you might need, i really think PEG needs to do that with all his bat series.