Simtropolis 1000

[jmjselect 0]

This is a great idea and a monumental task at hand. I truely hope this endeavor comes out to it's fullest.

BUT, Simtropolis '1000'???

why 1000? dump the numbers and just keep Simtropolis.

good luck!

[Daryn07 0]

I wonder:

Has anyone considered changing the roll of mayor to infrastructural designer... or having the option to be both... different goals and such... or just be a citizen of the city (on the side) of constructing it? could be a big hit

[Goldfish4209 9]

ST: the game? That sounds dumb. ST1k sounds kinda better.

But seriously, let's do come up with a better name.

[McMurray02 55]

Joerg, I think you propose a very interesting experiment indeed. Earlier tonight I was thinking about all of the talent that our community has, and how realistic it would be to pull together the right resources. I think that before you jump into the details of the game, I think you really need to think about the foundation that will need to be laid out first. I think your discussion has certainly brought out some good ideas, and good beginnings, but as I've learned in this community, you've really got to get that base foundation and the organization built first so that when others can come with their input of suggestions we'll have a way to sort through that in an organized manner. Sure, a lot of suggestions have been placed here, and in other forums, but we'll need to have a systematic way to sort through those and understand them from a technical standpoint. We'll need to create a way to prioritize what should be done and how. I think we all have experienced that we all have our own various opinions on how things should work. Developing a system to sort through this will help us determine the ground rules on how we get started. Software developers like Maxis have an upper hand here, because they have a much smaller group that is working on the project, and they are doing it in a standardized way.

We'll need to remember that this game would have to be built from the ground up. It'll need to comply with legal and international copyright standards. I think we take forgranted the modularity of SC4 that EA/Maxis provided for us and how we were able to take each of its pieces, and learn how they interact with the game. We were fortunate enough to have people in the community who were able to understand how to open that door. It wasn't until that door was opened through tools like Ilive's reader that the rest of us were able to contribute. I think that the original programming we'll need to be done by experienced programmers that understand the importance of having a systematic approach and modular system that the rest of the community (or at least those willing to participate) can replicate, build upon and contribute. They'll need to take those suggestions, and filter though them and match that with our realistic capabilities. They'll need to lay down that foundation of modularity. Think of it as planting a tree from a seed. That seed (game developer tools) already contains all of the types of cells that it'll need for its life (or a basis for each type.) Then as it sprouts and matures, it grows and each cell type (community created content) can grow into the various parts that it'll need in order to survive a lifetime of challenges.

We'll need to create a heigharchy of things that need to be established first. We'll need to draft a plan on how were are going to accomplish the various tasks on everything to how we organize ourselves, to how we lay that initial foundation, to the first line of computer code. Lets get this done first, then we can discuss as a group, what our game will be like. 

After we knock this out, we can form specialty groups. You know, some people will work on the base simulation, some will work on foundation of trasportation, some will work on zoning etc. 

Make sense anyone?

[Daryn07 0]

Agreed. What we need is our own forum (after the foundation is placed and binary code is in the creation process.) By doing so our forum would be assembled as such:

-Base code

-Programmers

-Animators

-Other

*Like this or something like it.

This way ideas can be passed around that are actually imputable. You must realize that there will be lots of people in the beginning tagging along just because of how great of an idea it is now. But never the less I would love to help in coding and programming, and in motivating people. I have a few friends that would help us in this process and I spoke with them today. They jumped at the chance to participate. LETS ALL ASK AROUND FOR PROGRAMMERS AND CODERS AND THEN TAKE OFF FROM THERE.  a good programmer would help make most of these ideas come true... but the motivation is still needed... lets do this!

[joerg 280]

Wow guys this has grown 10x faster than I could have ever anticipated, and my time is eaten up mostly by work. I do want to stay involved but I have yet to really even sit down and read through the last few pages. I see tons of users expressing intered and my PM inbox has 14 new messages right now. Thanks to all of you that are PMing me with information and I really wish i had to time to contact everyone. I work full time and go to school full time, so at this moment my free time is being divided up between you guys and a girl (im sure she thinks she deserves priority, and she is probably right, but hey a man has to have fun too)

Anyways lets try to transition this discussion to here http://dev.simcities.com/ it is growing rapidly over there, and while i havent had a chance to post over there myself I dont want anyone to get the impression that i am neglecting this forum or the one set up by the Blam team.

So again head here guys http://dev.simcities.com/

BTW just discovered dat packer, thanks a ton jeronij, lol tons of work to be done, why oh why did i come back to simcity. Simcity seems to have became a black hole of free time for me.... If there were more time in the day i would be playing, organizing, reading, bating, learning paths, and mediating this new game concept we are all so excited about. However such cannot be the case.

Oh one other kind of random question but anyone here at K-State??? Manhattan Kansas area?  just thought it would be cool if there are other players in the area. 

[onlyplace4 603]

Originally posted by: joergAnyways lets try to transition this discussion to here http://dev.simcities.com/ it is growing rapidly over there, and while i havent had a chance to post over there myself I dont want anyone to get the impression that i am neglecting this forum or the one set up by the Blam team.

So again head here guys http://dev.simcities.com/ quote>

Just a little thing ... the forum I've set up is not a BLaM forum. Sure a good number of members are members of the team, and sure I lead that team, but the forum there is totally independent of the team. I'm simply your host for this exciting project. Just thought I'd point that out

[Lord Kronos 0]

Indeed, onlyplace4 is correct. He is our very gracious host!!!

Whilst there was a rocky start to things at the forum and here, people have finally reigned in their egos and proper debate and discussion is now happening on almost all aspects of the new game.

We are still badly lacking experienced programmers who can give advice on how resource hungry some of these ideas could be, so if you are or know a programmer who would be interested in tackling such a wondrous and complex game as a City-Simulator, come on over to http://dev.simcities.com/ and join in!

regards,

LK

[stamp 4]

fyi:

http://www.opencity.info/

its somewhat in development, maybe you can talk to him and cooperate!

[exodus 10]

There is a poll on http://dev.simcities.com/ about the graphics issue. Whether it should be 2.5D or 3D. It's in the management

section.

Thought that everyone over here should know. Everyone go vote.

[Ntq€310 1]

just to say, would there be any chance that you could play the game online, https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=367&threadid=89789&enterthread=y, that forum has a great idea, it could also have more marketing potential, we could say "the first online urban simulator, it's a longshot but i really think that that idea alone coud beat simcity societies because online play would be to complex for tm, i know this is not important right now, but it's still a great idea, that we should look into in the future

[ozzel 2]

I hope that it will be better than SCS ;-)

[topcliff 1]

Now that I realized I know a programmer (my best friend, developed his own 3D tank game), I could ask him to help too because he plays SC4, just nowhere near even my level of playing. But first, let's let him graduate middle school, shall we? TopCliff

[Superchan 23]

dont forget we need modlers, and idea makers.

[topcliff 1]

Originally posted by: superchad dont forget we need modlers, and idea makers.quote>

 

My friend is also a modeler. He's actually very good, but he's more into sci-fi stuff. As for me, I have an extremely large amount of ideas in my noggin. Just "ringy-dingy", as Ferris Bueller would say. TopCliff

[dvchronique 0]

very very interesting!!

dv

[LivingInThePast 364]

I think I could give decent input on Road and Rail Ideas. I'm somewhat of a roadgeek myself

@dvchronique: You stole my sig.

[kussie 0]

Great thinking. If i were kick starting this idea i would start and do something open source and start at trying to recreate SC4 as close as possible, with the ability to import existing bats and such. Then after a lot of is worked out start on adding additional features and such as splines. This sort of principle has been done before successfully with a much a older game - Transport Tycoon Deluxe www.openttd.com no real reason it can't work here either. Just take a bit longer with a newer game and such but could be done. I've never been a big fan of the Auran Jet engine to be honest, I've worked with it before didn't enjoy but I'm no longer a game designer/programmer either so it might be much much improved.

I do hope those gets past the let's toss ideas around part and gets into some real development after being extremely disappointed with SCS.  One key point i should say is, graphics don't make good game play, good game play makes good game play.  Look at OpenTTD and TTD by itself both of these games still have a huge following to this day, i am still an avid player of OpenTTD despite the very dated graphics.

[bixel 1,223]

I dont mind PyOgre...in fact I have already done some rudimentary programming in python before. Ogre is going to run pretty slow though once you start filling up the scene. But if its 2.5D then I guess we can be ok, just line me up with a real nice compiler, a code editor, and a browseable library with filter search engine and I can start programming right away.

[gt6282 3]

Nice idea joerg! I'm hoping i could help but I don't know where..

[Cleaner475 150]

interesting but I like thr region view - but still interesting

[TheSixCents 0]

I can make advertisements if you'd like. I'm good at that.

[Superchan 23]

if you need i can do 2 things.

1. i can provide ideas.

2. i can beta test the game

also i have a cousin thats a programmer, so i might be able to get him to look at some code to improve or fix the game.

[LivingInThePast 364]

@superchad: Everyone would be glad to do that.

[ky72x 13]

I know I would!

Well this does sound really great, it'd be awesome to see something like this be reality...

[matt_sbs 2]

I dont know if you have already seen this but I think this is a screenshot from citylife2

[fukuda 351]

That's a midtown madness 2 screenshot

If the game goes finally 3D, making it online would be easier

[Wustmann 174]

This is a great idea. SC 5 sounds horrible. I would gladly donate $100 for this project.

[Doctor Soul 2]

Very very interested indeed! I've been dreaming of doing something like that for years (since 1989 to be precise), only I don't have any programming skills. I can make textures though.

[Mechalic 26]

What an awesome concept, imagine this: EA's Simcity fans revolt against them, and build their own Simcity Style game, which is better than SCS, putting EA's city building days, in the history books.

There isnt a game I have ever felt more passionate about than Simcity, if people out there can get together and create games, why can't we? Many of the people here are more than experianced to create such a game, a website should be set up, providing updates on the progress, with help aquired based on skills and knowledge.