Is SimCity 4 Dead?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

People are still playing Mario on the Nintendo 64. And that's not a game you can create amazing custom content for. I think SimCity 4 still has a few years left in it.

[a2A209_ 10]

MS Flight Simulator is partially dead. SimCity 4 is even more dead!! But why did I buy or downloaded these games? Because of airplane intrest,my computer power to download SC4 and MS Flight Sim 2004, and city building intrest. But with all the mods for SimCity 4,something to look back in MS Flight Simulator 2004, and my mods, scenery, aircraft, but after years... But they still work at pefect condition!!! :)

[tcgchamp 0]

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.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

off course it's not dead! It's just coughing up blood!

Does that mean your cities have Two Buttes? (TB). Reminds me of La Dame aux Camellias.

[elavery 1,013]

Sim City 4 Vanilla is dead. But the modified game certainly isn't dead at all. Even if Sim City 5 never happens, I think the work of all the creators on this site is much better than anything EA would ever do anyway.

[StefanR95 5]

SimCity 4 is not dead. I play it everyday. There are many communities that have loads of members still playing. New mods are released everyday. The Vanilla version is dead, I agree on that, but the current modded version is still going strong. How many games last 8 years? This is certainly on of them and it will continue on for many years.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The interesting thing is that even if all the fan sites went off the air today, I still have enough to go on exploring this program for several years to come. The only thing that will kill it is unavailability of hardware/software platforms that can run it, and you can always keep what you've got now.

The next big step in hardware will be the 128-bit CPUs (already existing for several years) coming to the home market. I doubt that more bandwidth will do anything to 32-bit programs like this one except you may have to run a virtual machine to get it to run. Machines of that magnitude will have more than enough resources to run virtual machines at full tilt.

[Jazzmaster 716]

I just saw this on the SimCity 4 Facebook page:

http://www.ea.com/simcity-4-deluxe

They're advertising the game right along with the Sims 3, like it's new and fresh. The only disheartening thing is when they said 'Get the patches here!', I got excited for a split second, thinking they'd actually made NEW patches for NEWER machines. Still, I wonder why they drug this game back up? Must be the Herman Cain debacle.

I made an effort, hoping it's worth it. It could very well be in vain, but I thought to myself, 'why not?' Went ahead and left this comment on their Facebook page after they posted the link:

"This is great, but will there ever be patches made available for newer computers? There is a serious issue with the game crashing on computers during saves and just randomly, crashes during zooms, and many other things. These problems are most relevant on newer machines with stronger hardware. I hope you all can have a serious look at these issues, it would be greatly appreciated!"

  Edited November 2, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[Larks2242 251]

People are still playing Mario on the Nintendo 64. And that's not a game you can create amazing custom content for. I think SimCity 4 still has a few years left in it.

Right, that is why Activision went out and recreated Goldeneye this year, Who knows we may even see a SC4 Reloaded someday.

[Larks2242 251]

They're advertising the game right along with the Sims 3, like it's new and fresh. The only disheartening thing is when they said 'Get the patches here!', I got excited for a split second, thinking they'd actually made NEW patches for NEWER machines. Still, I wonder why they drug this game back up? Must be the Herman Cain debacle.

He can be president, if he inspires EA to make a SC5, I'm sure he will get alot of ST member votes

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I just hopped over to the new SimCity 4 site. It appears that they either have made a deal with or have been taken over by Origin. This site has links to the necessary updates for the game in a much clearer layout.

The reports of the death of this game have been greatly exaggerated. Paraphrased from Samuel Langhorn Clemens.

[Mootilda 76]

I just hopped over to the new SimCity 4 site. It appears that they either have made a deal with or have been taken over by Origin.

Origin is EA. EA decided to create their own online store, so that they could make more profit from each sale. Origin is EA's answer to Steam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems

  Edited November 4, 2011 by Mootilda  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I just hopped over to the new SimCity 4 site. It appears that they either have made a deal with or have been taken over by Origin.

Origin is EA. EA decided to create their own online store, so that they could make more profit from each sale. Origin is EA's answer to Steam:

http://en.wikipedia..../Origin_Systems

Ah so! Still chasing the buck down the street. What do they mean by asking you to download some Origin package? Do they intend to snoop your system?

[The Bluejay 40]

Yes, but I don't think thats the official reason.

Also, I noticed that the old Sims 2 page was - refounded, I suppose - the other day. It looks like EA are bringing all their old titles back to life for Origin.

  Edited November 6, 2011 by The Bluejay  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Yes, but I don't think thats the official reason.

Also, I noticed that the old Sims 2 page was - refounded, I suppose - the other day. It looks like EA are bringing all their old titles back to life for Origin.

Well, bad cess to them. I am on Linux, so I doubt their little gift will run on my operating system. It might be interesting to see if it will run under wine. I hate snoopers. They are no better than a virus. In fact, it is a Trojan horse, and I reserve a special place near the main magma stream at Dis in my version of the Inferno for people that do that. They are as bad as Microsoft. What I do on my machine is absolutely none of their business after I have paid their never to be sufficiently damned license fee.

[Jazzmaster 716]

This caught my interest. The SimCity 4 official EA/Maxis endorsed facebook page posted an image with custom content in it. Take a look...

Not sure that this actually 'means' anything, but I found it peculiar that they would post an image with content in it that was not included in the vanilla game.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Do you sense a reawakening after all these years? Wonder if there will be a reward for "we few, we happy few".

[Jazzmaster 716]

^ Do you sense a reawakening after all these years? Wonder if there will be a reward for "we few, we happy few".

It's pretty possible. I mean I'm used to getting turned onto things like games and artists after their heyday (I got onto ST after all the glorious NDEX days, for example); but this game has been proving me wrong lately. I won't count on it and expect it, but I will cross my fingers on this one.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

This caught my interest. The SimCity 4 official EA/Maxis endorsed facebook page posted an image with custom content in it. Take a look...

Not sure that this actually 'means' anything, but I found it peculiar that they would post an image with content in it that was not included in the vanilla game.

Obviously Maxis didn't use a slope mod here

[Jangyo 2]

Dead?Are you kidding? I still play, and i had it for over 6 years, a year or 2 after it came out, but i still play it. There's also a lot of sites that provide custom content with registering. I know one that uploads automata and you dont need to sign in, just download and install. Some examples are: SimtropolisTM, SimCity DevotionTM, SC4Ever.com, SimPeg.com, Mikesieths Site (sorry don't know the name of it, but you can look him up right here on Simtropolis),and so much more.Even foreign countries know about SimcityTM. So about it being dead? Forget about it. Far from it I say.

  Edited November 9, 2011 by Jangyo  

[The Bluejay 40]

^ Do you sense a reawakening after all these years? Wonder if there will be a reward for "we few, we happy few".

I'm sceptical, I'm afraid. That old games now being sold on their download service are suddenly being promoted again strikes me less as "reawakening" and more as "oppertunism"

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Do you sense a reawakening after all these years? Wonder if there will be a reward for "we few, we happy few".

I'm skeptical, I'm afraid. That old games now being sold on their download service are suddenly being promoted again strikes me less as "reawakening" and more as "opportunism"

One can always hope. It is a free item. However, you are probably correct. Squeezing the last buck out.

[Evillions 552]

Played SC4 since 2004 and still play it to this day. This game is no where near dead.

[wozzar 154]

SC4 will never die it is like MSTS and TTD which are still going strong because of the communities that support it with out these support mechanisms the games would have been dead a long time ago. MSTS is 10 years old and has had some challenges like Rail works and RS but MSTS still beats the new games. And TTD is 16 years old and still going because of OpenTTD. SC4 will still be around when EA are defunct.

What i don't understand is EA still sell SC4 but wont update it with Patches.

  Edited November 14, 2011 by wozzar  

[Linoa06 1,374]

SC4 is faaaaaaaaar from being dead :x

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Great to see all the sensible posts here. They sky is not falling. As for EA producing a patch to fix the common CTDs, it is likely that this can't be done due to lack of patch space in the file, but it could be fixed by a recompile. This, of course, means a new edition, and there is probably no foreseeable profit in that for EA. So they will continue to flog this old horse and try to get it up that hill one more time. I think they are safe, even after the 128-bit platforms come out as long as Microsoft's box of bugs can run the .exe.

  Edited November 14, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[dogma555 187]

I'll play this game until the day I die.. you hear me?

I want that little icon engraved on my tomb.

My biggest fear is that 10 years from now, modern hardware will be too incompatible to run it.

[Bipin 3,402]

The only time SC4 will die is when every modification possible has ever been created. Mathematically, it will happen at some point, but not in a thousand years. As well, sooner or later someone will find a legal way to modify the .exe, which opens up a whole new can of worms, but in a good sense. Besides, by then, someone will create a city simulator thats... who knows, holographic! XD

[SLagonia 68]

Actually, it's still going strong... Not just for an eight year old game, but for a game in general! This game still has more support than most new games have!

In contrast, SCS is already dead. The quality difference should be obvious.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Results of today's test with Ubuntu 11.10 and wine 1.3.32.

The multi-buffering problem in wine is fixed. It no longer shows that annoying message about only two buffers.

With my 1920 x 1080 x 32 DVI screen, in hardware mode the frame rate is disgustingly slow. Runs fine in hardware mode at that resolution.

LinuxMint 11 (Katia) runs in software mode only on my machine because of a problem with the graphics driver (ATI/AMD fglrx) which is fixed on Ubuntu 11.10. I am currently downloaded Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) and will put it up on a test partition. Since a lot of it is based on Ubuntu 11.10, I expect similar results to those above.

As long as Linux and wine are around, SC4 will run forever. Somehow, I don't think it matters much if Windows doesn't hack it any time soon.

wine is also available for the latest edition of the MAC software as well.

  Edited November 16, 2011 by A Nonny Moose