The future of the community.

[Kergelen]

Regarding recent comments on the theme "Three Rivers Region" for some time now I wonder if the community or the website SC4D is in decline.
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=112.msg409106#msg409106

I wanted to start this topic to share my feelings and my concern about the activity in the forums and to find out and ask other members what think about that (both the recent users and the old ones). First of all let me say that I made about 2 years I'm really active in the forum and only 1 year and two months since my first message. So I have a limited perspective on what has been SC4D since its founding in 2006, although as a SC4 player I had a period from 2003 to 2006 and another from two years before till today.

First of all, I have to say that I write the message with a translator because my English level is not high enough to discuss these issues. Although the other reviews I do not use translators and I'm improving my English. So sorry if there are some mistake.

When two years ago I returned to SC4D and SC4 I noticed that they had already done many things between 2006-2009/2010 but already in 2010 had less to LEX files that of previous years. I also saw that there were many teams, but that few had long lacked messages. At that moment I thought I had already lost the best years of SC4D (between 2006 and 2009). Also looking at statistics of 3RR I saw the strength and comments had dropped in 2010.

As for the picture competition of 2010 was very fast and was difficult to even find the time to compete. Now voting sometimes is a long process and go 1 and 2 days without any image to compete.

Recently I have been looking at statistics SC4D every year and have seen different things:

Looking at the general data is the number of items dropped from 3157 (2007) to 1699 (2011), the number of messages have dropped by half (from 108,084 (2008) to 48,813 (2011), but the number of new users hasn't dropped so much (from 23,709 to 17,257, a decrease of approximately 25%) and the only online users has dropped insignificantly.



Looking at more specific data from different days is the number of messages per day has fallen far from 2008 (there were between 250 to 500 messages per month), and there are 100 to 150 Messages per day approximately. The number of new issues has also fallen to less than half. The number of new users per day has also gone down since 2009 but at a rate lower. Finally, what is more surprising is that the number of online users has fallen slightly but the last 3 years and even be superior to 138 of 2008. Currently there are about 130-170 users online (in December 2011 and January 2012 can be explained because there are more people on vacation. But the quantity of posts is 60 to 140 post. So looking at data from different months and different years can be deduced that allele ratio of post per user connected to decreased considerably with respect to 2007-2009.
The statistics of the LEX but is not there between 3000 and 6000 downloads every day so many people interested.



1-New Topic, 2-New Posts, 3-New Members

The image are not in a high qulity so if you don't know where, here you can see the stats of the forum http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?action=stats

I am also CapitalSimCity user (website in spanish) that without the data I've seen enough activity dropped last year.

What I can deduce from these data that many users do not send messages that are relatively new and always better to read at first as there are many things to learn, some others are active in other communities and just follow the news of SC4D, others are old but only connect occasionally to look at how things are going but no longer plays such as before or not, or are simply making a break.
I don't know if I'm wrong but it seems that many users currently active are more dedicated to MD (as is my case) than BATS and MODS, which has led many teams there are very active or inactive. This may be because there is not much need for new BATS as there are a lot of material available from previous years and people do not need both BATS.

Well, I like to read the statistics of the forum as I things are interesting.

Although this is only a few thoughts of what I often think about the community. Personally for me the SC4 is more than a game, a hobby, and is the only game I play now and SC4D a community that I visit almost every day and I am very grateful. And the truth is that I am concerned that the activity in the forum is down. Obviously life provides many turns and there are important users who fail assets for personal reasons or simply because they are tired of the game. Users like Andreas, Ripplejet, Barbyw, Ennedi, Ferox (SCPolska still active ), Jeronij (allowing us to enjoy this site ) and much more. But there are always pleasant surprises when you see how old users like Pat,  Dedgren, TheTeaCat with which I have not shared temporary space but have always been referents, return to the community.

What do you thing about?

I hope 2012 will be a great year for the SC4Devotion community! 

[art128]

I think the main issue is because some people are lacking interest in Simcity 4, or have dropped it for another game, or even the real life has taken a biggest part than before.

[dedgren]

I'm going to think the whole issue through a bit more before I post in detail here, but what Kergelen has posted is very important information for folks who are concerned about the future of the community.  I'm not necessarily feeling bleak about the current situation- I've been laughing at predictions since about 2007 that assert that "this year (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, fill in the blank) is absolutely, positively it for SC4, as there is no way anyone is going to want to play a (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, again fill in the blank) year old computer game.  To tip my hat, SC4 has just about been reinvented by the community in each one of those years, and the commitment of the folks who play it has always been at the highest levels.

So, I'll be back.


David

[MandelSoft]

I think, just as Arthur, quite some people are moving on to another game. I've seen quite some people come and go on this site, and sadly, sometimes talented people too. For instance, JMVL, from who I learned to make puzzle pieces for the NAM, is not active anymore for more than a year.

Besides that, the game getting out of sight for new users, which explains the decline of new members. The game itself gets into the background, while new game titles are popping up, like Cities In Motion or CitiesXL. But for quite a while, this side does have a solid core group of members that once they got hooked on, they'll never seem to get away. These are off course our moderators and administrators, as well as some respected and long-term members who often stop by here and there on the forums.

Our community may be in decline, it's not dead yet. In fact, on SimTropolis it's still alive too, but that's a more casual platform...

Best,
Maarten

[noahclem]

Over the previous months I've also been a bit concerned about the declining activity around here. At times it has worried me quite a bit. While there are less active MDs, less posts, etc, I feel like the ones remaining are of outstanding quality. Many MD scenes would be amazing to someone viewing just a year or two ago and the accomplishments of teams like the VIP and NAM, among others, are truly something to behold.

What I'm getting at is that it appears that the community is solidifying into a "hard core" rather than dwindling away.

The major downside of that is that the community becomes increasingly inaccessible to newcomers. With the plethora of amazing add-ons playing the game vanilla doesn't make sense but tracking down all the goodies can be a daunting task.

Keeping the community accessible to users other than the "very advanced" doesn't have an easy solution that I'm aware of, but as long as we retain the critical mass of interest, talent, and creativity that has characterized the community at SC4D I don't think we'll lose our SC4 home anytime soon.

[whatevermind]

While I don't think the community is necessarily in trouble, I have a similar experience to Kergelen, in that I was intensely into the game in the mid-2000s before RL got in the way, and have only in the past year found the time to jump back into the game.  In the process, I've discovered an entirely different game then the one I played 5 years ago - massive developments, the kind of things that fell into the "wouldn't it be awesome if..." category, now exist.  And they exist only because of the incredibly strong and dedicated fan community that exists here and on other sites.

That aside, there definitely appears to be a "Golden Age" of SC4, roughly from 2006 to 2009, when you look at the dates of items on the LEX and the age of posts in the forums.  Like Kergelen, I thought that,

I had already lost the best years of SC4D

And it took some time to see how much development is currently ongoing, and find where activity is still happening.  I think part of it is a perception problem, that people see teams that haven't produced anything in a long time, or high profile projects that have dropped out of view.  Some of this I think is truly abandoned projects or ideas that hit dead ends, but some of it is projects where the work has simply moved behind the scenes.  Which I think leads into what noahclem is saying, and which I've also witnessed here, which is that for the most part, cutting edge development is being done by a relatively small number of hardcore developers.  And I think there are two very valid reasons for this:

• The easy work has largely already been done.  The game is roughly nine years old, and it's been under nearly constant modification since it came out.  So as a community, we know how to add buildings, change the terrain, make it behave in new ways, and really, completely customize just about everything but the simulator itself, and even that we can tweak in significant ways.
• There is a relatively high barrier to entry for those looking to make significant changes to the game, which goes hand in hand with my point above.  SC4 is a complex game, and while we now have some very powerful tools to develop new buildings and mods with, there's a heavy learning curve to figuring that stuff out.

The end result of this is that newcomers who are interested in changing the game find themselves facing a giant pile of existing mods and tools and tutorials to dig through, and a not insignificant challenge if they want to create their own content.  Fortunately, there do seem to be many people who are up to the challenge.  New content is constantly coming out, and the existing community is generally receptive to those who are starting out and looking for help.

But, I think some of these trends speak more to the strength of the community than its decline.  While the overall numbers do appear to be falling, it's worth remembering that the real world has spent the past 3 years doing much the same, and that's going to affect any game or hobby and the communities that develop around them.  However, the overall SC4 community retains several important elements that are necessary to keep things alive:

• We have people who have been modding the game for years, the gods of SC4, many of whom reside at this site, and who are able to aid newcomers while they pave the way into new frontiers with their encyclopedic knowledge of how the game works,
• We have those devoted to playing the game and spreading the good word, the MDers, and their innumerable silent counterparts that create a constant demand and testing ground for new content,
• We have steady producers, occasional producers, and those that just pick at things that catch their interest, who generate new content for the community and explore new areas of development, and
• We also have the newbies, new to the game or new to modding and batting who are constantly asking questions, and bringing fresh talent and ideas and energy into the community.

So, long-winded post aside, I think that things are in a good shape overall.  Sure, the recent years have seen a small decline in development, but not a full stop.  Continuing development is not all of the mundane variety, but much of it quite good, and not just from established developers, but also relative newcomers.  Superprojects such as NAM do still get updated, others not so much, but that's the nature of development.  The MDs have not withered down to a few standards, but have new ones popping up all the time, and old ones in ongoing production.  The biggest hurdle I think the community has is more likely organization - there is simply so much out there that it is overwhelming to try and get a handle on it all.  But there is also work ongoing to counter this, such as here and here.  And the boards are very much alive with those willing to help troubleshoot and guide and introduce others to the wondrous world of SC4.

[JonM]

It still amazes me whats going with the new developments to the game. Communities like this have taken the game to a place no one could imagine. Its truly amazing what ordinary people can do when they passionate about a creative endeavor.

I for one have pursed a career and grants related to what I have learned by playing and modding SC4. I hope to soon share these with the community.

[dedgren]

@whatevermind  Wow!  Just wow!  You pretty much didn't leave me anything to say.  That is probably the best assessment of the state of the community today that I have ever seen, and is well worth a karma point.  I'm taking your comment and the others posted here into account and will sleep on all this overnight.

@JonM  Your upbeat and personalized viewpoint brings to mind one of the best features of SC4D over the years- that so many folks who think like that have found a home here.

@Noah (noahclem)  I'm not so inclined to think that the game, as it stands today, has become that inaccessible.  More on that tomorrow.

@Maarten (mrtnrln  My son Jon is an avid computer gamer, with many friends who are also inclined that way.  Watching them play whatever is considered latest and greatest leads me to a couple of conclusions, none of which make me worried that we are losing any significant number of folks, even after nine years, to something new and better.  Tomorrow for that, too.


David

[catty]

...And it took some time to see how much development is currently ongoing, and find where activity is still happening.  I think part of it is a perception problem, that people see teams that haven't produced anything in a long time, or high profile projects that have dropped out of view.  Some of this I think is truly abandoned projects or ideas that hit dead ends, but some of it is projects where the work has simply moved behind the scenes....

I can only speak for our team to say we are still working on new RTMT stations for the NWM networks, but its a very time consuming business, especially trying to fit it into RL, I'm doing the models ... have done about 30 so far and have at least that many more to do, other members of the team are working on the lots and new textures ... even if we get more volunteers its still going to be quite some time before the new RTMT version will be ready to be released.

Would it help if we did monthly progress reports?

Catty
RTMT Team

[MTT9]

Maybe i speak from my own case but, first of all, real life is quite a big issue when needing time for SC4. I think everyone of us has been away from the game or the forums for some time.

Second,  the ability to create new stuff, which is still in need, is unreachable for the most (including myself). Even with others help, learning how things works takes a lot of time and even some kind of talent, so its hard to make any quality contribution. Although many great batters prefer the simtropolis forums (like the BSP team among some others), SC4D gathers players, modders and creators with a really high level (which simtropolis don't quite have) which also makes contributing quite hard for the mayority.

And third, i myself have been waiting for the next big thing. A new game that takes it a bit further. New cameras, better region views, getting rid of the grid, you name it. I know that it isn't out yet (i hope syneskism gets opensourced soon so that it grows to become a full game) but i kinda feel like SC4 is an old game. It takes way too much time for me to just open the game and play a city tile because of the addons and stuff. The game wasn't made to be run on a dual core i think and wasn't supposed to have so much custom content.

Maybe we can make something to bring people back. Maybe some kind of monthly competition in groups that keeps everyone interested and involved and shows some real contribution. Make some kind of bat by the end of the month and win something, i dont know...

Multiplayer Sim City was really good but didn't work out because people played on their own rather than as a team and players of different levels were playing side by side. But maybe it could be improved to become something great. A bunch of players in the same map, playing a couple tiles each with a certain common objective sounds like some fun. If RL takes you out someone can take the control of your city for you until you are back.

Maybe its too difficult to make it work, it's just what i thought when i read this...

[joelyboy911]

...And it took some time to see how much development is currently ongoing, and find where activity is still happening.  I think part of it is a perception problem, that people see teams that haven't produced anything in a long time, or high profile projects that have dropped out of view.  Some of this I think is truly abandoned projects or ideas that hit dead ends, but some of it is projects where the work has simply moved behind the scenes....

I can only speak for our team to say we are still working on new RTMT stations for the NWM networks, but its a very time consuming business, especially trying to fit it into RL, I'm doing the models ... have done about 30 so far and have at least that many more to do, other members of the team are working on the lots and new textures ... even if we get more volunteers its still going to be quite some time before the new RTMT version will be ready to be released.


Catty
RTMT Team

I feel the same as Catty, I feel bad for not posting updates more often from the SCAG Team, even though I've been working on quite a lot of stuff. I don't know if it would help to post more pictures, or what. I'm at a bit of an impasse. I didn't want to feel like I was building up undue expectation - I could drop dead at any moment, or I might not finish it before RL kicks in and (permanently) ends my ability to work on the project. Luckily neither have transpired, and I will be able to release a lot of stuff as soon as this week.

I think the lifeblood of the Simtropolis community is it's free and open content exchange, something that is lacked by SC4D. My experience of the LEX (without wanting to have a big gripe here about it, because there are no hard feelings) was that a combination of very high (sometimes unneccesarily so) standards, and a Scrutineers' department in desperate need of more volunteers meant that I gave up my goal to become a certified LEX Uploader. I'm not upset about it, because I know it's my own fault in various ways, but it was hardly achievable from the beginning. What that equates to is that I'm more prone to take my work to ST, although SCAG and I are very thankful for the fact that we still have a team board here, and I certainly like the community feel here better. I don't think the LEX will change its ways, and it will certainly remain the archive of some of the best quality custom content.

But then there is a perception sometimes that SC4D is elitist, and I can say I've felt that way too sometimes. I can only speak from my own experience, but sometimes it seemed like having the rest of the community was a hassle for some who communicated in a way that came across as very intolerant of newcomers. I remember [edit] some events that could have been handled better in my earlier time as a member.

At any rate, it's no longer a concern to me. There were some personalities that I didn't have a good rapport with, and I'm sure that can happen to anyone. For the most part, they were outweighed by the good relationships I had with other members I was priviliged to meet here. The point is that a perception was created, and for some, it was confirmed.

I concur with kergelen, I too feel like I entered the fray at a time after the community's golden years. I feel like I'm almost part of the twilight zone, which is not particularly inspiring.

I think that SC4D was the ideal place for a (decent sized) handful of really enthused players, and it still is, but a lot of the really enthused players - some of whom had been modding this game almost since it's release - have started to disappear in a noticeable way. It hasn't been able to attract much of the new crowd, who for various reasons may prefer the more laissez-faire environment at Simtropolis.

All of the above is my own subjective opinion, and anyone is free to disagree, but I'm glad to have aired my thoughts on the matter. I've been thinking about it for a while.

[Tarkus]

Kergelen, I think your observations are astute, and they're coming from the right place, too.  I've been feeling a similar thing off-and-on for the past year, and I think there are a few things at play.

I don't think competition from other city-simulation or related games (Cities XL being the most cited) is really doing it.  From what I've observed of the Cities XL community, that franchise was severely wounded shortly before the release of the first installment by Monte Cristo's failings, and its followers are basically a modestly-sized but tight-knit group of "hardcore" folks, who have stuck with it as the new developer/publisher have picked up the pieces.  There were no major "defections", if you will, of key SC4 community members over to the CXL realm, and I don't expect to see any thing changing on that front.  Most of the major CXL folks were either mildly involved in the SC4 community or are completely new folks, and many CXL players that played SC4 still seem to play SC4. 

SimCity Societies had no effect, I think Cities In Motion is a different enough niche that the SC4ers playing it are still playing SC4, CityScape is no longer being distributed after the Navteq buyout, and the various community efforts at making a new game haven't yet produced any results.

As far as other factors go, I think there's been some considerable shifts in terms of the custom content landscape which haven't entirely sorted themselves out. 

The NAM Team side is about like what catty reported with RTMT.  We're still going and there's been some great additions to the team in the past several months, but whatevermind's conclusions are quite accurate.  The types of things we are doing now are quite involved, and have to be heavily integrated with one another.  In many cases, it's not simply a matter of cranking out new puzzle pieces or RUL2 overrides anymore.  Between that and RL, which has kept me and many other NAMites busy as of late, it's slowed things down.  Our developers also have different philosophies on showcasing things, which can make things look less active than they really are behind-the-scenes. 

Outside the transit modding realm, it seems like there's been a shift away from the traditional "powerhouse" team paradigm, toward individual creators and more informal collaborations.  Having surveyed the team place boards while typing up this reply, the most activity seems to be in the boards for relatively new teams, like NUTs (est. 2008), VIP (est. 2011), BNL (est. 2011) and EBLT (est. 2009).  The BSC is still going, but there's been a lot of RL that has left only a handful of really active members right now.  HKABT seems to be primarily active at ST (though CAMeLot versions of some of Cockatoo's BATs recently hit the LEX), and the rest of the teams seem to have been beset by RL and have (at most) significantly reduced numbers.  The "independent" BAT Projects board, however, seems to have a fair bit going on still, and quite a few of them have had content make it to the LEX.  On other sites, NYBT and BSP still seem to be going at ST, and SimPeg seems to be missing its namesake.

On the MD front, right now, there are 64 MDs on "active" boards (including the HoF), a relatively healthy number, particularly when you consider that many of them are long-running efforts that have been updated in the past month-and-a-half.  I have noticed that the commenting has indeed slowed down, and in general, I think there's an increased prevalence toward lurking community-wide.  I'm not entirely sure why that is.  Some of the lurkers are once-active folks who have faded into the background due to RL, but a lot of newer members seem to be taking that tack as well.

I think SC4D (and SC4) are going to stick around for quite some time, though these shifts are curious and may be speaking to something.  Just what, I'm not sure yet, though I tend to think Noah's explanation of a "hard core" is viable.  I also think that if our RLs allowed more stable SC4 time, it'd probably alleviate a lot of things, but it's not that simple, unfortunately. 

-Alex

[catty]

...I feel the same as Catty, I feel bad for not posting updates more often from the SCAG Team, even though I've been working on quite a lot of stuff. I don't know if it would help to post more pictures, or what. I'm at a bit of an impasse. I didn't want to feel like I was building up undue expectation - I could drop dead at any moment, or I might not finish it before RL kicks in and (permanently) ends my ability to work on the project. Luckily neither have transpired, and I will be able to release a lot of stuff as soon as this week.

and there's the other side of the coin to posting updates on your project, we do this for free and hopefully cos it something we want to do and enjoy doing, most people respect that and are gratefully for the work you do and understand the time delays, unfortunately you will always get a few people who seem to think that your purpose in life is to provide them with whatever they want, when they want it.

...so its hard to make any quality contribution.

just taking part in the community is a "quality contribution"   

[Tarkus]

and there's the other side of the coin to posting updates on your project, we do this for free and hopefully cos it something we want to do and enjoy doing, most people respect that and are gratefully for the work you do and understand the time delays, unfortunately you will always get a few people who seem to think that your purpose in life is to provide them with whatever they want, when they want it.

I've had to deal with quite a few of those types quite recently and over time.  Unfortunately, it's a reality of the business.  It always puts a damper on things for me, and I'd definitely say it makes me more cautious about developmental updates.

-Alex

[WC_EEND]

and there's the other side of the coin to posting updates on your project, we do this for free and hopefully cos it something we want to do and enjoy doing, most people respect that and are gratefully for the work you do and understand the time delays, unfortunately you will always get a few people who seem to think that your purpose in life is to provide them with whatever they want, when they want it.

I've seen a few of these people around the forums as well (though most forums seem to have them), particularly in the AC Team board, which I think is also the reason why the Voltaire locked the RMIP-3 thread. Some people seem to completely fail to understand for some reason that developing huge packs of custom content (NAM, RMIP-3, etc) take quite a lot of time to be developed. That said, the RMIP-3 has been in development for quite a lot of time already so I can understand the frustration of some people as well.

Back to the topic at hand, I've also noticed SC4D going less active over the course of a few years as well. I haven't gone through the trouble to look at the statistics, but it was my general perception too. I've both seen people go MIA and return out of the blue after more than year.

[kbieniu7]

That's the very interesting thread. As at SC4D I'm mostly a "guest" who keep MD, post comments and follow the latest news, while the most of my activity is at SimCityPolska, I couldn't report how the situation is looking right here. We had few discussion about those topics at SCP last years and our conlusions were similiar. 2009 was propably the last "golden" year for SimCity and 2010 had drastically lowered activity, as well as in creating new custom contents (mostly BATs), keeping MD's and playing the "SimWorld" (we had such a project, which is based on virtual map, where our regions are coonverted into countries, trading with each others, organising sports event etc. There are probably many similiar projects at manu other sites). The last one reached the lowest activity. There was some of new custom content uploaded, but its amount was also incomparably lower.

However at our forum we do not have only Simcity-related topics, but there are many discussions about RL things, mostly about architecture, cities, investments, city transport etc. These ones didn't decrease.

Fortunately 2011 was different than 2010. Much more news from "simworld", much more new updates in MD's, especially after May. It was probably due to the fact, that many of regular users (me too) had mature exams, which obviously didn't allow to play games so much.  The end of 2011, also with a bunch of new users from last months, were quite good in activity statistics. However amount of new content is still very low. On my example: most of my BATs I've made in 2009, in 2010 none, in 2011 - a two small uploads.

Simcity is the old game. When it appeard, most of today players were ~9-14 years old (like also me). But with time, they grew up. They are now ~18-24 years old, when there isn't so much time to play, as in the past. Of course, there are many older players, 30, 40 or more (like Ennedi - when he was last logged in? I'm not able to see anybody's profile, I do not know why. Does anybody heard something from him?), but this is a very, very regular group.

What is more, our forum transformed in something more than game-related-site. Because the most of people are regular users for years, ("elitist", how joelyboy said), SCP is now more like some kind of society portal - we speak about our real life, our experiences in school, at university, in work, we are asking about advices (e.g. last time we were talking which, computer, bike or TV would be the best to buy), etc. We just now each other very well, furthermore, due to living in the same country, many people met each other in reality. And probably this is the thing which handle the community, while simcity turned a bit into some addition.

I wish all the best for sc4d community in 2012!

[art128]

Kamil, Ennedi was last active the 28th February 2011, a little less than a year ago.

[gn_leugim]

I think it is natural what we see. As many has pointed out already, there are many factors contributing for this.

First we have the age of the game. it does not make it obsolete, it just isn't, but there are few new members because there is lack of advertisement on SC4. it is easy to buy on some game stores, but they are there just hidden on some shells or baskets, and only by casual search someone gets them and start to play them. More, one thing is to start playing it strait of the box, other is to find out this communities and its mods of the game. It makes the game even more enjoyable to play (thou sometimes I like to play the original game without plugs too ^^) and I may speak in particular of NAM, every time there is a new NAM, I fell like a new patch was made to the game, or a new game was release! and I go in a new SC4 frenzy ^^

Secondly we have Real Life. We aren't sims, we are people. I can give you my example. I was quite active on 2007 to 2009 +/-, specially on ST, made lots of bats, texture mods etc etc, but then I got struck by my mastership thesis and I went off the radar. I barely had time to play, what ever to mod and/or bat. And like me, many got their issues too. But, again like me, many of us return. I have and I've being updating my Essencial file, with new props, new textures, learning new stuff and doing a lot of Lotting on a personal project (make all maxis lots look less American and look more like Portuguese/Euro like). Of course, not all return, we had some great losses, and unfortunately not all due to lack of time or interest =(

Third, we have some people in the middle ground. They still follow up the communities, they just don't interact or are fully active. I mean, we have to think of all who are "guests" or just "viewers" of threads. There are many of them. maybe they don't interact or aren't active because of "all that is easy" was made already and what they face up is to much for them. So they just watch. But they are there!

In the bottom line I believe that SC4 communities are still here to last, but of course the golden ages are gone. I don't believe there will be new, unless something incredible is found.

[mike3775]

I played SC4 from the time it came out to until around early 2009.  I then got involved into other things and got more involved in those then in communities revolving around SC4.  I used to post at ST and SimPeg often until 2009, but then I started getting more involved with my kids and their dirt bike leagues and little league, and other aspects of real life that SC4 became an afterthought. 

Until late last year, the last things I had downloaded were from 2009 and someone could probably confirm this, but lately I have been on a downloading spree from the LEX re downloading files I had downloaded in 2009 but now that I did all of that, again, I am losing interest in the game again.  To me the game is a feast or famine game.  When I have a kick, I want to play it as often as I want, but then I get sick of it and go back to other standby games to play(like Command and Conquer).

I used to post on ST all the time, now I rarely post on SC4 sites.  This is about the only place I post, and someone could easily verify, I did not post here for a long time(I want to say close to a year and a half).  And even now, I still rarely post outside of a few area's of the board(which I think should be re-organized to bring the MD section higher up on the boards to try and gain more page views from) that interest me.  Yes I am guilty of reading the MD's and commenting, but I don't want to make a simple post and then repeat the same stuff over and over for the most part 20+ times as I could then be accused of post whoring as well, so I don't comment.

Will this site eventually die?  Of course it will, so will ST and SimPeg and every other simcity site, but it won't be for awhile either, because as long as there are thousands of people who still play the game, there will be a need for sites like this.  But its getting new people into a 10 yr old game that is the issue.  My kids play SC4, my sister plays SC4(but only what came with the game with updates, no custom stuff at all), but the other day when my kids were playing it and some of their friends were over, the comments of "why are you playing a game with those lousy graphics" and "man this game is boring, where is the challenge" came up, and that right there is a major issue that will never be won.  Kids today are used to instant satisfaction and state of the art graphics, which SC4 does not give.

[Kergelen]

Well, I did not know if this issue was interesting for you, but I see there is much interest and I am happy to have generated debate and read the opinions of others.

I am not a creator of custom content but I understand that the creators did not feel good when people are rude requiring the new content regardless of content creators that they do when they want and because they want, without obligations. However, we must highlight that the vast majority of users are very grateful with the work of the Teams and many of us would like to contribute with new content but we are still learning (as is my case) which requires a long time.

Regarding the learning and new members I think is very important that we have all the SC4D tutorials and other communities tutorials as indicated whatevermind. There are many members with very little knowledge of computers and code issues, we can learn much by reading tutorials (like myself already beginning to be familiar with the Reader and many other programs). This wealth of the community will always be available to those who want to learn and that can turn out new modders, baters, lotters, etc..
I also think you have every reason noachlem mrtnl and that there is a solid core group of members which is also a great asset for his knowledge.

On the other hand wanted to add some information that I did not explain in the previous post and could be interesting.
I made a small table with 5 different days in different years (I've taken at random on 10 October each year). And I did the ratio between the quantity of messages and the quantity of people online at the same time. Which is statistically not correct as I have done but gives an idea of ​​participation. To do so would be to make the average of many days of the year chosen randomly and compare the ratios of the averages of each year, which brings a lot of work . Neither is entirely correct to take the quantity of "Most Online" because most online users at the same time does not mean that throughout the day has been connected much users in total, but is an indicative figure.

[tabular]
[row] [head]Day[/head] [head]Messages[/head] [head]Most online[/head] [head]Ratio: Messages/Most online[/head] [/row]
[row] [data]2007-10-9[/data] [data]339[/data] [data]70[/data] [data]4.84[/data] [/row]
[row] [data]2008-10-9[/data] [data]329[/data] [data]85[/data] [data]3.87[/data] [/row]
[row] [data]2009-10-9[/data] [data]177[/data] [data]119[/data] [data]1.48[/data] [/row]
[row] [data]2010-10-9[/data] [data]128[/data] [data]87[/data] [data]1.47[/data] [/row]
[row] [data]2011-10-9[/data] [data]161[/data] [data]171[/data] [data]0.94[/data] [/row]
[/tabular]

We see that the ratios decrease over time and therefore the number of messages per user is shrinking, the number of users connected is not reduced. But it also shows how the number of users online unabated which suggests that there are many people interested in the forum. Maybe from others forums, maybe newbies, maybe old users still interested, maybe some users with a bad day ,etc.
The causes may be different and you have described several in your previous posts.

In any case my message was not necessarily negative as in the last year I saw a new NAM, inovations as the Double Decker among others, new teams like BeNeLux and VIP Team(very productive), the great innovations of seasonal flora (which I love), the constant renewal of the universe of MMP (especially Antigone), a concept that was new to me as SimNature, the possibility of removing the water and placing lots under the water (pipes in Mind Scape), a new street for SAM (by vortex), and many incredible MDs and BATS , and many more things I leave or do not know. I have also seen members who were registered in 2010 have greatly contributed such as for example Lowkee33, a relatively new member.
Glad to have generated debate and to read the opinions and feelings of all of you.
And thanks for the K-points.