Has anyone tried to make an open-source reinterpretation of SC4?

[LivingInThePast 364]

I'm sure this has been discussed before (I looked), but why is trying to make an open-source reinterpretation of SimCity 4 not a thing?

I know that there are some trying to make their own open source games (Citybound, or KotCity, a thread from this year that died for reasons unknown) but in many cases are trying to reinvent the wheel. SimCity 4 as we know it is a buggy (despite some improvements, even fan-made patches don't cure all) game that is dated (single-core, etc.), and new 3D games (like Cities: Skylines) often make the simulation take a back seat to 3D (which also slows the game down), and Cities: Skylines is any indication, it's still not possible to create that perfect 3D recreation of your city and drive around in it (and/or have it be a functional city sim).

An open-source SimCity 4 would be an ideal solution in many aspects because while other games are focused on building a new code base or even new buildings, open source SimCity 4 (which will be referred to as "OSSC4" for the remainder of this document) will take advantage of original .dat files both Maxis-made and fan-made.

The first iteration of OSSC4 would be trying to recreate (most of) the game as a SC4D clone, but with things like improved hardware (or native support for Mac and Linux), fixes and improvements for bugs, new resolutions, and other features.

Once that is taken care of, OSSC4 can start going to new horizons. The NAM will be fully integrated into the system (no more wading through huge menus), there can be new user interfaces, vastly expanded maps, new behaviors including some scrapped from the original title, like upgradeable buildings, decaying abandoned buildings, new networks, water levels that change, etc.

I'm sure that you've heard the recent take-down of OpenSC2K, a similar project that was supposed to do the same for SimCity 2000 (though it really didn't do much beyond a map viewer), but the problem was that unlike OpenRCT2 or OpenTTD, it used SimCity 2000 assets, which are still owned by EA. This would be, like the other projects, just using the original SimCity 4 assets to OSSC4.

Unfortunately, I can't program, but I can't fathom why there hasn't been some sort of semi-serious attempt at something like this...

[SanderAKALego 1]

This is something I have long dreamed of too. But the problem is that it's a huge task and I assume most people would like to make something better than SC4. Which is why people would rather make new games from scratch. Also I don't know the status of the file formats, but those also have to be reverse engineered for a project like this.

I personally think it's a great idea with a lot of potential, but it's going to take a lot of work and interest to really get going.

Some features I would like to see:

• Network supported/Multiplayer regions and cities
• A PROPER mod manager which handles missing dependencies and errors in a good way
• Better compatability with newer systems
• Improved performance scaling on new processors
• More advanced mods

 

[twalsh102 1,601]

 

On 8/2/2018 at 5:24 PM, LivingInThePast said:

Unfortunately, I can't program, but I can't fathom why there hasn't been some sort of semi-serious attempt at something like this...

I would think that if this were a real possibility, it would have been attempted sometime in the last 15 years

There are several issues at play here:

The first issue is a problem of resources.  Because EA has never released the source code for the game, every aspect of the game would have to be recreated in its entirety, from scratch.  If one wants to "reinterpret" SC4 as an open-source project, one must have the necessary resources.  This means  talent (programming know how), this means money, and most importantly, it means time.  This is not something that a couple of amateur programmers are going to be able to accomplish in their spare time, while dealing with full-time jobs and the rest of Real Life, in anything less than a decade (or two), if ever.

I get a feeling sometimes that people think that somehow "open-source" somehow means easier/faster.  In order to recreate a game of sufficient quality to be a true replacement (and I would think this would be the expectation), someone would need the resources and programming talent of a Maxis, or an EA.  Remember that EA, with all its resources and talent took a HUGE swing and a miss when it tried to "reinterpret" SC4 with SC2013.

Because NOTHING from SC4 (file system, file structure, assets, etc) could be used without incurring the wrath of EA, this means that essentially all of the the custom content that has been created since 2003 would be so much junk, and itself need to be recreated.  The same applies to all the existing modding tools.

My guess is that the foregoing is "why there hasn't been some sort of semi-serious attempt at something like this..."

[LivingInThePast 364]

9 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

 

I would think that if this were a real possibility, it would have been attempted sometime in the last 15 years

There are several issues at play here:

The first issue is a problem of resources.  Because EA has never released the source code for the game, every aspect of the game would have to be recreated in its entirety, from scratch.  If one wants to "reinterpret" SC4 as an open-source project, one must have the necessary resources.  This means  talent (programming know how), this means money, and most importantly, it means time.  This is not something that a couple of amateur programmers are going to be able to accomplish in their spare time, while dealing with full-time jobs and the rest of Real Life, in anything less than a decade (or two), if ever.

I get a feeling sometimes that people think that somehow "open-source" somehow means easier/faster.  In order to recreate a game of sufficient quality to be a true replacement (and I would think this would be the expectation), someone would need the resources and programming talent of a Maxis, or an EA.  Remember that EA, with all its resources and talent took a HUGE swing and a miss when it tried to "reinterpret" SC4 with SC2013.

Because NOTHING from SC4 (file system, file structure, assets, etc) could be used without incurring the wrath of EA, this means that essentially all of the the custom content that has been created since 2003 would be so much junk, and itself need to be recreated.  The same applies to all the existing modding tools.

My guess is that the foregoing is "why there hasn't been some sort of semi-serious attempt at something like this..."

EA never released the source code for SC4 but they had enough code exposed in the Mac version that someone was able to create a patch for the transit hover bug, if I recall, and if that was extended into a full clean-room reverse engineering design, then it could work in theory. It would be a long way, and you would still have to get a legitimate copy of SC4 to run the game, which would solve essentially a lot of the copyright concerns. EA went after the open-source SC2k not because of code issue and structure, but it included art assets from SC2k that were owned by EA, and that can be resolved with an end-user using the tileset from a legitimate copy of SC2k.

Also, SC13 was not a reinterpretation of SC4, it was nothing like SC4 nor did they try to make it like that.

[twalsh102 1,601]

So you're talking about some sort of massive patch that would change the behavior of the game and add functionality, instead of a "re-interpretation" of the game?  Maybe this is just semantics, but if this is the case, then Open Source SC4 (OSSC4) would actually be a misnomer.  Since "open source" generally refers to software developed and distributed following the guidelines of the GNU General Public License, this would imply that OSSC4 would be a brand new game rather than a patch, and not something developed through reverse-engineering any copyrighted software.

That exposure of code you mentioned is indeed what allowed @simmaster07 to create the fix for both the transit hover bug and the "Prop Pox" problem, and it provided a possibility of fixing other game glitches in the future.  What Simmaster07 did is not the same thing as reverse engineering.  He found and deciphered some snippets game code and created a "patch" to fix the above problems.  Exposure of code does not equate to release of ownership or copyright.  Any attempt at reverse-engineering would be exactly what EA's lawyers are probably salivating over, because the EULA specifically prohibits it..  If that exposure of code (which resulted in the fix of a couple of glitches) was as significant as you seem to think it is, wouldn't the  message that we can not only fix all the ills of the game, but also expand it with new capabilities and functionality, have been trumpeted to the community at large?  All we have right know is a potential to fix legitimately broken code.

So this is a single person within the community that seems to have the necessary programming experience to even begin to understand a portion of the code being used by the game.  Being able to decipher snippets of game code enough to be able to create a fix for a bug is a long haul from being able to reverse-engineer the game code sufficiently to do all that you recommend, and that assumes that person would have a few years worth of spare time to do such a thing, not to mention accepting the risk of having all that work going down the tube at any point in time when (not if) EA objects!

[catty-cb 4,413]

On 8/3/2018 at 11:24 AM, LivingInThePast said:

I'm sure this has been discussed before (I looked), but why is trying to make an open-source reinterpretation of SimCity 4 not a thing?

I know that there are some trying to make their own open source games (Citybound, or KotCity, a thread from this year that died for reasons unknown .....

Synekism was started back in 2010, its been a few years since he released the v0.5.5.90 download, but according to his monthly update in June 2018

Quote

May saw above average progress on what I've started calling Synekism 3.0. In reality it's more like Synekism the-second-rewrite-attempt. The good news is that I'm almost at the point where 3.0 is as far as 2.0 (the first rewrite). This means I'll soon go where I haven't been in over 4 years (last working release was in 2014!). Oh well.

http://www.synekism.com/

[LivingInThePast 364]

On 8/11/2018 at 6:28 PM, twalsh102 said:

So you're talking about some sort of massive patch that would change the behavior of the game and add functionality, instead of a "re-interpretation" of the game?  Maybe this is just semantics, but if this is the case, then Open Source SC4 (OSSC4) would actually be a misnomer.  Since "open source" generally refers to software developed and distributed following the guidelines of the GNU General Public License, this would imply that OSSC4 would be a brand new game rather than a patch, and not something developed through reverse-engineering any copyrighted software.

That exposure of code you mentioned is indeed what allowed @simmaster07 to create the fix for both the transit hover bug and the "Prop Pox" problem, and it provided a possibility of fixing other game glitches in the future.  What Simmaster07 did is not the same thing as reverse engineering.  He found and deciphered some snippets game code and created a "patch" to fix the above problems.  Exposure of code does not equate to release of ownership or copyright.  Any attempt at reverse-engineering would be exactly what EA's lawyers are probably salivating over, because the EULA specifically prohibits it..  If that exposure of code (which resulted in the fix of a couple of glitches) was as significant as you seem to think it is, wouldn't the  message that we can not only fix all the ills of the game, but also expand it with new capabilities and functionality, have been trumpeted to the community at large?  All we have right know is a potential to fix legitimately broken code.

So this is a single person within the community that seems to have the necessary programming experience to even begin to understand a portion of the code being used by the game.  Being able to decipher snippets of game code enough to be able to create a fix for a bug is a long haul from being able to reverse-engineer the game code sufficiently to do all that you recommend, and that assumes that person would have a few years worth of spare time to do such a thing, not to mention accepting the risk of having all that work going down the tube at any point in time when (not if) EA objects!

Doing some reading suggests that despite some rules regarding the EULA and reverse-engineered, the 8th Circuit's 2005 ruling of Blizzard Entertainment Inc. v. Jung (bnetd) being in regards to reverse-engineering, however; the EULA and reverse-engineering was not the focus of the case, it was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that essentially allowed pirated copies of Blizzard's software access the Battle.net servers. It doesn't matter, though--even if EA doesn't really have a case, they can grind down anyone with an infinite supply of lawyers so unless such a project was funded by a wealthy donor that had the means and motive to fight EA, they can kill it just as easily.

[BobertMcBob 12]

To add to this from a technical perspective, I've been working on reverse engineering SimCity 2000 in my spare time for the last 3.5 years. I've probably put ~600-800 hours into it, and while I've figured out the file format for the game as well as most of the other data files, reverse engineering the game itself has been a slow, arduous process.

SimCity 2000 is a much simpler game than SimCity 4, so the time commitment to make a true, open-source re-implementation of it would likely require significantly more time.