Fixing SimCity 4 from Being Stagnant

[Propfam 2,294]

Hello,

If you search "cities skylines" on YouTube, Twitch or similar, you'll get tons of new videos regarding to the game. In the other hand, "SimCity 4" only results a few new videos, mostly created by @Haljackey. Similarly, if search "cities skylines" on comments on videos about city simulators, you'll get tons of results. Otherwise, there are few people commenting about SC4. I agree that C:S is the best city builders yet, but C:S isn't perfect. First, C:S can only runs properly on computers with dedicated graphics. We can't deny that most people will choose ultrabooks (or similar) instead of bulky gaming laptops and unfortunately, they mostly only have an Intel HD/UHD or low-end Nvidia MX series (Vega not counted due to its new appearance). That's because ultrabooks gives the user portability, long battery live, good screen, good keyboard, fast storage (for higher end ones) and while this is overlooked, some people don't need gaming design and its related element (RGBs etc). While some ultrabooks have some sort of dedicated graphics, they usually can only be found on 15" or wider models. And we can't ignore laws of physics, slim & light laptops often suffer the so-called "thermal throttling", meaning the performance will drop to some level, even lower than the base performance. Yes, we could build a PC, but we also can't deny the fact that RAM & GPU prices ($1 roughly Rp14,000) only recently relieved due to the crypto craze. Second, C:S suffer some limitations, especially when the city size is too big to handle by the game. For example, some services don't work when the city size is about 300K due to the agent limitation. Third, with all DLCs bought, you will shell out more than $50 in normal circumstances. That's not cheap plus the PC build/laptop you need.

So, we need to do something with the SimCity 4 ecosystem. There are lots of problems regarding the ecosystem. First, there are some modding limitations due to its old engine, for instance you can't add new menu structures (not items) by using .dat. You need to use (still not completely uncovered) .dlls and it requires some coding and of course, some legal issues. Second, its limitation making hard for mods to be user-friendly, including the NAM. For instance, in the ideal game you can make 6-lane avenue by just selecting that network and drag as you expect. But in reality, you need to place the "starter piece" of that "network" (technically pseudo-network) and drag it using roads. That's confuses new players who tried to make 6-lane avenue and even expert ones. Third, there are too many mods that again, confuses everyone. For instance, if you want a census building then you need to install RippleJet's (RJ) Census Repository and then you need to install 4 (as I know) dependencies and it's time consuming. And, this is the final example, the well-known CAM Starter Pack. "Experts" gives instructions that the Starter Pack should be installed by the new players, in reality that's not true. Then, the players needs to download dependencies that in total approximately over than 250 MB. And then, the players get punished due to the necessity to install all of the dependencies and configure them. Next, the players need to download other mods as well, according to most recommendations, its over 500 MB again (in reality, it's just needing 13 other mods at 380 MB including NAM and the RJ's Census Repo + deps) and the mods need to be installed and set up if any. And finally, the players will be get a working SimCity 4. This is giving us how broken the ecosystem.

If you have opinions and responses for the problem, feel free to send replies below. Sorry for my bad grammar and spelling due to I'm not native English speaker. Thanks!

-Zaydan Naufal

[Duco 546]

If I give this a very short resume, than you would love to have the benefits of CS ( downloading mods, dragging roads, menu etc.) in Simcity4.

I'm totally not an expert, but from what I've read, you will need the source code for this, and they won't give it. ( that is logical, because there will become a lot off new options, what is fun for the player, but not for the salesman who wants the new game being sold, and with all this new options there is less change. At least, that is my opinion why they don't do it.)

Anyway, without a source code I think you have to struggle in how it goes. Personally, I like it a little.  I rather scroll trough a book then typing in a word and find the answer. There is no more collateral knowledge, but that is an other discussion.

 

[twalsh102 1,601]

14 hours ago, chfzdn said:

So, we need to do something with the SimCity 4 ecosystem.

Given that the game is 15 yrs. old, and is no longer even supported by EA, I would agree that the game is stagnant.  Barring the release of the source code (and AFAIK, with the exception of a very early release of SC, EA has NEVER released any source code of any of its games), the basic functioning of game will not change.  We can either accept that or not play the game. 

So we are left with modding as the only way to change any of the behavior of the game.  That implies downloading and installing those mods.  One can either accept that, or just play the game as it comes out of the box.  NOTE that SC4 does work right out of the box with nothing added.  It may not be ideal, and there are things that are broken, but it is playable right out of the box.

Dependencies are a fact of life for SC4 unless one wants to use only what is provided by Maxis.  One can either accept this, or stick with downloading (or creating) only custom content that doesn't require dependencies.  Dependencies are SC4's version of re-usable code from the programming world.  Is the method of distribution ideal?  Most community members would agree that it isn't.  Changes are being discussed, but it takes time to get agreement not only that changes are needed, but also agreement on what changes to make, and still more time is needed to implement those changes.  Changes in the culture of any community never happen overnight.

The "expert's" recommendations of what new users need to install to make the game more enjoyable (and fix some of the things that are broken) are just that - recommendations.  One is free to accept those recommendations or not. 

Mods are what they are.  If the creators of mods (especially complicated ones like NAM) knew how to do things differently, they would have.  Again, accept it for what it is, or don't use it.

None of the issues that you raise are unknown within the community (and haven't been for more than a decade).  If anyone had the knowledge to fix any of these issues, I would think they would have been fixed by now.

So ultimately, what are your/our options:

1. Accept the current limitations of the game and existing mods, and hope that community members continue to find new ways of doing things.

2.  Play some other game.

3.  Hope that EA will at some point release the SC4 source code.  Don't hold your breath, given their history.

4.  Hope that EA at some point "reboots" SC4.  Again, don't hold your breath.

5.  Hope that some very knowledgeable programmer is willing to give up several years of their spare time to create a true, legal, open-source version of the SC4.  Not very likely given the amount of effort this would take, and given that the expectations for the end product would be something that pretty much works as SC4 currently does, with all problems fixed, and new features added.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be SC4.

Options 1 or 2 are probably the only truly viable ones

[Tarkus 6,932]

17 hours ago, chfzdn said:

Second, its limitation making hard for mods to be user-friendly, including the NAM. For instance, in the ideal game you can make 6-lane avenue by just selecting that network and drag as you expect. But in reality, you need to place the "starter piece" of that "network" (technically pseudo-network) and drag it using roads. That's confuses new players who tried to make 6-lane avenue and even expert ones.

.....

And, this is the final example, the well-known CAM Starter Pack. "Experts" gives instructions that the Starter Pack should be installed by the new players, in reality that's not true.

Regarding the point of the AVE-6 network, I highly doubt that "expert" players are confused by starter pieces, as they've been around for 11 years now (Draggable GLR and Rural Draggable GLR, the first two starter piece "pseudo-draggables", were introduced in NAM 21 in June 2007).  Beyond that, the game's network flag system is built entirely around the prospect of just having single-tile networks and dual-tile networks with (congestion-inducing) shared-tile diagonals. 

While in theory, DLLs can generally modify many of the hardcoded aspects of the game, there's also the feasibility aspect.  The two things that SC4Fix.dll addressed were pretty huge issues, but their root causes were usually a pretty short section of code.  Based on my knowledge of the game's transit network mechanics, order to make triple-tile networks like the AVE-6 be truly draggable in one shot, one would potentially have to completely overhaul the entire RUL and network flag system, which is the heart of the entire transit network placement mechanism in the game.  That would be several orders of magnitude more difficult than fixing the TE Lot/Puzzle Piece CTDs or the Prop Pox. 

The more feasible scenario would be to see if there's some way to add new single-tile and dual-tile networks, without having to reprogram the flag/RUL system, and then set up a simpler override system to handle conversion into the wider formations.  Even that probably wouldn't kill starter pieces in all situations, particularly for localized situations that don't make sense as true networks.

To add on to what @twalsh102 says, if the network implementation didn't rely on so many hardcoded elements, the NAM Team would have been making new ones right at the outset of the project in 2004.  Unfortunately, it does, so we can't.  Starter pieces were the next best thing.

As far as the CAM Starter Packs go, again, I don't know which "experts" you're discussing, because many of the experienced CAM users out there now actually recommend against the Starter Packs.  I am among those who try to steer users away from the Starter Packs, as evidenced by my two related posts ([1] and [2]) on my blog, SimTarkus.

48 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

Changes in the culture of any community never happen overnight.

This is exactly spot on.

The current setup is directly a result of the culture of the SC4 community, a culture that's been established for almost 15 years now, ever since the first non-Maxis models/textures entered the game.  It's a culture that in many ways, is quite different from those surrounding other computer games, in part because there's more of an artistic inclination to it rather than a technical one (the latter being much more typical of popular FPS, RTS, and (MMO)RPG games with modding communities), and one which is surprisingly respectful of rules.

As such, technocratic outsiders demanding instant change to fit some system typically aren't going to be well received at all, and are usually often run off in fairly short order.  Simply put, they don't understand (and often don't care to understand) the culture, and while some of their ideas may have merit on at least some level, it ends up becoming a square peg and round hole situation very quickly (especially if they suggest forgoing the existing community exchanges for some externally-hosted depository).

The momentum to make the sorts of changes that have been discussed now for well over a decade are proving to be something that requires a quorum of inside stakeholders, including some with technical abilities, over the course of a few years, to effectively navigate and put into action.  Speaking on the SC4D Staff side, we've actually been discussing stuff like Project ZIP for at least 4-5 years, and it's only now that everything is starting to align, between the technical capabilities of the site, the support from staff and content developers, and people who understand the community committing to the effort to make it happen.

As far as the "stagnation" goes, the entropy we've seen in recent years is in large part a product of being a community of a 15-year-old game that many outside of our pocket of fandom have either forgotten, or confuse with the disastrous franchise reboot from 2013.  What would ultimately help would be, in order, (1) getting some of the repackaging initiatives going, (2) EA (or whomever is setting the prices) realizing the MSRP of digital copies of SC4 needs to be slashed (US$19.99 is absurd in 2018--US$9.99 would be perfect, as it ties in with the default SC4 tax rate, and the 2011 Herman Cain meme), and (3) coverage from prominent gaming media (and prominent media in general) of SC4 and community content.

Whenever PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, or Kotaku has ended up covering SC4-related news, it's usually sparked a huge uptick in interest, for at least a short time (and that coverage has usually been sparked by posts on prominent subreddits or via the NAM Team's activity on ModDB).  I managed to get about 8,000 visitors (!) on my little SC4 blog in one day when my initial reporting about the Origin "nerfed" version got media coverage back in August 2014.  If we have our act together enough that the people who find/re-find us via media coverage end up becoming interested and staying--even a small fraction of them--it'd have an impact.

-Tarkus

[Propfam 2,294]

1 hour ago, Tarkus said:

Regarding the point of the AVE-6 network, I highly doubt that "expert" players are confused by starter pieces, as they've been around for 11 years now (Draggable GLR and Rural Draggable GLR, the first two starter piece "pseudo-draggables", were introduced in NAM 21 in June 2007).  Beyond that, the game's network flag system is built entirely around the prospect of just having single-tile networks and dual-tile networks with (congestion-inducing) shared-tile diagonals. 

While in theory, DLLs can generally modify many of the hardcoded aspects of the game, there's also the feasibility aspect.  The two things that SC4Fix.dll addressed were pretty huge issues, but their root causes were usually a pretty short section of code.  Based on my knowledge of the game's transit network mechanics, order to make triple-tile networks like the AVE-6 be truly draggable in one shot, one would potentially have to completely overhaul the entire RUL and network flag system, which is the heart of the entire transit network placement mechanism in the game.  That would be several orders of magnitude more difficult than fixing the TE Lot/Puzzle Piece CTDs or the Prop Pox. 

The more feasible scenario would be to see if there's some way to add new single-tile and dual-tile networks, without having to reprogram the flag/RUL system, and then set up a simpler override system to handle conversion into the wider formations.  Even that probably wouldn't kill starter pieces in all situations, particularly for localized situations that don't make sense as true networks.

To add on to what @twalsh102 says, if the network implementation didn't rely on so many hardcoded elements, the NAM Team would have been making new ones right at the outset of the project in 2004.  Unfortunately, it does, so we can't.  Starter pieces were the next best thing.

As far as the CAM Starter Packs go, again, I don't know which "experts" you're discussing, because many of the experienced CAM users out there now actually recommend against the Starter Packs.  I am among those who try to steer users away from the Starter Packs, as evidenced by my two related posts ([1] and [2]) on my blog, SimTarkus.

This is exactly spot on.

The current setup is directly a result of the culture of the SC4 community, a culture that's been established for almost 15 years now, ever since the first non-Maxis models/textures entered the game.  It's a culture that in many ways, is quite different from those surrounding other computer games, in part because there's more of an artistic inclination to it rather than a technical one (the latter being much more typical of popular FPS, RTS, and (MMO)RPG games with modding communities), and one which is surprisingly respectful of rules.

As such, technocratic outsiders demanding instant change to fit some system typically aren't going to be well received at all, and are usually often run off in fairly short order.  Simply put, they don't understand (and often don't care to understand) the culture, and while some of their ideas may have merit on at least some level, it ends up becoming a square peg and round hole situation very quickly (especially if they suggest forgoing the existing community exchanges for some externally-hosted depository).

The momentum to make the sorts of changes that have been discussed now for well over a decade are proving to be something that requires a quorum of inside stakeholders, including some with technical abilities, over the course of a few years, to effectively navigate and put into action.  Speaking on the SC4D Staff side, we've actually been discussing stuff like Project ZIP for at least 4-5 years, and it's only now that everything is starting to align, between the technical capabilities of the site, the support from staff and content developers, and people who understand the community committing to the effort to make it happen.

As far as the "stagnation" goes, the entropy we've seen in recent years is in large part a product of being a community of a 15-year-old game that many outside of our pocket of fandom have either forgotten, or confuse with the disastrous franchise reboot from 2013.  What would ultimately help would be, in order, (1) getting some of the repackaging initiatives going, (2) EA (or whomever is setting the prices) realizing the MSRP of digital copies of SC4 needs to be slashed (US$19.99 is absurd in 2018--US$9.99 would be perfect, as it ties in with the default SC4 tax rate, and the 2011 Herman Cain meme), and (3) coverage from prominent gaming media (and prominent media in general) of SC4 and community content.

Whenever PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, or Kotaku has ended up covering SC4-related news, it's usually sparked a huge uptick in interest, for at least a short time (and that coverage has usually been sparked by posts on prominent subreddits or via the NAM Team's activity on ModDB).  I managed to get about 8,000 visitors (!) on my little SC4 blog in one day when my initial reporting about the Origin "nerfed" version got media coverage back in August 2014.  If we have our act together enough that the people who find/re-find us via media coverage end up becoming interested and staying--even a small fraction of them--it'd have an impact.

-Tarkus

What I mean the so-called "experts" (in quotes) in the CAM Starter Pack case are players who aren't true expert at all on SC4. They just playing for few months/years and recommending the outdated mod at Reddit etc. Worst, some of them uploading some torrents containing badly-structured Plugins folder. True experts should know/have some desire to install mods carefully, not just throwing mods without reading readmes, researching the practicability etc. And, active true experts should be up-to-date with the current situations.

Second, your opinions on the multi-tile setups is true, but I want to send my criticisms. Although dragging multi-tiles pieces isn't difficult, there are difficulties when to do some modifications, including bending. For example, when you curve the NAM-provided avenue, you need to do so with some videos provided by the NAM Team. If the networks can be made like the game-provided Avenue, it will be easier to curve the network etc. And, there's no easy-to-access tutorial regarding the NAM, especially on the new ones. The new NAM documentation is very lacking of content, compared to the deprecated PDF ones. For instance, you'll see "Coming soon" (or similar) pages on some of the links on the docs.

Sorry for my words. Thanks.

[Tarkus 6,932]

No need to apologize for your words--I agree with you on the true/false experts matter, for sure. 

Regarding the multi-tile NWM end, I agree that the diagonals aren't the easiest, but aside from potentially converting a couple of the dual-tile networks that use shared-tile diagonals (RD-4 and OWR-4) to being Avenue-based draggables (doable with the current technology, though hasn't been implemented for various logistical reasons*), it would indeed require a thorough revamp of the game's hardcoded network RUL/flag system.  As always, however, the NAM Team will try to do what it can to improve things within the confines of the existing system, including the planned addition of the FLEX-based Multi-Radius Curves (MRCs) to the NWM toolkit (which should alleviate the trickier part of actually curving from orthogonal to diagonal).  The current documentation does visually show the necessary setups as well.

Speaking of the documentation, there was a lot the PDFs didn't cover, either, which prompted us to include the original NAM 30-era HTML documentation as part of the package for that whole time as well.  There's also a good bit of stuff (including the intricacies of GLR and the various El-Rail-over and GLR/Tram-in/on dual networks) that isn't really covered at all (save for maybe a piece list) in any form of documentation.  It's still definitely a work-in-progress as of NAM 36, but going back to HTML will at least make it possible to edit things again, as the PDFs were borderline impossible in that regard (which is why there were no documentation updates for several releases following NAM 31).  We have also uploaded the current documentation online, to an easily memorable URL: sc4devotion.com/namdoc.

*(Also, the logistical reasons for not converting the RD-4 and OWR-4 to Avenue-based starters pertain to the existing simple two-pronged scheme, of all two-way networks being Road-based, and all one-way networks being One-Way Road-based.  The prevailing thinking has been that changing the base network on those networks would subsequently complicate both two-way and one-way base network schemes, plus there'd also be the matter of the OWR-4 now operating more like an RHW than like the other OWR networks, given that it'd no longer have the reversible direction feature.  Re-skinning the Avenue to look like the RD-4 by default, and then turning the "AVE-4" into a split-tile diagonal setup that matches the TLA-5 and RD-6 has also been discussed.)

-Tarkus

 

[zahrul3 472]

Forget about SimCity 4 dying, I think the entire genre is dying. Activity in the city-building game community is definitely reduced compared to 2009-2015, on all platforms (ST, SC4D, Youtube).

SimCity 4 has its limitations, but Cities Skylines also has theirs. Imagine having to stop developing past a population of 400000 because even a gaming computer won't handle it well. The game is not very playable without certain essential mods, its too complex for casual players....etc. People nowadays like simple games they can play on their phone. It would be really great if SimCity 4 could somehow be ported into Android or even iPhone. Most casual gamers don't really care about 71.6 degree FARR networks and complex RHW intersections; they just want it on their phone. But I guess it's still some way to go until phones have the computing capacity to process SimCity 4 or Cities Skylines, lest the simulation is implemented on some remote server and the phone is just a client of said server.

[Duco 546]

49 minutes ago, zahrul3 said:

Forget about SimCity 4 dying, I think the entire genre is dying....

Could be, but I don't see it as a problem. I just wanna play SimCity 4 and so I will.

Oops, maybe I am immortal...

Yes, sites are shutting down and people talk more to their phone than that they observe, but hey, that's not my problem. So, let's play! 

[percuno 2]

1 hour ago, zahrul3 said:

...I think the entire genre is dying...

Considering that there are more than 20 city building or hybrid city/empire building games, with or without cooperation/fighting between npcs or other players, recently released (using a time scale of less than a year old) or currently in development, I would have to disagree. Perhaps the community is in a "wait and see" mode, but the genre itself doesn't seem to be in imminent threat of extinction.

The only thing I am seeing dying is sites that are heavily invested in specific games, like SimCity 4 or Cities Skylines.

 

[Terring 6,476]

Different games and game genres come and go, but they're still here. While this is the golden age of phone gaming, with simple game playing and cheerful graphics, there are still people who prefer fighting games, platforming games, racing games with realistic graphics, and even old 8-bit and 16-bit games. Today games like Fortnite are trendy, but there are still new and less known games out there, like Cities: Skylines, as well as older games, like Simcity and Command and Conquer. Speaking of which, old Command and Conquer games like Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 are still be played by many people, mostly thanks to mods like Twisted Insurrection and Mental Omega. And for the nostalgia, of course. Don't let the atrocity named C&C Rivals fools you. The C&C community is still here, just like the Simcity community. We're here. We still exist. Not as popular as other gaming communities, but we still exist.

Besides, watching YouTubers playing popular games, not because they legitimately like them but because they're popular, is so much fun

"But I actually like Minecraft".

"Oh yeah? That's the reason why you haven't played Minecraft for many years and you've stuck with Fortnite and PUBG?"

[Tarkus 6,932]

21 hours ago, percuno said:

The only thing I am seeing dying is sites that are heavily invested in specific games, like SimCity 4 or Cities Skylines.

This is an interesting observation, and similar to what I've noticed myself, having been around the SC4 community for 12 1/2 years now.  I'm not sure if it's a matter of being invested in specific games, however, as much as it is about the dynamics of how gamers interested in the main titles in the genre congregate online.  Simtropolis, in particular, has usually made a pointed effort to provide a place to discuss those newer titles, to the extent that there is interest, and enjoyed a lot of activity from SC2013, during its brief heyday, in addition to its continued support for SC4. 

The thing that changed was Cities: Skylines in 2015.  EA/Maxis was relatively content to have their own modest official board, and let independent community sites like ST and SC4D flourish.  CO/Paradox was not, and instead has actively steered things into channels that they control.  The most prominent case of this is, of course, their built-in Steam Workshop support for mod/plugin downloads.  Downloads are arguably the thing that draws the most people to a site for a game that supports addons, and when the game company goes the Workshop route, it funnels almost all the download traffic to Steam, drying up the stream headed to places like Simtropolis.  They've used Steam Forums, their own official Paradox Forums, and Reddit as the main discussion hubs, all carefully managed by their staff.

If one looks at the STEX section for C:S, they'd assume it's a dead game, because the download section is a veritable ghost town, especially when compared to how much is coming out for SC4, by comparison.  Very few people come to ST to download C:S stuff because Steam Workshop is right there--and the ones who do download from here are most likely loyal ST visitors already.  When SC2013 was popular here, there was a bit of cross-pollination, in that those interested in both games had a place, and there were also some that were into SC2013 and came over to the SC4 side, once interest started to wane in the former.  CO/Paradox's strategy prevented that sort of cross-pollination.  And with SC2013 now being an afterthought, the independent sites are forced to rely on a game from 2003 as their main driver of activity, by default if not by choice.

Also in the wake of C:S, it seems that the venerable genre of the City Journal has also been taking a beating, with most of the showcasing of C:S cities being via YouTube videos and one-off screenshots.  Given the CJ's status as a major non-download draw for sites like ST and SC4D (where they're known as "Mayor's Diaries" or "MDs" instead), and the fact that the newer methods of showcasing tend to run off-site, usually via commercial services (i.e. YouTube itself), that also really puts a damper on activity.  As of this moment, the last update in my CJ here, Tarkusian Cities, was over a month ago, on July 17th.  Even just a year or two ago, not updating for over a month would mean one's CJ would get relegated back 2-3 pages, as others updated.  Right now, Tarkusian Cities still sits right around the middle of Page 1.

There's also a generational gap that may be at play as well, relating to the very concept of the forum.

-Tarkus

[zahrul3 472]

1 hour ago, Tarkus said:

Also in the wake of C:S, it seems that the venerable genre of the City Journal has also been taking a beating, with most of the showcasing of C:S cities being via YouTube videos and one-off screenshots.  Given the CJ's status as a major non-download draw for sites like ST and SC4D (where they're known as "Mayor's Diaries" or "MDs" instead), and the fact that the newer methods of showcasing tend to run off-site, usually via commercial services (i.e. YouTube itself)

-Tarkus

The Steam forums for Cities:Skylines is useless for CJs because its literally just one huge general discussions forum. Meanwhile, CJs hosted on Youtube aren't very enjoyable - 30 minutes is too much time spent for one update? Additionally it's difficult to gain a following without having gained some from Reddit or ST.