SC 4 still viable?

[tcastlejr 3]

Hey folks.

So the question is in the subject. But let me elaborate. I'm new to city building. I own SC4 deluxe and Cities:Skylines.

I have about 1 hour in SC4 and about 40 in C:SL.

Skylines is a good game and will likely grow to be great. But I can't help thinking that should invest the time to 'earn my wares' in SC4 because of the maturity of the product. (I've played it only vanilla)

So, what say you? Is this viable? I really want to build 'in the sandbox' and create cities. Can I still get all the files and such for SC4?

Looking for any help and guidance.

Thanks,

Tom

[gviper 922]

SC4 is absolutely still very viable! It really is a choice for you to make between exploring--to the extent you wish--the "matured" state of SC4 and the mods and custom content available for it, or be satisfied with the experience and jump fully into C:S or continue with the blend and enjoy them both as one is at its maturity and the other its infancy...

 

The STEX is loaded with great creations for SC4...

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you have Deluxe on CD, be sure you have the update patches.  In order to use most custom content you need to be up to build level 1,1,638,0 which you get by applying the appropriate EP1 patch to your game.

 

If you want to have night scenes that work properly with custom buildings you will also need the patch for the BAT which can be obtained from SC4 Devotion (as can the EP1 patch).  Just look for the EA Support button on the SC4D home page.  You should finally arrive at build 1,1,640.

 

However, if you have a valid downloaded version you have 1,1,641 which is the very latest release from EA.

 

Now, as to viability, the difference is maturity for sure.  The amount of custom content for SC4 is truly staggering, and it is all free.  C:S is very new, and at the moment I am unable to run it because of technical problems with the Linux set up.  I'll probably have to spring for a new GPU, because mine is somewhat antiquated.  Going shopping on Thursday for a new printer and who knows what else may come home with me?

 

Building a city is one thing, having access to the enormous SC4 canvas on which to paint cities is quite different from being just a city builder.  Where C:S goes in a few years is what will tell the tale.

[tcastlejr 3]

My SC4 copy is from Steam which I freshly re-downloaded just a few days ago. Gotta figure out what all I need to download in the way of NAM,etc.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Start with NAM (32 at the moment), add add anything from the STEX that has the word fix in the title.  Be darned careful, because some of these bug fixes are not just plug and play.  The fix for the timid cops is called 'crime doesnt pay' no apostrophe.

 

After you've done a custom install of the NAM selecting the parts you want to start with (you can run the installer as often as you like), play for a few days or weeks before you leap into anything else.  You are looking at a bit of learning curve.

 

One thing about the NAM installer is that if you have the Java compiler it will give you a custom controller that reflects your installation selections.  This can result in a much smaller file.

[xonedl 342]

C:S still have many problems to fix, and "road" seems to be a huge disaster at the moment... It's too new to compare to SC4.

After over 1 year we'll come back to that question again.

[Major from Bajor 24]

Until Skylines gets something even remotely good and big in terms of mods/addons support, SC4 is probably even more viable. Until then, and I understand there are sill some balance issues, Skylines will probably be more of an eye candy.

[gviper 922]

C:S still have many problems to fix, and "road" seems to be a huge disaster at the moment... It's too new to compare to SC4.

After over 1 year we'll come back to that question again.

Though some will compare the two, in my opinion doing so isn't very realistic, comparing C:S to a game that is well over 10 years old!

[SimEMS38 246]

One thing that SC4 has over C:S is time and that's one powerful advantage that C:S needs to overcome if it's gonna render SC4 non viable. One thing that C:S has over SC4 is the modding pool that was created after SC4 and that's a powerful advantage that will help it overcome SC4's time. Compared to the here and now, SC4 looked just like C:S does now when it first came out. The quality of it's buildings that it came shipped can't even be compared to the masterpieces that have been created by the talent in the SC4 community in the decade since. I feel that with time, C:S will be on par to what SC4 is currently at and with that, SC4 will slowly fade away but it's gonna take time and I feel confident that SC4 is still very much viable and will be for several more years to come.

I haven't had the opportunity to play C:S and probably will not get to try it out for at least a year until I can afford a new laptop to handle it properly and carry my needs for the next 6 or 7 years. Until then, it's SC4 all the way!

 

Now if SC4 gets filed as abandonware and it's code released to the modding community, who knows what would be in store for SC4!!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

 

C:S still have many problems to fix, and "road" seems to be a huge disaster at the moment... It's too new to compare to SC4.

After over 1 year we'll come back to that question again.

Though some will compare the two, in my opinion doing so isn't very realistic, comparing C:S to a game that is well over 10 years old!

 

When it comes to computer software, agism is not a good argument.  The main problem currently with SC4 is that it doesn't glitter with newness.  It needs some maintenance, and unless it becomes abandonware with the source released, I doubt there is any will in EA to revivify this cash cow.  I strongly believe they are missing an opportunity to simply recompile the code for 64-bit, fix known errors, and release SC Deluxe 4.5.  Would you purchase it?  I would, but not if was only via a DRM vendor.

 

Before anyone asks, my recent misadventures with Steam for Linux are such that I've realized they are just another profit driven corporation with very few technical smarts and very little quality assurance.  As usual, they've forgotten the maxim that the system is for the end user.

[gviper 922]

 

 

C:S still have many problems to fix, and "road" seems to be a huge disaster at the moment... It's too new to compare to SC4.

After over 1 year we'll come back to that question again.

Though some will compare the two, in my opinion doing so isn't very realistic, comparing C:S to a game that is well over 10 years old!

 

When it comes to computer software, agism is not a good argument.  The main problem currently with SC4 is that it doesn't glitter with newness.  It needs some maintenance, and unless it becomes abandonware with the source released, I doubt there is any will in EA to revivify this cash cow.  I strongly believe they are missing an opportunity to simply recompile the code for 64-bit, fix known errors, and release SC Deluxe 4.5.  Would you purchase it?  I would, but not if was only via a DRM vendor.

 

Before anyone asks, my recent misadventures with Steam for Linux are such that I've realized they are just another profit driven corporation with very few technical smarts and very little quality assurance.  As usual, they've forgotten the maxim that the system is for the end user.

 

Indeed I imagine most--if not all---SC4 players would love to see them release the source code. Would I buy it? Hmm, maybe.  Ultimately, it would depend on the ability to attach entirely new game features to the original.  Otherwise, I'm merely resolving mainly performance issues and while such is nice, at some point adding mustard, lettuce and pickles surpasses simply adding more beef and cheese to my hamburger. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

There are some things that could be added, but one would have to be very careful.  For example suppose we scrap the basic Rush Hour idea and go for a more general traffic situation where mom takes the kids to school, goes shopping, picks them up, goes shopping on weekends or goes to the theatre, etc.  Oops, starting to sound like The Sims, eh?

 

But how about adding a full commerce section with both continuous and discrete manufacturing from resources, distribution systems including depots, commercial and consumer markets, including food markets.  Of course this means commercial vehicles across city connections, and some new buildings (warehouses, distribution centres, retailers, etc.).  Shouldn't take a dedicated group more than the effort put into the NAM so far.  You could call this one SC4 Distributor.

 

Or how about making a real multiplayer game out of it, with or without enhancements?  This means that, for a small group, one machine could be the server running Apache, and still run a session plus a few friends on remote.  (Linux anyone?).  If this were to evolve into a commercial venture, one could start a sharing service with a dedicated server (or servers) strategically located for which a small fee might be paid by a subscriber.  This is not difficult to do, just fiddly.  The learning curve for the Apache software and bulletproofing would be the big issue since Domains can be had fairly cheaply these days.  Most of the action would be on the server, with saves on a cloud of some sort.  For purists and experimenters, an off-line service could be provided if the user has a big enough box.

 

The reason a MMP version would run on the server is mostly because the server would be very powerful in order to give at least the map sizes we currently have in 3D.  No question that heavy multitasking would be involved.  Might need a quantum computer to really do this.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Most will point to the NAM as SC4's strong point.  It is unrivaled in the amount of work and genius put into developing it.  It's definitely awesome to be able to build all kinds of fancy roads and subways and trams and elevated rail and monorails and bullet trains and canals and ferries and park-and-ride systems.  But these are hard to build; CS's road building is much easier and more fun.  Compared directly with Skylines, I think SC4's biggest advantage is building variety.  It takes the most work to download all these individual buildings (with some small multi-packs here and there too), but if you put the time into it you can have a downtown with no two copies of the same building.  It also allows for intense variation in style.

 

You can have everything from medieval to gritty ghetto to shiny downtown to futuristic, in the same game.

 

The landscape abilities are breathtaking too.  The way you can customize this game is unrivaled.  Not that there's any need for rivalry.  I'm happily playing both citybuilders.

[NBAFAN1 28]

SC4 is still viable, if you are prepared for mod and dependency hell. The mods and BATs for SC4 are great, but I no longer have the time to install all that anymore.  Steam Workshop for Cities Skylines is so much easier to install mods with.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Very much so.  They are two very similar yet very different games and neither can fill the shoes of the other.

 

Cities: Skylines is definitely a very good game (I consider it my best $30 spent since Civ IV and SC4 before that), and in a head-to-head with vanilla SC4 it's the hands-down winner.  Maybe, in 5 years or so, it will become a de facto replacement but even then I think SC4 is still going to have the advantage in raw "canvas" ability and of course region play.  For now, though, it's a fun game with a ton of potential but it also has some significant flaws.  At least in its case, there's a very palpable feeling that many of those issues are going to be legitimately fixed, not just modded out.  Unfortunately, we were never able to say that about SC4.  Tale of two companies.

[packersfan 666]

It depends on what you want to do.  C:S is a game.  SC4 is an 11-year experience with a lot of customability.  SC4 is still viable.  C:S needs time to catch up.  The look isn't right, yet...but it could be.

[BlakeMW 84]

Before anyone asks, my recent misadventures with Steam for Linux are such that I've realized they are just another profit driven corporation with very few technical smarts and very little quality assurance.  As usual, they've forgotten the maxim that the system is for the end user.

 

To be fair to steam it works brilliantly with the valve software (i.e. the half life 2 series and stuff) and that software runs brilliantly on linux, it's like a showcase of how well steam and gaming can work on linux. If steam is the future of gaming on linux then the future is bright. I wouldn't want anyone going away and thinking that gaming with steam on linux is an exclusively frustrating experience - it just depends on what games you play.

[xonedl 342]

Off topic but Steam... no way. It's good if you're on places with good internet.

But sucks speed, metered internet, I don't want ANY form of DRM. All I want just double click on an exe and jump straight into a game; looking at login / loading / update dialog isn't something I like to do.

Steam the future? I rather hope no DRM for the future.

[rsc204 21,866]

Yeah Steam are all fluffy friendly gaming people, Gabe Newell is the nicest guy in the industry etc etc... Steam have a monopoly on PC gaming, if you want to stand a chance of selling, that'll be 30% thank you very much sir, nothing good ever comes from a monopoly, but gamers are so in love with Steam they all seem blind-sided to the slightly murkier reality of a very powerful corporate machine at work.

 

*rant over*

 

Having immersed myself into Skylines for the past week and speaking as a modder, I think right now the future of Skylines is very uncertain, when all the patches, updates, DLC and modding side of the game have matured the picture will be much clearer, right now though it does seem that the blueprints are there to potentially allow us to re-create with more ease and proper 3D graphics what we are doing today in SC4. However, I would caution that the two games are very different, sure the genre is the same as city builders, but fundamentally the game mechanics are totally different. If the modding tools mature (coding in C is going to be limiting for many of today's SC4 modders, myself included), so hopefully that can be addressed down the line. Building selections and props will no doubt only improve in terms of choice, but who can say what direction it will take Skylines or what we will end up with, it's an exciting prospect to think about.

 

SC4 today can be whatever you want it to be, I've spent a lot of time removing all the Maxis textures from my game, I'm moving onto the buildings and props at some point too. Many other CJ's show examples of such a relentless amount of work being ploughed into customising the game for whatever a user wants to create, right now today you can't do this in Skylines and I think it will be a while before we maybe get to that point. If that day comes, maybe SC4 becomes redundant?, but in the here and now both have their place in my mind. Skylines is wonderful fun experience, I'm really relaxing and playing a game for the first time in a long while and this is great, but SC4 allows me to do so much more if I just spend the time to make it happen, it's a lot more effort and if I'm honest rarely feels like play time any more, it's really a hobby. I certainly don't feel like I have to make a choice right now, both of these games have a place for the foreseeable future in my mind. However, a community is not built around a few, it's directed by the majority and if many people ditch SC4, ultimately it will reduce the new content being released and result in interest for SC4 waning. This would be a sad day even if we were at a point where Skylines was mature enough to take over, I just hope that it doesn't happen prematurely, the amount of work needed to really build what you want in SC4 I think is off-putting to a number of users, we see such complaints all the time. It's an interesting time to be into city builders, maybe it's better to sum this all up with the thought that right now we've just got some new toys to play with, more options can never be a bad thing, as users we ultimately can decide which of these options we wish to invest our time and efforts into, we don't have to make a choice between the two, we can enjoy both.

[BlakeMW 84]

I certainly have some gripes with the steam model, but those gripes apply equally to windows steam as linux steam. I think though that steam has helped reduce the cost of games and greatly promoted game development for linux.

Note that games distributed on steam do not have to have DRM, the developer can choose for the game to be DRM free (and some of valve's games are DRM free too - you can launch them without going through the steam client). If developers choose to have DRM it's their choice, not steam's.