Simtropolis 1000

[Neotrezz 7]

I aint doing it.. as long as i'm alone ..

The only thing i'm doing now is creating a design document

[Neotrezz 7]

Well what movie are you talking about?

I can't see a thing, the site, on the site www.simcities.com there seems to be a lot of advisements..

[Neotrezz 7]

Originally posted by: mds.89

I just have a question;

I think the 2.5D is better and more adequate for city building games, and 3D seems to take a lot more time and is harder, and doesn't allow for higher levels of detail.

2.5D, that is what it is called right? The way it is in SC4.

I know that as technology advances, people think 3D should be easy and imprlemented in all games.

But, if you kept it in 2.5D you could focus more on the actual gameplay, and add detail and stuff to buildings.

Again, this is just a question. I have no idea about programming or anything related to it.

It just seems to me that making a game in 3D is harder and more demanding on computers?

I think that even if a good 3D engine with great graphics was made, that I would still rather have a city building game in 2.5D.

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, if you are serious about creating a game, make a topic where people could post ideas, because I have a few that haven't really been mentioned much. Ideas for gameplay that is, not about building and programming a game.

quote>

Anno 1404 (play the demo) is an example about how we could use 3d instead of 2.5d..

with isometric views you'll have to render and render a lot of individual buildings in order to let them apear. Let's use 3d and take the Anno 1404 engine as an example to develop. Just fitted zoom levels, no 'streetview'..

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

Interesting coincidence, Neotrezz, i happen to be working on my own city sim game project. I don't know whether you know but theres been quite a few attempts at making city sim games other than by the big companies. I'm using Game Maker for my one, as i don't know C++.

http://atomius.110MB.com/atocity.htm

the link above is to the games page and it has a screenshot.

Hmm C++... i reckon i'll stick to using Game Maker and GML for my game... i suppose there would be advantages to C++ over GML? but i doubt i'd be good at learning it. I tried learning french at school to no avail, and i've tried learning similar languages. English was always my best subject and i daresay one of the reasons i'm terrible at maths is my applying all my memory to english lol...

But i wish you the best of luck with your city sim project, Neotrazz.

[Darth Apple 54]

I think that what we need to do is make a team specifically for the purpose of gathering a larger team for the actual development.

I think that will be much more efficient for gathering a larger team... I mean; trying to make a small team in a private topic, then using it to make simple decisions, then to make the real team that writes the game. I don't know, for example, fewer people give their ideas like that, but doing so makes a dedicated team for one purpose.

sound good???

Hope this helps.

[Darth Apple 54]

well, I think that this is a good idea, but it will probably take a month at least to form a good team... it wont happen overnight. but thsi is the way to start.

it took 4 months for projectcb to get even a small team.

how about "Megatropolis" does that sound good???

I know a little c(I widh I could learn c++, it is a long story what is going on right now, but let me just say: things are kinda weird right now.)

I wouldn't be able to help for a while, but I hope that I can soon.

as I have said before, I am only 13, so I can't do that much.

even so, I think that it would be cool to start with making a simple road in a city, that would be COOL, and it would be a great start for everything else.

Hope this helps.

[chris0101 8]

This is not something that will easily be done. Programming a full computer game will take a team of dozens (perhaps hundreds) of people months to do. This will likely be equivalent to taking a full time job, and one that they may not be compensated for. A lot of these projects collapse due to lack of dedicated staff or a shortage of programmers.

I think that we are going to need a very modular system for this to work (each section will need to be programmed, and people will program them whenever they have time to spare). And we are going to need a very elaborate plan. Having written simple computer programs before, whatever plan we write will also have to be flexible, as there will be quite a few bugs that will need to be ironed out. Open source is a necessity as we'll want many people contributing and it will have to be for free, purely reliant on donations.

As for a name, something catchy, like Megalopolis or Ecumenopolis is an idea.

Graphics-wise, I would actually argue that we adopt modern graphics and full 3D! Why? This project will take YEARS. By the time that it is released, people will have already upgraded their computers and the like and graphics will already have moved on. (SC4's graphics already looked primitive in 2005, let alone today). We could have a very flexible graphics system for those with laptops and older PC's, while those with the top notch PCs can experience really great graphics. For this reason, I recommend adopting the latest and greatest gaming engines. We could also add on realistic physics engines such and incorporate other things such as OpenCL and OpenGL (be careful NOT to use things like CUDA or AMD FireStream as they are corporate specific).

Another thing we need to do is to unify anyone that wants to do so. This will be difficult as everyone has competing ideas and communication could be difficult as everyone is in different time zones, has different times when they are free, etc. We need as many hands on board as possible for this to kick off and produce a game comparable to what they best PC programmers can make.

[Sydney Claridge 106]

I know you're using the Microsoft XNA Framework here; but you may want to consider using something that will work cross-platform. (ex. on Mac and Linux) You should try coding for Wine (not to mention test it under Wine); however, to my knowledge, XNA may be shaky on Wine. (as it is based on the .NET Framework, and Wine has problems with that)

[Djohaal 121]

Count me in. We need a real new simcity.

[DGMurdockIII 0]

OpenCity is a full 3D city simulator game project. It is written in standard C++ with OpenGL and SDL from scratch. It is not intended to be a clone of any famous city simulator from Max*s. So, if you are looking to download a free SimCity 4 like, please forget OpenCity. At the meaning time, you can build roads, electric lines, electric plant, trees and the three standard RCI zones.

   Many other features will be implemented in the future. Be patient Our goal is reusing few SimCity 2000 concepts even if SimCity is an old game concept. But we love that old city simulation game concept.

   There is allread a windows and linux verson you download there is a mac verson but it not that up to date and we could use some help with this project so if you can code in C++ or are an expert with OpenGL/SDL we could use you help. 

there is a irc channel  for opencity where the devs hang around if you need to speek to someone to get some more info if you want to help out or are just want to ask them anything about the game it on irc server freenode and channel is #opencity

Official site - http://www.opencity.info/

Forum - http://opencity.sourceforge.net/B/index.php

download info - http://www.opencity.info/en/Download.html

Testing Info - http://www.opencity.info/en/QualityAssurance.html

Wiki - http://opencity.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencity/

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

IMO it's about time somebody suggested this. Somebody with programming experience that is. I've had a similar idea for years (since 2005 to be precise) but being terrible at math and my programming experience being limited to a few shreds of GML i haven't had the skill to approach this idea myself beyond working on my own city sim game using Game Maker. It's good to see somebody make a official step in the right direction as regards a community build city sim, and also good to see you share my idea of having it not for profit. The city sim fanbase as a whole is larger than MAXIS or any game company i should think, and thus i daresay it stands to reason the finished result of a combined effort would be better than even Simcity. If it's done right. The suggestion of a website also fits in well with what i would think would work, and the open source community designed graphics too. Having recently downloaded Simutrans i liked how the buildings had been painted by various community members, and also the style of the game in the detail of control over the transportation networks. I thought how nice it would be to have such detail in a city sim.

As for me i will continue working on my 2D isometric city sim project, as i've always preferred 2D graphics... But maybe one day i'll find a way to make a 3D one... I wish you the best of luck with your project, but remember that capitalism is stronger than communism as it has competition... And whilst the entire idea is to create a community created game, remember you must keep it invigorated and vitalized in order to succeed.

So again yes good to see someone finally making a move in the right direction rather than praying Cities XL will be Simcity 5.

[MessiahAndrw 0]

As a fan of SimCity and Simutrans style games, I wish to create a free community city building simulator. Since the release of SimCity somewhat over half a decade ago, there haven't been any real contenders to the genre, at least not targetting the hardcore players wanting realism. Cities XL seems to be promising, but as a beta tester its more of an arcade style game rather than a realistic management game I'd find myself getting into.

As for myself, I am a programmer. I have experience in the field of working on graphics engine, physics, AI, aswell as networking and general gameplay. This game idea wouldn't be commercial, at least not in the beginning, since I will work on it during my free time. If the game requires funding (for online services, or if I need to work full time on it) I could subsidize it through in-game advertising and charging players for purchasing extra land, but my intention is to always keep it free to play.

I want the main focus of the game to be on player-created content. By encouraging player-created content, not only do I cut down the amount of work required by me (allowing me to work on the more technical and gameplay aspects), I also open up a world of expression, creativity, and variety when it comes to players designing their cities.

My two largest insperations have been the free-form curved roads in Cities XL, aswell as the procedural buildings in CityEngine. The underlying principle in CityEngine is given a plot of land of any shape, you can apply a script that contains a set of rules for growing a building (with a small amount of random variation). I have applied the same sort of principle and written a draft design for my own variation of this idea.

The first stage of development of this game I am about to describe will involve releasing a Building Editor to the communitiy, and then spend time improving and perfecting it to a reasonable level that the community is happy with. This editor will allow the community to design buildings, experiment how they grow when placed on land of different shapes and sizes, aswell as host a community site where they can upload, share, and rate buildings. By releasing the building editor early, I hope a community will start to build around they game, which can influence the development of the actual game, aswell as already having plenty of buildings avaliable for when I start development on the actual game.

During the development of the game, I want the community to be involved as much as possible. During each stage of development I will ask the community what they would like to see next (and take a majority rule route), as well as discuss indepth the game's mechanics before implementing anything, as to allow it to be a truly community driven game. Releases will be frequent, but focused on small increments of single features that the community wants, so it will be an ever evolving game.

Anyway, onto the actual game play (all of this is open to interpretation and discussion, but this is a general idea of how I see it in my head at the moment).

The core mechanic is that you simulate a city council, much like in SimCity. You are the city council as if it was a single omni-present entity, rather than a single role (like a mayor that can get elected out). You're in complete control of micromanaging each department of the city council, simulated as realistically as possible, which (at the current stage of design in my head) includes the Department of Zoning, Department of Utilities, Department of Treasury, Department of Public Services, and the Department of Transportation. These departments will also define how the user interface is catagorised. I'll go through each and give a description.

Department of Zoning

This department is in charge of zoning blocks of land into what their purpose is, which could be one of the following:

• Residential
• Industrial
• Commercial
• Retail
• Agricultural
• Parkland

You're also in charge of subdividing these zones into lots, like a real council. However zones can automatically be divided into lots (into like a grid as in SimCity), but for planning those tricky curves you can manually set the lot boundaries. You can then set a price at which private enterprises/residents will purchase a lot from the city council. Each lot will also have a value, which will be defined by the in-game economics based on supply/demand (including real estate market simulation), and before you can rezone, resize, or demolist a lot you must buy back the lot (or a group of lots) at market value.

Your city's land can be divided up into suburbs. The purpose of suburbs allows the player to micromanage sections of the city individually. For example, suburbs can have seperate tax-rates, lot prices, and statistics. Suburbs may optionally be divided into districts, which inherit the properties of the suburb, but allow you to tweak things for a very small area (like increase taxes for river-front businesses).

Also, this is where the user-created content comes in. For buildings to be built on lots, they must receive council approval. The player of course doesn't approve each building, instead as mentioned above, in-game the player can access an online database of 'building scripts' (created in the Building Editor, which have been rated and categorised). This 'approval list' can vary between suburbs and districts, so for instance you may have a downtown suburb with high-rise buildings approved with a small Chinatown district, another suburb could be Victoria-era housing, another suburb could be European townhousing (all created by other users).

As game development progresses, I expect this to become more indepth. For example, this could extend to include terraforming, and on public land such as parks and nature strips the player could place trees, fountains, benches, draw fences, etc. depending on what the community wants.

Department of Utilities

This department is in charge of providing your basic consumable services. At this stage they include:

• Electricity
• Gas
• Water
• Data (which includes combined phone & cable)
• Postal
• Sewage
• Waste
• Cleaning & maintence (for streets and parks)

On a micromanagable level, this includes laying out the electricity, gas, water lines, power plants, and placing post offices. Much like SimCity you can control the funding on each of these services which controls how efficient they are. You can control the prices on certain resources on a per suburb basis (which will affect the cost of living in that area) which will naturally create more affluent areas but also generate revenue.

Department of Treasury

The treasury is in control of money management. As such the player will be able to set taxes on a per suburb basis. There will be three taxes, each affects the cost of living in the area:

• Business Tax (a percentage of a businesses income)
• Land Tax (a percentage of the property's value)
• Personal Tax (a percentage of a person's income)

The treasury will also show the income the city is generating from, the cost of living of, and the wealth of each suburb, which will allow the player to plan their city accordingly.

Later in the game's development I see the treasury playing a larger role. This can include the funding of private enterprises that may be failing but contribute to a greater good (for example, funding a failing private zoo which is generating a huge inflow of tourists and therefore making from hotels and surrounding businesses more profitable, returning more taxes to the player). This could also include selling advertising space (billboards) that can be placed on major highways and other public land.

Department of Public Services

This department handles your more general public services which aren't utilites (like water and electricity). This includes:

• Media (broadcasting towers, city run television stations and newspapers)
• Education
• Fire services
• Health care
• Military
• Police services
• Prisons
• Social housing
• Social services

These public services help improve the quality of living. They help eliminating homelessness (if your city's cost of living is to high), assist in emergencies, educate and raise the affluency of your city (and hence you can raise the cost of living and taxes), aswell as attracting and keeping your affluent citizens.

Department of Transporation

This department is in charge of:

• Roads and parking
• Public transport
• Pedestrian and bikes

Transportation will be quite indepth. Based on the time of day, each citizen will have a place to go (e.g. in the morning most citizen will go from home to work, randomly once a week citizens will go to the shops, even rarer citizens will occasionaly want to visit another city or another house on the other side of the city). Then the citizen will take the fastest route from A to B (using a combination of road, pedestrian, bike, and public transport networks). These combined will create a realistic simulation of traffic including the effects rush hour.

I've taken a lot of my inspiration for transportation from Simutrans. Since the game uses procedural buildings it makes sense to do the same with roads and tracks. So when laying a road, there won't be preset configurations. Instead, the player will be able to choose how many lanes on each side of the road, how wide the nature strip is, aswell as decorate the road with ornaments (street lights, traffic lights, road signs, etc). The same will apply to trains and other forms of public transport.

Parking will be an issue. Cars can park in low density buildings, however they won't be able to in larger buildings, so the player must place car parks in high density areas, and make sure they're within walking distance of buildings. In smaller low density cities you don't have to worry (just lay down a road and away you go), but by later stages when congestion and parking becomes an issue it will encourage players to think more about public transport and traffic.

Public transport will be a major step up in building a city, and also adds another element to micromanage. You must ensure stations/terminals are within walking distance of area you want to cover, aswell as assigning vehicles and setting up schedules, laying tracks to ensure trains don't collide and areas don't become congested. Networks can be integrated, for example, a resident may drive or catch a bus to the nearest train terminal as long as the total time of the entire journey is still quicker than driving to their destination. It will require a lot of strategy to create a mass transit network that is more efficient that the roads, but at the same time it will be possible for a player to create a car-free city if that is what they wish.

Toll gates and public transport can also be used as a source of revenue which can be adjusted per suburb, but too high will discourage residents (which will have allocated a percentage of their income to transporation) from using it.

There will be a simulated economy that the player cannot directly control (but rather observe growing). For example, there will be simulated real estate, food, electronics, hotel, tourism industries that all affect the cost of living in a particular area. The industries and businesses will be inter-dependent and trade with one another (which will create freight traffic - both intracity and intercity (at an extra expense for the company)) and help stimulate other businesses which in return will generate taxable revenue. As such, small changes in the economy can ripple out to give recessions and booms, all which affect the cities GDP, the likelyhood of other businesses setting up in your city, residents migrating or leaving, and the tax the player collects.

Though the player can't affect the economy directly, they can indirectly. For example, through the Deparment of Treasury it will be possible to see if a large private employer or a business that other businesses depend on are unprofitable and fund them, assure efficient transportation (freight rail, highways), and lower taxes in that area.

Far off into the future of the game's development, I would also like it to be possible to be able to fund (through grants) stadiums to be built, and sponsor sporting events and conventions, which will give a boost to tourism.

Being a procedural 3D game it will inherently mean things like streetview will be avaliable, and controlling an in-game avatar will be possible. Another idea far off in the future involves your avatar interacting with the mass transit. Though what the community wants will utlimately steer the direction.

Although overall it may seem like a lot to micromanage, I am targetting this game to the hardcore city-building players. It's won't be a game where you can zone an new area, build some quick utilities, stick it on fast-speed and away you go. Instead, adding a new residential zone/suburb will mean a lot of careful strategy and planning (connecting your utilities,  highways, ensure public services are efficient, and extending your public transport network and setting up schedules), therefore cities will develop slowly and adding a new suburb may be a week or more of game playing and careful planning.

Early in the development the game will start off single player, but my goal is to extend it to be online, with the game taking place is a persistant world with a living, breathing, private economy that is always running. An in-game day may pass every two hours, which is slow enough that if the global economy shifted and suddenly all your businesses started loosing money you could log in a few days later and only a month would have passed in-game, and hopefully you would have saved enough reserves to correct it. This is also slow enough that you can rebuild major parts of your infrastructure while traffic is low, yet fast enough that you can observe the effects of rush hour, daily trends, and target problem spots within a reasonable playing period. Being an persitant online world also means that you can visit other player's living cities, explore them at street level, each with their own unique layouts and user-created architecture.

It seems like an ambitious project I have set out to do, and may very well take several years to get to a playable level with only a quater of what I mentioned above implemented. But if each step is taken incrementally, each new feature improved, discussed, and approved by the community before being implemented, I believe it is possible. And with the majority of the artwork being community-created, I can focus on just the technical aspects of the game.

What do people think?

[Mellophonius 9]

MessiahAndrw, that sounds pretty awesome, especially the Dept. of Transportation. i've always been really into transit and all, and I've been frustrated at SC4's lack of a good transit system, even with RH. The NAM has done a great job adding newer and better options, but it's still the same old game.

[Darth Apple 54]

Why were these topics merged??? I thought I had somehow posted in the wrong topic, until I looked back.

Andrew: what a detailed idea!

we probably need to come up with somethig really really simple, then slowly update it until, maybe years later, we have something big!

-blakesterviiile

[croxis 150]

I'm a python programmer and willing to work with a team on this.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Why were these topics merged??? quote>

The topics were merged because we don't need multiple threads spread around the forums all talking about essentially the same thing.

This topic was originally started in the Simcity Societies discussion forum, but it has recently been moved to Gaming Talk as it is more appropriate to be here.   All subsequent threads talking about developing a new game by the community have been now been merged to this thread.

All future discussion regarding creating a new community city simulation game, should now take place in this topic.

Craig (abcvs)
Gaming Talk Moderator

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

the first thing to do would be to create a site or forum that would be the base for operations. for instance a place to upload buildings, music, script, and other resources, a download page, a forum for various areas of the games construction such as graphics, game engine, UI etc...

i have no programming experience myself but i daresay whatever script system was used the same things would apply, that, there would be a need to construct the game from the skeleton to the skin. I.E design and make the core game engine and then add to it. So i suppose what's really the best first step is to decide upon just what we want out of this game, to come to a general agreement on the main aspects of how it will work, the general gameplay style etc... and then once we're agreed a person(s) with programming expertise could set working on the core engine. Things like graphics and sound would obviously come later, and i imagine there would be several BETA versions for testing using limited graphics and other mainly cosmetic features. Then from thenceforth it would merely be a matter of expanding upon the core engine and adding to it as we as a community wished.

Thus i daresay, in my humble and unimportant opinion, the first thing to do should surely be to decide upon just what the game should be. Vague notions such as 'Simcity 5' aren't going to get this project started.

[croxis 150]

One of the big problems with community driven projects is it becomes designed by committee. A lot of time is spent discussing how things should work. These tend to become lofty goals that would take a long time to fully implement. For open source projects it needs to be released often. Lofty goals are nice but it is necessary to start small with a bunch of prototypes. Can true freeform zones be made? Can a freeform road system be built? Then pieces start to fit together to make a simple game. Think classic sim city simple.

[iowndiscti 141]

NOTE: this is for the next company to try to developp a sim city game

as i was playing earlier, i noticed that there are a few ways that the disaster system on sim city 4 can be improved.

we have  the normal disasters, which are o.kay, but the should produce some much needed side effects like

lighting strikes : when  lighting strikes in forested areas, the trees should actually catch fire

tornados: they should actually uproot planted (god mode) Flora and trees ( instead of passing right through them), and leave a path of destruction

Volcanoes: right before it erupts it should cause smaller earthquakes in the region, or you should see black smoke or a pyroclaustic flow before the lava spurts out

earthquakes:  if a earthquake happens near a coastal region, it should spawn tsunami's ( you should be able to lessen the effects of the tsunami by deploying police officers to highly populated coastal areas before the tsunami reaches land. if you zoomed out enough , you would be able to see the wave approaching land, it would be moving kinda slowly [ in comparison to a regluar tsunami] giving the police time to evacuate the areas.)

the tsunami one is my favorite

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

I have a proboard up for my personal city sim project Atocity at http://atocity.proboards.com/

Atocity, being unbiased by my own personality (i'm a rational logical type by nature) is now at version 8.002 of development. I am not advertising it (it's non commercial and always will be), but i don't see much progress at all here, and at least with my game you've got infrastructure already (the proboard and the game which is atm at a playable stage despite lacking options, but it's improving)

I have always been behind this idea of a community built city sim game, and all i see here and at other forums is stagnancy on the issue, or a few minor suggestions. To create such a big project requires we put our effort into it. I've been working on Atocity on and off since late 2005 and will continue to do so indefinitely, but the project could use a proper team (so far i've outsourced a few things but theres no permanent team body yet) for development. So i'm suggesting that we use this infrastructure for this project. The one difference between it and the presently nonexistant infrastructure we're discussing here, is it already exists and has only to be utilized.

The first thing to do with that project or the currently nonexistant proposed project discussed above is to form a team, and like an earlier suggestion, i'd suggest a committee formed to recruit team members. A central committee of dedicated long term Simcity players/fans and fans of city simulation (who'd thus not likely leave the project at any point too soon) would be an ideal 'government'. Of course the project would be fully democratic, but even communism requires administration. The central committee would be ideally composed of a few people, under five probably, and would discuss the most important topics at present.

These topics would imo be forming a proper team (separated into various categories such as graphics workers, sound effect workers, scripters for various parts of the game etc) and recruiting, and the general design rules for the project.

My project utilizes Game Maker, and the only real issue with this (seeing as with DLLs the Pro edition can do anything C or BASIC etc can- i have the Lite tho lol) is speed as GM does slow the game down a bit. So another point would be which language to script it in. Game Maker, if one could conquer the speed issue (i use instance_deactivate a lot) is an ideal tool. Why? Because it is usable by beginner programmers and experts alike, and thus would make a great ramp for new team members to the higher levels of the project administration.

But until this core committee is formed little can be done but ponder over the future of the project.

[croxis 150]

In my hobbyist opinion Game Maker is not the best option. The amount of time spent learning game maker could be used to learn a more robust programming language (Python, C/++/#, Java) or art tool (Blender, GIMP). It is also doesn't have native cross platform compatibility. As a linux user that is important to me. I'm sure the mac peeps feel the same way.

What I am in full agreement with is we need to get all these duplications of work into one project. I'm with the CityMania team, you have Atocity, and there is CityWorld which I haven't found a lot of information about. Not to mention the existing LInCity and OpenCity projects. I know I am looking for a SC5-like successor, but in order to do that we need to get over differences, hash out a decent roadmap and code-structure plan, and move forward.

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

I'd agree on your second paragraph. As to why i use Game Maker, i did try to learn C once, and i managed to understand how the language works, but i prefer the user interface with GM. With a script it gets confusing remembering where various elements are whereas in GM it's all easily accessible with the user interface.

Having said that, putting aside the issue of gamespeed being affected by GM, GML can do as much as another language like C, and with DLLs GM can pretty much do anything. However if the project does decide to use a programming language like C or Python or what not i shall (as i'm very interested in the project) try to learn the language, but GM is the only thing i've had any success using.

But yes your second paragraph i fully agree on. There needs to be more cohesiveness with these projects towards a single goal. Simcity 5 is that goal, imo, and the eventual aim of my project is to create what it would have been like, and perhaps beyond that.

Cross platform... Ah yes, well as a windows user i don't often get annoyed with a lack of platform options with a program so i guess i'm not in a position to comment on that, but as to the ideal programming language, C is the one i would suggest, not only because i've learnt it to a extent, but because it is closer to how the computer works, and thus could create a faster game. There may be a better language though. Java and i never got along (Firefox/IE to blame?) and Python i've heard of but haven't attempted to learn.

[croxis 150]

Aye, having a good IDE can make all the difference when developing a project. As far as I know GameMaker is a well put together IDE, but there are other excellent ones for any language. C and Python work very well together, so in our project we'll have the ease of python with the power of C.

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

Hmm. Well if the project (most likely) chooses to use programming languages like Python rather than Game Maker i will attempt to learn them... I did try to learn C a while back, and i understand how they work, i guess i'm just not creative enough to see how 'with' 'and' and 'preprocessor directive' makes a city sim game, but i guess all things built from scratch have to be made with the trunk before the branches as such.

I guess the main project would be making the core game engine. Not jumping ahead or anything but a few thoughts on how it would work... Simcity uses cellular automata, and i reckon from Game Maker experiments that this or a similar system is a good way of creating pseudo realistic development effects... etc... But this raises an issue. Tiles. The one most simple and yet most limiting aspect of any city sim game is tiles. It limits the position of buildings, allows for limited realism in road and other transport network design... The elimination of tiles would be a godsend if it could be done. But of course there simplicity and ease of use is also a factor... And in my various Gm experiments i've found no better system, aside from having no tiles but placing zones, buildings etc wherever you want.

However i think of transport and terrain and other things and perhaps there could be some way to, rather than use the old 2d grid tile method, define an area, sort of like in paint with the free form cutting tool... I don't know. But i've had some vague thoughts that suggest if we want realism we should do away with tiles if it's possible.

An example which i've had in mind for years is that of defining zones. In reality zones are of course often not simple rectangles of land. This brings me to another point. If you did away with tiles and replaced it with a free form development system, how would you do cellular automata type effects (finite state machines) for things like desirability, etc? What would be the... unit as such... for these operations? In Atocity i use tiles but for CA type effects such as desirability i use collision_circle, so for instance if a coal power plant is within the circle desirability drops by a given amount. I imagine most CA effects could be replicated in a free form environment... Perhaps instead of tiles there could be a much smaller array of points...

I'm no expert on the matter but the finite state machine system seems a good one, but tiles seem to me positively archaic and limiting in realism. One of the main goals i'd love to see in a simcity game (one which i hoped to see in 5 actually) is free form transportation routes, realistic curving railroads and winding roads... Which would also suggest freeform terrain with a greater level of detail than the simple simcity 4 system.

Of course these are just a few thoughts but as they are integral to the games engine and development i thought i'd raise them. I may as well raise a few more thoughts...

Zones in reality of course are not so simple as in simcity. For instance we have height restrictions rather than 'high density residential'... And i don't think it would be too difficult to replicate this without overcomplicating the game. As zones are integral to any city sim, i think this is an issue worthy of discussing at this point, or at least having a think about. Also i remember a while back in a 'what do we want in simcity 5' thread at a forum (perhaps this one) that multi-zone developments were an idea for expansion. I.E a residential tower with shops at it's base, or a residential/commercial complex... This i wouldn't put as a high priority for discussion but i'd add it wouldn't be terribly difficult to include multi zoning. The main area imo to think about would be as i said before the limitations of the tile system with rgards to zoning. Personally atm i'd have it this way (feel free to criticize the system). Instead of tiles you have a much more compact array of points. You zone like in MS Paint by drawing lines, and the points within the defined region become 'zoned'. A point checks whether it has enough points around it to allow for development and if so a development is created by some rules, i.e if a road is near it faces the road, etc.

But at this point i come to another far more important issue. Game speed. Which i think is more serious than any other issue i've mentioned. Simcity 4 lags on my 2005 compaq presario pc and whilst my pc is hardly top of the range stuff i imagine many players aren't 'l33t g4m3r5' with massively powerful machines that cost them 5 thousand dollars to get and which they'll replace in a few months when they're termed dinosaurs. As such i reckon game speeds a prime issue for discussion. In Simcity 4 of course you had graphics options like turning off shadows/cars etc... but you'd want everyone to be able to experience the game to it's full potential. In Atocity i use deactivate_all_instances and instance_activate_region to solve this issue, but my game is not as advanced as simcity 2000 let alone 4, and uses 2d graphics. For a fully 3d game like the one we're theorizing about you'd obviously need some method of cutting down gamespeed. At higher zooms for instance instance_deactivate is of little use. I've read about programming styles and various mechanisms of reducing game speed, but i also read advice not to use these methods as they will simplify the game and etc etc... So when designing the game engine i reckon game speeds a top priority for discussion. How to include high level realism without taking up too much memory...

[croxis 150]

Originally posted by: Doofenshmirtz

Hmm. Well if the project (most likely) chooses to use programming languages like Python rather than Game Maker i will attempt to learn them... I did try to learn C a while back, and i understand how they work, i guess i'm just not creative enough to see how 'with' 'and' and 'preprocessor directive' makes a city sim game, but i guess all things built from scratch have to be made with the trunk before the branches as such.

I guess the main project would be making the core game engine. Not jumping ahead or anything but a few thoughts on how it would work... Simcity uses cellular automata, and i reckon from Game Maker experiments that this or a similar system is a good way of creating pseudo realistic development effects... etc... But this raises an issue. Tiles. The one most simple and yet most limiting aspect of any city sim game is tiles. It limits the position of buildings, allows for limited realism in road and other transport network design... The elimination of tiles would be a godsend if it could be done. But of course there simplicity and ease of use is also a factor... And in my various Gm experiments i've found no better system, aside from having no tiles but placing zones, buildings etc wherever you want.quote>

CitiesXL did it, with some issues, but it worked.  What we found was  that a grid does help with construction, getting things to line up.  AS an option the player can make a grid that they can freely rotate to snap things too.

However i think of transport and terrain and other things and perhaps there could be some way to, rather than use the old 2d grid tile method, define an area, sort of like in paint with the free form cutting tool... I don't know. But i've had some vague thoughts that suggest if we want realism we should do away with tiles if it's possible.

An example which i've had in mind for years is that of defining zones. In reality zones are of course often not simple rectangles of land. This brings me to another point. If you did away with tiles and replaced it with a free form development system, how would you do cellular automata type effects (finite state machines) for things like desirability, etc? What would be the... unit as such... for these operations? In Atocity i use tiles but for CA type effects such as desirability i use collision_circle, so for instance if a coal power plant is within the circle desirability drops by a given amount. I imagine most CA effects could be replicated in a free form environment... Perhaps instead of tiles there could be a much smaller array of points... quote>

This part I haven't been involved with the discussion of.  What I do know is that we're aiming for a resolution of 10m per "tile"

I'm no expert on the matter but the finite state machine system seems a good one, but tiles seem to me positively archaic and limiting in realism. One of the main goals i'd love to see in a simcity game (one which i hoped to see in 5 actually) is free form transportation routes, realistic curving railroads and winding roads... Which would also suggest freeform terrain with a greater level of detail than the simple simcity 4 system.quote>

Aye, I am just a hobbiest programmer I never had formal training.  So I have giant gaps in my knowledge on how code is put together.  I'm interested in seeing how things progress.

Zones in reality of course are not so simple as in simcity. For instance we have height restrictions rather than 'high density residential'... And i don't think it would be too difficult to replicate this without overcomplicating the game. As zones are integral to any city sim, i think this is an issue worthy of discussing at this point, or at least having a think about. Also i remember a while back in a 'what do we want in simcity 5' thread at a forum (perhaps this one) that multi-zone developments were an idea for expansion. I.E a residential tower with shops at it's base, or a residential/commercial complex... This i wouldn't put as a high priority for discussion but i'd add it wouldn't be terribly difficult to include multi zoning. The main area imo to think about would be as i said before the limitations of the tile system with rgards to zoning. Personally atm i'd have it this way (feel free to criticize the system). Instead of tiles you have a much more compact array of points. You zone like in MS Paint by drawing lines, and the points within the defined region become 'zoned'. A point checks whether it has enough points around it to allow for development and if so a development is created by some rules, i.e if a road is near it faces the road, etc. quote>

Aye, here, for residential at least, there are restrictions on the number of housing units per acre.  One of our devs is working out an alternative to the rci model.  Multizoning is an objective.

But at this point i come to another far more important issue. Game speed. Which i think is more serious than any other issue i've mentioned. Simcity 4 lags on my 2005 compaq presario pc and whilst my pc is hardly top of the range stuff i imagine many players aren't 'l33t g4m3r5' with massively powerful machines that cost them 5 thousand dollars to get and which they'll replace in a few months when they're termed dinosaurs. As such i reckon game speeds a prime issue for discussion. In Simcity 4 of course you had graphics options like turning off shadows/cars etc... but you'd want everyone to be able to experience the game to it's full potential. In Atocity i use deactivate_all_instances and instance_activate_region to solve this issue, but my game is not as advanced as simcity 2000 let alone 4, and uses 2d graphics. For a fully 3d game like the one we're theorizing about you'd obviously need some method of cutting down gamespeed. At higher zooms for instance instance_deactivate is of little use. I've read about programming styles and various mechanisms of reducing game speed, but i also read advice not to use these methods as they will simplify the game and etc etc... So when designing the game engine i reckon game speeds a top priority for discussion. How to include high level realism without taking up too much memory...

quote>

We decided to have a server/client architecture right from the start, and even for single player.  This opens up a lot of possibilities.  First it means we can have different clients for the same game.  There can be a flashy 3D GUI, or a simple 2D gui.  The other option is that the simulation can be on one machine, but the gui client on another.

The current implimentation is to make the simulation strongly turned based.  The simulation will wait for the client(s) to send "ready for next turn" message. The simulation then moves forward one step (step currently = game month).

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

hmm.

well i don't think i'll ever be able to be good with a programming language besides GML as i guess i need the IDE user interface and i was never good with complex math that's needed for creating game engines and other elements with a scripting language like C

So i think with Atocity i'll stick to using GM (besides GM is built using C in it's next edition i hear which ought to be good)

I may be able to get the Pro edition of GM soon if i can get this paypal thing to work, which means the possibility of making a 3d version in the future, but i think for me GM is the only way to go. I've been trying to learn C for a while now but my working memory isn't that good and it's much more difficult to understand a long page of code than a UI in GM.

[morriswalters 16]

This is a game proposal presented to the city builder community. I will state up front that I am not a programmer. Having researched the idea after revisiting the Sim City franchise in the spring of 2009 I have come to the conclusion that a community built 3D city builder, built from scratch will probably never happen. The complexity of the task of building 3D engines is so great that even well funded companies license the technology. For a community built game to move forward one viable strategy would be to leverage existing assets and to reduce the amount of coding that would need to be done. There will always be more people who want to help then can actually help. When you think about it this way a number of assets come to mind.

 

1. Google Earth and it's associated applications. There is a well developed API, robust tools, Google Sketchup, The Ruby scripting language, and a 3D world. Using Google's assets puts the graphics engine on the table ready to use. There exists the possibility of creating a blank 3D world using GE(Google Earth). Given GE's capabilities it's easy to imagine a lot of things. The big hurdle here is convincing Google to let some subset of GE to be used for a game.

2. The second hurdle is a mapping system. Mapping a planet is a monumental task. Again we look for the tools that are ready today. Here we find a open source project called Open Map Server. This is basically a clone of Google Maps. It's currently being used by Hasbro for their Monopoly game. There is an established mechanism for using geographical data to generate maps and it should be possible to generate maps on the fly.

3. There are a number of simulator projects out there. EA has even released one of the older versions of Sim City. If these projects could be convinced to participate then the simulator would have the bones, and could be ready to operate fairly quickly. At some minimal level.

4. There would need to be a mechanism developed for generating animations procedurally. There would also be a need to find a way to overlay those animations over the GE window. Possibly some thing involving windows transparency.

5. A UI would need to be developed. This part of the project would be the command and control center. Controlling communications between modules and handling networking.

6. The last part of the project would be a data base, again there are a number of very powerful databases in the Open Source community.

    

    

The amount of work involved even if all these many resources chose to be involved is non trivial. There would be a need for funding of some type. Again however there are some strategies available to be used. Generating a map of the level of detail to be used in a game would require significant resources. It might be possible to use the SETI model and have volunteers in the community donate computer cycles to the process. Content could be created with Sketchup, a very powerful free tool. Again a thing that community members could contribute.

Networking, the human kind, is another important tool. Perhaps you know someone or an organization that could support this effort. Or perhaps you know someone at the organizations that I have mentioned. Maybe your eyes have seen something I missed. But if the goal I am laying out here is something that interests you then find a way to contribute.

Now a paragraph to offend some people. It's fine to want to build jet airliner that can carry 500 people, but realistically it might be best to start with the Wright glider. Follow the K.I.S.S. Principle, keep it simply simple. People get excited about ideas but they want to play. To keep people interested you have to deliver something. Here's a scary thought, if I was in control I would want something in the players hand within 12 months. Even something as simple as "Google Planet"(Start charming Google now.) the platform for the game. Maybe nothing more than a blank GE. With terrain. A start. Perhaps this isn't your cup of tea. If you asked me if this could succeed I would say 80 20 against, and I'm a unblushing optimist.

I'll give you some things to think about.

How would you go about texturing a world that doesn't exist. Say one the size of Great Britain?

How would you create the terrain?

How much storage space would be required.

How do you sync a world?

Google Earth is not very good at real time animation. Can a second program be put transparently over the GE window and synced with it?Is there a better way?

How much should be local and how much on a remote server?

 

This basically started as a intellectual exercise, and will continue that way no matter what the outcome of this post. Sooner or later I will try to get someones attention at Google. They probably will be polite if I can get their attention at all, but they may break out in hysterical laughter at my temerity. I don't mind. I like to make people tell me no rather than not to ask. Any way if you think this thing is worth doing, speak up. If not Happy Simming.

 Check out this video.

[croxis 150]

There exists many open source 3D game engines, or 3D engine components.  As you mentioned it is silly to create one from scratch.  Quite frankly I don't see the need to generate a map of the entire world.  The region introduced in sc4 seems to be the perfict scale for an individual player.  Urban areas comprise of a very small percentage of the surface of a planet and, from a game design perspective, what is the point?  I would rather have one great game, a city builder, vs 2 ok games mashed together.

What I would much rather see is getting Cities of the World, City Mania (in Simtropolis 1000 thread), and the other city builder projects get over their differences and work together on a single project.  THAT is worth the time and effort.

[morriswalters 16]

Good luck.

[Doofenshmirtz 0]

I am working on my own project Atocity, and i'd agree with Croxis that an entire world is unecessary. The Simcity 4 region size is perfect and can be enlarged by editing bitmaps anyway which technically makes it unlimited.

I'd also agree on his second point though my weakness as regards scripting outside of GM would mean i wouldn't ge a good member of the project myself on any scripting.

But i'd agree that with so many projects there should be some kind of cohesiveness between them