Dr. Neitchskrimfrauwnmoya

Hello fellow Simtropolites! I was just feeling nostalgic and decided to check out ST since I don't remember when was the last time I set a foot here. That's crazy, I still remember like yesterday when I bought SC4 back in December 2003 then registered here and discovered all the cool custom stuff that made me play SC4 until late 2007. I was just out of highschool back then and now I'm gonna be a graduating civil engineer in a couple of months, that's crazy! Well, time flies, as they say... Anyway, even though I didn't bother reinstalling SC4 the last time I reformated my PC somewhere in 2008, I still have a copy of all my plugins and region folders preciously stashed on an external HD, worth about 3-4 Gb of files. I remember trying to clean my plugins folder at the end because it slowed down the game way too much, but it finally revealed to be way too much of a task for me and that's how I kinda lost interest in SC4. Having told you all this, I was wondering if I was the only one here who's OCD enough to keep all their files, even if I've not and probably won't play SC4 in ages? I mean, I even have there a copy of the very very first city I've ever done in SC4 (which is, surprisingly, very nice compared to other later cities I've done) and other several city files with last modified dates dating back to 2004. I also have screenshots for a CJ I never completed in 2005 or 06 involving zombies and a certain Umbrella Corp, that's too bad I got lazy on it 'cause it was a really nice city... As far as I know, I have absolutely no intention of deleting this stuff and will probably keep all these files at least until we get a SC4 successor that actually does it right (which should be around 2048). What about you, my dear Simtropolites? What are you doing/have done with your plugin files and other custom stuff? Are you keeping it for other generations to enjoy them or just putting them in the garbage? What about other games too? Because, to sound more OCD, I still have all the savefiles for the SC3k cities I've done, the very first houses and families I've built from The Sims 1 (I only had the first expansion). I don't know what happened with the SC2k ones but I still have some SimTower savegames somewhere (one of the best "minor" Sim game). Please someone tell me you still have old Doom savegames on some 3½ floppy disk so that I don't feel like the worst packrat ever!

Does anybody know if there is a demo of SCSocieties available somewhere? Or will there be one available soon? I don't want to shove fifty bucks on this and find out the hard way how bad the game is. Well, maybe a demo would show me the game isn't that bad

Dave, I was extremely surprised when I've learned two days ago that a new SC game will be released in a near future. I kept thinking that there wouldn't be another SC until at least 2010 or more. For some reasons, this was so clear in my head that I had completely forgotten about a possible SC5 because it was way too far in the future. That's why I was surprised. It was like Back to the Future or somethin and I felt like I was in 2012 (but just for a brief moment, I'm not that crazy you know). Anyway, as soon as I learnt about the (working) title being SC: Societies, my surprise was followed by some fear. In the last two days, as additional informations got released, I got more and more disapointed. However, I've kept my disapointment to myself -this is my first time posting on the SC:S subject- because I know that speculation is still monstruosely rampant. I'm impatiently awaiting this GFW mag preview before judging anything, and that's what most people should have done instead of jumping on their high horses and personaly accusing you of the homicide of SC. Okay, maybe after that GFW preview, I'll go ride my horse high in the air and join the accusing crew; but for the moment, I try my best to stay as neutral as I possiblely can. On another note, someone mentionned something that I think is extremely important in another thread but I haven't seen it here. It's about the several different types of SC4 players. It's not supposed to be 100% accurate, but it should give you a very good general idea of the different mentalities across the SC4 community: Serious players : Those players are fully aware that SC4 is serious business. Deadly serious business. They play by the rules, cheat very rarely, grow most of their buildings, spend a lot of time balancing their budgets and are not afraid of micromanagement. They enjoy the rich complexity of the game and all its subtilities. Those players will ask you where are the zones and why making the game less complex. They would have loved to see mixed-use zonage, and maybe even more things to manage, like a nationwide budget for example. There is no need to say that right now, with the little informations available, these players are extremely sad, to say the least. Road geek : For them, the NAM is a real godsend. They spend a lot of time building their transportation networks and then they fill those gaps between their roads with buildings. SC4 is really cool for them because it's a traffic simulation game within a city-building simulation game. However, the game might also be very frustrating for them because the game traffic engine is far from being perfect. "Oh dear God why my Sims don't drive on my highways, all take those small winding streets instead and then complain about traffic congestion?", or "Why can't my Sims walk more than one block to go to work?" Never having enough transportation options, these are those players that will ask you about a rural 53 lanes wide higways with HOV lanes dual-networking a MAGLEV train track and a 5 levels stacked interchange over an urban avenue with turning lanes and parallel parking spaces. Seeing that in the screenshots, no mass transit networks of some kind and no highways were present, only those 4 and 2 lanes roads with blocky 90° "curves", these people are also very disapointed for the moment. Realism freaks: These players are devoted to develop their cities as realisticly as possible. They won't build a metropolis straight from the start. They will start with a small farming village that will slowly grow and expand into a bigger city. They will destroy buildings into their old town center to make room for bigger and more modern ones, highways and mass transit netweorks. Surronding cities will be transformed into suburbs. They will be careful to not have huge skyscrapers next to small houses. Each sector of their cities is carefully planned. They often create extensive storylines with their cities concerning their history, politics and even climate. The reception of the new SC by these players is hard to tell because it depends mostly on the gameplay and the "societies" part, which we have almost no informations on right now. But the plopping part might not be a really good news to them. One of the latest screenshots showed farms, so it might be reassuring. But what about those futuristic buildings? Those might not be well received. Sandbox players: These players produce cities also known as "eye-candy". They don't want a functional city, they want a beautiful and pleasing city, that's it. They often use money and utility cheats and mods (like a lot that produces 1 bazillion power and water for free) so that they don't have to deal with trivial things like waste management for example. Most of their cities are plopped, some plop 100% of their cities. They are also the heaviest custom stuff users and are the best to find rare, unheard of, Japanese plugins. The only focus here is the look. Another branch of the sandbox player is the sculpter, who almost only terraform the landscape and plop trees and waterfalls in order to create stunning natural sceneries. These players might well receive the game because they will now be able to "feel" their cities in 3D and pretend they can walk around their creations. However, not being able to freely draw streets and transportation networks and having the buildings to conform to them might as well be a turn off. If the game is still stuck into a grid, the general blockiness of the cities won't be very appealing to the eyes of these players. Casual players: These players enjoy playing SC but don't get overwhelm by it. They build several cities more or less similar, get bored and stop playing. They probably won't mind a new direction for the next game and some fresh new concepts. It might help them to renew an interest into the game genre. Cross-over hybrid players: Because in real life, nothing is completely black or white, several players are situated in a grey area and can't fully fit in the above categories. They are a mix of different things, but there is always one type of playing which is stronger in them. For example, I am, myself, one of these. I'd say I'm 40% a serious player, 40% a realism freak and 20% a road geek. Yes, I may be a little crazy but I'm sure (I hope) I'm not the only one out there. I have very mixed feelings concerning SC:S, but most of them are sad feelings, unfortunately. But like I said, I'm waiting for this GFW preview before saying anything else. But seeing how you people at TMill get involve in the community is encouraging and I'd like to thank you for that.