Blue Hope - News Update 10/08/2014 - Re-Awakening of BHCJ
Welcome to Project Blue Hope.
About Blue Hope:
It's been a bit of a struggle with Blue Hope as some of you may have noticed it tends to come and go. I will admit I am working full time and my "real life" takes up a lot of my time and energy. I have also encountered major problems with the FTP sync tools we have been using to synchronize the region causing me to temporarily forfeit the idea until I had a new method. That day has come however as I have designed a self-maintained server (meaning it incur's no additional costs apart from the ISP) with its own sync client and will allow us to sync files real time and unlike the FTP protocol, it does not have to scan through every single file to sync, but only the ones that are updated. The server has already deployed and the system seems intact so I am prepared to launch it. This means Blue Hope City Journal is BACK ONLINE and user's can join, or share their regions if they so wish to do so. The instructions are also on the Home Page but I will re-post them here as well.
How to Join Blue Hope:
I have simplified this process. The only thing necessary to join is to add me on Skype (formerly Live Messenger) and send a message to christforbluehopecj@live.com requesting to join. Secondly you will need the BitTorrent Sync client for your Operating System. Please follow the instructions below.
1. Message me on skype at: christforbluehopecj@live.com and request to join, Even if I do not respond immediately, you are clear to proceed to step 2.
2. Download and install BitTorrent Sync.
3. At the top right corner of the client, will will see a symbol that looks like a gear. This is your settings menu. Select it and then select "Enter a Key"
4. Enter the key ABGW5V5NVM75C5UK4WUKNWM37ENT3ORLN and select a folder to dump the Blue Hope contents.
5. This is IMPORTANT for accurate up to date syncing: Select the "Gear" button at the top right corner and then select "Preferences". Now select "Advanced" and "More Options" at the bottom of the list. You MUST change the following fields to 0 or there will be syncing errors. "folder_rescan_interval" and "sync_max_time_diff" both MUST be set to 0.
6. You will need to create a special shortcut to route Sim City 4 to open the shared region from the specified sync folder instead of your My Documents/Sim City 4 folder. To do so follow these instructions:
- Make a copy of your current Sim City 4 shortcut and rename it to Blue Hope.
- Right click the shortcut and select Properties
- The Target Field must be in this syntax: "C:\Directory\to\SimCity 4.exe" -UserDir:"C:\Directory\to\BlueHope Folder/" so for example mine is: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -UserDir:"D:\BlueHope\Storage\BluePort/"
- IMPORTANT - MISCONFIGURATION CAN RESULT IN COMPLETE LOSS OF REGION AND PLUGINS! I would highly recommend you have Bit Torrent OFF before testing this shortcut and if you have problems contact me. ALSO... the "/" is NECESSARY at the end of the UserDir string!
Blue Hope Jobs:
Blue Hope is intended to be a Multiplayer City Journal, and due to the complexity of the system, it's far too large to manage on my own especially with my time constraints so due to this, I am opening positions of which players may join at will. Also. Keep in mind that you are not required to be a mayor to have a job, infact its encouraged that you specialize in said job as it makes it more effective.
If you are a Mayor: You may have 1 additional job.
If you are NOT a Mayor: You may have up to 2 jobs.
- Suburban or Rural Zoning & Development official
- This team is responsible for the development of non-incorporated areas which are either empty tiles or tiles without a mayor. Areas of which are unincorporated are limited to nothing greater than medium zoning and may contain no more than 40% of its zoning as medium. These areas will be developed according to the RCI demands unless other demands are stated otherwise by Project Blue Hope. The player(s) developing these areas will not in any way retain ownership of the tiles developed meaning an active Mayor can overtake the development as his own city and remold it as he see's fit. DOT and Utility Officials can also make necessary modifications without permissions as well.
[*]Utility & Energy Management official
- This team is responsible for meeting the needs of Newarks Energy and Resource demands while maintaining a "NIMBY" ideal for mayors and suburban districts. They are responsible for Power, Water, and Trash Disposal and all the necessary means of transporting these resources. For Power, High Tension Lines MUST be connected from the source until it reaches its destination INCORPORATED city without any interruptions, meaning zones are not allowed to carry power from source to destination.
[*]Newark State Transit Authority & Department of Transportation official
- This team is responsible for creating and maintaining a transportation infrastructure throughout the region of Newark. This includes the creation and route signing of roads or highways, determination on whether routes will be tolled or free, the creation and routing of trains, airport placement, and seaports. This group will also be responsible for signing main corridors with their respective signage (meaning BAT'ing will be required) and implementing them on their corresponding routes.
[*]Unclaimed Territory Management
- This team is to continue the development of cities that mayors have abandoned while finding a permanent mayor to fill its place. Abandoned cities are not to be demolished.
[*]News Petitioner
- This team is responsible for gathering news events and on-goings through the Blue Hope region and post a weekly News Paper due by Sunday of every week upon the forum to keep visitors abroad of knowledge of the current events in Blue Hope.
[*]Investors and Commisioners
- If you want to own a chain, such as Wal-Mart, Fredy Meyers, Staples, Krogers, McDonalds, BP, or any other Franchise, even your own custom one, you are more than welcome to sign up as an investor. Investors will also have Updating privileges to the City Journal. Your job would be to select up to three chains and find suitable locations to place these chains. If you wish to place them within incorporated areas, you must gain permission from the Mayor of that city. If the city is unclaimed by anyone or a suburban / rural district with no mayor then no permission is necessary. I will keep record of the amount of locations you open throughout the region and report it in the city journal statistics for your corporate competition.
[*]Blue Hope Technical Management Team
- Your goal is to ensure this stuff is actually working. If you see brown boxes we need to find the name of the building and search for its corresponding plugin and make sure its properly installed. If necessary re-download. If you are unable to find it, then notify the mayor of its current location and get permission to delete the building and its corresponding plugin. You will also handle technical difficulties such as sync errors and "DAMN" issues, all of which I will show you how to do.
- This team is responsible for the development of non-incorporated areas which are either empty tiles or tiles without a mayor. Areas of which are unincorporated are limited to nothing greater than medium zoning and may contain no more than 40% of its zoning as medium. These areas will be developed according to the RCI demands unless other demands are stated otherwise by Project Blue Hope. The player(s) developing these areas will not in any way retain ownership of the tiles developed meaning an active Mayor can overtake the development as his own city and remold it as he see's fit. DOT and Utility Officials can also make necessary modifications without permissions as well.
The Future of Blue Hope
Now that this is settled, I would also like to advise what my real objective for Blue Hope is. Because Sim City 4 did not include a way to provide multi-player functionality, organizing a functioning shared region is very tedious, time consuming, and out-right difficult as there's many factors to consider. In fact in my previous attempts, maintaining Blue Hope became more like a chore than a game as I actually rarely ever had the time to develop anything, I was either constructing the infrastructure of the system or fixing errors. I also acknowledge most people are not in favor of the multi-player cities as presented in the concurrent games, Sim City 2013, Cities XL, ect however I believe a Sim City 4 shared region done right can be quite fun as you will NOT need to be connected to any server to develop your region and you will still reap the benefits of others able to view and interact with your region as soon as your PC connects to the internet as it will automatically share your work with the rest of the sync'd cloud. You also can share any region you want to and allow user's to develop upon it. I am simply put trying to broaden the limits on our current favorite title of SC4 which, in my opinion has yet to be surpassed in game-play by the concurrent titles such as XL and 2013.
However, unlike before... This launch of Blue Hope, must be simple and straight forward. Simple so that I too can actually enjoy the game, and straight forward so that users will need to make the minimal adjustments to connect and enjoy the online experience. I want Blue Hope to be a game, not a chore. For that reason I am imposing as few rules and regulations as possible as I want people to come and enjoy this experience. The only things I ask are the obvious is that you don't interfere with other user's developments. Later on, I do intend on designing another web-based self-hosted forum which will allow users to collaborate developments but while Blue Hope is still small, the City Journal forums will suffice. Members who join will gain access to this thread to post or update their developments.
I hope this has covered everything... In summary, Blue Hope is alive again and awaiting members to join,
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