Poppy Multiplayer Regions for SC4

[jmak 56]

Hello,

Over the last few weeks I have been developing a multiplayer region system for SimCity 4, which I have named Poppy Multiplayer Regions (PMR). Now that it has reached the Release Candidacy stage, I would like to share it all with you.

You can register for an account and download the second release candidate of the PMR Launcher at http://getpmr.com/

Of course, you probably do not trust programs from unknown developers. So, I have also provided the Python source code at https://github.com/cizmic/pmr-client for you to review and run.

What makes PMR different from Dropbox regions?

Primitive multiplayer regions have been explored in SimCity 4 for quite some time in the form of shared Dropbox directories. While they worked most of the time, these regions had three major flaws:

• No city permissions. There was no real way of protecting one's saves from others, since Dropbox regions were typically configured to handle permissions only at the directory level. As a result, most regions were strictly private.
• Adjacent save overwriting. In every save operation, SimCity 4 doesn't just modify the current tile, but also the adjacent tiles. Because of this, it was previously impossible for two players to play in adjacent cities at the same time.
• Complicated setup. This isn't such an issue for powerusers, but configuring SimCity 4 to run from the Dropbox path was tricky for many newer players.

PMR overcomes all of these issues by having a server and launcher that are specifically designed for SimCity 4 regions. I have attached a diagram that shows how the saving system allows for city permissions and adjacent playing.

How to try PMR out

If you want to try out Poppy Multiplayer Regions, just follow these steps:

1. Register for an account at http://getpmr.com/join
2. Download the launcher from the PMR website, or download from the STEX
3. Install and launch the client. Then, connect to a region and log in with your PMR account.

The PMR Launcher does all of the synchronization and launching for you. You can view the Readme file that installs with the launcher for more information.

How permissions work in PMR

PMR uses what is known as a claims system. In this system, you can only edit cities that you have claimed. All other saves will be ignored by the server. To claim an unoccupied tile, just save it; you can find unoccupied tiles in the Launcher Map that pops up whenever you connect to a region.

Choose wisely -- you can only claim one tile per region, and you can't abandon a claim.

What's next?

PMR is still a work in progress -- the launcher is still a Release Candidate. I've ironed out most of the kinks, but there still might be some small bugs and errors. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could try out the launcher and give me feedback to improve it.

So far, there is only one region ("Anise") that consists of 36 large tiles. I'm not sure how quickly this will fill up, but when it does I will expand it or add another region.

A note on plugins

PMR synchronizes plugins, and I've included my Underwater Ferry Connectors in the Anise plugins set to demonstrate this. Since redistributing others' plugins requires explicit permission, I am wondering if anybody is interested in having their plugins added to the Anise region.

Thanks, and have fun!

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

2 hours ago, jcizmic said:

Poppy Multiplayer Regions (PMR)

This sounds delightfully interesting. I'm following your topic to see how it goes. (As an aside, and only if you agree, I feel this thread might get more exposure in the SimCity 4 General Discussion forum and I could move it there if you want.)

 

2 hours ago, jcizmic said:

I have attached a diagram that shows how the saving system allows for city permissions and adjacent playing.

I understand how one would not want their claimed tile to be overwritten, but at some point doesn't each tile need to know about the adjacent tiles for demand, population demographics, neighbor connections, and such? (This is just me not understanding how it works if there is no shared regional data.)

 

2 hours ago, jcizmic said:

I am wondering if anybody is interested in having their plugins added to the Anise region.

I'm not a prolific modder, but I do have a couple of files on the STEX as well as handful scattered about as post attachments. You are welcome to use and distribute any of my stuff in any way that you find useful. The one I'd recommend if there will be farming regions is my Cori's Friendly Pedriana's Plants Killer. Ones I've attached to posts include a No Maxis Dirt Farms (this simply prevents the two all dirt looking farm fields from spawning), No Kickout Lower Wealth (this gives players control over when lower wealth properties get upgraded to a new wealth level without having to make everything historical), and AgPay5x (which just makes the income from farms be 5 times more than it would be otherwise). I personally use the extra farm income one so I can afford Maxis fire and health coverage in low density farming tiles. If any of these 3 are of interest to you, I can just send you a copy of them. They are all tiny files.

I also have several maps on the STEX which can be rendered from grayscale with this one being my best. It combines rolling hills terrain with flattened terraces which are ideal to build on.

Again, if you should happen to want to use anything I've contributed here on ST, feel free to just use it.

[jmak 56]

52 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I could move it there if you want.

Thanks, that would be a great idea! I thought about posting it there as well but I wasn’t sure since I’m quite new to Simtropolis. I would greatly appreciate the increased exposure since a steady amount of players will make this project great.

By the way, I encourage you to try PMR if you regularly play SimCity 4 — since the region is new you’d have first pickings  

52 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

but at some point doesn't each tile need to know about the adjacent tiles for demand, population demographics, neighbor connections, and such?

That’s a good point, which is why PMR doesn’t interfere with this. Local copies of the region can be freely read and even modified, but the unauthorized saves will not be pushed to other clients. So the adjacent tiles are still accessible, it’s just that they won’t be overwritten.

52 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Again, if you should happen to want to use anything I've contributed here on ST, feel free to just use it.

That sounds like a great idea. I’ll probably update the Anise plugin set soon. Again, thanks so much for the support!

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

5 minutes ago, jcizmic said:

I thought about posting it there as well

We'd get all kinds of upset if you posted it twice! (Just kidding about getting upset, but yeah, just one place for a new topic is best so all replies are in the one thread.)

 

6 minutes ago, jcizmic said:

By the way, I encourage you to try PMR if you regularly play SimCity 4

I'm quite intrigued by this, but I'll just watch from the sidelines. (I have a few other zillion projects on my plate.)

 

And with that, I'll try not to sidetrack your topic any further. Good luck!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

20 hours ago, jcizmic said:

you can only claim one tile per region, and you can't abandon a claim.

This is an interesting tool for a facet of the game I have long wondered about.

I see problems with the restrictions. First you require as many players as there are cities. The tool would be more flexible (fit more playing cases) if players could request, trade or earn additional cities. Second, real life can happen, causing players to drop out. A certain percentage may play once and never show again. A player, sysadmin or inactivity should be able to release claims.

If I'd been in on the initial brainstorming for this tool, my suggestion would have been to emulate a software project config management app (e.g. Subversion or git). A region would have a project leader or sysadmin who could deal with issues like departed developers or having more cities than developers. Players could check-out cities, work on them, and then check them back in (including the neighboring cities that get updated).

And that's something else that puzzles me: If you discard the neighbors being saved, then connections and deals will not match across borders. In fact, without matched connections, deals would become difficult to impossible. Some of the interactions between cities require that the neighbor's clock runs and that commuters, trash etc (or the need for such) reaches those connections.

Maybe what I am imagining is something like what you listed as being too technically challenging for most players (and having other problems). What I'd really like to see is a client-server setup where the region and its plugins reside on a file-server that multiple clients can connect to, and which would manage city ownership and neighbor-save collisions. That would be really cool.

[jmak 56]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

A player, sysadmin or inactivity should be able to release claims.

Although I never mentioned it, the server is set up to release claims after 30 days of inactivity. I'm very interested in the concept of earning and trading claims as you mentioned, and I would like to integrate something like that with the server. This system is by no means a finished product, I just wanted to share it early on so I could get helpful feedback (like yours!)

I also agree about the 1 tile per player rule being quite restrictive, some others have mentioned it as well. I will try to fix that soon once I have a solution I'm happy with.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

If you discard the neighbors being saved, then connections and deals will not match across borders. In fact, without matched connections, deals would become difficult to impossible. Some of the interactions between cities require that the neighbor's clock runs and that commuters, trash etc (or the need for such) reaches those connections.

These are good points, and concerns that I had starting this project. However, I found that neighbor connections still work well in this system. In fact, even when adjacent tile data is ignored, I have seen neighbor connections persist -- I don't know if this is caused by a caching glitch in the game, or perhaps neighbor connection data is stored in and loaded from the central tile as well.

In any case, neighbor connections can still be established. Although the adjacent tile changes are ignored remotely, they will still exist on the local copy of the region until the player does a full manual refresh. So, one could run the game clock on a neighboring tile (even one that they don't have permission to edit) and work with the neighbor deals.

Of course this isn't perfect, but it seems to be the only viable compromise since keeping adjacent tile saves would prevent everybody from building next to each other. I suppose that there could be some temporary locking system in place to ensure that concurrent adjacent tile saving doesn't ever happen, but I'm afraid that would just impose more limits on players.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

What I'd really like to see is a client-server setup where the region and its plugins reside on a file-server that multiple clients can connect to, and which would manage city ownership and neighbor-save collisions. That would be really cool.

I think that would be amazing, too! I have a very similar vision for PMR as development progresses. I appreciate your thoughts on this matter, especially the permissions system (since designing that can be tricky). 

[velrox 39]

having a problem: when i connect to the region, i don't see the region i loaded, and the multiplayer region doesn't appear anywhere.

and a new region with 16 medium tiles?

[jmak 56]

5 hours ago, velrox said:

having a problem: when i connect to the region, i don't see the region i loaded, and the multiplayer region doesn't appear anywhere.

and a new region with 16 medium tiles?

Sorry to hear the launcher isn't working for you. It appears that something is going wrong with the config.bmp file, or maybe the launcher is not extracting the files properly.

Did the launcher report any errors during the connection process? I would try deleting the Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR folder and running the launcher again as an administrator, if possible. 

If that doesn't work, could you try copying the region from (Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR\Regions) to your regular regions folder (Documents\SimCity 4\Regions) and seeing if it works when you load SimCity 4 normally?

Again, I'm sorry about these types of errors -- given the finicky nature of SimCity 4 it's very difficult to test for these issues beforehand. As such I greatly appreciate your patience and helpful feedback!

[velrox 39]

i deleted the folder, but it's not working.

i copied the region, and ran the region in normal mode, and i found it.

when i ran the region on PMR mode, and i claimed the tile, but the launcher didn't recongize it.

seems the launcher is filled with bugs.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

20 hours ago, jmak said:

Although the adjacent tile changes are ignored remotely, they will still exist on the local copy of the region until the player does a full manual refresh.

At which point the neighbor would lose all of its population (with knock-on effects for the economy in my local copy of the region).

Here's an idea: If a player can run a budget surplus (and perhaps some other positive metrics) in a city for some number of consecutive months, then s/he may be allowed to claim one of that city's neighbors to annex into his/her collection. Once a player "owns" neighboring cities, then neither need be ignored when the other is saved.

[jmak 56]

9 hours ago, velrox said:

i deleted the folder, but it's not working.

i copied the region, and ran the region in normal mode, and i found it.

when i ran the region on PMR mode, and i claimed the tile, but the launcher didn't recongize it.

seems the launcher is filled with bugs.

Yeah, there have been quite a few bugs with the SimCity 4 run code on the launcher. I was able to reproduce your problem (two blank regions) when the "UserDir" flag was incorrectly passed to the SimCity 4 executable, so I think that is what's happening. The fact that the launcher is otherwise downloading regions correctly supports this theory as well.

Could you try downloading a new special build of the launcher (from https://github.com/cizmic/pmr-client/releases/download/rc3/launcher-rc3-hotfix1.zip) and trying that out? You don't have to install it; just extract it anywhere and run "pmrclient.exe" I revamped the problematic code so it should work correctly now.

If it doesn't, I would greatly appreciate it if you would let me know. Thanks again for reporting this issue: this part of the program is very tricky to test, so your feedback is very helpful!

5 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

At which point the neighbor would lose all of its population (with knock-on effects for the economy in my local copy of the region).

Here's an idea: If a player can run a budget surplus (and perhaps some other positive metrics) in a city for some number of consecutive months, then s/he may be allowed to claim one of that city's neighbors to annex into his/her collection. Once a player "owns" neighboring cities, then neither need be ignored when the other is saved.

Good point regarding neighbor tile resets. Looking at it this way, you're right that the player would be at the mercy of their neighboring claims, since the only way the connections would be useful is if neighbors explicitly collaborated. I like the idea of earning extra tiles, especially surrounding ones -- it reminds me of a similar mechanic in C:S that is quite popular.

I think that we will certainly want to steer to a system closer to that in future releases -- I really like your ideas! Though for the time being I have to squash these pesky launcher bugs (I just realized that I was using a problematic subprocess library). At least the server software is looking pretty watertight so far...

[velrox 39]

a bug? i claimed a tile, but PMR keeps claiming that the tile was claimed, when the tile isn't.

[jmak 56]

51 minutes ago, velrox said:

a bug? i claimed a tile, but PMR keeps claiming that the tile was claimed, when the tile isn't.

First, I'm glad to hear the launcher could get the region loaded! Yes, it looks like you found another bug -- according to the server logs, the center (unoccupied) tile was never pushed for some reason. I'm suspecting it's because of file event handling differences between computers.

Can you try this newest build (https://github.com/cizmic/pmr-client/releases/download/rc3/launcher-rc3-hotfix2.zip) and let me know if it works? Fingers crossed, I think I've finally squashed all the major bugs here.

As always, thanks so so much for your patience! 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

I'm using the Gog.com version.  Tried everything suggested here.   I've got the launcher and updated to the rc3-hotfix2.  I claimed a city, but its not connecting to the launcher/server. 

[jmak 56]

4 hours ago, RandyE said:

I'm using the Gog.com version.  Tried everything suggested here.   I've got the launcher and updated to the rc3-hotfix2.  I claimed a city, but its not connecting to the launcher/server. 

That's interesting, thanks for the report. If I understand correctly, SimCity 4 launches into the "[PMR] Anise" region and the Launcher Map opens, but the launcher isn't recognizing your claims?

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

10 minutes ago, jmak said:

but the launcher isn't recognizing your claims?

I wasn't sure if a city was supposed to be claimed within the launcher or within the game, so I claimed a city in the game, I started a 4th city in the corner with the other 3 that have been started.   I supposed once I start a city it is then 'named' in the folder and that's how the launcher knows a claim has been made?  

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎15 at 12:52 AM, jmak said:

If that doesn't work, could you try copying the region from (Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR\Regions) to your regular regions folder (Documents\SimCity 4\Regions) and seeing if it works when you load SimCity 4 normally?

However, I had followed the suggestion above, so could it be that the launcher is now looking in the wrong folder to find a 'claimed' city?     I'm going to try again by moving the folder back to the _PMR folder with the city I claimed in it.   That should work I suppose, but then will I have to constantly shift folders back and forth?

[jmak 56]

23 minutes ago, RandyE said:

However, I had followed the suggestion above, so could it be that the launcher is now looking in the wrong folder to find a 'claimed' city?     I'm going to try again by moving the folder back to the _PMR folder with the city I claimed in it.   That should work I suppose, but then will I have to constantly shift folders back and forth?

Sorry for the confusion, I only suggested moving the regions to test whether the launcher was setting everything up correctly. (In your case, it seems to be)

The launcher should, in fact, launch SimCity 4 on its own and point to the Anise region in the actual "_PMR" folder -- it only looks in there for updates. You shouldn't have to switch the files manually, since the launcher should run SimCity 4 automatically so that it points to the "_PMR" directory.

When you connect to a region, does the launcher automatically start SimCity 4 for you? If so, then you can try claiming a city normally since it should all be set up correctly. If not, then does the launcher give you any error? I'm not familiar with GOG so maybe your SimCity 4.exe file is located in another directory -- if that's the case you can tell the launcher where it is under "SC4 Settings..." from the main launcher screen

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

17 minutes ago, jmak said:

I'm not familiar with GOG so maybe your SimCity 4.exe file is located in another directory

I can only say on Win 7 Pro mine's here:

Hope that helps.

[jmak 56]

8 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I can only say on Win 7 Pro mine's here:

Hope that helps.

Thanks, that helps a ton!

So RandyE I would try setting the SimCity 4 executable path (from the "SC4 Settings..." in the launcher) to the following:

C:\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe

Of course if you installed it to somewhere else then you can adjust that path accordingly. Now that I know about the default GOG location, I'll add that to the set of paths that PMR automatically searches for future releases. Thanks again!

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

1 minute ago, jmak said:

Thanks, that helps a ton!

You're welcome. Perhaps you can add that to some search path during the initial install of your whatever-it-is part of your program.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

15 minutes ago, jmak said:

You shouldn't have to switch the files manually,

Everything seems setup correct, the SC4 exe is opening, showing 2 claimed cities by name.  The login and server connection is okay.  The launcher is not using the Regions in the "_PMR" folder.   When SC4 opens the Anise is not there.   I moved Anise to the regular Regions folder, claimed a city, then moved the files back to the "_PMR" folder.  The launcher then indicated that it was 'pushing' the save.    Following that there seemed to be a hang-up and I had to close everything to get back control of the web browser.  

I can try pointing the launcher to the regular Regions folder instead of the "_PMR" folder, but I'll have to make backups of everything and set a system restore point.    The other option is to get it working as you intend, that is, that the "_PMR" folder is recognized and used. 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

13 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Hope that helps.

Thanks Cori,  I've simply re-installed SC4 to the root directory in C:\    I use the game so much it may as well have its place of honor as C:\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe.  It makes it easier for the hackers to find it too.     

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

2 minutes ago, RandyE said:

I've simply re-installed SC4 to the root directory in C:\

Well there you go. Hiding it right out in the open where no one can find it.

[jmak 56]

12 minutes ago, RandyE said:

The launcher is not using the Regions in the "_PMR" folder.   When SC4 opens the Anise is not there.

Okay, so this seems to be the heart of the issue. The launcher should have launched SC4 with a "UserDir" flag so it opens the _PMR\Regions, not the usual one. Looking at the source code, it appears this is caused by the "UserDir" flag being escaped one too many times.

I think I've corrected this issue with this third hotfix (https://github.com/cizmic/pmr-client/releases/download/rc3/launcher-rc3-hotfix3.zip). If you could try that one out I would greatly appreciate it 

21 minutes ago, RandyE said:

The launcher then indicated that it was 'pushing' the save.    Following that there seemed to be a hang-up and I had to close everything to get back control of the web browser.  

The reason this happened is because you moved all the files back, so the launcher detected changes in every city in the region. The launcher isn't that smart, so it was trying to upload every single city in the region, haha  I've checked the server and everything is okay, so no worries.

Fingers crossed, hope this latest build works!! (If worse comes to worse you'd have to add the UserDir flag manually to your shortcut which isn't horribly tedious but let's see if we can get automatic working first)

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

Me again. This time I'm not sure if this is useful or not.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

I was having a hard time getting the AV to allow pmrclient.exe to run as a stand-alone -even after unblocking it, so I copied all the files from 'launcher-rc3-hotfix3' to the 'PMR Launcher' folder, then the AV allowed it to run, but now its not automatically loading SC4.   The locations are set right.   Maybe update the whole package as an installer?

[jmak 56]

31 minutes ago, RandyE said:

I was having a hard time getting the AV to allow pmrclient.exe to run as a stand-alone -even after unblocking it, so I copied all the files from 'launcher-rc3-hotfix3' to the 'PMR Launcher' folder, then the AV allowed it to run, but now its not automatically loading SC4.   The locations are set right.   Maybe update the whole package as an installer?

Hmm. The copying shouldn't be an issue, I just think that latest build messed up with launching the game (I guess the flags needed to be double-escaped after all). I'm suspecting these wild differences in flag passing behavior between Steam copies of SimCity 4 and other versions has to do with the DRM that Steam is injecting. Unfortunately I can't be 100% sure since I don't have a DRM-free version of the game currently installed on my computer.

I do have some old SC4 disks however, which should behave just like the GOG version since there's no DRM involved as far as I know. I'll try installing that and testing it out; will keep you posted.

In the meantime, you could always try setting the multiplayer region path manually by editing the launch flags for SimCity 4. You can duplicate the shortcut and append the following to the Target field (under Properties):

-UserDir:"C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR\" 

If you launch SimCity 4 that way, it should run in the _PMR folder and the launcher will recognize saves if it's open. Thanks

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

Okay so if everything IS working on the STEAM version, then this is all about getting it to work with the Gog version, so I'll take everything we've covered so far (Including using -UserDir:"C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR\")  and start from scratch where the launcher does auto load SC4, then work forward from there.   The launcher did actually attempt to push the saves, and it does seem to be connecting and refreshing/receiving okay.  Bottom line is, it will work once everything is configured correctly.

[jmak 56]

30 minutes ago, RandyE said:

Okay so if everything IS working on the STEAM version, then this is all about getting it to work with the Gog version, so I'll take everything we've covered so far (Including using -UserDir:"C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\SimCity 4\_PMR\")  and start from scratch where the launcher does auto load SC4, then work forward from there.   The launcher did actually attempt to push the saves, and it does seem to be connecting and refreshing/receiving okay.  Bottom line is, it will work once everything is configured correctly.

That's correct! I just tested out the launcher on a non-DRM version of SC4 (which should behave closer to the GOG version) and it seems to work. I think you were right about needing a proper setup, so I bundled the latest hotfix into an installer. You can get it from https://github.com/cizmic/pmr-client/releases/download/rc3/launcher-rc3-hotfix4.zip

(To be extra sure, I suppose you could delete the "SimCity 4\PMR Launcher" directory before running it so everything is 100% fresh)

Hopefully the SC4 opening will work this time! If not, at least we know that the flags need to be escaped in a certain way before SC4 will even let itself launch. Even if we can't call the SC4 process directly, I could always explore some other methods (such as launching from an autogenerated batch file or shortcut as I described earlier).

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

So far so good.   I have to launch SC4 manually after launching PMR, but with the UserDir pointing to the _PMR folder it works.  When I exited SC4 the PMR pushed the save, so my city should be listed there now. 

16 hours ago, jmak said:

Hopefully the SC4 opening will work this time!

Its still not too big a deal if I have to launch both programs separately.  Its still easy enough to use, and it also allows me to set other parameters in the game like full screen and screen resolution and the CPU Count.    So unless you can resolve the auto launch issue another way, all we need now it seems is for some people to start playing in multiplayer mode and then beta testing it from there.