SC:S 'LAN Party' ideas?

[Romaq]

I see people mention friends and family that may have an interest in SC:S. I have a home network for multiple computers, and I believe there are quite a few who do as well. And there are also 'LAN Parties'.

So...

Given what we know and what we've seen, how would competitive/ cooperative play work? I know SC:S isn't designed around that premise like a first person shooter. But there are several ways of thinking about competitive/ cooperative play:

1) Session Based Play: I load the game, I have five (or fifteen) minutes in which to place my buildings and/ or let the game run, then I have to logout. My opponent logs in with access to the very same data, and begins building from there and/ or allows the game to run within whatever set time there is (Could have many players, but it gets to be like playing cards via email).

2) Turn based play: If we are somehow *able* to 'share' the data without causing 'bad things' to happen, supposing the game supported a timer and allowed people to take turns, how would that work? On what basis do you have competitive/ cooperative play? (2 player).

3) Simultaneous: Teams have a region with goals to attain a certain status or population level (2 to 6 players).

SVN might allow the first idea to work. I won't know that for certain until I have the data to work with. The other two concepts are simply ideas that might be possible, though I don't expect TM to put much effort if any into making that possible. But, maybe they could (shrugs).

So for those who are really interested in SC:S, have the LAN and hardware, and family that share interest in SC:S, what do you see doing with the game if it were possible?

--Romaq

[King Faticus]

how might connecting to another player in another country work (since I couldn't imagine them on a local area network)

I would want to play with my friends most of whome are in other countries so how would playing with somebody in, lets say Finland, work?

[Romaq]

From a technical perspective, it depends upon what Internet Protocol is used (TCP or UDP, too technical for most people). From a security perspective, having connections with anyone else anywhere else is a risk. In security work I've done, I'm accostomed to worrying about my mom hacking my computer. Sure enough, someone hacked mom's computer and *could* possibly use it to attack *me*, except I do not trust 'her computer.' I'd rather trust my wife's computer, under my direct control, to not attack me. I would be shy about anyone else outside my household interacting with a game on my machine. Security on something like that is a major, major pain. For security types, the thought goes something like this: "Just because I'm paranoid does *not* mean everyone is *not* out to get me!"

Having said that, SVN is designed with built-in security, and it could, in theory, be a practical means to share even SC4 cities and regions. That is, for various loose definitions of 'practical'. And if SC:S does not have the notion of 'multi-player concurrant sharing' of city data, I will experiment and see if SVN will do so well enough to make it worth the while. Note that it's sharing of the data files, not the game itself. I don't gain anything by stealing from EA. But the ability to smoothly exchange 'city data' is as much a part of extending the life of the game as the SimTropolis Exchange.

Anyway, don't worry so much about the process of *how* playing SC:S with someone would work. A technical guy like me can cook up a way. What would you do if you could? The two of you have one region, and opportunity to 'do something.' It could be cooperative, it could be competitive. What do you do?

--Romaq

[Romaq]

I've reviewed Caesar IV online. In summary, it amounts to me uploading my cities for others to review, and to attain ranked standing on the basis of various factors, near as I can tell. Of course, those playing C4 online can provide more details, but I didn't know and others interested in SC:S may not know, so I'm posting about it.

The online play for SC:S may consist of much the same thing, and that's fine, though I'm really not interested in embarassing myself (http://www.caesarivonline.com/empire/province/romaq/)in a world-wide competitive environment just for rank standing.

1) I should like to define a 'region' taking the place of the Roman world map.

2) I want to have that region obey a consistant set of ... for lack of a better term 'plugins' that apply to all regions.

3) I want to be able to have multiple players interact with cities within that region. I would prefer they be able to do so concurrently, but if not I'll using SubVersion to maintain the data over The Internet.

4) I want individual cities to 'matter' with respect to other cities in the world. My C4Online city only provides a 'rank' standing. Nobody within my group of ranks is depending upon me to provide goods for trade, or for me to buy their goods. I don't have to worry about someone invading my city and taking it over while I'm asleep. I can't build an Army and go conquor someone else's city if they leave it neglected. Of course, 'conquoring' a city really shouldn't be an issue with SC:S anyway, as it's not a military genre type game. I'm just pointing out that interaction is distinctly limited to rank standing as opposed to various forms of direct interaction.

5) It may be possible allow immigration between cities within a region map IF SC:S allows genuine real-time (or near real-time) interaction between cities. If, in the version of SC:S that rolls out, sims can decide to leave Bellingham on the region map and move to Lynden while still holding a job in Ferndale, then an SVN backed multi-player server can have 'competition' in having cities try to lure sims away from other players, or they might cooperate to have one city focus on industrial jobs and farming while the other city focuses on residential and commercial needs.

6) The idea of having 'multiplayer online games' in this fashion is that you have someone who controls the central server as both governor and mayor manage the rules and gameplay in such a way that his friends will continue to want to play with him. If the 'governor' is an idiot, nobody will want to participate with the fool as they can easily form their own server.

7) Much work along this line can be done independent of TM's control as soon as we know how 'regions' actually work. Presuming they have some notion of interaction between 'nearby' cities similar to cities within the world of Rome.

8) Since XML is used, it will become very VERY handy to have SVN manage the interaction of the files among the group. Much depends upon how much data is in a given file and so on. I look forward to learning more about how the data is actually stored.

9) It would be useful to know who else reading the board has worked with SVN and would be interested in working out how to deal with SC:S in that context.

--Romaq

[wodinoneeye]

Likely the most workable way in this style of game is to have channels defined as points on edges of each city map which the player links a transportation system to and routes resources (exports) and brings in others (not available or cheap or in enough quantity) as an import. A central database then saves and passes on these channel numbers to other cities when they are played.
As a city develops, its numbers go up and the cities it is linked to then get higher transfers. The transfer is a yearly/monthly rate which depending on how the city changes (done by player or natural effects) will aslo change. The capacity would be limited by the transportation system connected to the channel on each map. Some game element would allow transhipping resources across their map to pass it on to another channel. Many (all) cities can be played at once by different players and at different times by different players -- the system doesnt care.

Cities dont need to be actively played to produce/consume their resources. The rate is in efefct until the city is played and rates are adjusted periodicly as the city is played and the database is updated. If the transfer falls below the level required, some negative effects will start eating the players city (I would need more info about how the game mechanics work to figure what those would be).

The initial game setup would be predefined maps with a varying mix of local resources with different maps position defining which are adjacent.

It would be upto the players to coordinate to get the resources missing on their own maps and to expand the whole 'country'.

Dont count on TM providing anything that might allow you to do this yourself.
What I describe above could be implemented by TM without really that much work and use a centralized server to act as the database (a single pc could handle 1000 players... so they cant beg off on that expense).

[Romaq]

Likely the most workable way in this style of game is to have channels defined as points on edges of each city map which the player links a transportation system to and routes resources (exports) and brings in others (not available or cheap or in enough quantity) as an import.

Based upon my C4 experience, there are 'mile markers' from which the sims enter the map. Invariably it is from a road that just begins to break up, as if it is fading off in the distance. Though, of course, the road simply stops where it breaks up.

Land traders also spawn and enter the city at this point to go to the trading post. Ships come from some other direction and head to your port, though I strongly suspect there is a 'point of entry post' in the water for them as well, I simply don't see it.

Raiders spawn from one or more points. It appears they are fixed points. The Scenario editor... I shall say it is not of the same quality as the game client for ease of use. My focus has been on what SC:S might be like based on C4 gameplay anyway, rather than on scenario issues. But I digress. The point being, I believe there are 'posts' seen or unseen with the game client that serve as spawn points for resource consumption and provision in the form of raiders, traders and sims entering and leaving the city. That might be how SC:S does it, I think it likely.

The part that I DO NOT like about this approach is that I'm unlikely to be able to supply a major transit artry, such as Interstate 5 within my city as a major transit artery within the region. I have not yet seen anything concerning regional development within SC:S, so... all I can do at this point is guess.

A form of this in SC:S might be the way to go, though as I've stated in a previous post I'd really appreciate for some means to see adjacent cities and have them connected via transit.

A central database then saves and passes on these channel numbers to other cities when they are played.

In my mind I saw a single file that pointed to the region's apron as well as gave city names, defined GUID links and whatnot. Then this XML 'region' file would work really well in a SVN setup, and SVN would maintain changes to the region apron as well as the development of the cities within that region.

As a city develops, its numbers go up and the cities it is linked to then get higher transfers. The transfer is a yearly/monthly rate which depending on how the city changes (done by player or natural effects) will aslo change. The capacity would be limited by the transportation system connected to the channel on each map. Some game element would allow transhipping resources across their map to pass it on to another channel. Many (all) cities can be played at once by different players and at different times by different players -- the system doesnt care.

If it were set up so we could put those whole smash on a network drive and have multiple licensed copies interact with the data concurrently, that would be ideal for an 'interactive home' situation, such as my wife playing one city while I play the other within the same region. I'd still use SVN as more a 'backup system' since it wouldn't be needed to propogate the data, but if I used this for interacting with a group I'd keep it tied to SVN for controlling the changes. I wouldn't put this on a networked drive open to the net. I would still be cautious about rogue users. Someone in the group who goes into a snit and decides to delete everything. With SVN that would be annoying, but you can revert the deletion easily. With a virtual network drive it could be quite devistating.

Cities dont need to be actively played to produce/consume their resources. The rate is in efefct until the city is played and rates are adjusted periodicly as the city is played and the database is updated. If the transfer falls below the level required, some negative effects will start eating the players city (I would need more info about how the game mechanics work to figure what those would be).

Aye... I really would need to know alot more about SC:S than I do on this side of the release date. C4's 'region' is the entire Roman world. Trade Cities are ad-hoc and if you play one day what becomes a trade city on another day, yesterday's gameplay has no bearing on today's tradeing partner. Without knowing if SC:S behaves the same or if cities are grouped into a real region like SC4, it's all guesswork. What you describe above sounds pretty much like SimCity 4, and only works by adjacent city squares.

The initial game setup would be predefined maps with a varying mix of local resources with different maps position defining which are adjacent.

It would be upto the players to coordinate to get the resources missing on their own maps and to expand the whole 'country'.

It might be. The information we have on 'regional' issues is nonexistant, as far as I can tell. I've not seen mention of 'regional' play yet.

Dont count on TM providing anything that might allow you to do this yourself.
What I describe above could be implemented by TM without really that much work and use a centralized server to act as the database (a single pc could handle 1000 players... so they cant beg off on that expense).

1) Caesar IV exists by the graces of some central server. No provision appears to be made for someone other than Sierra to carry C4online forward. NO provision is made for private groups of friends to interactivly play.

2) I don't want a centralized server involved. I want to be able to choose among a small group of friends to interact on something specific within SC:S. SC4 online really has only one meaningful goal to compare one player against another: The Ranking Score. I can't get a group of friends to play within a region I've built and pursue certain specific goals among the group the way C4 online is set up.

3) SVN tracks changes within files. It really shines when tracking changes within TEXT files. SC:S claims the file format will be XML. SVN will be great for synchronizing changes among a group of friends changes to a group of files that SC:S uses. Unless TM is going to encode those XML files with some key tied per game client that the enduser isn't aware of, TM really has no means to STOP using something like SVN for exchanging data. And it doesn't sound like they have interest in doing so. That being the case, SVN *will* allow for some form of private interactive SC:S gameplay. The question has more to do with what form that interactive gameplay takes place.

I'm not yet prepared to sort out Caesar IV gamefiles and determine if I could set up a 'group' C4 city. It's certainly possible to share group development of a single C4 city using SVN. I'm just getting close to played out with C4, and my primary interest is in SC:S, and following that Cities Unlimited. But TM won't easily be able to prevent a group sharing SC:S city info any more than they could prevent people sharing C4 cities, and point of which they appear to encourage the sharing of cities, scenarios and whatnot.

More data, more data. We need to know more about regional issues.

--Romaq

[Sim Nation]

Im not trying to cause trouble , but to save you guys hours of thought , then more hours typing , i thought i would remind you that a certain preview of SCS , stated that each city in SCS is a self contained unit , and gone was the regional play of SC4 as we knew it .

We are told , and i seem to have no chioce but to accept , that SCS is not Sim City 5 , so to expect a sim city 5 from TM ,now seems a little unreasonable.

Product Development is a bloody expensive exercise , ive been through the transition myself , but now i have the knowledge and skills to produce world class products , within my own industry.

If i was chris right now , and he probably has , i would have a small team,developing "stuff" to be used in the future , it appears that TM enjoy or have the expertise to produce CB games ,but they are still realy a very young company,to develop every aspect of SC4 , then add there own twist to make SC5 , sounds like a big project ,on a blank canvas with no help. If they intend to specialise within CB type games , then long term ,he can only be investing in his company or thier company , whoever owns it, and i assume and would expect the business is pumping as much money into product development as it can afford.

C4 played on a regional scale , wow , Tinkerbell ,and King Faticus in control of the Macadonians , and Carthigans playing on the same map , im the romans ,like praetorians but better all in real time , all in real time on a live internet server , with TS so i can call him a whore , when he slaughters my legions and pilfers my cities , sounds great fun . :D

I wont go into the mechanics of how i think everything should interact but it sounds real cool for the future .
________
Babe Italian (http://www.****tube.com/categories/187/italian/videos/1)

[Azeem]

C4 played on a regional scale , wow , Tinkerbell ,and King Faticus in control of the Macadonians , and Carthigans playing on the same map , im the romans ,like praetorians but better all in real time , all in real time on a live internet server , with TS so i can call him a whore , when he slaughters my legions and pilfers my cities , sounds great fun . :D


That was possible in "Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom," another game from the City-Builder Series. You could play with other people online and each person is ruler of his own city and interact with cities of other player through the game's diplomacy options (you also have the option to execute emissaries that other cities send you). The problem was that the multiplayer option was never popular among CB gamers since CB games are so oriented to single play.

[King Faticus]

I never played Emperor but I heard that the online play was almost always empty... sounds like it was really fun.... :rolleyes:

[tobing]

The problem with Emperor as a multiplayer game is that there's no close and direct interaction between the players. You interact through the world map, using the diplomatic options you also have in single player. We have played a few evenings at home, and used this mostly to help each other or help those who would run out of money or other resources. Coop games of course. One day I tried what happened when I send my army to one of the others. Well, they get attacked, and once you sent your army, you can do nothing about it but watch and see everything fall to crumble. Definitely not what would be called 'real time'.

C4online is of course not more than a ladder like in some RPGs (Sacred for example) where I have seen such things. Attractive for some players, but of course not for all of us.

I can only agree with Sim Nation about the state of SCS, it should be mostly completed by now, so there's no time for major changes. What is there is there, and everything else may find its way into another game. This includes MP afaik.

Though TM is quite a young company, the founders do have a lot of experience in city building: they (at least) created Pharaoh a long time ago.

[Romaq]

That the game should be 'very close' to being cast in stone, this does not change what is *possible* using SVN. All SVN does is manage a single set of files across multiple users making concurrent changes. SVN really doesn't care what the files actually contain, and specifics of the file management are up to the server maintainer.

SVN doesn't 'need' TM's approval for multi-player use, though I would strongly suspect they would support anything that gets more legal copies of the game sold. As would Electronic Arts. So if TM were to make no further changes to SC:S and release it today, 'something' could be done for multi-player SC:S. The details of what could be done, unfortunately, are tied to the details about the file formats, file-locking, file structure and organization.

I'm sure those details about the game save files are likely '99.44% complete'. Maybe. They could be 100% complete. That doesn't change the following:

I personally do not know that all game save file specification details are 100% cast in stone. If they are 99% cast, I would like that 1% left over to consider issues of file locking, ignoring hidden files, custom content packaging, distribution and maintanence, data channels (storing trade values between two cities in a third separate file instead of storing that data once in each 'city' file) and so on. Since I can't be sure what TM doesn't have cast in stone, I take this opportunity to voice an opinion that may have bearing on my own interests. It isn't shipping code until it actually... you know, ships.

And on most of these things I'm not necessarily asking for major changes. I can't possibly imagine that telling SC4 to ignore those damned hidden files and directories would be anything more than toggling a file listing mode that it uses to get a list of files. Unfortunately, it's too late for me to ask Maxis to turn off that behavior, which I consider to be a bug. But perhaps it's not too late with TM.

Hey! TM? Would you mind PLEASE telling your game not to notice hidden files and directories? I mean... it's a game and not a file utility, and it's reasonable that a game not read through hidden files. Ok? Thanks!

That's not an unreasonable request. So as long as I'm making requests, I may as well pour into it what effort I care to spend in hopes SOMETHING of it makes a difference. I'll know more when specific details are released or I have the final product to work with.

That said, SC:S with no further changes than what's in the can today CAN be used multi-player with tools like SubVersioN (SVN). What remains to be seen is how much easier it is to use SVN for making a multiplayer game out of SC:S that anyone would want to do so. Since my time asking is my own to spend, and since I have the hope anything of my asking might possibly make a difference, I'm going to ask until I have information that changes the nature of my requests.

I will also hopefully find people willing to help me test ideas on SC:S in multi-player gaming. I believe that is worth speaking about to find those interested. Regardless of whatever TM does with SC:S, SVN manages concurrent file changes among a wide-spread group quite nicely.

Now, about those file formats...

--Romaq

[Sim Nation]

Well strictly speaking , C4 has a military , so i would kind of descibe it as CB/RTS as it is now , and not just a cb game . imho

It would still have a single player mode , the multiplayer comes as an extra and not at the cost of the single player campaign . Since discovering online gaming i very rarely play single player , only sim city kind of breaks that rule , and i do look now and purchase games on the basis they do have a multiplayer online option .

But even if they remain as "single player" games i would still hope they would look at development ,of things like regional play , transport , terraforming , long distance pathfinding for future editions and development of other titles. You know pathfinding even sucks in atari axis and allies , if i unit cant find a route ,it pretty much gives up and stops.

I didnt play Emporer , although ive played maybe a dozen other titles online, AoE III one day had over 2700 people online looking for a game . My experience of most online gaming chat lobbies are they can be realy quite busy places .People still play Praetorians online and you can link up on gamespy . I think it adds a real interesting twist to any game , that you can play against real people online , and not just a retarded ai in a single player mode. Atari axis and allies , was marketed poorly , and recieved poor ratings based on single player campaign , atari sold the rights to AnA , nearly 4 years later GS have just doubled the size of the online server ?.
________
T2 (http://www.mercedes-wiki.com/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_T2)

[tobing]

Somehow I wonder how SVN should help or enable anything wrt multi player. How exactly is that supposed to work? I do know SVN quite well as a developer, but I can't see how it could help SCS. Could you explain this a little further?

[Romaq]

Files are files. Before I would start up SC:S I would do svn update and fetch the latest changes in the repository. When I'm done with a session, I commit my changes to the files, and those changes to back to the repository.

As with any other project having concurrent development of source code, binary images and other data, someone as the project lead decides how to delegate responsibility for making changes to a batch of files, if such delegation is needed for the project. Where there are binary files such as images that do not go through text 'diff', you need to have discipline within the group to decide how to resolve differences between conflicting versions.

Since SC:S data is stated to be in XML and scripts are supposed to be in C#, text merges of data are a great deal easier. In situations where text can't be merged by SVN, or if there are too many issues with conflicts between versions, the group will need to be disciplined enough to use some token scheme with exclusive write access. "I have the token, and only I can make changes until I release the token so others may make changes." Using that sort of discipline makes using SVN much more problematic, but that isn't the same as saying it isn't possible. Just... less desirable than a solution that allows SVN to resolve version differences within the software. If that's possible, that makes it a great deal easier for a group to use SVN to maintain an 'SC:S' region project.

What form would an 'SC:S' region project take using SVN? Here's a hypothetical... suppose you run a program just before you play SC:S. You play SC:S as normal, just like you would expect and everything behaves as normal. When you are done playing SC:S, you run the program again. Hopefully, that's the end of it. You do nothing else, and we will ignore for the sake of this discussion what happens when the software encounters a version conflict.

What happens then? By the magic of SVN, it is just as if someone ELSE sat at your computer and played your region (or city) with SC:S for a while. This other person ONLY has access to a specific city file you allow, nothing else on your computer. But your region (or city) changes, and you can't be entirely sure what this person has done until you NEXT run this program, and then restart SC:S. That's the idea, you can't be sure what this other person is going to do, but you allow them to 'borrow' your SC:S session just for the surprise of seeing what they come up with.

Of course, the notion works much better IF this takes place over some notion of 'region' like SC4 has rather than 'city only' like Caesar IV cities play out. And if the person does something really terrible just to spite you, SVN will allow you to roll back any changes or deletions to a specific point in time. Nothing that person can do will cause irrevokable harm to your SC:S data files.

But that's a rough sketch of the concept of using SVN with SC:S. The details depend on answer to questions for which we do not yet have answers. IS there region style play in SC:S? So far, it sounds as if there will not be, which will be a disappointment. Is it possible the 'region' concept will be more like Caesar IV? It's *possible*. Could some process in software forge data links that would allow 'trading cities' within SC:S (the way C4 thinks of them) to be updated within your city, so your fortune rises and falls based upon the cities others are playing, EVEN IF this was not the design or intention of TM? It's *possible*, but the details on doing that remain with TM for now.

There may be a great deal of tricks within SC:S that TM simply won't know until they release it to the world. I would be greatful to have comment from someone involved in SC4's development concerning things like NAM 2007, CAM, SAM, Menu Management Lots and dozens of changes to SC4 that take the game to a level that doesn't appear to have been considered on SC4's release.

I also wonder what secrets SC:S might have that TM doesn't *really* know are in there. 'Bugs' that get used to make the game engine do things it wasn't expected to do; third party software and custom scripts that have SC:S behave in a way that the design plan never considered.

SC:S *can* be a 'multi-player' game. The catch is the amount of pain involved in making it so. I hope that, given a choice in how they format and organize their data even at this late date, TM will consider choices that allow SVN to work more easily, all other issues being equal.

That's really what I have on my mind. No major changes to the game itself are necessary. Just... please TM don't present hidden files or directories to the game. Please organize file hierarchy by the context of the data, such as a file that holds relationships between objects like cities instead of having BOTH cities store the relationship. Please use GUIDs as appropriate in addition to human readable names. That would apply to SVN.

Network drive issues! I very much hope TM is explicitly testing running the game save data over a shared filesystem between two licensed computers, and I *HOPE* it works! I hope my wife and I could 'share' a city between two licensed copies of SC:S, something that was more simple to do using SVN than the ham-fisted approach I'd have to use to make my /My Documents/ work over the shared drive. I hope TM tests for a 'shared drive' experience, and even if 'multi-player' isn't intended, that SC:S will use some form of semaphores to alert computer B that computer A has already claimed that city and has to wait, but MIGHT permit another city within the same region be available for play. For various as yet unspecified forms of 'region play'.

There's wiggle room in there for multi-play somewhere. I aim to find it, regardless of TM's game design specifications.

--Romaq

[tobing]

Well, to be honest, I don't fully understand all this. Of course you intend to use SVN to share and administrate the games files, but what does this help to turn SCS into a multiplayer game?

There are no regions, just cities. Maps are randomly generated, maybe you could load a predefined map. You play your city. There is no trade, nor are there commuters to other cities.

File locking is done by the OS already. So either a savegame file is kept open (which is unlikely) and thus locked for another player using a shared network drive, or it is not, then the other player could also load that savegame. No problem here, except for the fact that accessing a share could be a problem. Writing is slightly more difficult, so assume both players want to save ther same city: Either they get a conflict (that is if they save simultaneously) or the later writer wins and overwrites the city. Bad idea. SVN might help here, but what's the point? You can easily share savegames you want to expose anyway!

So SVN may indeed help to administrate the games files on disk, especially the text files. Someone has to keep the depot intact, that is there woudl be different branches, just like in software development. Don't count on discipline, you would need dedicated people to approve or reject individual changes.

To my knowledge there are plans for running a server or website that helps people sharing their cities and buildings, and maybe more. We'll have to see what they really do when the game is finally released though...

[Romaq]

No 'regional' interaction, no forms of transit beyond two and four lane roads and dirt roads, no curves, no diagonal streets. Subways are confirmed to be a part of it, nothing specific on how those are routed so they may be 'invisible bus stops' with no potential for being above-ground light-rail or monorails. All individual buildings must be plopped.

But it will have plenty of lip-stick and a very nice slinky dress.

My apologies for sounding down about this. I have been spending time in Caesar IV, and enjoying my time considering what SC:S *might* be like given what I see in C4. The picture I have of SC:S at the moment is C4 using modern buildings. But no Rome region context. No trade cities. No C4 diagonal roads. No invading barbarians or Roman legions, of course. But I can have the fun of having MIBs attack rogue mimes and clowns where gingerbread streets meet Red Square. Access to C# scripts and XML data formats will allow for a slinky dress and lots of lipstick.

But in the end, a pig with lipstick and a nice slinky dress is still a pig and the game Tobing presents to me isn't a game I'm interested in. I've been putting in effort to keep waning enthusiasm up for SC:S. I have been avoiding looking at screenshots so I don't get discouraged over buildings connected by four lane highways. I've purchased Caesar IV to look for things that may positively apply to SC:S. I've tried to be generally supportive of Tilted Mill and SC:S for the game it could be, and what might be done with custom mods to improve upon the game the same way SC4 is significantly improved by custom content. And I've tried to hold onto that.

Tobing has been kind enough to point out the ugly facts concerning SC:S. We are still looking at a pig, and even *my* infinite patience has limits. I hope Tilted Mill can get authorization to release something specific about SC:S to give me something to look forward to with SC:S that isn't a step backwards from SC4 and even Caesar IV. Some evidence please that SC:S isn't C4 with modern buildings and without the virtues C4 has over SC:S as it is described so far.

I tire of this, and I can't continue work up enthusiasm about that sort of game waiting until the November release just to get a pig in a dress.

--Romaq

[deathtopumpkins]

Sorry about your disappointment Romaq. I feel with you. SCS really seems to be a step backward.

[Romaq]

If SC:S can't even really build upon what they accomplished in Caesar IV, that... kinda sucks.

--Romaq

[deathtopumpkins]

Yes it does. :(
I've been working on a city in SC4 lately that I'd like to share.
Ill post a screenshot in a minute. :)

[Azeem]

I don't recall which thread, but I think it's already been revealed that there are two-lane roads. One of the screenshots show a narrower two-lane street.

[deathtopumpkins]

Yep. It has. :D Yay!

[tobing]

The problem seems to be that you all try to push something onto SCS, according to your expectations which are triggered by SC4 and Caesar4. While that's understandable, it's not wise. Did any of you read my report about what I saw at the Games Convention? There I said it: SCS is to be considered as a new game. The intention is to find something again with SCS that seemed to be lost with SC4, and that's the pure fun of creative city building. Once you understand and accept this, that SCS is to be considered a NEW game, not to be compared with SC4, then you might very well be able to enjoy what SCS does give you. I certainly enjoyed playing SCS at the GC, and I'm eager to play this game.

Read here: http://www.simcity-soc.de/scs/gc2007_report_en.html

[deathtopumpkins]

But what YOU don't seem to understand is that SC4 WAS a fun game. I know that SCS is a 'new' game. I'm eager to play it as well. I was just commenting that I feel that it was not good to go backwards like that. I'm gonna miss other transit types.

[tobing]

But what YOU don't seem to understand is that SC4 WAS a fun game.
Maybe. Until recently, I only played the vanilla version, and that was not fun to play. Having the addon now, and some custom content, it's a different story...
to go backwards like that
and here I strongly disagree. It's backwards only if you directly compare with SC4, and it neglects all the new and fresh things in SCS.

There one point to argue about however, and that is using the name SimCity for this new game. There are good reasons for doing that, but there are also reasons against... well, EA decided it this way and we have to take it. To be honest, I'm not very lucky with that name either, but then I'm not a marketing expert. After all, it's just a name, and it's the game I'm looking forward to, regardless of its name.

[Azeem]

But what YOU don't seem to understand is that SC4 WAS a fun game.

What is considered "fun" is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. There may be some of us (such as myself) who felt that SC4 deviated too far from what the original SimCity was, the classic SimCity having been touted as an "electronic toy." The name "SimCity" shouldn't be exclusive to "SimCity 4" and it's rather interesting that the "This is SimCity" thread only really shows off pics of modded SimCity 4 graphics as opposed to SimCity classic, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, or even vanilla SimCity 4 graphics. Don't get me wrong. SC4 was a good game in its own right. Watching a realistic-looking (though not necessarily functionally realistic) city pop up was quite interesting and I do get excited over plopping in Asian buildings so I can make my own little representation (visual only, of course) of an idealized modern Korean town; however, SC4 just adds waaaay too much to be totally engaging.

The whole SC4 vs. SCS thing is really a matter of apples and oranges. Also, it isn't called SimCity 5, but SimCity Societies. ;)

This issue is really reminiscent of the old Pharaoh vs. Children of the Nile days (even when CotN was *NOT* supposed to be a Pharaoh sequel, but a totally different game) and more recently, the Civilization IV vs. Civilization: Revolutions quarrel. It's neither a step forward nor a step backwards; rather it's just a step in another direction. :)

This isn't to say that I don't have any concerns about SCS, though. I am liking what I see so far, but I'd really like to see airports and seaports. With what we have so far, while it is possible to more effectively re-create the atmosphere of a Jinju, Changwon, or Namhae, it doesn't seem that we can create a Seoul, Busan, or even Jeju City. It is possible to make something a bit like a Cheongju, however. :o

[Romaq]

I considered the matter further tonight while at work. Since C# scripts are supposed to be possible, there may be a great deal that one can do towards writing applications in C# that provide the functionality desired in SC:S, including some form of 'region'.

The problem comes up towards having enough fun within the released game to provide a starting point and incentive to add to it.

I really *really* am not interested in SimCity Classic in 3D. Yes, there's more to it with that with societal influences and such, but there's functionality missing in what a 'city' means to me from SC:S. Perhaps those missing things can be put in the way the NAM team put in so many great things to make SC4 significantly different in gameplay style.

I try to focus on reasonable expectations, and as Tobing points out my expectations for SC:S are clearly not reasonable. Perhaps over time custom modders can fill in those issues, but that will take time AND an audience willing to make the investment. I don't know at this time if I will be a part of that initial audience or not. I don't have enough info to go on and my interest and enthusiasm wanes in the vacuum. That vacuum keeps being filled with 'Ain't Happenin' and 'Too Late To Consider'.

SC:S from where I sit and what I understand looks like SimCity Classic, only in 3D. And with mimes and men-in-black. I just can't maintain enthusiasm for that sort of game.

--Romaq

[deathtopumpkins]

I was just expressing my opinion. I think it went backwards as a SC sequel, but it has DIFFRENT aspects, like the full 3D and the whole societal concept.
Until recently, I only played the vanilla version, and that was not fun to play.
I still only play the vanilla version, even though thats about to change.
and here I strongly disagree. It's backwards only if you directly compare with SC4, and it neglects all the new and fresh things in SCS.

There one point to argue about however, and that is using the name SimCity for this new game. There are good reasons for doing that, but there are also reasons against... well, EA decided it this way and we have to take it. To be honest, I'm not very lucky with that name either, but then I'm not a marketing expert. After all, it's just a name, and it's the game I'm looking forward to, regardless of its name.

I don't think they should use the SC moniker for SCS. It should just be SC.
I have played SC Classic, SC3k Unltd., and SC4RH, and it isnothing like any of those.

What is considered "fun" is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. There may be some of us (such as myself) who felt that SC4 deviated too far from what the original SimCity was, the classic SimCity having been touted as an "electronic toy." The name "SimCity" shouldn't be exclusive to "SimCity 4" and it's rather interesting that the "This is SimCity" thread only really shows off pics of modded SimCity 4 graphics as opposed to SimCity classic, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, or even vanilla SimCity 4 graphics. Don't get me wrong. SC4 was a good game in its own right. Watching a realistic-looking (though not necessarily functionally realistic) city pop up was quite interesting and I do get excited over plopping in Asian buildings so I can make my own little representation (visual only, of course) of an idealized modern Korean town; however, SC4 just adds waaaay too much to be totally engaging.

I know, and I consider it fun. I don't understand how SC4 is 'too complicated' or anything else like that. I like it just the way it is.
The "This is SimCity thread" has old SC pics, and I posted vanilla pics. It did lack being able to have a regional identity though.
SC4 IS totally engaging to me, and it does not go 'too far'

I really *really* am not interested in SimCity Classic in 3D. Yes, there's more to it with that with societal influences and such, but there's functionality missing in what a 'city' means to me from SC:S. Perhaps those missing things can be put in the way the NAM team put in so many great things to make SC4 significantly different in gameplay style.

I try to focus on reasonable expectations, and as Tobing points out my expectations for SC:S are clearly not reasonable. Perhaps over time custom modders can fill in those issues, but that will take time AND an audience willing to make the investment. I don't know at this time if I will be a part of that initial audience or not. I don't have enough info to go on and my interest and enthusiasm wanes in the vacuum. That vacuum keeps being filled with 'Ain't Happenin' and 'Too Late To Consider'.

SC:S from where I sit and what I understand looks like SimCity Classic, only in 3D. And with mimes and men-in-black. I just can't maintain enthusiasm for that sort of game.

I'm with you Romaq. It's too much like SCC in 3D. And the mimes and MIBs really make it too ... whats the word for it?... cartoony i suppose.
I think my expectations for SCS are perfectly reasonable.

Sure, I know that SCS in NOT SC5, but I don't care. I will buy it and play it, I just think it deviates too much from the SC series.

[wodinoneeye]

2) I don't want a centralized server involved. I want to be able to choose among a small group of friends to interact on something specific within SC:S. SC4 online really has only one meaningful goal to compare one player against another: The Ranking Score. I can't get a group of friends to play within a region I've built and pursue certain specific goals among the group the way C4 online is set up.


--Romaq


Im thinking of all the people who dont have 'family' to play with and who would take this group play as a major asset and increase the sales...

Part of the system would be a server component that would allow you to set up your own private server at home or even one to be shared by people on the internet from a private server (the company should not care as long as it sells more game copies). They likely wouldnt want the cost of running a central server so they could allow privately run ones.

The server mechanism itself would not be complex after they define the client mechanism to handle the channel system (they made need a city saver/loader to facilitate reassigning 'in progress' cities for players who drop out. Similarly if custom maps for each city position are provided then they need to be uploadable (or coefficient set for some semi-random map builder)..

[wodinoneeye]

Im not trying to cause trouble , but to save you guys hours of thought , then more hours typing , i thought i would remind you that a certain preview of SCS , stated that each city in SCS is a self contained unit , and gone was the regional play of SC4 as we knew it .

We are told , and i seem to have no chioce but to accept , that SCS is not Sim City 5 , so to expect a sim city 5 from TM ,now seems a little unreasonable.

Product Development is a bloody expensive exercise , ive been through the transition myself , but now i have the knowledge and skills to produce world class products , within my own industry.

If i was chris right now , and he probably has , i would have a small team,developing "stuff" to be used in the future , it appears that TM enjoy or have the expertise to produce CB games ,but they are still realy a very young company,to develop every aspect of SC4 , then add there own twist to make SC5 , sounds like a big project ,on a blank canvas with no help. If they intend to specialise within CB type games , then long term ,he can only be investing in his company or thier company , whoever owns it, and i assume and would expect the business is pumping as much money into product development as it can afford.

C4 played on a regional scale , wow , Tinkerbell ,and King Faticus in control of the Macadonians , and Carthigans playing on the same map , im the romans ,like praetorians but better all in real time , all in real time on a live internet server , with TS so i can call him a whore , when he slaughters my legions and pilfers my cities , sounds great fun . :D

I wont go into the mechanics of how i think everything should interact but it sounds real cool for the future .



I said it was how it could be done, but I have no real expectation that TM would ever do anything of the sort (not even offer a program interface for others to add it later). Ever since I saw them have an 'unsupported' mapeditor and offer no patches for obvious problems, I dont consider their business model to even allow any hope.

[wodinoneeye]

I considered the matter further tonight while at work. Since C# scripts are supposed to be possible, there may be a great deal that one can do towards writing applications in C# that provide the functionality desired in SC:S, including some form of 'region'.

The problem comes up towards having enough fun within the released game to provide a starting point and incentive to add to it.

I really *really* am not interested in SimCity Classic in 3D. Yes, there's more to it with that with societal influences and such, but there's functionality missing in what a 'city' means to me from SC:S. Perhaps those missing things can be put in the way the NAM team put in so many great things to make SC4 significantly different in gameplay style.

I try to focus on reasonable expectations, and as Tobing points out my expectations for SC:S are clearly not reasonable. Perhaps over time custom modders can fill in those issues, but that will take time AND an audience willing to make the investment. I don't know at this time if I will be a part of that initial audience or not. I don't have enough info to go on and my interest and enthusiasm wanes in the vacuum. That vacuum keeps being filled with 'Ain't Happenin' and 'Too Late To Consider'.

SC:S from where I sit and what I understand looks like SimCity Classic, only in 3D. And with mimes and men-in-black. I just can't maintain enthusiasm for that sort of game.

--Romaq


All the player effort in the world is useless unless the company design the game to be expanded (code hooks and gamemechanics to facilitate the expansion as well as enough info about the game internals to interact with the existing game).

It all takes design/coding/testing ($$$$$$) up front.
TM isnt likely to pay for such features or risk delays inherant in a more complex project.

[Azeem]

SCS is advertised to be extremely moddable. I'd imagine that it may be possible to alter some of the fundamental mechanics in the same way Civilization IV modders have dramatically altered the game.

Having EA as publisher is a bit of a double-edged sword- on the one hand, their resources and investment can enable the development team to put more into the project but on the other hand, the EA contract could be extremely limiting in certain aspects.


I don't think they should use the SC moniker for SCS. It should just be SC.
I have played SC Classic, SC3k Unltd., and SC4RH, and it isnothing like any of those.


Once again, the issue of naming arises. Many games have spinoff or other iterations in their series that are fundamentally different in game mechanics to others in the series and yet keep the name of the series (Final Fantasy: Tactics, Halo Wars, etc.). What makes SimCity so special that it simply must exclude everything else?

[deathtopumpkins]

Once again, the issue of naming arises. Many games have spinoff or other iterations in their series that are fundamentally different in game mechanics to others in the series and yet keep the name of the series (Final Fantasy: Tactics, Halo Wars, etc.). What makes SimCity so special that it simply must exclude everything else?

SimCity is SimCity. That's what makes it so special. I would accept SC5 as SC5, but SCS is a spin-off, not a sequel.

[King Faticus]

SC4 is also a spin off in some people's eyes...

[deathtopumpkins]

Yes, I suppose, but it's just the fact that SCS is so DIFFRENT from SC. I had SC3k before SC4 came out, and I thought SC4 was a worthy sequel to SC3k and expanded on it, not replaced it.

[King Faticus]

I liked 2k and 3k but 4k got way too ... intricate and tedious for me to enjoy so obviously I don't feel it is a worthy successor but that is just me.

SCS is still about building the city YOU want to build and is still fundamentally that 'electronic toy' the original was.

[deathtopumpkins]

Yeah, I'm just bummed. The intricate-ness of SC4 was one reason I liked it so much. I think I'll go play it. :)

[Azeem]

SimCity is SimCity. That's what makes it so special. I would accept SC5 as SC5, but SCS is a spin-off, not a sequel.

That's the point. As I said, spin-off games usually retain the original titles of a series despite being highly different. SimCity shouldn't be seen as an exception to the rule.

[deathtopumpkins]

Ok. You're right.
Spin-offs retain their original titles, but just to attract buyers. There are a lot more people who will buy SCS just because its SimCity, who wouldn't f it was just called Societies or something.