Is SimCity 4 Dead?

[iv4novich 0]

*First of all i wish say sorry for my lowskilled english.

My point of view is SimCity will never die. Maybe SC4 dies one day, but i'm pretty sure that if it happens, it will be due to releasing of a new SC or another game family that could be compared to SC4 -with its mods added, of course-.

-I was born on 1985. SC1 was released on 1989, and i started playing it on 1993 (with just 8 yo, coz my dad used 2 play it). One year later, on 1994, i remember the release of SC2K. I will never forget this day, i was so impatient for arrive to home, install the game -on MS-DOS. The oldschool rulez!- and start playing it... OMFG, dimetric POV! That was amazing! Do you remeber the original newspaper? Or the Exodus on 2050? One year before, Maxis started their real deal: Expansions. SC2K Special Edition and SC2K Network Edition. This was one of the first games to be sold in "episodes", smart idea in order to increase the bussiness, smart guys working in Maxis. And what about the Urbat Renewal Kit? It was the first step for a young young baby. Today, this baby growth up, becomed grandpa, and has got a big family. Some members of this family are known for all of us, like SC4Mapper, SC4Terraformer,BSC Cleanitol, Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool, hundreds of different tools, and thousands of BATs, LOTs, MODs, maps, etc. The SC customization beginned.

-1999; the SC3000 was exactly the same (expansions, more mods, more tools...), but it was so much expectated for the fans. But it was a deception. Everybody was expectating for 3d SC and it was just a improved SC2K, with few aditional no0bish features, and with few lessed nice features. Expansions were not so successfull. SC3000 World Edition was kinda bad: Few new buildings and the building style changes by world areas. But anything else. Same thing happened with SC3000 Unlimited. It really didn't offered what gamers were expectating. Anyway, SC serial was writing his own history. The last episode was on january 2003. SC4 was released. I only remember that i was like 2 weeks inside my home, with a great fever: the SC4 fever. Everybody knows the end of this tale. SC4RH (or Deluxe Edition), maybe the best SC expansion ever.

-But, over it all, so far gone, up there in the sky, something growth much more than the pocket of EA -and this is a very difficult enterprise-. I talk about the SimCity fans, gamers, palyers, supporters and junkies like me. I talk about the SC Comunity, the purest comunity for the purest game. No matters what happens with EA, or with future SC's or other city games, tycoons or what else sacred holly crap they want sell us. SC community will never die. We rock the world, and we will still here pushing the buttons and cutting the tunna like a piece of cake.

  Edited November 17, 2011 by iv4novich  

[Limer 1]

I bought this game about a month ago instead of buying a newly released game.

Surely thats a good sign.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I bought this game about a month ago instead of buying a newly released game.

Surely thats a good sign.

You will soon be addicted like the rest of us. Enjoy.

[SLagonia 71]

I bought this game about a month ago instead of buying a newly released game.

Surely thats a good sign.

You're not alone. This game is still more popular than many new games.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I bought this game about a month ago instead of buying a newly released game.

Surely thats a good sign.

You're not alone. This game is still more popular than many new games.

Yes, and the number of people finding their way here is pretty steady.

[Cobraroll 138]

Too bad that we have kinda "painted ourselves into a corner" with regards to SC4.

If a new expansion pack was to be released (yeah, likely...), loads and loads of our precious custom content wouldn't work. Besides, what features could it possibly add, that we haven't made already? I don't know if anybody have played RollerCoaster Tycoon 2's expansion packs, but... well, I think it would have to be much the same (That is, charge money, add nothing of interest, profit).

This also goes for a new installation in the series. While it would surely be a good game, that's tons and tons of custom content down the drain. Compared to the thousands of custom lots, roads, maps, everything we have made for SC4, the new game would just be too small for the fanbase. Sure a full 3D view would be nice, but I'd rather have a diverse two-dimensional metropolis than a completely "vanilla" town. And that's before the inevitable expansion pack. It would take years of modding for SimCity 5 to get to the level of complexity SC4 has today, never mind how much harding modelling would be with a more advanced engine.

So I think SimCity 4 will stand as a cult game for the time being. Like a certain few old films, which hold their own without 3D, reboots, special effects, sequels or anything. The official guys don't have to temper with it, it's solid in its own right and impossible to make more money with. We might long for SimCity 5, but in the end, SimCity 4 is already a better game, thanks to the collective efforts of modders over all these years. EA just can't top that. The SimCity franchise has reached its peak. Expect a new city building series at best.

Also, it's not as profitable to make games people can play for years as it is to make six-hour games with a lifespan of some twenty months. And even a successful series with piles of expansion packs will eventually need reboots to keep people interested (*coughthesimscough*).

*goes playing SC4, which was the first thing I installed on this shiny new PC of mine*

[Jazzmaster 716]

Too bad that we have kinda "painted ourselves into a corner" with regards to SC4.

If a new expansion pack was to be released (yeah, likely...), loads and loads of our precious custom content wouldn't work. Besides, what features could it possibly add, that we haven't made already? I don't know if anybody have played RollerCoaster Tycoon 2's expansion packs, but... well, I think it would have to be much the same (That is, charge money, add nothing of interest, profit).

I don't really care for an expansion pack at this point. The only thing I want is a patch that keeps the game from crashing for no dang reason.

So I think SimCity 4 will stand as a cult game for the time being. Like a certain few old films, which hold their own without 3D, reboots, special effects, sequels or anything. The official guys don't have to temper with it, it's solid in its own right and impossible to make more money with. We might long for SimCity 5, but in the end, SimCity 4 is already a better game, thanks to the collective efforts of modders over all these years. EA just can't top that. The SimCity franchise has reached its peak. Expect a new city building series at best.

A legacy game, certainly, but I hesitate to call it solid, only because it it's full of so many bugs and instabilities. EA says the game is 'compatible with Windows 7' and continues to sell it, but they neglect to mention that you can look forward to having random crashes and graphical glitches with multi-core processors and select newer video cards. I have a dedicated ATI GPU and I just about never had a problem with it that wasn't my own (unless I try to switch to the Intel HD Graphics whilst the game runs), but it's to my understanding that the game doesn't like nVidia as much; specifically, the way nVdia cards process graphics can make some things appear bizzare.

[dogma555 187]

Too bad that we have kinda "painted ourselves into a corner" with regards to SC4.

If a new expansion pack was to be released (yeah, likely...), loads and loads of our precious custom content wouldn't work. Besides, what features could it possibly add, that we haven't made already? I don't know if anybody have played RollerCoaster Tycoon 2's expansion packs, but... well, I think it would have to be much the same (That is, charge money, add nothing of interest, profit).

I don't really care for an expansion pack at this point. The only thing I want is a patch that keeps the game from crashing for no dang reason.

So I think SimCity 4 will stand as a cult game for the time being. Like a certain few old films, which hold their own without 3D, reboots, special effects, sequels or anything. The official guys don't have to temper with it, it's solid in its own right and impossible to make more money with. We might long for SimCity 5, but in the end, SimCity 4 is already a better game, thanks to the collective efforts of modders over all these years. EA just can't top that. The SimCity franchise has reached its peak. Expect a new city building series at best.

A legacy game, certainly, but I hesitate to call it solid, only because it it's full of so many bugs and instabilities. EA says the game is 'compatible with Windows 7' and continues to sell it, but they neglect to mention that you can look forward to having random crashes and graphical glitches with multi-core processors and select newer video cards. I have a dedicated ATI GPU and I just about never had a problem with it that wasn't my own (unless I try to switch to the Intel HD Graphics whilst the game runs), but it's to my understanding that the game doesn't like nVidia as much; specifically, the way nVdia cards process graphics can make some things appear bizzare.

That's odd.. its the exact opposite for me. My desktop has an nvidia card and it runs absolutely flawlessly. My HTPC has an ATI card and Sim City 4 runs like a slideshow.. like 2 fps, completely unplayable.

I know most people already know to disable it down to one core.. but what I don't see many other people say is that you also have to set the game's priority to "high" .. at least I did, and now the only crash I get is that every few times I "save and go to region" it crashes.. so I have to save, then exit to region.

But Windows 7 incompatibility was inevitable.. I saw that coming from the get go.. SC4 is not the only game I cannot get running in W7.. even after searching around for workarounds, they just never work exactly like they should. I've realized I will have to keep my gaming rig with Win XP, for 100% compatibility with the classics.

[Jazzmaster 716]

That's odd.. its the exact opposite for me. My desktop has an nvidia card and it runs absolutely flawlessly. My HTPC has an ATI card and Sim City 4 runs like a slideshow.. like 2 fps, completely unplayable.

I know most people already know to disable it down to one core.. but what I don't see many other people say is that you also have to set the game's priority to "high" .. at least I did, and now the only crash I get is that every few times I "save and go to region" it crashes.. so I have to save, then exit to region.

But Windows 7 incompatibility was inevitable.. I saw that coming from the get go.. SC4 is not the only game I cannot get running in W7.. even after searching around for workarounds, they just never work exactly like they should. I've realized I will have to keep my gaming rig with Win XP, for 100% compatibility with the classics.

I have -CPUPriority:High in my command line, and I still get game crashes, but only in my largest, most complex city. One theory was the complexity of the transit networks;specifically the subway routes. I do have many subway routes in this particular city, and I have yet to slowly delete the lines to see if the game performs any better.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You can see from the gigantic list of command line options that the developers were looking well forward to the bigger machines that were in the pipe at the time of release. I think Will and the boys were thinking of keeping this going into the next couple of decades. It is too bad that the product was rushed out the door because of an ID 10 T error in marketing that promised the game by a certain date.

[a2A209_ 10]

sim city four is in no way dead, at all. i love this game to pieces. and i will continue to love it no matter how many pieces it ends up in. if this game becomes unplayable on newer machines, i will make an older one to play it. its that good.

Well not by community,community dead. I meant like producer dead or EA suddenly killing SC4 something like that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

sim city four is in no way dead, at all. i love this game to pieces. and i will continue to love it no matter how many pieces it ends up in. if this game becomes unplayable on newer machines, i will make an older one to play it. its that good.

Well not by community,community dead. I meant like producer dead or EA suddenly killing SC4 something like that.

One of the nice things about our civilization is multiple record, multiple copy. The game cannot die as long as there is one player.