A New Golden Age for SC4?

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Over the last couple of months there has been a flurry of new BATs, LOTs and other great mods. 2015 was an amazing year for new SC4 content and it has given us hardcore players even more to play with in this ever-growing sandbox. The purpose of this topic is to consider SC4's future and how with more content it assures both the game's freshness and also its future to.

Let's look at the highlights of 2015:

1. Two new NAMs! NAM 33 and 34 brought numerous flex/drag options for the RHW and the RRW, more stability, and more versatility for the NWM.

2. rsc204's Terrain Grass NAM. Changing all the road networks grass to that of the HD terrain controller of your choice, plus the vast amount of wealth texture unification is a real game-changer. It has brought a simplicity to SC4 in terms of style but also greater realism.

3. The SC4D's advent calender. A lot of cool stuff was posted and there were a whole ton of goodies- https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17189.0.

4. FrankU's Dutch parks, plazas and relotted Maxis reward content.

5. The flurry of mattb325's buildings; great mid-rise content.

6. Catalyst's T21s for the RHW which include crash barriers and stuff.

7. c.p.'s FAR industry.

{---}

There is probably more that I have overlooked but, as I said in the beginning, 2015 was a great year for new SC4 content, game-changing new content.

This year is looking promising to: kingofsimcity's car parks, rsc204's SAM 11 which is an industrial street which could be released, simmer2's relots and amazing RRW lot work, draggable/clickable TULEPs coming in the NAM 35...

I think the future of SC4 may be a lot more diagonal and FA RCI content, this will really break the grid and create the illusion of a curvy, more organic game. At any rate SC4 has never felt so fresh and interesting. Is this a new golden age for the game?

[SimCoug 5,972]

Neat topic!
... It's funny, I remember back in 2013 when SC13 was just released and many in this community were predicting the end of SC4.  Why would anybody play SC4 when the next cool thing was here?  Well, we all know how that went... And that isn't a knock on SC13... I hear it can be a fun game in certain respects, but the fact is it didn't have the 'stuff' that makes SC4 so addictive and enjoyable.  It certainly didn't lure SC4 fans away from their true love.  Fast forward about two years and Cities:Skylines is released and quickly becomes a record selling title for Paradox.  The months that followed C:S release saw an explosion of excitement from the city building community, including here on Simtropolis.  Again, there was talk about how the crown had been passed and SC4 was set to fall into the ash heap of history.  Yet here we are almost a year after C:S was released and low and behold, SC4 is still chugging along.  Not only that, but new content is dropping each week keeping the game fresh and exciting as always.  It's great!  I love it

A new Golden Age of SC4?  Who knows... with the efforts of individuals like @simmaster07 and @OrSpeeder nobody can predict where this game will be in a year.  Along with the @NAM Team and others that you listed above, I feel like there are plenty of years left on this baby.  

Anyway, cheers to another fun year of SC4 surprises! 

[His Divine Hand 244]

Yes, we can look at a few good nuggets here and there, but least not forget that we also saw the collapse of simpeg.com, activity in these neck of the woods of Simtropolis crawls along (it is barely worth my time to check the forums everyday anymore) and for all the content that SC4D released in the advent calendar special, their LEX had to be opened to the unwashed masses to get even the meager activity they had for the year prior.  There are some exciting prospects on the horizon, but nothing may come of them as attentions can be lost or real life get in the way.  So enjoy what you have, but don't get disappointed if this recent activity fades away again.

[6StringShaman 112]

I am personally really thankful for Nos.17's re lots. (Great, great stuff).

Ditto for the awesome texture pack by kingofsimcity.

Vortext is a fave creator of mine as well.

Simcoug's works is always highly anticipated.

Simmer2 is a another awesome creator.

Mattb325, need I say more.

MilatantRadical's CJ is always awe inspiring, my fave since Badsim's work.

Lnx, Schulmania, etc, etc

I would love to see a monthly, themed lotting contest.

 

I love sc4, and am ever its student.

Best,

H.

[Bombardiere 591]

4 hours ago, His Divine Hand said:

Yes, we can look at a few good nuggets here and there, but least not forget that we also saw the collapse of simpeg.com, activity in these neck of the woods of Simtropolis crawls along (it is barely worth my time to check the forums everyday anymore) and for all the content that SC4D released in the advent calendar special, their LEX had to be opened to the unwashed masses to get even the meager activity they had for the year prior.  There are some exciting prospects on the horizon, but nothing may come of them as attentions can be lost or real life get in the way.  So enjoy what you have, but don't get disappointed if this recent activity fades away again.

Off course it will fade. That is just a law of the nature. Some day someone will make a game which will the successor to SC4. And that day most of us will leave.

 

But that day is not yet here. I am really happy about the advances made. CAM 2.1, NAM 34 and SC4Fix. The last one alone is worth a party.

 

Yes, BATs and other content are not flowing as they were during the hey day, but quality what is offered now is generally high. BATteams may be history, but individual content creators still work on what they personally find interesting.

 

This development has inspired me to Bat after a break. Hopefully I can offer new content sometime soon.

 

However, there is one thing that I am worried about. Not the SC4, but 3DS MAX. Currently there is no 3DS MAX script guru among us and latest MAX versions do not work well with BAT4MAX script. I am worried if there will be day that new BATs can be made only with ages old GMAX. And that would be the end of SC4. There is a few things I would like to change in script, but I have no skill for that.

 

Anyway, I want to applause to all of those who keep the SC4 exiting and fresh.

[markussaage 762]

It was an exiting year for our beloved game 2015. A lot of new and awesome BATs were released. I am very thankful for this, it keeps this old lady alive and more interesting than ever. For now I don't think there will be another game release of a city building simulation game in the near future. C:S will be the last for a long, long time. We, that we are the hardcore SC4 gamers, we are still waiting for a newand complex city simulation game like SC4 is. But then, the variety of buildings and mods for SC4 is unreachable.

Thanks to everybody who takes time to create something new or improve something old. Let's bring our beloved game to the 20 year anniversary!!!

Kind regards!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It seems Will Wright was completely on track when he said they had programmed themselves into a corner, but what a corner!  The open-endedness of SC4 keeps my interest after all these years.  Other than logic games to keep the little grey cells hitting on all cylinders, the only other simulation game I play is Banished, which doesn't have quite as much interest for me as it will have when (if) Luke gets his native mode for Linux out the door.

SC4 plays under Linux/Wine at full speed as near as i can tell, and in any of the rendering modes (some glitches in OpenGL).  Perhaps this is due to the fact that it really isn't programmed for full multitasking but seems to use the old C trick of co-routines.  Wish we could really see under the hood.

I don't play as much as I used to because RL is getting in the way, but with any luck this whole problem will go away by the end of the summer.  Being retired, I really need something like SC4 to keep me alive and kicking.  So far I think I have just about beaten the standard game without RHW into the shape I want. 

After my current RL problems are out of the way, I may take another swipe at getting inside the world of RHW and have a try at building the Trans-Canada Highway in small pieces.  The concrete spaghetti around Toronto with the various 400 series highways, the subway, and the lakeshore/Gardner expressway might prove a life-time occupation.  Just getting Highway 420 and its intersections with the rest of the provincial stuff will be a bit of a challenge when you consider the two high level bridges at Burlington (Hamilton Harbour) then the intersection with Highway 406 and the follow out to the GTA.  The whole Ontario Golden Horseshoe might make an interesting CJ.

Special kudos to the NAM team's installer builder.  I do think a mention of the need to have a Java compiler present to run this properly would be a help in the dependencies list.  While it is optional, you really can get a much reduced controller by simply having this piece of free software.  Since all that happens in the installer is some data manipulation a native version for Apple's OS/X and a Linux version would be a great help to those of us who don't hear the beat of Microsoft's drum.  It would be a lot quicker if it ran native.

What may very well put paid to this wonderful program would be the appearance of a new type of PC that did not have the x86 decor.  My studies have shown that this is unlikely, but we've kind of come to the end of the technology insofar as chip manufacturing is concerned.  If components were any closer to each other (for speed), there would be too much coupling and the signals would become confused.  This also applies to the processor (ARM-based) used in current portables such as smart phones.  The industry needs a break through.

All in all, SC4 is one of the best, if somewhat buggy, programs around.  About the only thing that could improve it would be the release of the source code to the public (as abandonware?) which won't happen as long as one drop of milk can be had from this cash cow whose costs have surely been defrayed on EA's books.  Releasing the source would, of course, be fraught with danger since fools do indeed rush in.  I suspect the source would need lots of study before one would dare to tweak it.  Modern 'programmers' may not be able to handle the stuff that was written a couple of decades ahead of the state of practice at the time.  Good exercise for them, though.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Yes, it's awesome to see these items still being produced. There will likely never be a direct 'replacement' for SC4, as its such a limitless, unique game. As long as people are keen to explore custom content, or delve into the mechanics, the game has a bright future.

(This topic makes a great Trixies 2015 summary).

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

18 hours ago, SimCoug said:

Neat topic!
... It's funny, I remember back in 2013 when SC13 was just released and many in this community were predicting the end of SC4.  Why would anybody play SC4 when the next cool thing was here?  Well, we all know how that went... And that isn't a knock on SC13... I hear it can be a fun game in certain respects, but the fact is it didn't have the 'stuff' that makes SC4 so addictive and enjoyable.  It certainly didn't lure SC4 fans away from their true love.  Fast forward about two years and Cities:Skylines is released and quickly becomes a record selling title for Paradox.  The months that followed C:S release saw an explosion of excitement from the city building community, including here on Simtropolis.  Again, there was talk about how the crown had been passed and SC4 was set to fall into the ash heap of history.  Yet here we are almost a year after C:S was released and low and behold, SC4 is still chugging along.  Not only that, but new content is dropping each week keeping the game fresh and exciting as always.  It's great!  I love it

A new Golden Age of SC4?  Who knows... with the efforts of individuals like @simmaster07 and @OrSpeeder nobody can predict where this game will be in a year.  Along with the @NAM Team and others that you listed above, I feel like there are plenty of years left on this baby.  

Anyway, cheers to another fun year of SC4 surprises! 

I think SC4 will keep chugging along, especially if there are more years like 2015, it definitely feels like there is more momentum. Hell even the CAM has been rebooted and there is a version 2 which has been released this year. As for C:S, the modded version as of today, is an equal to SC4 but I think the hardcore community of SC4 players will be around for at least a couple more years.

That being said, in a mere 11 months the mods of C:S have accomplished a richness and variety which took SC4 at least ten years to achieve. So in terms of the ultimate city building sandbox experience SC4 does have a worthy competitor.

[Prophet42 1,501]

I think that SC4 will remain viable for a few more years to come.  New content will keep coming, but not at the pace that was seen in the past.   IMO, SC4 is middle aged - not in its prime but having obtained a richness and fullness of game play from being around so many years.  The golden age has past, but by no means is the game dead or obsolete.

My prediction would be that new content will continue to be added, but the frequency will continue to drop.  The SC4 fan base is still strong but will dwindle to minimum by the end of the decade.  Eventually, a few die hard fans will clutch to aging hardware trying to keep SC4 running. ( I plan to be one of those few).  As hardware and software advances toward 128 bit and/or quantum computing, SC4 will be left behind.

Until then, I will squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of what has been my favorite game of all time...long live SC4!!!

[Tarkus 6,932]

On 2/13/2016 at 8:45 PM, His Divine Hand said:

Yes, we can look at a few good nuggets here and there, but least not forget that we also saw the collapse of simpeg.com, activity in these neck of the woods of Simtropolis crawls along (it is barely worth my time to check the forums everyday anymore) and for all the content that SC4D released in the advent calendar special, their LEX had to be opened to the unwashed masses to get even the meager activity they had for the year prior.  There are some exciting prospects on the horizon, but nothing may come of them as attentions can be lost or real life get in the way.  So enjoy what you have, but don't get disappointed if this recent activity fades away again.

Losing SimPeg was certainly a sad point in the community last year, though the main reason for its closure wasn't because of activity levels--the forum database apparently became corrupt, and there wasn't a backup.  I think had that not happened, it might still be around.

As far as the SC4D LEX, speaking as a staff member over there, all but a small handful of the advent calendar uploads were from uploaders affiliated with the SFBT, BSC, VIP, and NUTS, who have long held LEX Certification.  While the uploads had been spread thin there for an extended period there, the vast majority of the files that have been uploaded since changing from closed uploads to an open and tiered (Certified/Non-Certified) system have still been from certified creators.  The real reason we went to open/tiered was because the previous LEX Candidacy system had become so incredibly onerous on both the candidates and the scrutineers, and was unsustainable.  The top BSC people who were overseeing it got completely burnt out, which slowed down their own content creation, and the number of uploaders/teams who made it all the way through candidacy was abysmally low.  We have a more informal process now, whereby the non-certified uploaders who continually crank out solid content are granted certification, at the discretion of the LEX Certification Committee, made up of SC4D Staff.

I do think you've hit well on the central idea though--are we looking at a quick burst, or can this be sustained into a new golden age?  It's tough to tell at this point.  The number of posts in a given day or month is a good indicator of activity levels and overall community health.  ST doesn't (to my knowledge) have a readily accessible stat line of that metric for general public usage, but we do have it over at SC4D, where the stats are almost entirely the result of SC4 activity.  The middle of 2015 was actually historically bad, but there's been a rebound from that, and January 2016's numbers were about triple that of June 2015, and more on par with 2013 numbers.  If the numbers continue to hover around there through October, I'd say yes.  

The availability of new quality content does have a profound impact on those activity levels, and the question is if the creators can keep the resurgence from late November 2015 onward throughout 2016, and beyond.  Speaking from the NAM perspective, we're going to have to be able to sustain a more frequent release schedule--things like the two-year cycle for NAM 33 can't happen again, and our ability to get NAM 35 out is going to be a good measuring stick.

The Cities: Skylines release has also had an impact, particularly since it hit during a vulnerable time for SC4--right in the midst of the aforementioned two-year gap between NAM 32 and 33.  It's been the first city sim to really seriously mount a challenge to SC4 (though personally, C:S's flaws made me appreciate SC4 more).  Simtropolis has traditionally been very welcoming to the new city sims that have been released since SC4, but the fact that CO/Paradox put all their eggs into Gabe Newell's basket has undoubtedly hampered the ability of ST to gain the same sort of traction with C:S that it got (albeit temporarily) with CXL and SC2013.  The Steam Workshop integration in C:S has basically killed the market for C:S STEX uploads, and most of the C:S discussion is running through Steam Community and Reddit.  EA's decisions with its games, such as preventing Steam from creating a Workshop for SC4, and not creating a similar service through Origin, has actually been a blessing, in terms of the continued viability of ST and SC4D as platforms for the SC4 community.

Also, retrogaming is a big thing.  I was born the same month (October 1985) that the original Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the US, and a lot of people (myself included) still enjoy playing NES games.  Nintendo's even still selling digital copies of a lot of those games through the Virtual Console service, and making easy money doing it.  SC4's maintained an active community for 13 years now--it's definitely entered "classic" territory and that fact can help keep things going.

-Tarkus

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Losing Simpeg was a bummer, the saddest part is the little files that were lost with some of the posts in the various BAT/LOT development threads. Another loss would be the coal and lumber cheatsheets. I wonder if they can be restored, surely someone must have downloaded all the items?

But I do think the recent spike in activity in both Simtropolis and SC4D occurred due to a spike in BAT/LOT development. And Tarkus, you make a good point about the STEX being rendered obsolete for C:S files when there is the Steam Workshop. If it were not the case then there would be more activity on Simtropolis as the modding community of C:S may have used Simtropolis for development threads and discussion.

[GoKingsGo 342]

Well said Ln X.  RL often gets in the way but I can remember many times in 2015 while at work or school thinking "I can't wait to get home and finish this neighborhood or redesign that part of downtown"

 

There's a natural ebb and flow to SC4 interest, but with the great new content and mods we've seen, it definitely sparks that interest up again. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

18 hours ago, Ln X said:

I think SC4 will keep chugging along, especially if there are more years like 2015, it definitely feels like there is more momentum. Hell even the CAM has been rebooted and there is a version 2 which has been released this year. As for C:S, the modded version as of today, is an equal to SC4 but I think the hardcore community of SC4 players will be around for at least a couple more years.

That being said, in a mere 11 months the mods of C:S have accomplished a richness and variety which took SC4 at least ten years to achieve. So in terms of the ultimate city building sandbox experience SC4 does have a worthy competitor.

Considering that much of the C:S community came from SC4, it is not terribly surprising that modding for it proceeded as a frenetic pace.  Unfortunately, it needs later hardware than I have, so I will have to wait until I get a new machine to try it out.

[TekindusT 3,809]

It can be a golden age or not, but one fact is sure: the community is keeping up and strong 13 years after the game was released. Even myself I took a long SC4 hiatus due to the Windows 10 update and last week got SC4 from Steam to keep playing it. The new content releases, especially at the LEX, had much to do to this situation. 

I won't say C:S is dead to me, or that C:S is a flash in the pan. C:S is now facing the same situation SC4 faced on its first years of life, in which the users demanded even more and more from it until the RH pack and the BAT were released. It will still take several years until it reaches a cult status, which I'm sure it will sooner or later, whether its current technical flaws are fixed or not (SC4 has many of them and we still play with it). This doesn't mean that we will all turn our backs to C:S to go back to SC4, there is space in the community for both and I feel some of us enjoy both games at different levels, fulfilling different needs and playing styles. 

About the Steam Workshop in front of the STEX, I will keep repeating something I said in other posts I wrote a few months after C:S was released. We Simtropolites have to accept not being (at) the core of the city-building community anymore. Much, much of the discussion about C:S is held outside of ST, in Reddit, at the Workshop, in YouTube or in dedicated sites. This doesn't mean that ST should keep a low-profile regarding C:S. Sooner or later, the same hardcore fans that remain, will head to ST to find the discussion needs that will eventually slow down in other sites. And I'm sure SC4 will see an influx of new users eager to discover new, 13-year-old, city-building experiences outside C:S.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I agree with everybody, but I came here just to report a guy who was deceiving us all this time, I believe mattb325 is not just a guy, but a team, and it means Matt All Time to Bat 325, I believe 325 means 325 BATs until they reach to the world power. It is humanly impossible to release so many amazing BATs in such a little time. ST moderators should create a forum to mattb325 team. Thank you.

[rsc204 21,808]

I think certainly during 2015 at times it was gloomy in the community at large. That's why the momentum towards the end of the year has been so significant. It's tangible and I'm sure a number of people, myself included find it easy to latch onto the momentum.

But if content drives the community forward, what is driving the creators of such? I always find it hard to get into this, because I worry anything I say is seen as negative or a slur upon people. But there is a reality that if you continually post updates and spend many hours on projects, sometimes just the smallest little comment like "that's cool" or "more of this please" can make all the difference in keeping you motivated to continue.

I really don't like the system of "liking" things in this regard, I fear it takes away much of the discussion that used to take place instead. Sure one can click "like this" on every post here, but that doesn't really convey much, it's cold and unfriendly. Imagine this topic with no replies or discussion, just a load of "like this " clicks. I dunno, perhaps I'm too stuck in my ways to adapt to the "Facebook" generation, but this kind of communication really doesn't resonate with me. Now try to keep focused on some really big projects, with no feedback and little help and sometimes it does get a bit too much. In my case, I guess I just enjoy modding, probably more than I do playing. Fixing stuff and creating is something I just naturally drifted into. I'm not complaining, so much as trying to state that if we want more content, we as a community need to help enable it. I know we're all short of time, but as I said, sometimes just a little comment, even if it's not that meaningful helps to keep creators focussed on what they are doing. I see many development threads that are almost completely devoid of comment and read more like a blog. By comparison, take this thread as an example of where the conversation goes when people are actively discussing things. Such discussion spurs development and sometimes brings stuff about entirely. So I encourage all those people who lurk to consider making an extra effort to support those providing not only the content, but great MDs/CJs and keeping things running for the benefit of all. The more of us involved in the community, the stronger the whole.

Whatever the future holds though, I think one thing is certain to me. Like many others here I have not met the game that surpasses SC4. I have no plans to go anywhere and I'm stubbornly going to jump through whatever hoops I must to keep going. This idea of a game that surpasses all others in a given genre is not a new concept. I can name a few titles that never had an equal, each of these continues with a dedicated following long past all reason. Something about the changes in how games are produced leads me to believe we are a long way from a time when a worthy rival could appear. I'm sorry CS fans, there is a lot of good stuff going on, but there are flaws that will have IMO a profoundly more limiting effect on how far it can be pushed in future. The full 3D problem is going to be a huge issue for quality in CS, one that no amount of throwing money at components can easily solve. For all it's flaws (it's not intrinsically buggy IMO), SC4 has a huge advantage here. A building I'm working on has over 1,000,000 polys, despite being a small shop. The level of detail I can put into my models is simply impossible with CS. It's why I have no desire to move on, I still feel SC4 offers the best tools to create. So long as this remains the case, I hope to be churning out content, even if not at the speed of some others...

6 minutes ago, JP Schriefer said:

I agree with everybody, but I came here just to report a guy who was deceiving us all this time, I believe mattb325 is not just a guy, but a team, and it means Matt All Time to Bat 325, I believe 325 means 325 BATs until they reach to the world power. It is humanly impossible to release so many amazing BATs in such a little time. ST moderators should create a forum to mattb325 team. Thank you.

LOL - Yes the work of some like Mattb325 and C.P. is something I'm envious of too :P. I only wish I could churn out consistently quality work, whilst making it look like it's on a production line! Still, I have an advantage here despite MattB325 being ahead of me... I only need 204 releases for world domination, so to Matt, I'm coming for you ;).

[mattb325 28,880]

53 minutes ago, JP Schriefer said:

I agree with everybody, but I came here just to report a guy who was deceiving us all this time, I believe mattb325 is not just a guy, but a team, and it means Matt All Time to Bat 325, I believe 325 means 325 BATs until they reach to the world power. It is humanly impossible to release so many amazing BATs in such a little time. ST moderators should create a forum to mattb325 team. Thank you.

I like it! Or could it be one BAT for every personality....we'll just never know

[Haljackey 17,302]

A new golden age?

 

I think timeless may be a better word to use in the not to distant future. Not many games become timeless, but after being out for more than a decade, I think it's getting to this point. The fact that it doesn't have a true sequel or franchise killer (Skylines went for a somewhat different perspective) supports this even more.

 

I don't think there's a true definition or criteria for timeless games to meet, but if SC4 is still going strong 15 years after it's release then I might call it so. It's a game that's old but will still be considered fun to play. The fact that there may be 2 games in this franchise that might be so well recognized is an even rarer feat (the original SimCity being the other).

 

Every once and a while many people get the yearning to play a city building game. What will be the game they will play? The games that have had the most recognition over the years. I think SC4 qualifies.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, the march of technology (Moore's Conjecture) may someday put an end to SC4 on current equipment, but there will always be x86 emulators about.  @Haljackey talks about timelessness.  Could well be.  You'll know if you ever get a tablet that does nothing but run SC4 and connect to the repositories.

Timeless games or human amusements: Go (China/Japan), Chess (Ancient Mesopotamia), wrestling (Ancient Greece and other countries with special forms), fencing (war games in general), blood sports (Ancient gladiators, Bull Fighting, American Football, ...).  One could go on, but these come immediately to mind.

One thing about SC4 is that it is non-competitive.  It is a mental exercise in problem solving with a tangible result on your monitor.

[SimCoug 5,972]

6 hours ago, JP Schriefer said:

I agree with everybody, but I came here just to report a guy who was deceiving us all this time, I believe mattb325 is not just a guy, but a team, and it means Matt All Time to Bat 325, I believe 325 means 325 BATs until they reach to the world power. It is humanly impossible to release so many amazing BATs in such a little time. ST moderators should create a forum to mattb325 team. Thank you.

But what happens when he (or they) reach the world power?!?  I'm excited but slightly nervous about what global cataclysm will be unleashed... will it be good or evil?  The world waits with nervous anticipation...  

[blunder 1,079]

2 minutes ago, SimCoug said:

But what happens when he (or they) reach the world power?!?  I'm excited but slightly nervous about what global cataclysm will be unleashed... will it be good or evil?  The world waits with nervous anticipation...  

They're going to do things with splines that will make a grown man cry.  Forget the simple reticulation.....

[DavidDHetzel 1,816]

I've been wanting to bring this up for a while, but never could really find the right time to say something.

2015 had several I am a huge fan of retail architecture and it's been great to see @nos.17 work to bring back Bobbo's work, but 2015 never really had a lot of new retail buildings, yes you had Nos doing relots and @mattb325 with the occasional building, but I would love to see some more new stuff in the next year or so.


I would learn BAT, but I am not sure my computer could handle rendering BAT's at all.

[OrSpeeder 72]

Well, the march of technology (Moore's Conjecture) may someday put an end to SC4 on current equipment, but there will always be x86 emulators about.  @Haljackey talks about timelessness.  Could well be.  You'll know if you ever get a tablet that does nothing but run SC4 and connect to the repositories.

I would like to point out that SC4 unfortunately was released at the "wrong" time for this, the game was aiming to run in Pentium4, it is extremely CPU intensive, and the newest Intel CPUs, are only 3 times as fast as the Pentium 4 was in single-core performance, after 14 years, it is clear that Moore's Law is slowing down, and soon it probably will stall completely.

The smallest transistor that can be made, if you could use exactly 3 atoms of width, would be 5 nm, AMD is releasing a 14nm CPU this year, and IBM is working on a 7nm one, 14 years from now on, it is probable taht the CPUs will be like only twice as fast as today ones, this is still not fast enough to emulate SimCity 4

This also applies to many other games of the same era (Kotor for example), also back then CPUs and GPUs had many changes that now are coming back to bite (example: RDTSC assembly instruction counted CPU cycles, but now it returns the value of a arbitrary frequency chip).

Our only hope for games of that era, is ensure they work in new hardware somehow, without emulation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I don't think that Moore's Conjecture (not a 'law' because it makes no specific predictions) will slow down with respect to technology in general.  The computer technology using present thinking is reaching its limit simply because of the failure of ever smaller circuitry to operate correctly mostly due to component coupling.  If IBM's 7 nm toy works without drastic cooling to the area of 3 - 4^oK I'll be surprised.  Remember the Josephson Junction.  Seen any lately?

[Bastet69008 1,102]

Back to what has been said previously, it's been 13 years already..I've been playing SC4 for 10 years, maybe a little bit more. At several points I stopped playing and was saying to myself, ''I'm done, I'm gonna try something else'', then a friend of mine told me there was a community doing mods for the game, I discovered mods, bats, maps and tons of things that were so exciting. Then I discovered, the Lot Editor, the SC4 Mapper and we started to have major projects through the NAM team and the BAT teams.

Sure we lost some great Batters like SimFox, SimGoober, but we found new ones. And we keep discovering new talents.

But what makes SC4 special is beyond the content itself. I don't know about you guys, but this game has changed my life. Could I say the same thing about other classic games like Age of Empires, Call of Duty, GTA or Mario Kart? I don't think so. I discovered a new passion for the ecosystem that surrounds SimCity4 in real life; Urban planning. SC4 helped me understand the things that surround us and have an impact on our everyday lives. I started to ask myself questions on the way we build cities, the way we manage them and try to make a better life for the people that inhabit them. That might sound very naive, but when you see that actual schools and universities used this game as a teaching tool to introduce students to real world issues, you understand that this games transcends the simple fact of making a nice city full of skyscrapers.

SC4 has entered a Golden Age a long time ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZZx5lnj0Fk

 

[elavery 1,013]

The Rio 2016 project will hopefully provide some impetus to the community this year. The team is hard at work to meet the Olympic deadline.

[FooFox 8]

Haven't touched Simcity 4 yet in a while, but I was heavily addicted to it when I played it, and I'm returning back to it (maybe I shouldn't start again haha)
I was reading this thread, and I to played Simcity 2013 for a while.

Current gaming trends is aimed specific at the larger audience.
Making money is the driving force for the gaming industry.

Making a game to a specific smaller audience doesn't happen. These days that strategy doesn't even occur to big game developers.
In fact, such aproach in the game industry is probably on the "not to do" strategy list on the right hand side of their companies whiteboard.
Simcity 4 is a never ending Sandbox game, it's real aim is that of simulating a city. Not necessarily fully realistic, but with lots of knobs and whistles and has a large learning curve.
You really need that devotion, driving force to learn and have a creative mindset to play Simcity 4.
Many people seem to have that, because as I see there are still many people playing Simcity 4.

Simcity 2013 is like most other games these days, a marketing product, not with a goal in terms of realism, sandbox freedom and plugin freedom.
Rather it's a product for a audience that seems to get dumbed down more by the day. These are people who want to make a city, and they want some form of effort involved, but not to the point of spending more then a day on it. It's more important to make it work in a cooperative online environment, so people can take pictures of each others city, have fun and obtaining achievements the same day, rather then spending a week on it or more. This is why SC13 may appeal to a greater audience, and I don't even know that for fact, I haven't searched for any figures. But it's what the gaming industry prioritizes with all the consequences as a result.
These gamers (Target audience) are the same people who want to play a city simulation game, and want their results within a several hour time span, after which they put in their shooter game where they'll prefer to grind the next few hours of their precious day, rather then sitting creatively behind their monitor to create a boundless city environment.

Simcity 4 is audience specific!
In my gut feeling, the only reason Simcity 4 was ever created is because at some point in the past it was yet uncertain which aspects of a game would involve a greatest result in reaching the larger target audience. A real learning curve kind of simulation game was at some point in the past a test, and it succeeded in reaching a great target audience nonetheless. But the same appliances of trendy game aspects like cooperative play that more applies to a online shooter are misused in other game genres like a simulation game where they do not belong. This is eventually a by product of the narrowly guided vision within the corporate gaming industry.

And as long as that environment within the gaming industry persists, you will never ever see a new competitor for Simcity 4. So dont wait for it, be happy with what you got.

The future might even be more gruesome.
Because if this trend continues, Simcity 2017 (assuming we get one) a new city simulation game will be  exempt from financial columns, graphs and sliders altogether, just to play to the tune of the mindset of the average double digit iq gamer.
As for SC4, I hope it will live on for a long, long time.
According to the devotion of modders as stated by the TS in recent days, I do not fear theres ever going to be a moment where SC4 becomes obsolete.
 

[SimCoug 5,972]

14 hours ago, Bastet69008 said:

SC4 has entered a Golden Age a long time ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZZx5lnj0Fk

Aaaah yes, Sheldonopolis.  I would love to see a CJ by Sheldon.  He would probably have a good City flag.  

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah I agree with what's been said (from a BATing perspective). The number of BATers and BATs has gone down but quality has generally gone up. Even people who are new and just starting out are learning are doing pretty good. 

On my end, this year I'll be releasing one super awesome BAT which I anticipate will be the best BAT I have/will ever make, along with a handful of more ordinary BATs.