Mister Giggles

Yay!

SimCity 4 has recently more or less broken 1 million owners on Steam.

I like that you added that second view to see all the internal bits of the skyscraper, it was a good idea. A lot like SimCity 4's underground modes for water and subways. 2D is not just a good idea because of expense and time requirements, it's also allows the highest level of control over the game's aesthetic. With 3D, sacrifices must be made. 2D, only what you limit yourself to. There's also a group of people who prefer 2D to 3D simply because they feel 2D can be so much more expressive than 3D. Me, for instance. I prefer the high quality 2D pictures that comprise buildings in SimCity 4 to the full 3D models found in SimCity 2013 and Cities: Skylines. It's also vastly easier on hardware. Less compatibility issues, too.

High definition content will look like that if SimCity 4 is not being run in hardware mode...

Nevermind! I have an Nvidia card now! I'm free, free I say! FREEEEEDOOOOM.

Sad thing, too. The game's as fun as it's always been. Now I know how the folks who still play their Super Nintendos feel...

Andreas: Since I lack Windows 8.1, and philosophically am opposed to using the Microsoft application store anyway, I cannot rightly comment on what actually exists in your port. However, updating the UI to something as functional as SC4's would be a wise thing to do. Having as few things as possible stop the gameplay, such as newspapers and whatever else, would be good as well. In short: Things that slow/stop the gameplay are bad. Eliminate them. The Nonny: Micropolis is available for Windows via a Java executable. There is no native, modern Windows version.

Even though SimPeg had many hundreds of files, I would be stunned to learn the entirety of the site's hard drive usage would be more than 10 some odd gigabytes. It confounds, indeed. I can only imagine that the site was being backed up by the host, thus why Pegasus wasn't doing it himself, and the backup server died at the same time the main one did.

Tariel. <3

...this serves as yet another reminder to back up your data. This is such a common occurrence it hurts. Based on the description, the host's hardware fried. If such is the case, SimPeg wouldn't be the only site affected. Terrible all around. Nothing can replace the City Journals, God knows, but the community shouldn't die with them. The SimPeg Night Owls board still exists; Someone just needs to fetch Tariel. Can it be the same? No, but new life can grow from the ashes of the old.

Building textures are a bit blurry in SimCity 4. This is normal. Some more or less so, depending on creator and building detail. Radeon cards have a habit of slightly fudging alignment of textures, too.

Problematically, only the person who wrote it knows at the moment. The SimPeg administrators, sans Pegasus (at the moment), are trying to figure it out.

Well, Joomla has nothing to do with the SimPeg hierarchy... I was never a regular at SimPeg, but the closure of this site will leave a huge gap on the SC4 world. A lot of extremely high quality content was based only there, only a few packs are available in the STEX. Now, all this is lost, and I'm afraid Pegasus is not available for contact here at ST for a re-upload permission. EDIT: Last online, July 2013 I find it odd that administration software would leave that broken, engrish message... Edit: To clarify, I think a person was behind the message, and the software was the vessel through which it was sent into the world. Or something. <_<

That's not going to help without permission to distribute, hopefully something can be arranged to keep the content available into the future, otherwise that would make this day even sadder than it already is. Not to mention some really epic CJs that are going offline with it. I will miss SimPeg and all the wonderful people who made it such a friendly place. What will have to happen, if someone does have a full-site backup, is to ask Pegasus and as many content creators as can be contacted if their stuff can be distributed. The rest will either not be distributed, or a "ask forgiveness later" policy will be used. There is, of course, the argument that if someone allowed their stuff on SimPeg they would not, logically, be opposed to it being hosted somewhere else on a site backing up the original. In my opinion, the least logical course of action is to allow hundreds of pieces of content, many of which are intertwined with content from other sites, to go poof. The first thing that should be done, though, is to make sure SimPeg is actually dead. Not hijacked or otherwise the victim of a prank. I have no idea who Joomia is or their position within the SimPeg hierarchy.

I hope someone has a full backup of the site's files, or a whole slew of things are gone forever.

To add to the above solution, you can use Datanode to help you hunt down the arrant exemplar. File listings are sorted by Group, for some reason, so keep that in mind as you're searching.

I would say it's a data corruption issue, if you're using vanilla. A reinstall would likely fix this. A question not yet asked: What version of SimCity 4 are you using?

Reminds me of an old Flash game where you built an office tower. Cats were involved. I really liked it. Ran like crap, of course, because Flash, but before the thing slowed to a crawl it was quite fun. Your game also draws inevitable comparison to Sim Tower. An alright game, for its time. Scalability proved a problem; the bigger the tower became, the more difficult it became to keep anything under control and caused the fun to turn into a frustrating experience where you tried to please unpleasable tenants. Yes, I'm aware limits need to exist to keep the game somewhat challenging, but you don't need to go full tilt annoying to accomplish the goal. Micromanagement Hell is inevitable with this style of game; I highly suggest you include intuitive, highly developed automation options to help keep the player from drowning in the sheer amount of things happening. Of course, you don't want to go too far and make the game a snore because the game is playing itself. I do not envy your task in balancing this. Whatever mechanisms you include for the sake of challenge and slowing the player down, you're best to have them seem natural and logical and not overbearing. For instance, having a lightbulb pop every five seconds and need to be repaired ASAP or the tower implodes in on itself like a colony in Dwarf Fortress is not a good idea. Having a resource be expended automatically as the tower grows/exists and needs to be replenished would be a better system, like payday in Dungeon Keeper. Make sure to have cats. Cats are nice. Have cats be rewards you can put into offices that will make everyone working in them happier. If you have cats, many of them, I will buy your game even if it's terrible.

Good idea, if people can be both in the game specific help channel AND the main chat.

Interesting statistics, Dirk. Perhaps... there are just fewer people actively participating? Making content and forum posts (In the game sections) and such. The NUMBERS are there, anyway. Perhaps my perceptions are wrong? My idea was that the community was slowing down, long before 2013 came out. But the data indicates the community was slowly INCREASING in size or floating around the same number for most of the years detailed. Fascinating.

The core group of individuals who keep the site going aren't 14-20. They're 20-30. I have a theory regarding this, in fact. There are three generations that go into lasting fandoms. The first generation are the rabble rousers and the people who are hyped about the game, and generally have a short period of interest in the game. The tools are primitive, almost nothing is known about how to mod the game, and most of the creations are of middling quality. The second generation are those with staying interest in the game and are more willing to spend time and energy devoting themselves to making FAQs, guides, and creations. Better tools are made, old ones improved, and you begin seeing consistently outstanding creations. The program Reader, and content creators SimGoober and Bixel would be examples from this generation. The third generation is when mainstream interest in the game has died, the tools are at their finest, and the highest quality of mods are produced. The number of sites and people on them dwindle, and continue to do so until the fandom dies out or a minimalistic and static state is reached. Few if any new members come into the community. The program Datanode, the mods CAM and (current) NAM, and content creators like Huston and Reddonquixote are examples from this generation. SC4 long ago entered the third generation - roughly around 2007-2008. The fact the community still exists is an amazing feat. Few if any other fandoms can boast of such loyalty and interesting long after official support in the game has ceased. Perhaps Morrowind can claim similar. So what we're seeing isn't a fluke, or season or exam time dependent. Overall, we're losing people. Folks move onto new games. C:S isn't just a temporary robber of SC4 players; it's permanent. There are many reasons for this, beyond the mere fact the game is new and happens to be excellent. To give a couple: People have burned out on SimCity 4, and the custom content ecosystem is a mess. Much of what makes SimCity 4 attractive over the longer term also causes a lot of headaches, and getting everything under a certain set of quality control rules would be an arduous task taking a team months to accomplish. So, be proud of the community, what it's accomplished and will continue to accomplish. But hold no delusion that the slowdown is anything but a permanent shift that will continue until Nonny is the only one left. <_<