megalopolitan

If you think I want to plop every building all the time you've lost your mind... so I like zones, lol. These people really do have all day to sit in front of their PC, don't they?

The way it was done made it unnecessary. In 99% of cities you're going to lay water over the whole map. One kind of pipe and you just don't have any options but to lay it all out. I doubt water pipes are the problem, its more the way it was done. Sewer lines, storm drains, aqueducts, flood stages, all of that would have been cool if well done into a design that caused you to think about the implications of your actions when it came time for the city to survive weather, storms, hurricanes, disasters, and all that. I guess I'll have to settle for gingerbread and a candy cane? I don't think so lol...

I wish I believed that it would make a difference, but I don't. Good luck.

A 3-D UDI (think an actual simulator) would be downright cool. Fat chance of that.

Originally posted by: SpinmasterBut they do have the next best thing - roaming cheerleaders! Very realistic, no? Haven't we all been walking down the street depressed at some point, and some random cheerleader just spontaneously runs up - in full costume - to make us happy? For free?quote> Omg I'd so like that... cough Anyway, uh that screenshot is depressing.

Originally posted by: The_Dalai_LlamaI will gladly take 2003 SC4 graphics and more content over 2007-8 graphics and less content.quote> 100% ITA. In fact, I'd rather have less cpu time on graphics and more cpu time on other things in this type of game anyway. That's easily done with today's average hardware.

Odainsaker has a critical point, and it is one they are acting on. Don't think for a minute SCS won't sell, it _will_ sell. And a lot of the reasons he points out are why, among other things, like people like the blonde haired chick in the video looking at a retail shelf "Oh there's a new SimCity, how cool" and thoughtlessly puts it in her Wal-Mart shopping cart... sigh. Personally, I find it laughable that they expect me to believe they give a ... about the fanbase.

Originally posted by: John-SJOne way to counter than, and to keep enthusiasm going is by implementing the game on a phased design. I got this idea from Firaxis. When the start a new game, they don't wait for a finished design, they get a barebones direction for the game and immediately implement a prototype. The prototype won't do much, but the programmers have something in their hands, something to improve upon.quote> The force is strong in this one...

I'm losing my faith in big companies like EA and SOE.quote> You are not the only one. SC4 has begun to find its permanent place among my "old games" that must be backed up and cared for in the event I cannot get copies of them ever again. You know the drill, get the game to the state you like it, back it up, test the ability to reinstall it, keep it backed up over multiple media sources, the usual... I feared I would have to do this once Maxis was off the game. It's really quite sad what SOE has done to some of the online games, man... memories, communities and friends destroyed... very sad times. The saddest part of it all is that they lost money doing it, and more importantly, they lost what once was a good name in the industry among buyers.

If only it were so simple as to insult them into doing the right thing. I could lay down some choice words for what I think about it, lol. Lord General Cornwallis: [referring to a replacement formal coat] It's a horse blanket. Colonel William Tavington: Oh I don't know my Lord; it's really, quite nice. General O'Hara: Very nice my Lord. Lord General Cornwallis: Very well it's a nice horse blanket.

Originally posted by: seanivs Very few of us, however, experience clown schools, candy houses, Stalinist prisons, floating stoplights, mimes being hauled off by thuggish police, etc..quote> What are you talking about? I deal with that stuff every day! I absolutely enjoy the details of building cities, especially transportation. If I didn't I wouldn't play this game. And while water pumps, towers, and sanitiation were good ideas, the water pipes could have been left out, until someone came along and said... Hey, it isn't realistic not to have water pipes... lol

Originally posted by: Bookworm @megalopolitan: I don't think they're killing it, and that is the opinion I hold about SCS. Also, as I've said, this may only be a spinoff - we don't know.quote> I suppose I need to say that I've given credit to SCS where it is due. As a society simulator I think its a valid track to take with the game and it could do well. A "spinoff" if you will. I'm fine with that, it doesn't appeal to me, so I won't be involved in it. The mere implication that junk could replace SimCity as we know it is an insult to the current playerbase of the game. It really is that simple. I look at the pics and say "You call THAT a ROAD?" and start laughing. It won't get my money in anything like its current implementation. Although it could change, so much would have to change for it to go the direction of a proper city building simulator as for it to be a different game entirely. No I don't like EA, but that's a seperate topic. I wouldn't base a buying decision off of not liking them... yet. I bought an EA title just months ago because I liked the game... it sure wasn't because I liked what EA typically does to playerbases. I just don't want to be misunderstood.

The graphics could see a substaintial improvement. Beyond that, there are literally 100's of great ideas here in the forums that, put together, would make SC5 without so much as a lot of thought by a developer. Quite a few long threads exist on the subject. If anyone makes a game like that I will buy it.

One old thread here lol Pantera - Regular People (Conceit) - Vulgar Display of Power

Originally posted by: Bookworm Personally, I don't understand it. We should be happy that there is going to BE an SC5, and we should be happy that Tilted Mill seems to be working so hard to make it a good game. True, it may not be the same Simcity we're used too, but I think it is a good game nontheless. quote> 100% wrong. This is the attitude that EA uses to justify killing games. BTW, SCS will never be SC5.

This is the first time I've ever tried to modify anything in the game, so I don't know much. I downloaded this lot from the STEX. I figured out how to change the properties I wanted to change on the lot with the SC4Tool. I figured out how to rename the lot with the lot editor and change a couple of minor things. I have looked... and searched... and read... and will keep looking, but I can't seem to find an answer to this last question I have so while I am looking and reading I will ask it here. The lot is a school, and the model attached to the lot, when you mouseover it in the game, gives the correct name of the lot. However when you mouseover the other parts of the lot, such as the buildings used as props, it gives the name of the prop. Sometimes that isn't a problem, like if the prop is a basketball court or something like that. But in this case the props used as buildings have names that have nothing to do with a school. So when you hover over the prop it gives the name of the prop used as a building, where I want it to give the name of the building. I noticed that on the default maxis schools that the props used have no names... I'm thinking there must be some way to edit this information and either SC4Tool is the wrong tool for the job or I just can't find it. Can anyone give me the answer or point me to something to read to get the answer? Thank you.

That answer filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge, it worked perfectly as well. I did have to move the BAP files to the PF plugins folder for it to work, glad you added that note. I can see now how you take an exemplar from the original files and include it in a lot with different properties. Thanks!

I attached a zip with three (crappy) pictures. One is a picture of Justanotherism's high school with 3 of the university buildings added. In this one, the mouseover functions like it should, with the orange background, apple ratings for the school, and the correct name of "County High School" displayed. I did not cause it to act right, it just did by default. Another pic is of a County Elementary School, but this time the prop buildings that are added show up with a white bubble with the name of the prop, in this case "elementary school". The building on the left of it (the large grey gothic looking thing) is the model attached to the lot and shows up with the correct query as above. The third picture is a picture of a county hospital, with the same problem as the elementary school. The building next to the hospital shows up as a "Hi-Rise Tenement", and its a prop on the lot with the hospital as the model building. The hospital building shows the correct query. If the blank lots are outdated is there an updated set? SimCity-4-Pics4youAndreas.zip

@ Roth: Thank you for that answer. I understand what you are saying to do, but I wouldn't know how to get a copy of the prop exemplar file out of the original game dats or the buildings as props plugs, although I know where those files are. Could you breifly explain how to extract a copy of a prop exemplar from the original dats or provide a link if its covered somewhere else in the forum? I recently found the "blank lot sets" in the downloads area... for the school I ended up using a different lot, I made a set of civic buildings for me to play with that has the attributes that I like. Nothing worth releasing (and since made with a bunch of plugins in the folder jeebus knows how many odd dependencies...) but its steps in the right direction. @ Shadow: Yeah, be careful and go slow when adding custom content. Read the readme files and double check dependencies. Some of the dependency files are better found on SC4Devotion (look up that site and register) than here these days. I could have *sworn* that while I was using one of these tools (ilive reader, LEProp, SC4Tool) that I saw a list of dependecies when I opened a file, but it escapes me now where that was.

Maybe I'm not understanding this... It seems to me the props are coming from the original simcity files. The only thing included with the download was a lot file with no dependencies. When I open the lot in ilive reader the lot exemplar contains a long list of "LotConfigPropertyLotObjectData" calls that seem to contain the hex numbers that relate to the props in use. SC4Tools sees these same calls but lists them under "Lot" as "0x88EDC901 : TileDef", which has location x,y,z and position x1,y1, etc with hex values and an IID value in hex. The two lists seem to be the same. I tried adding "Query as main building" to "true (0x01)" and add a "User Visible Name Key" property with the value of "0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000" to the lot exemplar but this didn't work... I didn't expect it to, but I don't know a lot and tried this anyway. I've managed to create an LTEXT file for it with LEProp, and was reading about some of the things you can do with LTEXT files. Thats getting over my head pretty fast at this point. I'm under the impression I can't alter the original buildings that are being used as props directly... is that wrong, or is there another way, or do I just not "get it" lol?