SimCityPolska shutting down

[kbieniu7]

Dear Fellow Players,

as one of the admins of SimCityPolska, I have to make a sad announcement.

For last ten years we've been running a website which became the main scene of the Polish part of SimCity 4 Community, as well as one of several bigger download sections with hundreds of plugins uploaded.

Having a great number of users, Mayor Diaries and events at the very beginning, with each passing year we encountered lower and lower activity at our website. That happened not only among us, it's been well visible in other communities too. Thanks to effort and donations from older users, we managed to keep the forum and the download section alive (although with many holes in them). In recent years, however, the decline has been so deep that we practically stopped seeing any activity out there. Because of that fact, combined with raising costs and less and less of our personal time to keep it running, with a heavy hearth we decided to shut the site down.

We won't do it instantly. Instead, we will start by closing the discussion board within next weeks. We acknowledge that we share a big download section with hundreds of files and that it would be unfair for the Players to just let them dissappear. We want to run trough the content, choose the best files, pack some of them into packages and reupload at other websites (presumably SC4Devotion and Simtropolis).

Actually, that may be a thing that we should have done years before. We knew that our download section wasn't the easiest one to navigate trough, especially with image hosting sites "blackouts", but because of real-life affairs, we did not have enough time to do this. Now, as we take that ultimate decision, we will try to save at least a part of it.

Probably, by the end of the year, SimCityPolska will disappear. What I could encourage you to do is to visit the website, take a look at BAT&LOT section and download the files that might seem interesting to you, as long as they are still available.

Speaking of the community, we probably keep the facebook profile running for a while, although we can't see much to be saved. One of the possibilities is moving to Cafe Poland section here, as there is no point in opening any new Polish-speaking place.

We hope that you understand this decision. Many thanks to anyone who has ever visited SimCityPolska. That was a pleasure to host and act in this part of the SimCity 4 Community.

Best Regards,
SimCityPolska Administration Team

[Tyberius06]

Shi.... That's a sad news indeed! 
Thanks for all the suppport what that site and its members have provided for all these years!
I have a bunch of files from there, but I'm gonna go trough all the available files and get them before the site completely will be shut down.
 
- Tyberius

[belfastsocrates]

That’s very disappointing indeed. I’ve only used the site for downloads but what an incredible resource that’s been.

I suppose it’s becoming increasingly difficult as the core SC4 user base grows older, I myself have little to no time anymore or the game I love which disappoints me greatly.

I suppose the lasting legacy is the plethora of Polish buildings now in SC4 cities around the world!

[fantozzi]

How sad. One of the last european sc4 sites.

I suggest for documentation/historical reasons someone completes the wiki entry with more detailed informations about the founders and admins names and sites history - so for future times and upcomming community members there are preserved some informations.

[AsimPika3172]

Oh man....    Anyway, thanks for nice plugins! 

[vortext]

Well this is really unfortunate, yet understandable decision which I imagine is not taken lightly.   

As for preserving the content, besides re-hosting a selection onto other exchanges, I hope an entire backup of content will be made beforehand and perhaps made available as bulk download somewhere as well? Just so future members can still have the option to peruse all content, rather than a selection of it.

At any rate, really sad another fan site will be gone, however, a gradual shut down is far preferred over a sudden disappearance (rip simpeg) and I have to commend to SimCityPolska staff handling the process, and of course for all the years running the site. 

[Tyberius06]

I would prefer too, if all the contents will be moved to one of the currently runing exchanges. Both STEX and LEX have polish contents (by Ferox, DaveN etc...), I even found some of Ferox w2w works on Simcity Kurier (little bit different versions, but defenitelly under different names), but f.e. on STEX the SCPolska contents could get the same treatment as the PLEX files...
It's just an idea, but that would be the best, I guess.
If you need any help just let me know, but sadly I don't have any polish language knowladge... 

- Tyberius

[Mandarin(a)]

Thank you for letting us know about your decision.

[Akallan]

Hi kbieniu7,

Thank you for warning us of this closure, it makes me sad. A very large part of the European-style W2W buildings are on SimCityPolska. Your download section has helped a lot of players around the world and are essential when you want to create European cities. Unfortunately, without wanting to be pessimistic, I believe that the closure of SimCityPolska is only the beginning of a chain reaction. SimCity 4 is getting old, but after all these years it still has the pride of being there while many other games fall into oblivion after a few years of release.

If you need help with downloads, contact me. I do not have much time, but I will do the best I can so that all the work done is not lost and thus leave a legacy worthy of SimCityPolska!

[Krasner]

Sad, sad news here I used to visit SimcityPolska quite regularly, I downloaded dozens of plugins there. However, I hope for you it's not the end of the indeed small, yet very interesting polish community around this game you kbieniu, RaV and a few others are part of 

That site closing is of course an evidence of the decrease of sc4 community, but I guess it can also be seen as a new era for you polish people. Importing the small activity you had on the forum here may be a way to build a closer relationship with the international community - anyway I encourage you guys in that way  Cheers, and thanks for all these years of amazing polish content 

[feyss]

This is really a sad news...

I am glad that this community ever existed and I will always be thankful for its amazing content, a huge amount of it having become indispensable in all my cities.

Unfortunately, It has become the fate of many sub-communities of our small SC4 family. The only thing we can hope is that other websites last longer. I would feel so empty if I couldn't come to Devotion anymore for instance...

Anyway, thanks a lot for letting us know and not closing the website directly like it happened to Simpeg or other obscure Japanese websites. I think everyone will appreciate to have the time to download what they didn't get yet.

[Themistokles]

These are sad, but understandable news. I can only agree with what has already been written. It is really sad to see a formerly active part of the Simcity community go, but the important thing is that what it has created will live on. Even though I understand very little Polish, and therefore the fora, I have enjoyed many of the files and the images published there.

I hope the remaining active members do join us here. With fewer and fewer active players having less and less site, gathering in one place instead of many different seems to be the most reasonable course of action.

[mattb325]

This is very sad - but perfectly understandable - to see. I have often downloaded some of the wonderful content from the site, and even though I don't understand a word of Polish, I found the site pretty easy to navigate.

Thanks for the valuable contribution all these years and thankyou for giving the community such a long lead-time prior to closing the site. It is truly commendable.

[Silur]

I say a big thank you to all the owners and participants of the SC Polska website.
A lot of beautiful things are there!
Very few SC4 lovers in the world today.
Now there were only Devotion, Simtropolis and France.
China, Japan, and Korea sites died a long time ago.
Life is life 
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU 

[kbieniu7]

Many thanks to all of you for all of your kind words. We really appreciate them

Unfortunately, for some reason, when closing the discussion board it turned out that the BAT&LOT section has also been turned off. But don't worry, downloads have not disapppeared, the files still exist, we will try to turn it back on. However, we cannot say when it's going to happen. We can just apologise and ask for your patience.

What is more, I've been talking to the rest of staff of SC4D, as well as I'm in touch with people at Simtropolis. I'm very glad that we recieved a warm welcome to the idea of moving our files here and there. We'd probably choose to upload the majority of files to STEX first, into a special subsection for SimCityPolska, just like with PEG plugins before.

Few people have offered help with moving the files, it's very kind of you, thank you very much! We probably could use your help, we need to do some planning and management first. Once we know for sure what to do, we will post a special announcement. It might take some times too, however. We're really short of time with our real-life stuff recently... So, please, stay tuned if possible.

Once again, thank you very much!

[Fasan]

I was always very fond of you on the side.

Your work continues to live in my world and I do everything to keep it that way!

Your work was the most important thing for me in the design of my SimCity4 world.
I am very sad about it.
I hope I can see and get a lot of beautiful works from you.

Many love greetings
Fasan 

[fantozzi]

Your work continues to live in my world and I do everything to keep it that way!

Oh, yes. You made me think: somebody should bat a SimCityPolska Monument to remind future generations of players of this great site.

[Tyberius06]

There were plans to bring all the contents at least to STEX, but since the begining of September when we collected almost everyting (in a highly unorganized form) here: Current collection, there is some sort of inactivity. I'm not sure when it is going to happen any move forward considering, that  hundrends of files need to be renamed, readmes and additional pictures need to be made, and the whole thing require some serious organization.

- Tyberius

[Tyberius06]

Hi everybody!

So after one and a half years, since we've started organizing and collecting the contents from the Simcity Polska site under the Current Collection thread, and kbieniu7 was so nice and provided the last saved versions of all of the contents from the site, we moved forward with this project after the webpage went down for good. 
In the meantime I've completely taken over the organization project since december 2019 and connected it with one of my other organization and offical custom content restoration project called STEX Custodian, where my partners in crime CorinaMarie and CycloneBoom (STEX admins).
Now we officially start re-releasing the currently lost contents. Also making the things easier, a collection of the separate prop packs created by various artists from the SCP have been made, which is called Polish Mega Prop Pack vol. 1 and can be downloaded from STEX.

You can also find the image of these collected props in the SimCity 4 Prop and Texture Catalogue

The two Polish Prop packs which can be found on LEX now officially outdated and superseeded by this Mega Prop Pack, which will be uploaded to LEX too soon and those two prop packs will be locked.

- Tyberius