Greetings from a distant past

[Andreas Roth 629]

Hello everyone,

a few days ago, @Tyberius06 dropped me a line at Simforum.de, asking if I'd find some time to dig into my archives for retrieving files that might have been lost due to the demise of our German SFBT homebase SimCityKurier. Unfortunately, our admin and site owner, Matthias "spocky" Ludwig suddenly passed away last year at the age of 63, so the webspace account got cancelled and the site vanished. Last Christmas, I was able to provide the entire SFBT content and sent it over to @Tyberius06 , and he was slowly uploading the stuff under my name both here and at SC4Evermore. I was knocked down with a bad flu (probably covid) soon after, and that concluded my return to the game for yet another year, sending me into hiatus once more.

Now that the year is almost over, I decided to check my archives, found out that I couldn't log into my EA account anymore to retrieve the digital copy of SC4 since my e-mail address from SimCityKurier doesn't work anymore either, and EA doesn't have any other recovery method than sending an e-mail to the registered address. Fortunately, the game was on discount at GOG for just 9 bucks, so I got another copy and installed it on my current computer, copying all the data, and finally logged into Simtropolis in order to see what's going on these days, getting a recent version of the NAM and such, checking if there were some more bugfixes and whatnot.

It's amazing to see that our beloved SC4 is still going strong, and I was really blown away when I saw what modders were able to achieve within the last few months. I remember the good old SC4Fix DLL that repairs a few nasty bugs, but then I discovered all the other DLL mods, such as the "Water View Bug" transparent texture fix, loading speed fixes, custom building styles finally made available, and probably the best off all things: custom submenus! Back in the old days, such a thing was deemed impossible, and now the impossible has been made available for the game after all that time. That's really a glorious development, more than 20 years after the game was released.

I spent the last 12 hour or so browsing the DLL mods section of the STEX, tried a number of DLLs, installed a DirectX wrapper so the game would support my UHD monitor, installed all the modding tools, and even made some new custom submenus for the good old BSC and SFBT stuff with @smf_16's command line tool. I'm glad that I still remember most of the modding knowledge, so it wasn't all too hard to get a grasp of everything again. Over all those years, I always wanted to play SC4 again now and then, but never really found the time, but now that most, if not all those annoying bugs that were remaining like forever got fixed, I really wonder if I'll find some time eventually.

Naturally, RL was interfering all the time over the past few years, and I doubt I'll become a regular here again, but I still remember the good old times and the endless amount of fun that I had with the game. Fortunately, the game seems to run fine on my current PC, I need to make some more extensive tests with my old plugins folder and all the old regions that I was playing ages ago. Back then, it was such a heavy toll on the system, but nowadays, the hardware is finally able to run smoothly even with loads of custom content, and I was hugely surprised, that after the first start, booting up the game again after some modding was really fast, since everything was still in the cache, I presume.

So now I'm facing the same problem that I had back then: Lots of things need to be modded and adapted to the current state, I see bugs and errors in the custom content again, there's the urge to translate everything into German, make new menu icons and all that - I guess I've been doing that for way too long, and it always stopped me from actually playing the game. Well, we'll see about that, now that so many time has passed, I guess I'll have another 20 years or so until I retire once and for all.  It would be nice to give the custom content yet another polishing, and maybe I can dig up some stuff that people are still looking for after all that time...

Best regards,

Andreas

[CorinaMarie 29,902]

13 minutes ago, Andreas Roth said:

Hello everyone,

Hiya!

Yours is a name I recognize from many game related searches I've conducted over the years.

Welcome back. Do find time to actually play.   I was able to do that for a few years and it really is enjoyable. 

[Propfam 2,310]

Welcome back, Andreas! I love your content to the point that I'd prefer it over others especially in things like stations. And speaking of stations, do you have plans to make new stations and possibly collaborate with the NAM team? And also, I'm pretty curious about the state of SFBT dependencies since I remembered during the first move to Evermore last year, they lacked SFBT Essentials. They probably now do have it. But I'm still pretty skeptical that all deps have been backed up there.

Btw, good luck with the German translations. I do wish other senior members would come back one day, including the all-mighty Peg and Paeng. Hopefully they still there with us.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

Hi @Andreas Roth and a warm welcome back to the community.

Thankfully SC4 is a timeless classic, so it's always possible to pick up again whenever we're each ready. The platform to be creative is always strong. You and the SFBT have given such joy to players over the years, and we're very glad you're back (to any extent you'd like to be involved again). It's great to see you!

[philforhockey51 4,220]

Glad to see folks coming back around to find all the new things that have been fixed and expanded on. I'm sure any help you need with any project you want to take on is available.

[smf_16 1,838]

Hi Andreas,

It's so great to see you here. The fact that the community is still going strong and even bothers to improve a game of more than 20 years old only shows what a true piece of art SC4 actually was. I hope that those major breakthroughs - shoutout to @memo, @Null 45 and of course @simmaster07 - reach players that have long abandoned the game and causes them to return. The fact that you are here shows that it's possible, and I'm glad I've been able to do my part with my modding tool for creating submenus.

I also suggest you have a look at @memo's sc4pac, which is a package manager for making it easier to install plugins. Highly advised if you're starting out fresh with a new plugins folder. It solves the reason why players are often hesitant to come back to SC4: the difficulty and frustration it takes to create a high-quality, modern plugins folder. It is still early, but a lot of work is being done to make as many plugins available as possible, and in the near future the goal is also to integrate it directly with the STEX so that you will never ever have to download anything and its ton of dependencies manually again.

[Silur 3,309]

Hello Andreas Roth!
You are here and this is great news. German masterpieces from SFBT have always been samples in SC4!
I congratulate you on the New Year and wish you health and success!

[Terring 6,476]

Welcome back, Andreas

[Haljackey 17,403]

Welcome back Andreas! Be sure to give the 3D camera a whirl sometime, that was a April Fools release that fooled us because it was real! It made the news cycles as well. In fact there's been several news stories about SC4, keeping it relevant against competitors like Skylines 2. Goes to show you there still isn't a real sucessor to this game, even as it approaches 22 years in age.

---

If you're looking to read some stories, here are some examples:

https://www.pcgamer.com/SimCity-4-modders-are-cracking-its-deepest-recesses-in-ever-greater-numbers-enabling-extensive-new-changes/

https://gamerant.com/SimCity-4-change-camera-angle-3d-mod/

https://gamerant.com/SimCity-4-player-populationmilestone-20-years/

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/SimCity-4-the-greatest-citybuilder-of-all-time-was-released-20-years-ago

https://www.pcgamesn.com/SimCity-4/sale

----

Also, while the Simtrop forum is still active, much of the SC4 conversation has moved to Discord. With the demise of SC4D, the SC4E Discord keeps the flame alive for that site and the Simtrop Discord remains active as well. Stop by and say hi sometime if you'd like

[jonnboy1976 220]

Wow! Welcome back @Andreas Roth  Thank you for the many contributions you've made to SC4 and it's community! Not to mention the answers and advice you gave to me on your site years ago.

Great to have you back!

[kergelen 774]

Great to see you back @Andreas Roth !!! I still use most of SFBT files

[kSlank 153]

Welcome back. Yep, the community is still going good with the content. Thanks for contributions you made. I like the microwave power plant.

[TG24 355]

Welcome back m8, good to see old faces around the forums 

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

Welcome back! Great to see a familiar face! I tend to lurk and check in every once in a while and play SC4 when I have some free time!