Art128's SC4 Projects

[Vizoria]

Your a Hikikomori? Ouch! That would explain a lot. Find another hobby or some kind of job to do something with the time. A job is better than wasting away at home- and I should know because I have been there.

Good luck.

[_Michael]

Good luck with anything in your future. You've provided inspiration in your cities, and have clearly worked tirelessly in your work as an Admin. But RL does have to come first, no matter the situation, it has to come first, so I fully understand your decision.
Farewell, and I wish you all of the best.

[belfastsocrates]

maybe the staff here could look at adding "LIKE" buttons to the posts

That would be a very good move in my opinion. I agree with Arthur in that at times I do feel a bit despondent when there's a lack of replies, it does sap some enthusiasm to an extent, getting a 'like' does somewhat appease that feeling. If it's possible then I think it should be considered, especially as the SC4D Community isn't as large and active as it was.



I am disappointed to read your words Arthur but I understand where your coming from completely. I do hope you stick around in some form, perhaps posting some more of your photography work and contributing in ways you feel more engaged by.

BTW, nice use of that French tram prop for the heavy rail network. I always thought it too long for use on GLR tracks but works lovely on heavy rail, might give that a go myself as it's an excellent model.

[catty]

....Find another hobby or some kind of job to do something with the time. A job is better than wasting away at home- and I should know because I have been there...

It doesn't have to be a job or a hobby, I'm not sure what options you have where you are, but we have

http://www.naturespace.org.nz/

the local one in our area is restoring one of the urban waterways and they are always after volunteers willing to help with the work.

 

[manga rivotra]

Sad to read that !  It is true that the forum is becoming less and less active, which can quickly affect motivation.
Thank you for all that you did for the community, your great building of course and this wonderful MD that will still inspire us for long, and all the time you have spent to review and support what others do, this is indeed very important also. I hope you'll come back occasionally.

[Akallan]

It is sad to read your words. I can understand your frustration about the lack of comments or reactions, everyone likes to be complimented on his work. But the game starts to get old, even if it is still excellent to me, inevitably the community becomes ever smaller as time passes.
I play SC4 since its release in 2003. There is approximately one and a half I posted my work on the French forum (TSC), but there were not many reviews because it is a little forum. So I came on Devotion to have more comments and opinions about my work ... But again, there are not many reviews but still little more than the French forum. I think it lack of reactions. Sometimes I look at the CJ of korver and Vizoria (there are others too, but it is two first that come to mind) that I found very impressive, but there are never many comments despite the titanic work involved. It is demotivating for the author of the work. I'm in the same situtation that you also Art128, and I had thought about stopping, because it requires a lot of time to do the updates on TSC, SC4 Devotion and simtropolis. Because I have to executed in French to work TSC and English for SC4 Devotion and Simtrop '.

I finally decided to continue to publish my pictures, because although there are not many people who are interested I think some people will be happy to see them and to share our ideas. I do not often commented CJ tone because I do not like the Japanese style (I had told you in an old comment). I can not comment on some thing I do not like but is well done, because I have no inspiration and it is dishonest to say "I like" then it's wrong.I watched each of your updates anyway, as I say, your job is huge from an objective point of view.

I wish you the best for the future!

PS: Excuse me for the bad english...

[gn_leugim]

Well mate, Although I am sad to know you wound be that active member again, I tottaly get your point, adn I have been there too. From times to times I stop paying the game, maybe other game passed by, or RL just strikes hard and don't have the time to play/bat/mod/lot. but sometimes I just get the stiff again to come back to SC4. I have to say mostly because of the community, but

To add to that, I barely get any comment on my stuff anymore. I guess Japanese cities just get repetitive over time and people lose interest in it, but when I see other creations get almost 10 replies per update, it's really not giving me the willpower to continue. Though in the recent years I started to question "Why do I even post my pictures?". I play the game for myself, for my own entertainment, so why is the lack of replies triggering me so much? I guess everyone who post their creations online must be looking at getting some kind of feedback, like a need to feel liked around a community?
I've noticed that some people don't comment until you comment on their stuff first, well sorry but I don't work like that. I've been in this circle since 2007 so if you want a comment from me, seniority and position rule you kinda have to earn it. Not the other way around.

This part, I review myself here very dearly. I made some MD's but was not much into it. I was more into de BAT and Mod, and, although I got positive critics, I felt it was never enough, and when I would see my posts go unanswered for days, I would sadden a bit and loose the will to bat again. Currenlty I'm back to the active, but with a personal project, involving a bit of everything, bat, lot, modding, but is for my usage.

I hope you find one day too some new motivation, and you may came back. maybe not as mod again in the forum or so, but as active member of it Nevertheless, I wish you well my team mate (now a team of one? :\) and the best to all is to come!

Carlos

[vortext]

Your Soviet endeavors was one the first MD's I came across back when I stumbled upon SC4D, and your cities & regions have always been a great inspiration since. While it's a bit sad you will no longer share neat pictures with us it's totally understandable your interest in SC4 has waned, 10 years is long time after all, and honestly you should not feel sorry for it. In those 10 years you've consistently provided quality content, in your MD and BATs, of which you should be proud instead. As other have said already I do hope you'll still stop by the forums from time-to-time.

[feyss]

I know that feel of playing hours with the impression of never progressing and never being happy with the results. But that kind of punctiliousness is what's make your work amazing.

But whatever, it's just a game. Take care of yourself man, that's the most important!

[EDGE4194]

Art- I only follow a few threads anymore and this is one of them. I've been following your stuff as long as I've been a member, and your creations have inspired me and motivated me to focus on the quality of my own work. I am also one of those that regularly checks in but rarely comments. I want to thank you for sharing your incredible work and for volunteering as a mod. A site like this couldn't exist without dedicated mods, but everyone needs a break from the routine at times. I wish you the best and hope we will see you again in the future!
 
-----Eric

[kbieniu7]

Well, Arthur. Sad to read this good-bye massage, but it's your decision.

It's just a game, you've said, and I totally agree, because I used to say it many times as well. There's no point in continuing to play a game, when it's no more entertaining and gives no more a pleasure. Especially, it's sad to hear, that you might have neglected some of your RL stuff.

I know the feelings about the lack of any feedback from the audience, that's in some kind demotivating. You spend hours to prepare a presentation with no, or almost no response. I believe, it's about the time - we've grown up since we entered this site for the first time. Less and less time given for "just a game" means less and less time for commenting or evel lurking at the forum.

Thank you for the time, you've spend with us. All of your photos and projects were stunning. It's just a pity, MD Hall of Fame seems not to work any longer and you leave with your thread outside it, because it' really worth it. Anyway, I'm happy, that you've shared all of your work, so we could see it, because your posts were not only a part of a fancy site filled with thousands of pics, but also a part of a community of hundreds of players.

Wherever you go later and wether you decided to lurk back at the forum from time to time - take care.

[FrankU]

Arthur,

I'd like to thank you for your contribution to this community. Your work is outstanding.
Good bye!

Frank

[kelis]

My friend, amigo !

It's really sad to hear that you leave but I must admint that I can understand you... sometimes I have the same feeling, it is normal when you play a game for a long time,
but the Japanese way to play this game is too hard and sometimes can just destroy all that love that we have for this game... why ? Because most of the time you find yourself creating very large zones of low density residential areas with the same kind of houses and streets... I know that feeling believe me but that is what we choose my friend and for some reason I know that you will be back here, back playing the game and perhaps back playing with your japanese regions...

Anyway If I have to choose some of your works, I have no doubt, HIROSHIMA ! I remember when you have most of the map complete, it was really cool my friend 

[Dantes]

I read with sadness your decision to stop playing. You've been thinking about it for a long time. I am very grateful to you for your creativity, your talent and your strength to implement ideas. I do not have the means to implement my ideas. I'm looking for a new life section for you. If everything works out, you will receive a gift from Germany from your brother at Christmas! I wish you the best in this world, I wish you fun and courage.
I hope we always keep friends in our hearts!

[reddonquixote]

Oh.. wasn't expecting this 

I must admit, I'm impressed you lasted 10 years before burning out... I had my first meltdown after only 12 months! The online community can seem cold and harsh at times, but other times such as these, also very supportive.

I hope you're still checking in occasionally, and after a good break hopefully you will come back. From someone who has just had a long (albeit unintended) break, sometimes that's all you need to get yourself re-energised.

Wish you well Arthur, hope to see you again soon 

[art128]

So after reading all the comments I took some time to think and came to a decision, it is as follow: (bear with me as it will have a common subject and not just my MD)

I will give up on all my administration power, global moderator power and instead go back to being a local moderator. I realize there isn't much staff who are active but after looking at the staff list I think it's about enough for the amount of traffic the site gets compared to 2008. Of course I leave the decision to the actual staff, but talking from experience I preferred when I was just a moderator for the pic competition, show us yours and MDs.

To not feel like I just did a hit and run (which feels horrible) and because I'm addicted to this game and community, I will continue to come here to post on other threads and maybe start updating again... Who knows....

I also decided to close the EBLT. Sorry Carlos but let's be honest, apart from you there isn't any activity. Your stuff is great for European players and I appreciate what you've been doing, but seeing as you're the only person of the team doing European stuff and I completely vanished to the far east, it makes little sense in my continuing to have that badge. If you want to continue to operate the team on your own then go ahead. All the other members are completely inactive now so it doesn't make sense to me.

Now I tried some suggestion from you. Specially playing other games. I have been doing so since forever. Back in 2010 through 2014 I've been playing CoD alongside SC4, but as I've recently discovered (or more like, I realized too late) that online games are not my thing for the fact alone that I get excessively angry in them. I rage a lot. (broken peripherals or even as far as punching and effectively breaking the first layer of a double-glazed window.) Add to that the fact that I have no self control when it comes to envy/jealousy (having spent 800 euros on CSGO cases alone, just because my """friend""" (which actually just used me as an entertainment thing, as he never once told me to stop the cases but instead encouraged me to buy more) got two rare knives and thinking I had a chance to get one too) all that is not good for my mental health and wealth. I tried to "take it easy" in those games and it worked for a couple weeks but in the end it came back to rage. Even god damn TF2 made me rage.

Most games I really enjoyed have very little replay value... Mafia 2 I know it by heart already, GTAV solo (online is crap and was killed by rockstar) just gets very repetitive, even with 30 GB of mods installed.... I love sniping in FPS, it was what I played the most in CoD and I enjoyed it a lot. Having played Sniper Ghost warrior 1 and 2 were not great but alright, unfortunately those games are corridor of 5 hours at most with zero replayability. (Though the mechanics was perfect, having to calculate bullet drop, distance and wind was extremely fun) And upcoming games will either be unfinished, straight out lies or will be made just to push a political agenda. Unfortunately the age of making games for fun is long gone, now it's all brainwashing people and making money out of sheep.
And unfortunately I don't live in a free country where I can just go in the woods/desert to shoot up bottles with my M107 or AWS.

Well now some good news. I have a job interview coming in some days. It's not much, a 12 months fixed term contract as an IT repair guy working for the government. I hope I can get it and I really do hope at the end of the 12 months I will be proposed for a unlimited duration contract. Otherwise I will have to seek something else.
Anyway it's not like I have giant dreams in life. I do not wish for a family, kids or wife. I don't care about that. All I want is to be able to buy myself a Skyline GT-R R32 before this commie government decide to push more laws against old cars (despite the fact they're vastly superior to the crap that comes out of the factories today) and before they decide they're illegal. I don't want a newer car full of bull-crap botnet features. I don't care about built in GPS that shows the government my position 24/7, I don't care about electric windows. I just want a car that drives well and I can enjoy on the streets. If it comes to this I'll have to move out of this country anyway.


Anyway to sum up I'm still alive and kicking, got bored of GTA V and other games, and decided that stopping sc4 just stupid.
I still have one or two thing that I wanted to do in SC4... Firstly I want to make a completely custom Japanese city, using only my own BATs. It will take time to create it however.... And secondly I want to give another go at a real depressing commie city.

I guess I will be seeing you guys around.. (sorry for ranting!)

[kbieniu7]

Nice too see you posting there and deciding that you're not leaving completely Good to hear, you're about to have a job interview. Fingers crossed!

It would be nice, if you post a photo from time to time there. You've mentioned other games. Gaming could be a passion, I know few such people. However, maybe instead of promising us photos from a game you could post more photos from RL places? You're a good photographer, what I have seen, you could share with us more of them

By the way, I often felt tired of what I was doing or without motivation. In such times I looked forward to go somewhere. Just anywhere, take a train and just go. I took extra courses at my university at the beginning of the semester on March. I was concentrating on four things, trying to manage to care about my main lessons, this extra courses, job and my master thesis. After three months I was tired of all of it and lost my motivation. So, one day I decided not to go at those f... lessons, but instead I bought a train ticket and visited my friend living on the other corner of Poland and made an excursion. And even though that was just few days, it gave me a lot of power to continue with my other duties and the rest of stuff.

So maybe you could go somwhere? Have a trip? Around your homeplace or maybe somewhere abroad? Just for a weekend? Maybe try to find some train connections or cheap flights to a place somewhere in Europe? Just to refresh yourself?

[Shark7]

Glad you had a change of heart.    And I hear you on the online multiplayer games, I just don't have the temperament for them either. 

On a side note (not knowing what types of games you really like) I do have one suggestion.  If you like space 4X games, take a look at Distant Worlds: Universe (you can get it on steam).  Tons of re-playability in a real time 4X game.  Each game you start generates a completely new galaxy.  And there are mods for it.  Be warned, it does have a steep learning curve, but almost all aspects of the game can be automated until you learn it.  It is one of my favorite games of all time.

[APSMS]

I was going to suggest the flash game Mud'n'Blood 2, but I realize that the entire point of that game is to make you rage about how unfair war is, so maybe that's a bad suggestion (the dev's name is URB, for Unfair Random Brutality ). Feel free to check it out; it's a great game (SP only), but the entire point of the game was to make a war-themed game where the AI is unfair, murders you mercilessly, and generally demonstrates that War is Hell. I enjoy it in small doses, but it's not something you play if you have a temper with video games.

Glad you're not giving up completely on SC4. Seeing a city you built with only your own BATs would be very interesting, and is quite a project. Then again, Jay/reddonquixote has demonstrated that at least some of this can be possible, and your BAT skills are certainly up to the task.

Good luck on the job interview. Wish you all the best; Fingers crossed.

[Fasan]

Since I've met you hardly and now you're going. That makes me sad. 

I find her work here very interesting and I've envied you for your creative design. You have inspired me in my work.
I like her and I like her work.
It is true that fewer and fewer members are active in the forums, but the game is now 10 years old. Also, the world has become a little hectic and people have less time. The setting has me of image upload pages, the decrease in players and Forum members, but also personal changes influenced and demotivated.
But I won't give up the game and the few "old-timers", which have remained, motivate me again on the new.

I wish you the best for the future and let you hear!

Many dear greetings Fasan

Sorry, for my bad English!