Large Packs, Stand Alone Programs, Requests for an Open Source Code

[Duper 0]

Other than the STX DVD do people compile packs??  I'm sort of new to the custom content aspect of Sim City and If I could offer any suggestions this would be one of them.

Also.

I find myself searching for hours at night for individual buildings and cool nick-nack's and never have time to build anything....  I would like to see a stand alone application for dealing with all your plug-ins and custom content. Be able to view all your ploppables and order them for the "Extra Cheats - BuildingPlop" menu's.  There should be some sort of spec everyone had to follow when you created new custom content too so they could be loaded into this program. IE Thumbnails, or medium sized jpegs. This program should create "Dud" lots that can be used as Category seperators in the "Extra Cheats - BuildingPlop" menu's.  I'm just so frustrated, i spend more time looking for lots than i do creating my city.

Sometimes I ponder to myself, why the hell hasnt the source code been released (or at least some of it) ????? This game came out like 10 years ago! Cut the real gamers some slack. Geeze. I just want a better menu, (someone once mentioned a menu like world of warcraft) plleeease EA give us the source code!!!

Love you,

Mom.

[Jasoncw 12,060]

In one way or another, all of the things you have suggested have been made in some form, or attempted.

Packs are not generally complied for a few reasons.  The filesize of such packs would be very large.  Not everyone wants everything in a pack.  The files are already uploaded and easy to find (once you find an author you like, you can quickly browse though and download whatever you'd like).  It takes time to create such packs, and the files are already available. 

A program called the SC4 Start-up Manager was created, and it lets you manage your content.  I don't use the program, so I don't know everything it does, but it has useful features.

A modding project that would reorganize the game's menus and place custom content in the new menus was worked on.  The problem with that is that you need to manually update literally thousands of lots, and then you need to teach the hundreds of active custom content creators how to modd in compliance with the new system, and you need to be able to create such standards.  It's simply not feasible.

However, all lots in menus have an item order number, which determines where they are in the menus.  You can easily manually edit these numbers so that the lots are in the order you want.  You can download a program called iLive Reader to modd things.

Custom content management is not difficult, but you must do it.  When you download things, create some kind of a system to follow.  I personally have a folder for every author I've downloaded from, and a subfolder for the name of the individual creations, with all of the lots and stuff in those folders.

If looking for lots in your menu is taking so much time, then you have either downloaded way too much, or your playing style is too plop-dependent.  No one can fix those problems except for you.  Remember that you don't need to download everything, and you don't need to play with everything you download.

[Pixelrage 34]

Originally posted by: DuperSometimes I ponder to myself, why the hell hasnt the source code been released (or at least some of it) ????? This game came out like 10 years ago! Cut the real gamers some slack. Geeze. I just want a better menu, (someone once mentioned a menu like world of warcraft) plleeease EA give us the source code!!!quote>

last year, someone here claimed they were in touch with Maxis and were in the process of getting the source code. I guess it was either BS, or nothing became of it for whatever reason.

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

Originally posted by: Pixelrage

Originally posted by: DuperSometimes I ponder to myself, why the hell hasnt the source code been released (or at least some of it) ????? This game came out like 10 years ago! Cut the real gamers some slack. Geeze. I just want a better menu, (someone once mentioned a menu like world of warcraft) plleeease EA give us the source code!!!quote>

last year, someone here claimed they were in touch with Maxis and were in the process of getting the source code. I guess it was either BS, or nothing became of it for whatever reason.quote>

In my opinion, we won't get anything from Maxis or anyone else. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: northsider1983

Originally posted by: Pixelrage

Originally posted by: DuperSometimes I ponder to myself, why the hell hasnt the source code been released (or at least some of it) ????? This game came out like 10 years ago! Cut the real gamers some slack. Geeze. I just want a better menu, (someone once mentioned a menu like world of warcraft) plleeease EA give us the source code!!!quote>

last year, someone here claimed they were in touch with Maxis and were in the process of getting the source code. I guess it was either BS, or nothing became of it for whatever reason.quote>

In my opinion, we won't get anything from Maxis or anyone else. quote>

I believe Buggi did have access to the source code.  This is how he was able to produce the all cheats .dll that was published.  Unfortunately, he has been missing for some time.

[Duper 0]

Haha the EA secret service came to his house.....

Thats really helpful. Thanks a lot!

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

More likely homeland security.  If you want to see a real argument look at the thread on modifying the exe.

[Duper 0]

Funny I was just in there.... I really hope someone has a breakthrough soon. 

[flame1396 9]

Isnt the source code IN the .exe?

[warrior 169]

Wasn't the Cheats dll just something buggi got from EA/MAXIS (?) Because im sure it said somewhere in his thread that it was used in developing the game to get to certain places and save time or something.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Flame1396:  No.  The machine code is in the .exe, and in a special O/S format.  The source code would be in C or C++ I guess from the way the game runs (poorly).

warrior:  You may be right.  I don't think he ever really admitted that, but could easily have got that from Maxis/EA.  If I was writing such a program, I would want a back door like that.