Simtropolis 1000

[ardecila 124]

Also... about the music.... rather than trying to build a whole set of music, just include a simple player that supports mp3, m3u, and mpeg streams (Internet Radio). However, include this as a later, optional plugin. The initial feature set of the game should be city-building and nothing else.

[hamsterTK 93]

yeah

as for the the P2P, that seems kind of complicated, and would be dependent on a network of people.

I think since there wont be a whole lot at the beginning stuff could come in packs and and on people's personal sites. Hell, if the STEX is still up when this happens, it could be used

[joerg 280]

Sorry to double post but their is just so much to keep organized. As far as demand goes, i would say we either need to job demand all together and turn it into just a fullfillment issue where the game just fullfills the sims needs and the zones we create basically state whether people live or work there and how tall the building is or how much polution and stuff. Also with the aformentioned proposal system we could deny factories in our cities.

However I have nothing against using a normal demand model either, but i say we go.

Retail/Entertainment

Tourism

Resources (mining, logging, farming)

Government (military, other)

University

Parks

Office

Residential

Zoning parks with a smart zoning ai system and full 3d splines would be amazing and yield beautiful results. Universities could also easilly be a demand as sims get smarter and a university could be zoned and it would grow and develope and sims could work live and learn there. Finally tourism has been missing from every SC and we need it darn it, tourism is a huge definer of a cities character.

[the olive 0]

The music wouldn't be the main concern, the game play is first, above graphics and sound and anything else.

I do think there should be events that happen in a city. There could be a city newspaer (and their office would be a reward) that would show all the events, that way cities would seem more "alive".

So one day you plan a parade, you would plan that root, get police to close it off, and away you go.

About police, you should be able to dispatch them like fire trucks, just something that would make it seem like your really the mayor of a real city.

[MadSim 1]

Guys, there's no point in throwing up ideas and features to the table at this point. Ideas are dime a dozen but without an engine, expert and dedicated programmers (preferably 2 or 3 for a project this size), modelers and graphic artists, and above all free time to spend (several years), then this project will never go behond the good intentions.

I've been following in the internet some projects like this you guys want to start. Through the years you realize the importance: of leadership, of having people who know what they're doing, of dedication. 

Achieve this and you might pull it off.

[hamsterTK 93]

Hey guys, check it out:

this thread has more views and posts than any other thread save for the original "simcity is coming" thread, that has since been locked. and yet this is a project that is merely a lot of talk right now....

You can tell SCS is gonna be such a big hit [/sarc]

Guys, there's no point in throwing up ideas and features to the table at this point. Ideas are dime a dozen but without an engine, expert and dedicated programmers (preferably 2 or 3 for a project this size), modelers and graphic artists, and above all free time to spend (several years), then this project will never go behond the good intentions.quote>

well to be fair, its really really fun to talk, and its like 1:30 AM where many of live in the US.....

tommorow after everyone sleeps on it, the common sense will take over

[Duper 0]

well then we should not procrastinate! carpe diem.

If this worked out i think it would be amazing. People creating a game for people. Its crazy. No game has been made this way. Start the hype, perhaps we could get some sort of community going well enough to get sponsors / supporters. Will wright? Come on. Its your community.You created it. Let it grow. Support it.

We can do it.

[david1314 44]

Edit:  Wow, that took a long time to post... this is in response to joerg second post up

I don't think the game should do the indexing. I think this should be done in the file system.

The implications of this for conflicts are quite obvious.

I think a concise directory structure should be set up, with an effective plugin-manager for the game to make it user friendly. Basically, the program will be a zip extractor (utilizing the windows .zip process), to which we add a special header that will install the plugin to the right directory. The header will be added by the developer selecting the directory(ies) in the same installer, which adds the heading to the .zip directories they've created (I think basic cross reference files should be used for an object to occupy two families to stick to a directory managed plugin system).

The plugin manager could also add a header or something of the sort to allow the server to easily track each file within a plugin, so that dependencies can be found by searching the ST1EX by an individual filename, so users don't have to hunt them down.

With that, I think the need to a p2p style of content also goes away. I see your main reason for this being to keep the dependencies updated, no? I think the above offers more freedom to users with a more bullet-proof indexing system.

[Superchan 23]

full 3d is not a good idea, it would hog resources and doesnt do much for the game, though an option to lock the game into semi-3d would be nice for older computers

one of my ideas is to make the buildings using 3dsmax or gmax, this would be good becuase it would allow easy conversion of SC4 bats to our version of the game, allowing custom content for sc4 to be used in our game and even integrate some content like, BSC, and NDEX work, if we designed it we would need to make sure that it we try to solve the problems SC4 had

i would also say NO to open source, its a good idea but we wouldnt make any money, money made from the game could go to ST to get better servers, and to the game to make xpacks, sequels, and patches with professional programers, and would allow the game to grow, besides open source could be stolen by EA or some greedy developer and secretly put into there games.

also the game needs to support dual core proccessors to allow less lag, and be optimized for both AMD and Intel proccessors, and support DX9 and DX10 if we want this game to be bug free in the future and to be fun and popular, then the only way is to have someone publish it. money pays for programmers, programs, offices, high computers, marketing, etc... with out it the game would never be as good as simcity 4, unless someone working on it won the lottery, or if someone just gave us stuff and worked for free, but even a lottery wouldnt last long.

[sc4melbourne 0]

Wow, it's really difficult keeping up with this thread. I spent about an hour ctaching up with what I missed in sleep, and then I went away to write up the document below, and when I returned there was another whole page of comments!

Anyway, I drew up this rather quick document outlining how I think the grid system should work (and it could work really well), seeing as there seems to be quite a bit of support for retaining the grid. The first page is as an image because I couldn't get the graph on any other way. The text beneath is the continuation of the document.

Now, as you can see, I’ve numbered some of the grid tiles above. This is to show which tiles will be considered road tiles and which won’t. Any tile which has any part of the road running through it is considered a road tile and therefore cannot have a building on the same tile.

 

So, tiles 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12 and road tiles.

And, tiles 3, 8 and 13 are not road tiles.

 

So, you may be wondering what happens to the road tiles which only have the road running through a small section of them. This will be explained below.

 

Four object types:

 

I think that there should be four types of objects in ST 1000, buildings, props, fillers and transit networks. Well, at least these are the four I have thought about so far. It may be necessary to add others later. The objects could be described as such:

 

Buildings: This one is self-explanatory. Basically, any building which is going to have a residential, commercial or industrial capacity or which serves some other purpose (except carrying automata). More specifically, an object which affects gameplay and is not purely placed for aesthetic reasons.

 

Props: Any object which is 3-dimensional yet has no function and is purely placed for aesthetic reasons. Just like the props which we find in SC4 lots. May be a lamp post, bin, flower garden, etc.

 

Fillers: 2-D objects which are purely for aesthetic purposes. Basically, these are textures which are placed on the ground. They may be a sidewalk, plaza, cobblestones or gravel path. The only function these objects have are to carry pedestrians or animals (and cars when they crash off the road).

 

Transit networks: These are objects such as roads, railways, etc. Pretty self-explanatory. They may be 2-D as in a flat road, or 3-D as in a railway viaduct.

 

When an object occupies a tile, that tile is ‘catalogued’ as belonging to that object type. In a case where an object is half on a tile, that tile may be catalogued as belonging to two object types. For example: a road occupies half a tile and a filler (sidewalk) also occupies that tile. There will be obvious limitations on to what object types can share a tile:

 

Building: can only occupy a tile by itself or share with a filler object only if the building does not occupy the full tile.

                       

Filler: can occupy a tile by itself, or share with a building, prop or road, but only if the other object does not fully occupy the whole tile.

 

Prop: can occupy a tile by itself or share with a filler only if the prop does not occupy the whole tile.

 

Transit network: can only occupy a tile by itself or share with a filler only if the transit network does not occupy the full tile.

 

A filler tile will always occupy a full tile, so a building and a filler may overlap. However, the filler should be coded to be hidden underneath the building (like you send an object to the back in a Word document).

-------------------------------------------------------

If anyone is interested in this, or knows if its possible, etc. please let me know. I have more to expand on this idea.

[david1314 44]

Originally posted by: joerg Sorry to double postquote>

Likewise

Originally posted by: joerg However I have nothing against using a normal demand model either, but i say we go.

Retail/Entertainment

Tourism

Resources (mining, logging, farming)

Government (military, other)

University

Parks

Office

Residential quote>

I think the commuters in SC4 is actually based on the assumption that while all these others exist, they have no significant impact on peak-time road usage (which all cities concern themselves with... Atlanta's ring road isn't built for 4am traffic).  So many of those can be discounted as using the roads, but not affecting how they are designed or analyzed by real cities.  The obvious exception here is tourism, which must be added.

Basically, SC4 only concerns itself with a limited portion of the socio-economic spectrum because it's the most important to city design.

I think reality might bring us to the same realization.  Perhaps we can have a 'local' traffic generator that will send cars out on errands or to lunch or something, but it would be tough to incorporate so many commuters I'm sure else we would have seen it in SC4.

I think tourism should be local and not, to use things like parks, services, landmarks, vistas, etc.  and that could encompas most of the other items up there.

[the olive 0]

I strongly beleive a group should be made to put all the ideas together, it may seem impossible to some, but how do you think all big businesses got started up, they started small with almost no money, and look at how many huge corperations there are. Martha Stewart started by selling pies at some fair, and shes pretty rich right now. Everything starts small and grows, just give it a chance.

Anyways its 2:45 here in Toronto and I hope I don't miss to much while I sleep.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw I've just recalled more ideas I have about the game.  Yes, I have thought about SC5 A LOT over the past few years, lol.

Design Mode:

-Original Problem:

In Sim City 4, I found that I was building something, but building one tile too far, or messing up an intersection, or just not getting what I want in general.  So I bulldozed and restarted.  Or I zone something too big, or I quickly change my mind about what I want built there, so I need to redo it.

This was a problem with the game being "too complicated" in previous Sim Citys.  Players can't get what they want, along the way they accidentally bulldoze things, and in the end what they got didn't work anywhere near what they thought it would.

Also in Sim City 4, everything is rediclously cheap.  In real life, infrastructure like that is a major expense.  Highways and transit lines can cost millions and billions of dollars.  But if the prices were made realistically significant in SC4, we'd go bankrupt after needing to redo something after it didn't work right.

-A Solution:

So what I suggest is a design mode, where the game is paused, and what you build is completely free.  Somewhere on the interface it would tally up how much it would cost to build it, a button to confirm construction, and a button to leave design mode.

There would be an option to do "studies" on the system, where you would pay some money, and it would basically unpause the game and show you what would happen if you built what you designed.  Of course, this would be at a decent cost, so you can't just do excessive studies for everything you do.quote>

I actually think that this would be an excellent idea - you could plan extensions to highways or subway lines, including digging tunnels and moving around dirt, and once you got the perfect design down with a cost estimate, you could hit the 'build it' button.  And - it would take months, if not years, for it to be finished (if it was something like the Boston Big Dig in scale).

Very good idea Jasoncw!

[david1314 44]

Originally posted by: sc4melbourne Wow, it's really difficult keeping up with this thread. I spent about an hour ctaching up with what I missed in sleep, and then I went away to write up the document below, and when I returned there was another whole page of comments!

Anyway, I drew up this rather quick document outlining how I think the grid system should work (and it could work really well), seeing as there seems to be quite a bit of support for retaining the grid. The first page is as an image because I couldn't get the graph on any other way. The text beneath is the continuation of the document.

quote>

I think it's pointless to stick to the grid.  Obviously and auto grid (which could have n-radials of griddyness for parisian styled cities) and be totally rotated.  It's rediculous to keep with the grid when splines are available in a real 3d environment.

The only reason to keep the grid is because buildings are snapped to it for 2-d rendered images.  If the game is rendering itself, there's no reason to burden ourselves with grid.

[Nardo69 51]

Guys, over at the German Simforum.de we spoke about Open City which is about the same.

HOWEVER:

I just had quick look over this topic - lots of detail wishing at a stage where there is

- no concepts

- no definitions

- no work plan

- no graphics engine

- no terrain model

- no project management

While speaking of project management I am not thinking about something like Superchad production but a hard, serious and exhausting work. I am not sure if I could be a member of the project management

Unless there is no halfway working terrain model all such things as music etc are centuries too early.

And let's keep in mind:

 

If we would begin RIGHT NOW as volunteers we need at least 5-8 years for the first RC ...

Don't misunderstand me: I appreciate such a project and would take my share of work but I have a job and a wife and hopefully someday there will be children of mine.

My 0.02 simoleons

Bernhard

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Mixed-use buildings, particularly retail with residential above. This is really, really needed for realistic European cities...

[david1314 44]

Nardo:

- no concepts - read my posts, they describe the algorithems necessary

- no definitions - uh...ok...

- no work plan - yeah there is...just kinda open ended here on day 2

- no graphics engine - auran jet...best thing I can put forth....suggestions?

- no terrain model - why would we have custom content so soon?

- no project management - a spontaneous show of community support.....these communist DEVILS!

[sc4melbourne 0]

Originally posted by: david1314 Nardo:

- no graphics engine - auran jet...best thing I can put forth....suggestions?

quote>

 

Have you looked over at this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines#Free_Engines

Auran Jet isn't on the list, but the first one, Agar, seems like it would be suitable.

[IonWind 3]

Should this project get any further, I propose that we create a wiki for this our little project. I think wiki is far more better to maintain project that has many members than this forum. Things could be easily organized and one wouldn't have to search the development ideas or such from forum posts.

I've used wikis at different team works at university, and that's quite efficent way to manage an maintain a project when all the people can't all the time get themselves to meetings. So if there's someone who has some experience with wikis, he could create the wiki for this project.

[sc4melbourne 0]

Okay, so I'm just trying to grasp how lots would develop in ST. If we follow david's idea of splines (I'm convinced about it now), then would we do away with lots in the traditional sense. Instead of having lots made up of the main building, then props and fillers, these should all be come independent objects, which still have some dependencies on each other.

Say a lot took up 4x3 tiles in SC4, of which 2x2 were the actual building, and 8 tiles were filled with props and ground textures. In ST 1000, the building should take up the same amount of space (1024 sq metres), and be the same shape. However, the filler tiles should not have to be the same shape. The whole lot over all may be triangular or pentagonal in shape, because the filler tiles are arranged in a different way. The fillers and props will still occupy 2048 sq metres, but in a different layout.

So, it could be coded that Building Y have X square metres of filler objects around it, and Z sq metres of that should be dedicated to a parking lot. This way, a parking lot or a plaza area around a building does not have to be a set shape, but the game will decide its shape to fit in with buildings and roads around it. I still think that an underlying grid would help with the placement of filler tiles though, even if it can't be seen.

[dev 47]

Ok, the name "SimTropolis" is most likely copyrighted by Dirk, and due to the comments many people are putting in to this project, I would highly recommend you ask his permission before pinning his site's name on it.

I also want to make an important note about giving out personal information (Myspace/Facebook, etc.) This is NOT a good idea. You can work completely fine simply through e-mail, you don't need personal photos and information to work online with someone. I think the administration of this site would agree when I say DO NOT give out this information. It isn't safe at all.

Anyways, I will say Godspeed to the team...In all honesty, I don't think you guys will be able to get this together, but I really hope you can. It would be a cool thing to see.

[joerg 280]

Ok so ive been looking at game engines all day, and I see 2 options thus far, either go with Auran Jet, or Blade3d. Both seem to be fairly efficient and capable of what we need.

http://www.xnamagic.com/MediaGallery/tabid/74/Default.aspx#viewLocation

http://www.xnamagic.com/Download/tabid/89/Default.aspx

I personally think blade 3d might be a good solution as it runs completely off of microsoft xna and is available to try for free.  Check out the videos in the first link they are very simplistic models but the engine looks more than capable.

[owenluby 1]

I don't like the name... sounds a bit dicky.

[+Guest]

How would we develop it though and who would develop it? We don't have the money. The idea is superb though and I'd want to do anytihng I could to help out.

[Bine 0]

OK so maybe I'm not the most frequent poster, and maybe I can only programa simple java class that takes text input and displays it.

BUT I am a counterstrike source mapper, now you may ask what on Earth that has to do with anything. It means I can make buildings and maps etc in Hammer. This comes as part of the SDK for the source engine. I tihnk that we could build a mod on the source engine that would be this game. The language is Lua and Vis basic I think but Hammer is fairly easy to use and it has some cool effects such as HDR and scaleable graphics intesnsity (both high and low res supoprt and an option to remove HDR)

Thats my idea, and btw I have a fire retardent suit on so flame away.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

[joerg 280]

The name is the least of our worries, and im sure it will change, i just needed something to throw out there for now and what better to name it after than the community that helped create it.  Point being the game if ever finished could be called just about anything.  Maybe it could be called Citytropolis, or MetroSimulator, or UrbanGen, or even UrbanSim, or even iCity who knows.

[owenluby 1]

Yeah, I guess it ain't that important...

[Cleaner475 150]

Citypolis is better

[sc4melbourne 0]

I like the sound of iCity! Or maybe UrbGen. I know it's not important right now. But after doing some serious thinking about this all day, I need something light to talk about.

[joerg 280]

Oh and here is a quick picture of what the auran jet engine is capable of