Armandeus

I received a reply from Ragutaro, the admin of http://hide-inoki.com/ . Here is the translation: Good evening, Armandeus. I am the admin of this site, Ragutaro. I read the Simtropolis thread you pointed out (this thread). As a member of the Japanese SimCity community, I am happy that this site, Sim City Force, and others are receiving attention from overseas. Simtropolis is, for us, a very important site and source of information. Until now this relationship has been mostly one-way, but now we have the opportunity to make a world-wide contribution. However, the language barrier is a big problem. It's no problem just to rename a lot in English, but registering and uploading at Simtropolis requires a lot of English skill, and this might be a big psychological hurdle, especially for the younger ones among us. I'd like to help out as much as I can, but I'm afraid I'm very busy with my site. However, I would like to help by answering questions at my site about how to upload at Simtropolis, and questions from Simtropolis about those lots featured on my site. Thanks.

I don't know much about this stuff, but here's a link to a program on a Japanese site that creates a user interface for transit-enabling lots. Translation of menus: First top tab: Change to Base 16 Numbers Top left square: Location of Tile, From Left, From Top Bottom left square: Location of Connections (S is top, E is left, W is right, N is bottom) Top right square: Transportation Type Left column: street, railroad, ground highway, road, water pipe, electric line, avenue Right column: subway, el-train, monorail, one-way road, unknown, raised highway Box directly below that on the right: Consecutive Number Sequence Address Bottom right button: Copy This Windows program was created by Hidetoshi Inoki (Ragutaro?). I have asked him if he would consider offering an English version of this program. There are also some water textures here .

Date: 5/31/2004 9:07:06 PM Author: Equinox I have several questions: one. Where can I find this to download? quote> I said eariler this lot is unavailable, but I spoke too soon! Baro (one of our Japanese lotmaking friends) uploaded it to the LEX! Go here . He has also uploaded a set of growable Japanese houses . Very nice! Baro has uploaded two more SOMY lots, here and here . These are the same lots people in this thread have been asking for. I hope SOMY uploads the rest of his great lots. Go now, and give mad props to this man.

Date: 6/1/2004 9:53:38 AM Author: I think Armandeus answered part of my question already, but for clarification..... I understand that we are waiting for approval of the BAT makers for upload, does this include the props? I was looking for some new planes to add to an airplane boneyard I want to do, so should I wait for permission or use the props and give credit to the maker or the site? There is no rush, but I am always excited for new props, and these are wonderful!quote> I asked them to upload their lots on the ST Exchange. The admin of Sim City Force is planning to put the instructions for doing so on his site more prominently. I have not yet asked if individual props can be used by other lot makers. The reason is that not all the lots/props we are interested in come from Sim City Force. We are not dealing with one big centralized site, but several independent ones. Give me a URL and clear directions to the picture of the lot, and I will try to find out how to contact the creator to ask him if you can use his props.

Date:6/1/2004 6:58:06 AM Author:Odainsaker Cool, a hearty thanks to Armandeus for interpreting and navigating our way through these webpages. I'm sure all our eyes are about to have kanji and kana script burn-out, but it was sure worth it for the gems we are finding. Osaka Castle! I got myself the Osaka Castle...and I won't have to make it myself! Now to find an accurate Tokyo Station... It just occurred to me...we haven't yet seen many of their region maps. Oh, I bet someone may have a correct DEM of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and many of their other great cities and regions. Also, an apology and thanks to our Japanese BAT masters, whose bandwidths are probably getting strained by all our suddden downloading. quote> You're welcome! Region maps? Here are some: The Kanto area (region around Tokyo) from EA SimCity 4 Japan official site. Three regions here , the first is the area around Tokyo Bay, the second is Hokkaido island, and the third is Olympus and Tharsus on Mars. More regions of Japan, titled in English here . A bunch of fantasy regions here . A rendered region map of Britannia from Ultima Online made by a Japanese fan. Another couple of fantasy cities (not regions): Megalopolis and Babylon . Oh, and a couple more buses and trains . The admin of Sim City Force has replied to our message: Thank you very much for accessing it. I am the manager of our site. I knew that Japanese bat was a topic with simtropolis for the first time today, too! The bulletin board of simtropolis was being read, and it thought that really wanted somehow.... But, I myself am the mere manager of the site, and I am not a maker. First of all, the report of this matter and the guide of the contribution to simtropolis will appear on the top page of the site soon. I am happy if the maker's people do contribution, too.... I am sorry in poor English. You can read and reply here . This is how to post on the BBS. You click on the second text link from the left (which is post a message). That will take you to this page: You don't have to register, and the password is only if you want to edit or delete your message later (make one up). You don't need an e-mail address unless you check send reply notification.

OK, I posted a message in Japanese to both Sim City Force (the BAT question board, not the BAT submission board everyone is looking over now) and hide-inoki.com . I posted the same message. Here are links to a machine-translation of what I posted on Sim City Force and hide-inoki.com . There are some words, like Simtropolis written in Japanese script, that Babelfish could not translate, and you see them as garbled text. Here is a link to Babelfish , which will give you a very funky English translation (it makes me sound like Yoda) of whatever page you paste in the input box (select Japanese to English, of course). This will help those of you who want to know names of lots and so on. There may be a better traslation service, but you get the idea. To give you an idea of how (in)efficient free online translation is, for comparison here's my English translation of the message I wrote in Japanese: Greetings, everybody. I am Armandeus from Simtropolis. Until now, most Simtropolis members had little knowledge of the existence of Japanese SC4 sites, but now your lots here are the center of attention. Your lots are great and are highly regarded. I was asked by others at Simtropolis to tell you so. There is much interest in your lots, so if you don't mind, the members of Simtropolis would like to invite you to consider translating your lot names into simple English and posting them on the Simtropolis lot exchange. I'm sure you would be very popular. Here is a link to the LEX. (link) There is an active discussion about your lots here. (link to this thread) There is a great guide in Japanese on using Simtropolis here. (link to that page posted earlier) Simtropolis is here. (link) Sorry about my bad Japanese. Thanks!

Corlian and Phantom Owl, the creator of the el-train/railroad lot says that UDI won't work, but he doesn't specifically say that the lot doesn't function. Maybe it converts el-train traffic to railroad traffic. The creator of the second lot (the straight road with train tracks) writes that it is experimental, and right now it is just a park. The lot with the flags, and another one on that same page, are also experimental, and do not function as transport. The discussion about these lots is speculative about how to put trolleys (streetcars) in the game.

Date: 5/31/2004 9:07:06 PM Author: I have several questions: one. Where can I find this to download? http://kamurai.itspy.com/bbs/data/simedit/old/log6/1081656076601390/Buil01.jpg Three: can you please tell these people that there is great appreciation from Simtropolis regarding their excellent work? Oh, yes. I also plan to mod a lot of these works so they are fully detailed in English ... I hope to give custom queries to a few of them ... if the authors would allow sharing, I would gladly host them on my FTP once I finish them so we all can enjoy their marvelous works in English.quote> First question: You can find the site at the HOME link. It is here . Unfortunately, not only is the lot listed as no longer distributed (that's what the red writing to the right of the picture says), but I never downloaded it, so I can't send it to you. Third question: I will do that sometime tonight. I will tell them about this thread, and how everyone is excited about their lots. I will post to the Sim City Force BBS and the inoki BBS. Finally: I will ask that the people at these sites upload their lots to Simtropolis. They may not want to, however, because it requires that they register here. There is a tutorial in Japanese at Sim City Force on how to register here. Nevertheless, some of them might not like the idea. It all depends on the inclinations of each individual. I will also ask everyone there in general if they mind having their lots translated and posted. Even if they agree to that, we need to be careful to credit the lot to the original creator. Some of these people may not agree to these suggestions. It is like asking BAT authors here to go and re-post their lots on Sim City Force. If they refuse, I think we should respect their decisions. I don't mean to be a jerk, but please look through this thread for the answer to your questions about these lots before PMing me. I welcome your PM questions, but I'm getting a few questions that I already answered in this thread.

Alkaola armandeus you rAMAZING@!!!!! Thanks! Morhavoc Lol they are really up on their guns and transformers lol. I think that's just one person making those lots. They are Gundam armored battle suits (with human drivers) not Transformers. I'm not into the Gundam animated series, but it's well-known here. More info here . Ettis was interested in new water textures. On this page , the Admin of Ragutaro has created a DAT file that adds a new water texture. He says it has the wave effect, but without trying it myself, it is unclear as to whether that means moving wave animation, or just the static appearance of a wavelike look.

Date:5/31/2004 10:23:45 AM Author:simcity4crazyguy Thanks Armandeus! Does anyone know, if I click on the pictures (link in Armandeus' last post), and there is no lot attached, how can I download it? Or is it under construction then? Example: http://kamurai.itspy.com/bbs/lev-bbs.cgi?bid=simedit=log5&skin=skin/config/=/bbs/skin/config/&style=1&page=1&ppid=1079351997672736#1079351997672736 I need that dam! quote> You're welcome. The dam can be found at the HOME link in the top right corner, as I explained. Here's a direct link to the lot zip file. About no lot attached - please re-read my post above carefully.

Date:5/31/2004 7:38:03 AM Author:Morhavoc Still haven't figured out how to download anything from the first site though. quote> If you are talking about Sim City Force (which is the first site referenced on this thread), then this is the way to download lots. First, go here: http://homepage2.nifty.com/kamurai/simcity/log.htm There are 6 links in the middle of the page, with the numbers 1-6, (and lots 1-430) listed. Click them (the left links) in turn to see all the lots listed with thumbnails. For example, on the first page (lots 1-63), you can click on the blue links under the pictures to go to those respective lots on the bulletin board. The hard part comes next. If there is a link to the DAT, SC4LOT, ZIP, or LZH file under the picture, you can start downloading. If not, then look for the HOME link in the top right corner of the message that contains the lot picture. It usually leads to another web site where you can get the lot, but each web site may be set up differently. If you still can't find it, ask me and provide a URL, stating what lot you are hunting for, and I will try to help you. A few lots are not available any more, and lots with NO PRINTING (they mean to say no picture available) are without thumbnail pictures, but often the link to the lot is still there if you look. You will have to use the lot editor to see what it is, I guess. Does that help?

Date:5/31/2004 7:24:15 AM Author:simcity4crazyguy Does anyone know what this is? Heres the link: http://kamurai.itspy.com/bbs/lev-bbs.cgi?bid=simedit=&skin=skin/config/=/bbs/skin/config/&style=0&page=0 It has tremendous amount of detail, but I have no clue what it is And will these be in Japanese in our game? (The american english version) quote> The creator describes it as a high tech tower that creates 5000 industrial jobs. He doesn't get any more specific than that. I guess it can be whatever you want it to be. The lot names and descriptions should show up with garbled ASCII text, because I doubt if you have Japanese fonts installed on your system. Use the Reader or DatGen or something to rename the lots to whatever you want. Even if the Japanese lots have a garbled title in your game menu, you can still change the lot names for each individual lot in your city.

Date:5/31/2004 6:01:33 AM Author:Ettis And how exactly do I suppose to from the water texture get a complete mod out of it? quote> If you are addressing me, I thought you wanted a texture, not a mod. I don't know of any mods that change the water texture, but there are some here on Simtropolis that change the color.

Date:5/30/2004 11:44:20 PM Author:mrbisonm I wish only that they would make more of their own architecture (like temples etc) I just love that stuff. Then you will love this site. It is a bulletin board where you can download lots mainly of Japanese castles and temples. http://hide-inoki.com/cgi-bin/levbbs/lev-bbs.cgi?bid=sc4lot=&style=0 Date:5/31/2004 2:14:59 AM Author:papa_san i was thinking though, there is a good source of props here to use in the LE. would that be ethical to use them in a custom lot and make available on the LEX? i think it would be hard to get permission because of the language barrier. If you have a specific lot in mind, and we can find the author, then I will offer to ask his permission on your behalf. Otherwise, I think it might be a bad idea (rude, at least) to upload other people's stuff without their permission. Date:5/30/2004 8:24:41 PM Author:joerg Its the Tokyo City Hall i cant seem to find my way back to where i saw it though. But being from japan you might know what it looks like if not hopefully i or someone else can stumble onto the pic again. To you and ardecila, I have the lot in question on my computer, and I could plop it in the game, so I'm not sure what this bug might be. PM me with an e-mail address to send to and I will give you what I have. Date:5/30/2004 11:44:20 PM Author:mrbisonm A shame that the Marina is not available anymore,does anyone have that one by any chance?? You're in luck. I have it on my computer. PM me with an e-mail address to send it to. Date:5/30/2004 9:15:23 PM Author:jmdude1 uhm...what are the .bld files in some of the .lzh files? are they compatable with sc4? or sc3? I don't have any files with a bld extension in my Japanese SC4 folders. Maybe you downloaded a SC3 file by mistake; many of these sites are mixed SC3 and SC4. Correction: Maybe it is a GMAX file. Why doesn't the board allow me to quote more than one message at a time, even if I type the quote tag myself? I made a mess of the thread. Sorry, everyone. Edit: Thanks, Mods!

Date: 5/30/2004 10:40:56 PM Author:DFS too bad the files at http://briefcase.yahoo.co.jp/dareka789 are all dead because the thing got overloaded. If anyone has the files from the page http://www.geocities.jp/dareka789/bat.html , gimme them and I will host them in my private server without bandwidth limits.quote> I didn't download the files, but when I posted the link here, the page was still OK. The Yahoo page that comes up says the link has been temporarily suspended due to bandwidth usage. I suppose if you try it later on it should be working. This is not a Japanese page, but one of the Japanese BAT message board posts referred to this page as a source of BAT textures: http://perso.club-internet.fr/lemog/lemog_textures/acc_textures01.html Oh, and I checked the fishing marina page again, and it says that although the lot is not available, the creator doesn't mind if people want to distribute it (and his other lots) freely, as long as he (SOMY) is credited.

Date: 5/30/2004 10:23:04 PM Author:mrbisonm This site has a lot of *kitch* (colourful stuff) and not much of the same quality lots that Simtrop has. Though a few are outstanding BATs, like 3 or 4 of them. Nothing much here for me, it is in general the same as here,except some exceptions. I would have to say that there is lots of kitch in the ST Exchange too; it's just that there are so many lots here that it is easy to avoid the kitch. The ST Exchange is more organized and centralized. There are quite a few innovative Japanese transit lots (road-train underpasses for example) that I believe may predate some of the similar work on Simtropolis. Date: 5/30/2004 10:23:04 PM Author:mrbisonm If someone would find the download of the fisherman's Marina, please PM me. That is the only one I would like to have. The author's site says it is no longer available to the public.

Date: 5/30/2004 10:25:13 PM Author: JEC armandeus, you are a tremendous help for all of us. i hope you know how much we appreciate what your doing for us. quote> You're welcome. I'm glad to be of service.

OK, here's more info I found. Water textures in the middle of this page: http://kamurai.itspy.com/bbs/lev-bbs.cgi?bid=simedit=&style=0 More BAT textures here: http://0bbs.jp/KEN/ Millenium Tower download: http://briefcase.yahoo.co.jp/dareka789 Instructions: download mireniamu.000, mireniamu.001 and mireniamu.bat, put them in the same directory, and double-click (execute) minreniamu.bat more lots: pictures here: http://www.geocities.jp/dareka789/bat.html downloaded here: http://briefcase.yahoo.co.jp/dareka789 More (with other lots on further pages, accessable by clicking the number lists at the top): http://xworld.s7.xrea.com/simcity4/exhibition/building-08.htm More: http://www25.tok2.com/home2/hakokun/lot.html Tokyo Diet (Congress) Building (and other lots): http://www2.tba.t-com.ne.jp/avocado/simcity/ The Tokyo city hall in Shinjuku is pictured on this page (the twin-towered building): http://kamurai.itspy.com/bbs/lev-bbs.cgi?bid=simedit=log4 but I'm still looking for the download link. I have downloaded it, but I can't remember from where. Edit: I remember. I downloaded it from that page. It seems to have been removed. Trains and buses: http://www3.tok2.com/home2/hakucho485ec/sc4/index.html http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_mod.htm Convenience stores (including 7-11): http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_001.htm Train stations, etc.: http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_003.htm Parks: http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_004.htm Chain Restaurants in Japan: http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_005.htm Japanese dept. stores: http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_006.htm Misc. stuff: http://www.geocities.jp/sim4mamo/2004mk_bat_lot_007.htm

I will post something on those boards to tell them that Simtropolis is interested. I will also look for links for those lots. I will do so later today (I have to work now). If there is anything you need translated or whatever (not too much text, please) be sure to give a URL and be specific. Look at my previous message for more BAT/lot links. I think I know where that water texture is - give me some time.

Gee, if I had known that all of Simtropolis would freak out, I would have posted this long ago - I'm always downloading lots off these sites. I thought nobody would be interested. The lots should work in English SC4; you might need to use the Reader or something to rename the lots to English. Otherwise, they are the same thing. Unfortunately, the fishing port is unvailable, as you've noticed. It says so in red next to the picture. I live in Japan and read/write Japanese, so if there's anything I can help out with here, let me know. Here are a few more lots. I'll find more later on today. Biper's Lots Various Batters Many Lots: Click on the Buttons to the Left