Simtropolis 1000

[Lord Kronos 0]

Joerg, I certainly understand SC4 is full 3D, however I believe it is convention to use 2.5D to refer to the way SC4 was designed graphically (fixed, isometric views).

I have registered at the new forum started by members of the Blam team, if only to prevent a major fractioning of the various "camps" that already seem to be starting to form (2.5D classic SC4 versus full rotational 3D). I myself am not in either camp, I want to see a full, open and frank debate on the issue of the graphics issue (among many others) in due time, but I feel that time is not now.

Disasters are another thing which do not need to be discussed in detail now, but I too feel we'll need some disasters, there's nothing like coming home after a long day and just destroying something!

if we do use Urbs Urbis as the central forum for the development of the game, any decisions should be made by that community. All you would have to do is register and maybe (gotta speak to the forum owner) and just opt for email notifications of votes on gameplay issues. The decisions should not be left up to an elite few, they should be debated and then presented concisely to the community for voting. Only then will we truly have a game made for the community. Obviously not every single nit-picky option will be voted on, just the broad ideas ::cough::graphics engine::cough::

regards,

LK

[republicanpride3 0]

These are the types of schools we should have. An elementary school, middle school, high school, and collage. Most kids graduate high school when they are 18 or 19. If you still have 21 year olds in your high school your school must have a very low State GPA. Also once a school becomes over crowed we should be able to make additions to it. Nothing extream because having 2 or 3 high schools is realistic.

As for police station we should have Regional Police Stations, Local Police Stations, State Highway Patrol, ect. And I'd like to see new jails. And casinos which boost the economy like Las, Vegas Nevada.

Um thats it for now.

[republicanpride3 0]

These are the types of schools we should have. An elementary school, middle school, high school, and collage. Most kids graduate high school when they are 18 or 19. If you still have 21 year olds in your high school your school must have a very low State GPA. Also once a school becomes over crowed we should be able to make additions to it. Nothing extream because having 2 or 3 high schools is realistic.

As for police station we should have Regional Police Stations, Local Police Stations, State Highway Patrol, ect. And I'd like to see new jails. And casinos which boost the economy like Las, Vegas Nevada.

Um thats it for now.

[D_DERIDEX 0]

Originally posted by: the olive

This looks good, this is organized and things can be done with little confusion.

After about one and a half weeks I can spend a lot of time on this, as I will be done school and finnished exams.

Content creations council would be the entire non programing side right, where al ideas of go into the game come from?  If thats the case that where I belong, or maybe somewhere below because I know theres lots of poeple who would fit that position.quote>

Yes, the content creation council would handle the new tilesets, the new buildings, and even the new transportation systems, with smaller teams working on specialized projects like Com., Res., Ind., Civic, and so on, but that could become confusing, for, now, I think that we should just ORGANIZE!!!!!!!

[the olive 0]

Originally posted by: D_DERIDEX

Originally posted by: the olive

This looks good, this is organized and things can be done with little confusion.

After about one and a half weeks I can spend a lot of time on this, as I will be done school and finnished exams.

Content creations council would be the entire non programing side right, where al ideas of go into the game come from?  If thats the case that where I belong, or maybe somewhere below because I know theres lots of poeple who would fit that position.quote>

Yes, the content creation council would handle the new tilesets, the new buildings, and even the new transportation systems, with smaller teams working on specialized projects like Com., Res., Ind., Civic, and so on, but that could become confusing, for, now, I think that we should just ORGANIZE!!!!!!!quote>

I think we should move this topic to http://dev.simcities.com because it is not just one thread, it is an entire site devoted for this new game.

This would be the next step for organizing this entire operation.

[Yogiya 1]

I have always thought that this community had enough genius to create any type of Sim-City they wanted. I think we will be surprised how much finianchial backing we might get for something like ths. I also recomend that we register as a 5013c / Non-Profit and give it to educational and civic organizations to use. This allows all who donate to right it off on Taxes. Opensource programming is exploding. We can find the programmers.

I think it is a nice tribute that one of the great games that launches the PC game world, would become the greatest open source game ever created.

My skill is outreach and marketing ideas. I would like to see a group that works on Human Resources, Material Resources, and Financhial Resources. I am in.

My concern is that the legends of the site have not chimmed in yet. Hopefully soon.

The Yogiya

[Frigid 6]

Wow! This sounds crazy! I am willing to help if you need it, probably not though because I can't do much more than make simple models

[LivingInThePast 364]

Regarding dev.simcities.com, I think it should be public to view, but private to post.

Umm...can't we put in some *fictional* elements?

Examples:

Less-than-realistic disasters

"Future" concepts such as the InstoBubbletm Transport System (place a 1x1 station where Sims citizens can transport to anywhere where there's an InstoBubble station. No traffic limit!)

And yes, we can get it into real schools!

[joerg 280]

I seriously do not understand the need to make this a private club, I remember when we tried to start a multiplayer app for simcity 4 within a few days dirk gave us forums and stuff and things were smooth right here on simtrop and everyone had a say in things.

[exodus 10]

I've got to agree with joerg on that. If this is really going to be a community project then you need to keep it open to everyone.

[D_DERIDEX 0]

amazing idea Yogiya, to create those subcommittees, and I think it should happen , but not even a rudimentary form of core government has been created yet, so...

jeorg, no one wants to privatize thisw thing, we are merely suggesting some organization in this project.  Everything can't be done and decided on from here.  There has to be some structure to this or everything will fly away.  In my opinion, you are still the leader of this project, but this topic is just a mess.  We need peace, but an open peace that directly converses with the community at large.  This is open calamity.  Structure is needed.

What we should do is create a "room" here at simtrop, for this is the progeny of Simtropolis members.

[The_Dalai_Llama 15]

I would like to help, but I'd rather leave it to the experts. Heck, I'm just trying to get used to gmax after all this time. I guess the only thing I could do is to throw out some suggestions.

[dedgren 830]

The team developing this will be by invitation so that we don't get a situation where there are too many chiefs and not enough indiansquote>

And who's going to do the inviting???

...wait a minute...

...meet the new boss...

     ...same as the old boss...

I think watching joerg bail on his own outside the box idea once posts like the one quoted from started to appear ought to be taken as a really loud wake-up call.

We'll see.

David

[onlyplace4 603]

The forum set up was initially private as I was still setting things up and didn't expect the response we have had. The boards are now open to all, as they were always intended to be. As for the post above ...

[Yogiya 1]

I did some research on the new game. I agree with some that it will be one type of game and playable. But the group here could create a completely different game, and not tap into EA's market one bit. That said.

This is more than a mod project. This is a game creation.

those of us on the organizational side of creative process probably want the all the ball rolling but sort of in t he same direction.

My thoughts again. ( Then I have to go get my kids some dinner, or thay will mutnity)

WE must have a stronge singel leader: CEO, Head project director, One Lamma to rule them all, whatever. That person has to have a ton of clout in this community.

I don't care who that is but they must have a clear vision of what we are all working on, be able to listen to imput, but not waffel from the vision. While we all follow the automa-and ho-hum happily to our little projects.

and we need boards that are sub project driven and boards for general ranting and ideas. we need to work and play.

We already have teams that are already in place that can do amazing amounts of the work. ( Peg created a completly different play in a reasonable short time)

We will alos need to create Mod-teams that have never been created berfore. ( see my earlier post)

I will jump over to Onlyplace4 group as well. I got to go get burger and fries now.

The Yogiya

[Frigid 6]

Here is what I think.

Personally, I think that we're thinking a bit too big here.  I don't know how many programmers exist here at ST, but I'm assuming that there aren't too many.  

The first thing that should be done is to start a project for which the end result would be the equivilant of Simcity 4 with tweaks to various simple things that were missing in Simcity 4.  I'm not very experienced with this, but i'm assuming that 4 views (for rendering stuff) on a grid is much easier to accomplish than full 3d or 17 views without a grid.  My point is: at the rate that we're going at nothing will get done.  

After this has been done, at least the programmers will have something to work from, allowing them to improve and add the rest of the wishes (such as 3d, grid-less, etc.).  By then, hopefully by then, this will have attracted the attention of other programmers.  Heck, even making a game on the level of SC2K with hopes of becoming SC5 would get attention.

Anyways, to summarize, nothing will get done at this rate, we've gotta start smaller and build from there.

Oh, and about Yogiya's point - Simtropolis already has a hiearchy (kind of), which is based on experience/knowledge.  Why don't we just follow that?

[ianpaschal 77]

Fridgid: At the moment we're counting on 9 views on a 2x2 meter grid.

[joerg 280]

Alrighty guys I can see some of the recent discussion has put a damper on things, that was not my intent. I agree completely that we need to be organized, but organizing people together in private without really discussing it with anyone seem rather absurd to me. If this project is ever going to be anything more than a fantasy we need to get organized.

I know this is kind of back tracking a bit, but I regress from my earlier statements about using the original sc4 code. I personally never pictured EA ever giving that code up to anyone, until I saw Buggis post. The idea of using SC4 code would limit us dramatically, but there are alot of things we could still do with it and even a smaller project like that could take months or years.

So I think we first get organized, maybe ask dirk for a pair of stickied threads and a room in chat. The just collect each others msn or aim screen names and kind of chat for a bit. Getting organized doesn't mean we need all 20 or however many team members right this second. We need to take this in steps.

Once organized lets let the community decided whether or not we want to build from the SC4 code, or start something brand new. (btw listening to Brandnew right now and they are amazing) just thought i would throw that out there, break the tension a bit.

Now if we decide to build on the SC4 source we need to get in touch with all the members of SC4D and the developers of CAM and NAM, they are essential. Once we have a collective united front seeking one goal we contact EA/Maxis/Dirk/Buggi/Will and do our best to get that code, even if we have to beg and plea for it or buy rights to use it in an open source manner.

If we get denied or if the community had originally decided on just building our own game then we need to decide whether to go 3d or 2d, that decision will shape the game more than anything else. Personally I would say 2d will look better, 3d will be more flexible. Both have their coding drawbacks, and either way we will pack it with enough features to tax a decent computer.

Baring we accomplish any of this without killing each other, we might have a chance, and where there is a true chance then Im willing to gamble away my time.

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Joerg I definitely think that's in order.  Although I don't like instant messengers for this kind of thing very much since what we're talking about is complex, and we need time to thoroughly and clearly compose our thoughts.  So I think forums are better for this kind of thing in general, plus it gives more people the chance to communicate, and everyone can read and directly reference the conversation later on.  I do think exchanging contacts and getting a forum would be good.  I think my contact info is in my profile.

I would personally prefer the project to be on Simtropolis, since this is where I spend my time, although that's not really a real reason.  But I also think it would be the best place to recruit people from, so having the project here and visible would be good in my opinion.  I don't think it should be about which site it's from, but that it's made, and I don't think people should participate in this project if it's just for the credit.  It should be something happy like the NAM.

In other news, I've mostly finished modeling a building.  I started at 8:00 (finished 11:20), so this shows that modeling buildings can be done quickly for 3d, and that they can look good.

I made it with a total of about 1,000 triangles, although some details (roof junk, lights,etc) haven't been done.  I don't know exactly what the requirements will need to be for an actual game, but I think this would work for when the building is close to you.  I think this is what you would see looking at the building from across the street.  Also, it's not textured at all yet, and I bet it will look a lot better once it is.

New 3D Model

It's kind of big.  Here you see some close shots.  You also see a SC4 preview render at zoom 5.  Next to it is a perspective render from the same distance.  I think you can also see how much of the modeling work could be replaced with textures from far away while still looking good.

[Ntq€310 1]

this may be sad but Ea is to greedy to give it up, they would want to charge 4o bucks for it, and get 50% of profit, if we get it with out a problem( yea) but dont get to hopefull, i think alot of people would perfer 2.5d anyway

[roqratt 0]

I've spent the last 2 days reading all this and I'm getting all excited at the prospect of it all, but I have a couple of things I'd like considered.

This project will take years to develop so all this talk of computers being taxed with different graphics and such, by the time this is completed to a point where something is available to the general community, the best of of today's computers will by then be considered old and slow. My computer at home was custom made to be speedy to improve the game play for SC4 and it's now pretty average and it's not even 2 years old!

I also think that there is no point trying to make new engines from scratch if perfectly usable ones exist out there, especially open source if we're trying to make this an open source game, and they'd be legally easier to modify if needed. No point making this any harder than it needs to be.

I also like the earlier suggestion of putting out a vanilla version and then making it modifiable later. By having mod's it'd be much easier to keep everyone happy, as well as interest maintained during development since the each step would be smaller, with an actual playable game easier to acheive, AND THEN improve.

Also remember to not immediately start throwing ideas out as 'too hard' right away (such as weather) since the whole idea of this concept was to acheive the game we ALL wanted. If it isn't worth doing properly, we may as well just go back to SC4 and stop complaining about EA games, since that's exacly what we (the community) are already doing by giving in. I'll be the first to say that I can do nothing for this project as I lack any usable skills in this area, but I'll happily donate 10 bucks if asked to do so. Oh! and send out lots of good vibes!

[John94538 0]

Originally posted by: joerg

-Stick with a grid, but make it much much smaller.  Two huge problems arise from using a grid, first roads are limited to only a few basic angles, and second scale is limited by the grid size. 

Going with a smaller grid like 1 square = 1 meter would mean that networks could have far more complex paths, the best example of this is if you go into paint and you draw something on a document that is 10x10 pixels and then zoom in it looks jagged, if you draw the same thing on a 100x100 pixel image it will look much smoother when you zoom in.  Drawing roads could follow the same principal.  Infact with the ability to go full 3d we could simply do roads as paths and say that this path fills (X) tiles.

Using smaller tiles presents us with a small hurdle though. what in the world can we use to fill in all the empty squares that are left next to diagnol paths (transit networks)?  The answer is rather simple.... Filler Tiles.  As city builders we are constantly manually placing parking lots and empty grass tiles and things to take up this extra space where there simply isnt room for a large building.  Well guess what if we divided a normal sc4 grid into 1 meter squares we would have another 256 squares in every sc4 tile.  Now lets say a path cut through this tile and used about 200 of these squares.  We could easilly tell the game to fill the tile with filler squares that are designed to match the zone they are placed in.  For example low density res would simply use grass or bushes, and industrial could use parking or barrels.

quote>

 

Hmm... smaller grids might be more helpful, but would be have to use a magnifying glass to see the tiles? LOL, but I'd agree with joerg on more realistic tiles.

[+Guest]

I would love it if SC5 had these kinda graphics.

It's only a small improvement from SC4 BUT I don't care about the game being 3D. I want it to look as realistic as possible and be as flexible as possible, thus making for more realistic cities.

[joerg 280]

Why do people keep posting real life pictures to explain what they think the game should look like? Im not frustrated just confused. I mean we are making a game and if the best game developers cant produce photo quality game play what makes you guys think we could? Even some of the best 3d renders made in 3ds max that take hours to render are not perfect photo quality much less anything that is rendered on the fly.

[+Guest]

No no I'm not that stupid. I know the game wont look like that. But the angle and positioning it's placed at is what I love. It's similar to SC4, and whilst all the detail in that would be impossible to recreate, adding more of it would be a step up from SC4.

And at least people ARE posting images here. joerg most of them could show no interest in this project, so please be grateful! We are just as excited as most of you. We want to see this come to life as well.

[hjanfield 0]

Just thought I'd throw in some comments and corrections... chop off my head later.

Legality: I saw some mention of the legality of making a SimCity clone. It is legal to create a game identical to SimCity as long as no money is taken in. Same goes for a game merely based on SimCity. The only real restriction is not including copyrighted content (basically any data from the original game). If for some reason we wanted to do this, you can get around that by including ability to load SC4's data files. It requires the players to own SC4, obviously.

Tiles: I've been wondering why even having tiles at all? If the idea is an SC4 clone, then yes, we want tiles, but all the new ideas being thrown around are pointless. If the idea is deriving a new game from SC4, then why not throw out tiles altogether?

Consider the track-laying design of "Railroads!" (or, for those who don't like the dumbed-down design, Railroad Tycoon III). The game dropped the fixed tiles and allows free flow of tracks and buildings. Tracks can run at any angle, any slope, any curve, and buildings can sit at any angle. Buildings such as train stations align themselves to the track - even along curved areas.

This design would translate well into SimCity. Roads can be drawn along any path you choose (this is not terribly difficult to texture, by the way). Modifier buttons can be used to make it easy for the user to do different things - like press Ctrl if you want to draw a gentle curved road instead of a straight road, or press shift if you want to smooth the terrain into a gentle slope (rather than following the terrain). Lots could be drawn in any shape (finally allowing those odd-shaped lots often found circling cul-de-sacs, or diagonal corner lots!).

-- Even if an SC4-like fixed view is kept, we can still go without the grid and allow free-form city building.

To go with this entire system, buildings would each have their own rules (which need only be examined once, when plopping/growing the building). Let's use a small office building for an example. Say the building itself is 20m x 30m. So the rules would specify that the lot needs to fit at least a 24m x 34m rectangle (to allow minimal walking room), with a 24m side facing the road (and preferably, though not necessarily, aligned to the road - odd shaped corner lots could fit a 24x34m rect, but not be able to align to the road - some buildings could require alignment, others not care). The rules could also specify that the lot needs to allow a minimum of 12 parking spaces. Any remaining room could be filled with additional parking, gardens, and other misc props. Odd-shaped spaces left over from the lot planning could be filled with grass or concrete. (Luckily all this lot planning need only be done once!)

SimCity 4: Not 3D, not Isometric: Lord Kronos is correct in that SimCity is consider 2.5D - 3D rendering with fixed 2D viewpoints. The explanation can be found directly on the SimCity 4 web site right here. An excerpt:

Trimetric is a term that describes an orthographic projection of a cube where none of the three angles of view are the same. Many games have been implemented as isometric, though no version of SimCity has actally been isometric. SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000 were dimetric and SimCity 4 is trimetric. Sometimes people refer to these kinds of orthographic views as "2.5D" views and refer to games like SimCity 3000 as having 2.5D graphics. The view is 3D, but the game doesn't have the flexibility to move the view about arbitrarily as with first person 3D games. In fact, SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4 internally are entirely 3D; only the user's view of the city is limited to certain positions and angles.

The other pages explain why they used the fixed positions rather than full 3D. This link is required reading for many of you.

Game Engine: Non-programmers are confusing game engine with graphics engines and interfaces. There are many excellent, free graphics engines out there. But the game engine is what we need to write: The code that says how the game works. Also, the graphics engine will need to be carefully chosen, as most are optimized for FPS games and would actually not work well with this type of game.

KISS design: To elaborate on roqratt's comment, let's keep the side issues out. We don't need to worry about weather, automata, My Sims, U-Drive-It, or many other things for a long time, other than basic planning.

- A team of programmers should focus on getting a graphics engine selected and laying out the file formats we will use. (Don't just jump in with XML as an answer to everything for data - although the most flexible, it is also the slowest to load and bulkiest to distribute. Fixed formats do have their uses.)

- A team of logistics people can lay out the game design. This is probably the biggest job, especially in the start. First items to work out are grid size or no grid, and then the scale. I believe it was pointed out that a realistic scale can actually kill a game like this... can be true. This needs to be discussed some more.

- Modellers can start working on buildings once a scale is worked out. Hundreds of house, townhouse, condo, apartment, gas station, office, etc models need to be created. Industrial lots can be done in pieces, allowing many different buildings to be put together. (With planning, houses could be done like this too, allowing infinite variety in-game)

More later...

[+Guest]

With the grid, what about having no Grid on the game BUT having an option that lays down a grid for those who want to use it. And it wont even mean you buildings will snap to that grid, is will just be there as a guide, as a lot of cities, in parts, run via a grid like structure.

[SimmsCity 22]

I agree both with D_Deridex and Joerg, one forum for people with ideas ideas for gameplay where they can dicuss it all day long, and another forum for the counsil members to do the things they need to do to get the game actually off the ground. But have a PR person from the counsil come and tell the rest of the community the develpements of  how the game is progressing.

[rodent1989 9]

is has been explosive.  Right now, we need somone to take all these suggestions and sift through and/or ignore them.  We need to make a few of the big decisions now so that we can decide what will and will not be included or even feasible.

I think the idea of a wiki is a good idea so that I don't have to spend an hour every night looking through pages of forum posts.

I think for now joerg is our big man on campus but as more dcisions are made he will no doubt begin delegating.  I want to see the vast majority of the people on here to resign themselves to the fact that they will not get what they want.  What we will get is something better than SC$ but it won't have alot of the crazy ideas we have all been guilty of suggesting.  I personally believe that if we pull together to create anything even somewhat resembling a 3d simcity that will be HUGE.  As far as the game engine is concerned, it will be a moot point if we never get the graphics going, but with out the game engine there's no graphics.  Chicken and egg style.

We don't need endless lists of teams, we need two teams: graphics and logic.  If we can divide into those teams, with one leader (joerg you're kind of being thrust onto the throne), we can make decisions pertaining to our own half of the game and trust the other half to do their job.  That way the endless lists of suggestions will be cut in half and resticted to only their corresponding team.  Personally, I'd like to help out with logic despite the fact that I have no programming abilities, I understand how it works, and I understand how cities grow.  I'm willing to let other people deal with the graphics portion of the game.  If we can all adopt this mentality things will calm down and maybe solidify a few decisions.

What's the word on auran jet?  Is that the current graphics plan?

[owenluby 1]

I don't want to see every building etc. in the game an American type. Lets try and make it a world-based simulator.

One of the few things I didn't like about SC4 was the total American dominance in most aspects of the game. We should develop it to satisfy the whole Community, not just the majority which seems to be American.