Simtropolis 1000

[Creathir 3]

codyg1985 and sc4melbourne:

The actual placement of the objects is fairly simple. What you are describing is a vector based drawing system, where you provide starting point and an ending point. The degree of curvature is what would enable the "curve" of the road. So an simple S road, would be actually two curves, or two sections of road. If we ditched the grid system (at least the grid system as SC4 has it) we could easily have objects that could be placed on x,y, & z. (Remember, we would want to be able to do a "3D" type of system, that way our cities can have hills, valleys, and stuff like that.

The hardest part, believe it or not, will not be the creation of this system.

The hard parts are going to be:

1. The AI and factors around tracking millions of sims and so on.

2. (My opinion the hardest) Reverse Engineering the current building structure and city structure, so our creations that have had YEARS of work on them are not lost. If we go full 3D, I am not sure if that is even a possibility given the renderings of the objects are from set views, though I would think that if we could get our hands on the models (hopefully the creators have all of them still) it could potentially be easier.

I know one of my biggest complaints about SC3000->SC4 was the loss of my cities. Cities I had worked HOURS UPON HOURS on, I no longer could play with.

In whatever system we end up writing, we need to try to be able to import our current creations... At least in my opinion.

Also, I totally agree with ssfsx17, there needs to be structure to this endeavor. Teams would need to be formed, leaders would need to step up or be assigned. If something such as Linux or OpenOffice.org can get created, with only open source development, SimtropolisCity would be able to as well.

- Creathir

[Creathir 3]

Originally posted by: Crazy_Ivan80 This may be a very stupid comment but has anyone thought about the possibility that the sourcode might actually be the property of the Maxis Studio rather than Electornic Arts?

Much would obviously depend just how the contracts that resulted in the ecquisition of Maxis by EA are set up.quote>

 

Well, its not a stupid question, but I would be inclined to believe that because Maxis owned the IP for SimCity, and EA purchased Maxis, then the ownership of that IP would also transfer to EA.

It still would be TONS of help to legally get that source code. It would make our customizations that much easier.

 - Creathir

[joerg 280]

Ok so i have some technical questions and suggestions for those capable of helping with them, thanks soooo much in advance, thanks to everyone so far.

First off I am just going to throw a recomened computer spec out there for us to start looking at. We need to know how much computing power this games players will realistically have. Afterall the ideas we are throwing around vary greatly on how doable they are on a system depending on its power.

Windows OS for now, sorry Mac guys but the sooner we get a game together the sooner it could be converted.

Dual Core Processor

DX9 Video Card Nvidia 6000 Series or above

1024 megs of system memory

4 gigs hard drive space

DVD rom

So the technical questions i have are this, how do we make code optomized for multiple cores or threads? Clearly a multi threaded city simulator would give us the best performance, but how much optomization are we talking about. Or for example if we had the SC4 source could we apply a multi threaded design to it?

Next up has anyone seen where a GPU is being used as a CPU? Gpus are naturally powerful arithmatic processors and capable of doing butt loads of computations if they dont have to do predictions and branches. That said im not sure if that technology could be put to use yet.

We have alot of cool opprotunities here people, but we may not be able to tailor to every players needs, and system specs might be one of those.

One other thing to throw out here just for the sake of putting it out, we could possibly donate to a team to get something going, and use advertisments as suggested earlier, or even grants. I know this would never happen but if every member of simtrop donated 10 bucks that would be 1.7 million dollars and collecting interest on that amount alone with a money market account at 5.25% we could afford to dish out 93,000 dollars in salary a year to a very very talented programmer.

Games might cost money to develope, but they cost way more to market, and test, and with EA the greed factor kicks in. For a group like us we could possibly avoid all of those expenditures.

[Albatross Domain 2]

Ok.. I just looked at the newest screenshots that were out... and I will have to admit: the were very interesting... but here's where problems arise... even in everyones societies.. no body drives in completely 90

[dev 47]

I don't know if this has been asked yet or not...but how about distribution, and pricing? With so many people working on it, who gets the cash? You can't just give them out for free...That's going to be a mess if you ask me.

[Pixelrage 34]

Originally posted by: deeejayeee For my own personal taste I could live with Simcity 4 for a long time it the game had the ability to create curved roads and not just 45 degree angles and right angles. Everyone that has worked on modes for the game has done an excellent job which Maxis should have done from the start. Having said that, if the current screenshots of sim 5 is where maxis is going they are going to have to do a lot better before I stop playing SC4.quote>

It actually does have the ability to create curved roads now, see the Transit Modding forum I'm hoping they work on curved highways next. The only unfortunate side effect to SC4 is that buildings can't grow on a tilt.

[Pixelrage 34]

Originally posted by: dev I don't know if this has been asked yet or not...but how about distribution, and pricing? With so many people working on it, who gets the cash? You can't just give them out for free...That's going to be a mess if you ask me.quote>

there are many communities that have done this - there is no funding, as it is all "volunteer work".

Take a look at Project Xenocide, for example - it's a fan made rendition of X-COM. 100% built from scratch.

[Albatross Domain 2]

I think with what EA has accumulated over the past 15 years or so. It would definately be a very difficult task, programming probably not so much with so much talent out there because of this one genre we love: SimCity, its not a violent game, its a thinking game: like Chess, but with a Checkers type of mentality. and with some of the games that EA has put out recently... or co-wrote? I'd be worried.

Ok say in the next couple years the Alpha or beta gets off the ground (yes like any other game or programming there will be bugs--- RAID!!!!), what if the new source code becomes the property of EA, through someones greed? then the entire project will be undermined by someone, who might say: they will like to help in the development, only to have it collapse from under our noses...

for now we have the STEX and LEX, and can't forget NAM of course. and build our own ext. of SC4, and continue to perfect it, in case it all goes awry.

[njdevi66 12]

This all sounds very interesting. Though i do not have the skills in modding or batting, with a little help from my friends here, i bet i can learn it pretty quick and help with this project. And if it came down to having to donate money for this to happen, i will donate. And if it turns out that i would have to shell out some more money to lets say buy it, then i will do so as well. But we will need some sort of open server for those who are developing to access and store the work they have done. Everyone here who bats, mods or even master terraformers can contribute... like jacky

Whatever it takes i am willing to jump on this train and ride it to the end. Also i think the name Simtropolis would be a perfect name for the title, not just b/c its the name of this site but b/c it says it all on what the game is about.

The source code i fear will be the hardest thing to get, if EA is willing to give it up to us, i fear they will want a huge amount of money for it. So i would most likely want to see alt routes b/c i dont think we will be able to afford it. EA to me just seems like the type of company that would love to stick it to us b/c they would want us to buy their new game and not for us to create our own.

[rodent1989 9]

Another thing: i think all the proposals are great! except one, the "commercial thing", for example let EA have a stadium in the game in exchange for money for development, bwah... that would be SOOOOoo wrong. Sorry to say, but let the users , the people set the agenda. Let us show that we can bash EA, and be independent of commercial interrests. Don't let the mass industry (EA), dictate what has to be done!

quote>

I understand its like selling our soul to the devil, but at the same time if thats what it takes to get the source code, and support we need then maybe its justified.  Obviously no decisions have been made, we're just brainstorming.

I'm not sure exactly what that Auran Jet thing is, but it looks promising.  If we could somehow get the source code for SC4 vanilla, or SC4RH we could use the traffic engine, development engine and some of the file systems as a platform to integrate with Auran Jet.  Obviously, when using the SC4 Vanilla or RH we would need a new NAM that includes not just the stuff currently entailed in the NAM, but also the networks entailed in whatever new grid system we choose.

Also I think we need to all agree on our goals and agree that, for now, Joerg is our leader.  I will list what I have gathered to be our goals, and I will edit this post as we go and as our goals change.  (I'll be really excited when we start crossing things off this list because they're handled).

ST1000:

1.  We want to create a game that is a City Simulator.

2.  We want it to be full 3d

3.  We want it to look better than SCS, and at least as good as SC4 (if possible)

4.  We want the grid to be either non-existant or considerably more flexible.

5.  We want (or must) to keep the community aspect of user content.

6.  We want it to be open source for future updates and fixes.

[hamsterTK 93]

a open source city builder, that would be cool

[dev 47]

Originally posted by: Pixelrage

Originally posted by: dev I don't know if this has been asked yet or not...but how about distribution, and pricing? With so many people working on it, who gets the cash? You can't just give them out for free...That's going to be a mess if you ask me.quote>

there are many communities that have done this - there is no funding, as it is all "volunteer work".

Take a look at Project Xenocide, for example - it's a fan made rendition of X-COM. 100% built from scratch.quote>

That appears to be a little different. (downloadable). Joe made it sound like this would be a DVD-ROM, which would be a pain to distribute if you asked me.

[zzsim 3]

Originally posted by: joerg Ok so i have some technical questions and suggestions for those capable of helping with them, thanks soooo much in advance, thanks to everyone so far.

First off I am just going to throw a recomened computer spec out there for us to start looking at. We need to know how much computing power this games players will realistically have. Afterall the ideas we are throwing around vary greatly on how doable they are on a system depending on its power.

Windows OS for now, sorry Mac guys but the sooner we get a game together the sooner it could be converted.

Dual Core Processor

DX9 Video Card Nvidia 6000 Series or above

1024 megs of system memory

4 gigs hard drive space

DVD rom

So the technical questions i have are this, how do we make code optomized for multiple cores or threads? Clearly a multi threaded city simulator would give us the best performance, but how much optomization are we talking about. Or for example if we had the SC4 source could we apply a multi threaded design to it?

quote>

 

Getting s 3d SC that will run on most of the computers here will be a challenge.  Before we can know any of the computer specs required to run this game, we need to establish a few things first, namely we need a graphics engine.  Now the hard part is that we will likely not be able to make one from scratch, but will instead need to either find an open source engine available somewhere, or try to convince a developer to liscense theire graphics engine to us (this would involve money).

Second, optimization is key, especially if we want this game to last for several years.  Duel core shouldn't be required to run it, but the game engine needs to be able to take advantage of it.  From optimization also comes scalability (this will also have alot to do with the graphics engine).  If we are to create a realistic looking 3d sim, this is going to require high end computers to run, while at the same time, we need to be able to allow users on low end computers to scale back the detail so it can well on their machines.  

Finally, as you have said in your first post, we need a core team and a team leader.  A lot of great ideas have been proposed, especially concerning how to get a grid free road system to work, but we need someone who will have the final say on what ideas (concerning the technical as well as gameplay elements of the game) will actually be used.  My fear is that if we do not have a unified direction for this game from the beginning the project will never get off the ground.  Now the core team should consist only of the programmers and modders who will create the skeleton for this game (graphics engine, AI coding, transportation coding, building coding, and most importantly the creation of a unified lot/building placement system for the game).  They will need to decide on a standardized modeling programme (3d max maybe?) to use as well as create the tools that the rest of the nonprogrammer members of the community can use to get their models into the game.  Once this initial phase is complete, the whole community of modelers out there will be able to add there own buildings to the game, while the core team continues to polish/debug the game, and insert these buildings into the program.

Edit:  As silly as this may sound, we also need a legal team.  We need people who know something about copy right law, to ensure that EA's goones don't shut this project down half way through (something similiar happened to a group of fans trying to create their own Legend of Zelda game, when Nintendo had the project shut down).  The team needs to know what the limitations and freedoms we have with liscening based on the fact that this is a free game (though I'm sure we'll accept donations).  Dirk might actually know something about this, considering the STEX cds that are available through a donation to this site and somehow do not break the rulese concerning releasing user created content from an EA owned game for money (donations yes, but it is still money).  Finally this team would decide what we can and can not name this game (Sim City is taken I presume ), how the menues can look/operate as well as the names of the buildings/civic services as I'm sure EA has copyright measures surrounding every aspect of how SC4 operates.  Oh well, enough for now, time to get ready for work...

[rodent1989 9]

Contact Information:

For a project of this magnitude to be even remotely successful we the optimal scenario would be all of us meeting in person daily and working on this.  That isn't feasible.  Good thing we have technology.  The following information is essentially need-to-know stuff.  Obviously there is no obligation by entering (or not entering) this information.  Its simply a convenience.  PLEASE PM THESE TO ME SO WE CAN PUT ALL CONTACTS IN ONE POST INSTEAD OF SCATTERING THEM THROUGHOUT THE THREAD!

ST Name:

First Name:

Time Zone:

Country of Residence:

E-mail:

AIM Screename:

Facebook URL:

Myspace URL:

Current Education:

Comp Specs:

Appliable Skills:

Applicable Contacts:

Other:

Now as far as the 3d-ness, maybe my idea was stupid, or maybe nobody read it.  We could have the actual game be more like SC4, at an angle and not full 3d.  However, maybe we could find a way to use google earth (which is free) to our advantage.  If we could write ascript that would export our city as a file recognizable to google earth then we could use it as our 3d engine.  Granted it wont be ingame 3d but it would be cool to browse the city and then go back and edit it.  It would be more like when you build a website, first you composes then you check, go back and compose, then re-check, etc etc.  Think about it anyway it could greatly reduce the amount of work we need to do.  Also with google's love of innovation and non-conformity they may be willing to work with us to get our game to export a readable file.

[physicsguy891 0]

A number of people have mentioned the problem of tracking millions of individual sims around, and how this is computationally taxing.  Now I have only minimal programming experience, and maybe this is the way the current engine works, but why do you need to track individual sims?  For cities of a few thousand this might be ok, but if you want to build big cities with this, why not track sims in units of 10, 100, or 1000?  This would lower the number of computations by a few orders of magnitude, and for big cities it really shouldn't matter.  It could even be scaled by the density of the zone you're working with (so a high-density residential building with a population of 1000 would track it's sims in 10 groups of 100, while a low density house with 10 sims would track them as individuals); or you could do it by the size of the city (so a city of 10,000 tracks sims as individuals, while a city of 100,000 tracks by units of 10, and a city of 1,000,000 tracks in units of 100).

Then say a 'unit' of 1000 sims goes out from a residential building looking for jobs.  If it passes a building with 1000 open jobs, they all work there.  Or if it passes a building with 250 open jobs, you make this a unit and then track the other 750 as a new unit for another set of jobs.  The programming would have to be a lot more flexible, but in the second case the computer would only have to compute two units rather than a thousand (plus the computations required to split the group).

The trick would be to quit treating the population of the city as a group of individuals and, like real city planners, treat them as small or large (depending on the city) groups.

physicsguy891

[Aspasia 0]

I do some software development professionally (though not game programming) so I'll add some suggestions here regarding project management:

The first thing you should do in any project (even before you start listing features) is decide what the primary goals of the project should be. That way you can evaluate what features are important and HAVE to be included to achieve your goals. For instance, if your goal is to have realistic/beautiful looking cities then you need to focus on the features that make it that way (allowing curved streets, more object placement options, etc) and will most likely result in a "static" city where the user controls all aspects of placement. However if you're looking for creating a simulation that mimics how cities react to government decisions (where the user is in the position of government) then the feature set needs to be shifted to building things that governments tend to do (roads and zoning) and leaving other decisions up to the simulation engine.

The SimCity series has attracted a large fan base who are attracted to the game for many different reasons. The series has always tried to balance what I call the "builders" (who like to completely manage the design/layout of the city) with the "simmers" (who like to build a dynamic city that changes with response player decisions). The "builders" are often about aesthetics while the "simmers" are more about the modelling (traffic models, economic models, etc). The series has tried to please both with various degrees of success.

Of course, few people are strictly one or the other - most people are in between. The trouble is, you're never going to end up with a product that is all things to all people. No matter what you do there are going to be trade-offs. SimCity 4 made trade-offs of some features (more realistic traffic flow, curved streets, full 3D, etc) to meet other demands (working on more systems on the time given processing power, simplifying models for faster performance, etc). Defining goals for a project serves the purpose of helping to decide which way to go when conflicts arise. It also helps new people who want to join the project to instantly know what you're trying to achieve and be able to work towards that end that much quicker.

After you have your goals, then you start brainstorming your feature set. These are often "the sky's the limit" sort of things, but don't rule anything out yet or argue why something should or shouldn't be done at this point because that limits creative thinking and creates bad feelings, and you might loose some very intriguing new ideas. After you've collected ideas, then you need to sit down and seriously think about each feature and if it brings you towards your goals or not. This doesn't mean you absolutely can't include a feature if it doesn't specifically align to a certain goal. The purpose is more to prioritize the feature set so when you get down to actual coding the programmers can figure out what tools and object structures will be needed to implement them.

The difference between a successful project and one that fails comes down to management (I hate to admit it because I'm not in any management position in my job, but its true . Lone programmers writing their own project often succeed because they already have a clear idea of what they want and work towards that end. As you add more people to a project with their own take on things you need some way to make sure everyone is working towards the same end, and that people work together and communicate with each other effectively on what is needed.

Personally I think your estimation of 1 year is quite optimistic. Taking a look at other group projects and how long they've taken: FreeCiv, FreeCol, and others have been around for quite some time. There are often severely feature-limited alphas that come out within a year or so, but it will probably take at minimum 2 and more likely 3+ years to get to the state of something like Sim City 4 if you're starting from scratch. During this time there will be turnover of people participating in the project as some will lose interest, some will run into time conflicts with work/school/family/spore/etc, and new people will join up and need to be brought up to speed. Successful multi-developer (including programmers, artists, planners, etc in this) get to be that way because they are well defined and organized. Linux, Mozilla, and other examples of large multi-developer projects show this. None of them are free of problems, but they are all able to get a product out the "door" (so to speak) because they are organized in a way where everyone knows what they're working towards, what needs to be done, and how they fit in.

But now I'll throw my 2 cents in as far as what I like from different games in general:

I'd fit somewhere between a "simmer" and a "builder". I personally love working economies (note: economies don't mean money, they mean resource distribution and use). For instance, I love it when resources get distributed and used. It makes me feel like its a living world and the changes matter. An example of this in a SimCity type setting would be if you needed farm land to grow food for the citizens (but that also supplies jobs, which are a demand for citizens as a resource), coal plants need coal which might necessitate a coal mine from somewhere (again supplying jobs). I love to build things that evolve over time from rural to urban. No SimCity game has provided a fully working economy (if that's even possible in a game, really) but I still love the SimCity games in part because they provide some aspect of resource management (in terms of jobs, transportation systems, power, water, refuse collection). So even though its a simplified economic model I still get some joy from it.

However I also get upset at how grid-like my neighborhoods end up being. I'd like more organic beauty in them. If you look at aerial photos of communities they may have sections that are more grid-like (usually downtown areas) but residential and suburban neighborhoods have curved streets branching off from the main line and paths that follow more of the lay of the land. And rural communities even more so, where roads were build around natural barriers and historic property lines. Uniqueness is what adds beauty and charm to a community. Even "run down" communities have a beauty because of this. Lets face it, though they're efficient, grids are just boring in the end .

I think an independent project is definitely a worth goal. Even if I didn't get a lot of features I'd like from it in, I'd still support it. My only problem is that I don't know how much time I could devote to it. Plus, as I said earlier, I'm not a game or graphics programmer and have little experience to offer in that respect.

Edit: Between the time I started this reply in the morning, and the time I actually got to post it (hours later due to needing to do my job I see some of what I was trying to suggest here had already been recognized as necessary by others coming into place (re: the goals). Good job!

[Pixelrage 34]

I thought that the only real tracking involved was on a per-building basis (such as 2893/4000 occupants in a skyscraper, 199/200 jobs of a factory, etc)

[patriots_1228 51]

sounds like a more fun game than SCS. you serious about developing this? that would cost a lot of money.

[Ntq€310 1]

it's a great idea, there are over a 170,000 members, and more on other sites, thats more than enough to make a team!! you could even have marketing, make a web site, and lots more, this sounds alot better than scs, it's very possible, and simtropolis will have alot of donaters!

Also with advertising from other simcity fansites, as on are own simtropolis, with the money we could get computers, if this dose all come together  mabey we could put it in diffrent languages, and sell it around the world, if we make enough money, ewo could even start on a sequel to it, the possibilities are endless

[Hanson784 165]

Good to see this is taking off the ground and it is very feasible with a community and knowledge base our size. Google.com was created in a garage by two college students. Myself and a couple of other members mentioned something like this a couple days ago. 4 pages and growing shows there is interest and support.

I already like the name of the game and the idea of basing it off this community.

We need to start small but we also need to get in touch with people with resources whether it be members of Simtropolis from SimMars or game developers. I’ve gotten some media attention from my New York recreation project and on Tuesday I got an email from the Vice President of Scream Point stating she wanted to assist with my project. She passed along some 3D models of Times Square buildings to me.

I’m not sure if Scream Point could help with this but it’s worth a try to tell them next time I email her. Another option is to contact the Google Earth team and see if they can help us out in any way. I think a similar platform to Google Earth would be an interesting starting point for a 3D game.

Finally, EA will not give us the source code to SC4 because it is not only a valuable asset to the corporation but it is most likely protected by copyright.

I’m a bit busy at thee moment with my New York project but I can help out with custom content.

Ntq$310, Some members here are professionals in a few of those fields. We could start divisions later on down the road. I myself have a business background mainly routed in marketing. Though, right now the development team needs to be assembled and prorgamer's need to found (or even hired).

[Goldfish4209 9]

Originally posted by: joerg

Windows OS for now, sorry Mac guys but the sooner we get a game together the sooner it could be converted.

Dual Core Processor

DX9 Video Card Nvidia 6000 Series or above

1024 megs of system memory

4 gigs hard drive space

DVD rom

So the technical questions i have are this, how do we make code optomized for multiple cores or threads? Clearly a multi threaded city simulator would give us the best performance, but how much optomization are we talking about. Or for example if we had the SC4 source could we apply a multi threaded design to it?quote>

I have zero expertise in this area, but I think you could have the game spawn seperate threads that each do a different thing, like on for audio, one for graphics, one for game mechanics, etc. These each could be relatively small threads, so 2 cpus could handle them, and 4 cpus could blaze through them. Also, this would work on one cpu, which I guess is really important for backward compatability.

Next up has anyone seen where a GPU is being used as a CPU? Gpus are naturally powerful arithmatic processors and capable of doing butt loads of computations if they dont have to do predictions and branches. That said im not sure if that technology could be put to use yet.quote>

Well, we can always optimize some code for the GPU, and with the next generation of GPUs that have dozens, if not hundreds of stream processors on them, we can offload some stuff to the GPU, provided it runs well on it.

We have alot of cool opprotunities here people, but we may not be able to tailor to every players needs, and system specs might be one of those.quote>

We are going to have scalable graphics complexity, etc right?

One other thing to throw out here just for the sake of putting it out, we could possibly donate to a team to get something going, and use advertisments as suggested earlier, or even grants. I know this would never happen but if every member of simtrop donated 10 bucks that would be 1.7 million dollars and collecting interest on that amount alone with a money market account at 5.25% we could afford to dish out 93,000 dollars in salary a year to a very very talented programmer.quote>

I'd gladly lobby my parents for ten bucks for this.

s silly as this may sound, we also need a legal team.  We need people who know something about copy right law, to ensure that EA's goones don't shut this project down half way through (something similiar happened to a group of fans trying to create their own Legend of Zelda game, when Nintendo had the project shut down).  The team needs to know what the limitations and freedoms we have with liscening based on the fact that this is a free game (though I'm sure we'll accept donations).  Dirk might actually know something about this, considering the STEX cds that are available through a donation to this site and somehow do not break the rulese concerning releasing user created content from an EA owned game for money (donations yes, but it is still money).  Finally this team would decide what we can and can not name this game (Sim City is taken I presume ), how the menues can look/operate as well as the names of the buildings/civic services as I'm sure EA has copyright measures surrounding every aspect of how SC4 operates.  Oh well, enough for now, time to get ready for work...quote>

Well, we can always make it technically not simcity, but that's a good idea.

I understand its like selling our soul to the devil, but at the same time if thats what it takes to get the source code, and support we need then maybe its justified.  Obviously no decisions have been made, we're just brainstorming.quote>

Wouldn't it be best to start from scratch for the safety and integrity of the concept/product?

I don't know if this has been asked yet or not...but how about distribution, and pricing? With so many people working on it, who gets the cash? You can't just give them out for free...That's going to be a mess if you ask me.quote>

Dunno, burn the cds ourselves and sell it for say, 20-40 bucks? I'd pay for that.

[hamsterTK 93]

Im not a programmer, but my .$02

What if the game engine and the graphics were reletively seperate at first?

what I mean is that the simulator would be built first very simply and just keep track of where everything is in coordinate space and pass that info onto the graphics engine that would figure out what to do with it.

Like Simcity 2000, the game was in isometric. But you could import those cities into simcopter or streets of simcity, where you could play in those cities in 3d

I think this could allow the game to be easily testable at first. A crappy 2d top down view akin to the original simcity could be created for testing in the alpha stage. Then, as time went on the prefered graphics could be developed

Also, the project could still proceed even if there was a debate where the community was split on what it should look like

[Sap59 3]

awesome idea.

i'm no whiz so i couldn't any help with the tech stuff but i can at least donate here and there. :-)

i like the ideas in these posts and hope it can become a reality.

one suggestion that comes to mind at this time..

like someone said earlier getting legal consultation for a project of this size would be a wise idea.

[Explodingsims 3]

I like your Idea for this, but I think region play should stay, but I would like the Idea of buying addional squares to buy, thats something I would like to see. Otherwise I like everything else you said.

I'll Help out too

[david1314 44]

Originally posted by: joerg Wow sounds great David, i am here by officially or unofficially or whatever appointing you part of this team, if you want to help that is.quote>

I absolutely do want to help!  Thanks.

The only thing I would suggest before a serious attempt to move forward would be that we get a private forum for development so this doesn't become another mod-request thread.

We need a concise vision of what we want with the game to be first, something that a community of 30,000+ can't provide.

It is much easier to present an idea, then amend it rather than try to synthesize the ideas and requests of every single person.

This seems to be the next logical step to me.

[hamsterTK 93]

^^^

maybe there should be 2 boards, one for the public to read announcements and comment about the project, and a private one for team members to collaborate in peace?

Im with ya, you guys are going to need a place to talk that doesnt get filled with 200 requests every second. But what about keeping the community and potential contributors in the loop? there should be a place for that

because I cant do much at first, but I sure as hell want to read every single post related to this

[ianpaschal 77]

I am more than happy to make models! Please! Let's do this! Tell me what we need!

[Crazy_Ivan80 35]

Originally posted by: joerg  if every member of simtrop donated 10 bucks quote>

 

collect in euros, they're worth more

[ianpaschal 77]

Also I would just like to say, for me, detail, lighting, textures, etc is a FAR bigger step towards getting realism and would be easier to program, render, and run on an average PC to use the 4 view renders.

Here's how I would do it:

1. Make Model.

2. Open the tutorial to set up cameras for render.

3. Type in location coordinates for cameras and targets using the simple Transform Type In.

4. Render a series of images.

5. Set each image to be 1 view in the game.

6. Program to display those images.

ESSENTIALLY like SC4 as of now, however we can have OUR models use a real scale (2 meters Sim height), as well as using a normal camera that doesn't have the weird squash effect of the SC4 render camera.

Really what we would do is make a default_bat.max scene (or gmax) with hidden cameras and lights. I can make some nice daylight, as well as put cameras in. Then when you want a building, just load up that scene and start working.

[croxis 150]

To expand on what Aspasia wrote, before you write a single line of code you will want a fully established and detailed design document. This will prevent feature creep and exact focus and direction. I uploaded an example I found here: http://www.croxis.net/Orblitz_GDD.pdf

You may wish to establish a wiki for writing the design doc.