[HN Gopher] Convert SimCity 2000 cities into Minecraft worlds
___________________________________________________________________
Convert SimCity 2000 cities into Minecraft worlds
Author : notpushkin
Score : 535 points
Date : 2022-11-30 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| This is the best use of a computer that I've ever encountered.
| poisonarena wrote:
| neat idea but the project is like 10 years old, and last commit
| was 3+ years ago and only works on java edition. would like to
| see something like this, but for other city builders like Caesar
| kuschku wrote:
| > only works on java edition
|
| Yes, as the project says, Minecraft. Not the cut-down mobile
| game with microtransactions that claims to be Minecraft.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I'm not playing Minecraft, but this has fascinated me from
| afar. AIUI, Microsoft has two teams on two different
| continents essentially developing two very similar but subtly
| incompatible versions of the same game. Funky.
|
| Do they share any code or formats? Are the client/server
| interoperable? Does the C++ one even have a server
| implementation?
| kurisufag wrote:
| > Are the client/server interoperable?
|
| not officially. some projects[0] try to bridge the
| protocols, but I've never personally seen one that operated
| without issues.
|
| [0] e.g. https://geysermc.org/
| MayeulC wrote:
| I had no idea the wire protocol was understood so well.
| Are there similar project to bridge, i.e. Minetest with
| Mineclone2 and Minecraft (java)?
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'd say it's a not-inaccurate summation to say "Bedrock" is
| the closed one (e.g. for consoles) and "Java" is the open
| one.
| zellyn wrote:
| I recently got into Minecraft due to kid reaching Minecraft
| age. I keep meaning to write an intro for technical
| parents, because it's very confusing at first.
|
| The original was written in Java, and people decompiled and
| reverse engineered it almost completely, so there are tons
| of mods that reach in and change things deeply.
|
| They then created MCPE (pocket edition) which was a "cut-
| down mobile edition". That evolved into "Bedrock
| Minecraft", which is not "cut-down", and is what runs on
| mobile devices and gaming consoles (XBox, Switch, PS*). (It
| also runs on Windows, but not on Macs.)
|
| At this point, the Bedrock and Java editions are more or
| less equivalently complex, although there are still
| differences in how many mobs spawn (generally fewer in
| bedrock, presumably due to (legacy?) performance
| constraints), as well as tons and tons of differences,
| subtle and unsubtle, in where and how things spawn, how the
| mobs behave, etc. Notably, there are significant
| differences in how redstone works that render most Java
| edition contraptions non-working in Bedrock.
|
| There are actually many, many more Bedrock players, because
| lots of kids play on iPads and consoles, but most of the
| notable YouTube personalities and servers people stream
| from (Hermitcraft, etc.) are Java, and Java has an
| incredibly diverse universe of mods and modded servers.
|
| Mojang (now a division of Microsoft) seems to value parity
| between Java and Bedrock: new features seem equivalent in
| both, and many point releases contain minor parity fixes.
| But it's unlikely they would make complex dynamics like
| redstone equivalent.
|
| IIUC, there seems to be a vague consensus that Bedrock is
| probably the future, for several reasons: a) As you point
| out, having two completely different codebases and teams is
| crazy b) Bedrock runs (or can run - MacOS?) on everything
| c) Bedrock is C++, and hence can perform better d) There
| are more recurring revenue opportunities for Bedrock:
| Mojang-provided servers ("Realms") are Bedrock, and there
| are the "microtransactions" mentioned in a parent comment:
| you can pay for skins and add-ons (essentially "mods" that
| use a provided and sanctioned extension API rather than
| modifying the binary/bytecode). Minecraft is unusual in
| that you pay for it once but they keep updating and adding
| content forever (so far), so recurring revenue is important
| for Mojang.
|
| If you're getting into Minecraft, I highly recommend
| Pixlriffs' Minecraft Guide for Java edition players, or
| Prowl8413's Bedrock Guide for Bedrock players. They will
| walk you through the early game, and then explain how the
| various "farms" work ("farming" is when you figure out how
| to build structures and systems that exploit the game
| mechanics to produce large quantities of particular
| resources).
|
| To answer a couple of your questions, the client/servers
| are not interoperable, but there are proxies like GeyserMC
| that translate.
|
| The C++ one has a server implementation (Bedrock Dedicated
| Server - BDS) available in binary form, that you can run on
| Linux or Windows. As far as I know, there are no third-
| party bedrock servers that implement all (or even most) of
| the dynamics of the vanilla game, since that would
| essentially require re-implementing everything, but if
| contributing to that process is your jam, I highly
| recommend the Dragonfly folks: their Go server
| implementation is quite clean, their discord is active and
| helpful, and their various proxies and tools and libraries
| are very useful.
| omnibrain wrote:
| > Mojang-provided servers ("Realms") are Bedrock
|
| You can also rent a JAVA realm. And if you outgrow the
| realm (want to use mods), you can download the world and
| run it with a "real" (modded) server.
|
| Modded servers are another rabbit hole...
| sho_hn wrote:
| Thank you for the high-effort comment!
|
| Has there ever been any community-led effort to create
| and maintain a "Minecraft spec" (similar to the Tetris
| spec) and make an open source reference implementation,
| or is the game to complex for that?
|
| Kind of surprising Mojang didn't go into that direction
| (e.g. to match Redstone behavior).
| zellyn wrote:
| IIUC, aside from non-deterministic timing of simultaneous
| updates, the things that are different about redstone in
| bedrock are mostly things that _could_ be considered
| bugs. eg. block spitting (extending a sticky piston for
| only one tick leaves a pushed block behind, rather than
| pulling it back in, which makes flying machines more
| compact in Java), and BUD power (interaction between
| block updates and redstone state changes)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Modders have done so; I believe the Minecraft map data
| structure, at least for the Java version (because it can
| be decompiled), is pretty well understood. The
| client/server protocol as used nowadays (?) was actually
| developed as an open source project at first, because the
| open source server software ended up being better than
| their own in-house one.
| zellyn wrote:
| There is Minetest, which has at least one configuration
| that attempts to mimic vanilla Minecraft, but I'm not
| certain how accurate it is.
|
| The stored data structures are well understood for both
| versions. See for example https://www.amuletmc.com/
| (Editor, Python) or https://github.com/df-
| mc/dragonfly/tree/master/server/world/... (Code, Go)
| Pako wrote:
| Servers are not interoperable by default. There is 3rd
| party software that acts as a proxy letting Bedrock players
| connect to Java servers but it'll just remove anything that
| the more limited client doesn't support.
|
| They both use completely different network stacks, Bedrock
| using RakNet over UDP, Java using Netty (?) over TCP, so
| they have to be translated accordingly.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| So I gather Microsoft has renamed Bedrock Edition to just
| "Minecraft" and then there's "Minecraft: Java Edition".
|
| What's the player base split between these? Do PC players
| still generally prefer the Java Edition?
| RedNifre wrote:
| The invisible majority of players uses Bedrock.
|
| The majority of players that stream/post videos or
| use/write mods use Java.
|
| If you want to play with friends (Macos, Linux etc.) you
| need Java, because Bedrock is Windows and consoles only.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Interestingly, it looks like the Bedrock-based "Education
| Edition" is on MacOS, but normal Bedrock is not.
| zellyn wrote:
| Yes. So clearly it's not a question of being able to run,
| or of weird graphics quirks or something. It's a strange
| omission. Given that Mojang is now owned by Microsoft,
| it's slightly suspicious...
| zellyn wrote:
| There is https://github.com/minecraft-linux/mcpelauncher-
| manifest, which can run the Android JARs on MacOS or
| Linux (by shimming/implementing the Android APIs it
| uses), but a few months back one of the updates
| dramatically changed the rendering system, and the
| lone(?) MacOs/Linux maintainer of mcpelauncher is still
| catching up. See https://github.com/minecraft-
| linux/mcpelauncher-manifest/iss...
|
| Until that breakage, I ran it quite successfully on MacOS
| (although it _did_ have occasional crashes)
| virusduck wrote:
| You can use Geyser [0] to "bridge the gap" to Bedrock
| clients. There are bugs here and there, but it works
| pretty great to get everyone on the same server.
|
| [0] https://geysermc.org/
| aliqot wrote:
| wait till you hear how long it's been since simcity got a
| commit
| PcChip wrote:
| Don't let your dreams be dreams, start coding!
| jrm4 wrote:
| It's technically inaccurate but probably fundamentally fair to
| say that "Bedrock" is the closed version and "Java" is the open
| one.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| One of my favorite games on the Commodore 64 was _Raid on
| Bungeling Bay,_ in which you fly a helicopter around a
| 360-scrolling island map, knocking out enemy war factories. The
| map was surprisingly detailed and interactive for an early action
| game, with supply ships moving around helping to build defenses;
| you could destroy the six factories in any order, but each time
| you zapped one, the rest would tech up and get tougher. Very open
| for the time.
|
| Anyway, the dev found that he enjoyed designing the map and its
| interactions more than he did actually playing the game, so he
| decided that his next game would be all about building a map. He
| called it SimCity.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| This is the real metaverse we care about.
| YesBox wrote:
| Pretty cool!
|
| If people are still interested in playing city builder games, I
| am in the middle of developing one right now. I cleared the CPU
| hurdle of path finding via developing my own algorithm ( old demo
| here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q0l87hwmkI ). Here I am
| pathing around 300,000 units to their own unique destinations.
|
| Unfortunately I dont have a video update yet, but my game's
| graphics are now isometric (like SimCity).
|
| I also take a little inspiration from The Sims in that the player
| will see the interior of the buildings so they can watch their
| citizens live their lives.
|
| Most frequent updates: https://www.reddit.com/r/Archapolis/
| ahansen wrote:
| Amazing. I had a few questions about pathfinding inspiration
| since I had just watched NoClips video on Rollarcoaster Tycoon,
| but your linked video is already so in depth!
| anthropodie wrote:
| Thank you for sharing!
| jrm4 wrote:
| I hope we can all begin to learn some lessons from stuff like
| this; I think this kind of thing is the only path to a remotely
| interesting "metaverse" to the extent that such an idea is
| valuable.
|
| And it's so weird. It's obvious that private companies buying
| game properties is very often death and annoyance -- but it's
| (sadly to me) equally obvious that straight-up "nothing but free
| open source" is unlikely to get the engagement and interest.
| (e.g. otherwise Minetest would have taken over Minecraft a while
| ago)
|
| I have _no_ good answers here, but I hope people think about the
| question?
| joe__f wrote:
| "Your antivirus program might think that MineCity 2000 is a
| virus. It's not."
|
| Exactly what a virus would say...
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| Time to spin up the ole SC2k again. I haven't played Minecraft in
| VR yet, and this seems like a really good reason to try it out
| now.
|
| I would definitely love to see more things like this that spin
| old games/software into new experiences.
| jl6 wrote:
| How did they convert the 2D sprites to 3D blocks? Automatically
| or laboriously?
| jgosar wrote:
| Hi, I did it manually, first some 2D drawings of where to put
| the blocks to correspond to the original game's pixels as close
| as possible, and then I built them using MCEdit, and finished
| the details in the game itself
| tclancy wrote:
| You have to mine them one by one.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Probably manual, given they have a specific list of supported
| buildings. But they're pretty simple so I can imagine it'd take
| an hour at most to build one them (in creative mode).
| justin-mccarthy wrote:
| Would love to see something like Magnasanti in Minecraft
|
| https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2013/designand...
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I thought it was interesting that not only does this guy choose
| C# over Java but he chooses to write getter methods instead of
| properties
|
| https://github.com/jgosar/mine-city-2000/blob/master/SimCity...
|
| Completely trivial, but as a long time C# developer, this was a
| big pet peeve.
|
| For City name just do
|
| public string CityName{ get; private set; }
|
| Based on the fact that I see capital letters in String etc, this
| is either old code or this guy dove head first from Java.
| chris37879 wrote:
| Or Unity, their flavor of C# discouraged properties for a long
| time, it does support them now, though.
| jawadch93 wrote:
| beprogrammed wrote:
| Things you didn't know you needed
| roody15 wrote:
| Well done. Cool project.
| [deleted]
| nomercy400 wrote:
| How much time does it cost to create one building? Would be cool
| to connect minecraft to a real running sc2k, adding/removing
| buildings on-the-fly.
| jgosar wrote:
| The simplest ones can be done in a few hours. The latest one I
| did was the Statue which only took about 3 hours.
|
| The most complex one so far is the big corporate tower with the
| KSIM sign on top. That one took a few days.
| pocketsand wrote:
| porntipsguzzardo
| aarpmcgee wrote:
| Not sure why exactly, but this gives me strong nostalgic feelings
| for Lego Island.
| dreen wrote:
| Hopefully Minecraft has a mod to let you fly around in a
| helicopter and pick people up from the ground only to drop them
| confused on top of a skyscraper.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| While Ride of the Valkyries blares in the background,
| obviously.
| remoquete wrote:
| Showering them with water from a bucket.
| Mezzie wrote:
| And the mobs kissing.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| "himbos"
|
| https://www.avclub.com/simcopter-programmer-once-
| deployed-ar...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himbo
|
| https://tcrf.net/SimCopter
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozL3LtSsYd8
| reilly3000 wrote:
| If anyone here wants to try to recreate your Sim Copter glory
| days, I would recommend FlansMod. It's an incredible mod family
| that is pinned to the ancient Minecraft 1.7.10 I believe. It
| has tons of vehicles and weapons from WW1 biplanes to mechs.
| There are definitely helicopters and I think they have
| passenger seats.
|
| The whole thing was pushing the bounds of the Minecraft engine
| beyond reason when it was being actively developed, and has
| largely been abandoned. Still, I was hosting a Flan's server to
| play w/ my kids as recently as last winter. If you can live
| with the bugs it's an incredibly fun mod, and a masterclass in
| Java hackery.
| cykros wrote:
| In my experience there aren't many things minecraft doesn't
| have a mod for -- though sometimes it is a matter of what
| version of minecraft you want it for. mods at the very least
| tend to trail the main release version by a few cycles.
| rheide wrote:
| I had this exact idea but for OpenTTD worlds. Well done.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Is this what "reticulating splines" means, then? Almost 30 years
| later and I still don't understand but the phrase is eternally
| trapped in my mind.
| mccolin wrote:
| I looked this up once to determine if it was real or just
| hilarity. And the answer is great. From [Sims
| Fandom](https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Reticulating_splines)
| site:
|
| > The words 'reticulate' and 'spline' both have dictionary
| definitions, which has led several people to determine a
| meaning for the phrase, such as "to make a network of curved
| elements." However, Will Wright stated in an interview that the
| term itself is meaningless, as SimCity 2000 does not reticulate
| splines when generating terrain; the phrase was included in the
| game because it "sounded cool."
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| It's compelling because SimCity 2000's terrain is very much a
| network of curved lines, so it sounds like a plausible part
| of the process.
| jgosar wrote:
| It sounds cool indeed. That's why this project includes a
| reticulateSplines method :)
|
| https://github.com/jgosar/mine-
| city-2000/blob/master/MineCit...
| JuanPosadas wrote:
| I wish the demo videos included walking inside the skyscrapers.
| MayeulC wrote:
| That looks great!
|
| It's C# though, so I have no idea how to build this under Linux.
| I also wish there was a Minetest backend.
|
| Similar: OSM to Minecraft[0][1] (there should be another code
| drop soon-ish, I heard [2] they plan to move the dev effort to
| GitHub by the end of the year).
|
| [0]: https://minecraft.ign.fr/
|
| [1]: https://github.com/ignfab-minalac/minalac
|
| [2]: video, in French:
| https://peertube.openstreetmap.fr/w/cLpfr5jWd9SipjJTDKDPmj?s...
| tippysdemise wrote:
| Usually, building C# projects on Linux is as simple as getting
| the .NET SDK using your favorite package manager and running `$
| dotnet build` at the root of the project. Just FYI.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Thanks for the tip! I saw some .sln files and I assumed
| project information was only stored in a Visual Studio-
| specific format.
| chris37879 wrote:
| Looks like the GUI uses WinForms, which means you won't be able
| to build it on linux, I would wager. You may, however, be able
| to run an already built version of it through Wine.
| nycdotnet wrote:
| The GUI code looks very simple at first glance - just four
| buttons and file picker and background worker. Chances are
| this would be straight-forward to port to a .NET command-line
| tool that would be cross-platform assuming there's nothing
| Windows-specific in the domain logic.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Thinking about it, wouldn't mono support this fairly well?
| I don't have much experience with mono nor C#, but going
| from a sibling comment and my package manager, I would be
| tempted to install mono-msbuild-sdkresolver and run `mono
| build`.
|
| Of course, I believe a command-line tool is a better fit,
| especially if one wants to automate this.
|
| The real value of this project probably lies in the
| buildings the author made :)
| jgosar wrote:
| I'm the author, and the GUI is indeed not the focus of
| this project. It's just there so people can do the
| conversion in a few clicks.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Well, I wasn't too interested in the GUI anyway :)
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Wow.
|
| I played SimCity 2000 all the time when I was a kid. Still got
| the CD and some save files, and built a retro PC that can run
| it.[0] (I even have the same sound card that the family PC had,
| so the MIDI is exactly the same.)
|
| Walking around my cities in Minecraft would be so surreal.
|
| [0] https://theandrewbailey.com/article/122/SimCity-2000
| Systemic33 wrote:
| Very cool idea and execution.
|
| Slightly off-topic; if there ever was a excellent example of what
| it means when a C# program is being written by a java developer,
| this would certainly qualify.
|
| Was this ported from a java project?
| davbryn wrote:
| When did we get C# devs flexing on Java devs? Isn't like that
| like a paint by numbers expert flexing on a paint by letters
| kinda person?
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Oh this is so mean ;)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's typical how this particular project / codebase attracts so
| many armchair code reviewers (in multiple threads); I've not
| seen anything like that on HN for ages. Is C# / Java some kind
| of trigger for it?
| n4r9 wrote:
| Could you give examples of what you mean? I've had a look
| through and there are certainly stylistic things I'd do
| differently, such as using "var" and LINQ more, and
| capitalising method names. But it's easy enough to understand
| despite that.
| Systemic33 wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, it's not "bad" code (from a brief glance)
| but it's just clearly written as if it was Java code, and
| probably not in a usual IDE like Visual Studio, Rider or
| VSCode /w C# plugin (as that would typically scaffold a more
| C#-esque style).
|
| Here's what I've noticed so far:
|
| - Uses camelCase instead of PascalCase
|
| - Uses setter and getter methods instead of C# properties.
|
| - Uses reverse DNS namespace com.mc2k.SimCityReader instead
| of e.g. JGosar.MineCity2000.SimCityReader.
|
| - Lack of LINQ (It is such a big part of C#, that not using
| it at all is strange).*
|
| - Lac of using generics e.g. List<string> instead of
| string[].*
|
| - Excessive use of arrays (you'd typically use a simple
| IEnumerable<T> or List<T>).
|
| - Lack of `var`.*
|
| - Casting integer literals to short, byte, etc -- these all
| have equivalent literal notation.*
|
| - Lack of extension methods.*
|
| - Lack of maps (pattern matching).*
|
| There could be more, but those are what I noticed.
|
| EDIT: * Given that the original code was done with VS 2010
| and .NET Framework 4, its fair to say that a few of the
| points above do not apply, but the code is nevertheless very
| java-esque (just from the first two points).
| throwaway_032 wrote:
| I looked at the code from a Java developer point of view,
| and besides the first 2 points, I don't see anything that
| was Java-specific.
|
| If anything, the code style is reminding me more about
| classic game code, where they use arrays instead of List
| and are more concerned about data types and memory usage.
| Maybe this person is coming from a background of game
| programming and/or C(++)?
| pdntspa wrote:
| I'm saving this as it's an excellent guide for taking my
| dated pre-LINQ C# skills and polishing them up as need be
| pjc50 wrote:
| https://github.com/jgosar/mine-
| city-2000/blob/master/MineCit... contains "private
| byte[][][][][][][] _blockDatas;" which made my eye twitch.
|
| But generally I think it's just older than the git history
| indicates. The sln file mentions Visual Studio 2010!
| Systemic33 wrote:
| Ye this commit [0] imports a "local repository" with
| Visual Studio 2010 .sln file.
|
| The original README mentions .NET Framework 4, so C# has
| progressed a fair amount since.
|
| [0] https://github.com/jgosar/mine-
| city-2000/commit/f1cbe98601c4...
| jgosar wrote:
| Hi, I'm the author of this project. I actually coded most
| of it in 2014, i just did some refactoring and uploaded
| it to GitHub in 2019 after I mentioned it in a job
| interview and the guy asked if the code is uploaded
| anywhere so he could look at it.
| Systemic33 wrote:
| Hi jgosar, and thanks for joining into the discussion :D
|
| I figure you noticed the drastic increase in repo
| activity and stars. What's your own opinion on java-ness
| of the code? Do you feel it is an accurate assessment?
|
| I hope you didn't take it personal, I've most certainly
| done similar things when I learned C# after doing java
| for the initial university courses.
| jgosar wrote:
| Yes, I mostly worked on Java and C# projects at the time,
| so it's understandable:)
| usrusr wrote:
| Excessive use of arrays can be a sign of many things, but
| not of being a java developer. Perhaps a sign of having
| been a java developer at some point in time before 2004 but
| not having touched the language ever since.
| n4r9 wrote:
| An array can be much more performant than a list in many
| circumstances, but I agree it's a little strange to
| completely avoid lists.
| [deleted]
| jgosar wrote:
| We were working on a mix of Java and C# projects at work at the
| time I started writing this, so that's probably why the code
| looks like a mix between the two.
| tedeh wrote:
| This reminds me a lot of SimCopter (1996) where you could also
| import your SC2k city and fly around and do missions. Mostly
| about helping people in various forms of distress by picking them
| up and flying to various destinations. Great flashback from 90's
| gaming, I remember tossing people out at random when flying which
| was always hilarious when you're a young kid. You could then pick
| them up and fly them to the hospital to get fixed up.
|
| But I must say I think the original SimCopter looks slightly
| better graphically than this Minecraft version.
|
| You can play SimCity 2000 online here, by the way:
|
| https://playclassic.games/games/city-building-dos-games-onli...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Clint Basinger's Lazy Game Reviews always has excellent reviews
| of Maxis games.
|
| LGR - SimCopter - PC Game Review
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mh7Pc5MSI
|
| LGR - Streets of SimCity - PC Game Review
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi60A2-PcpM
|
| The SimCity 2000 Retail Demo Disk for DOS
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2b5HRRTH70
|
| LGR - SimCity 2000 Network Edition - PC Game Review
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9e3WlJChro
|
| LGR - SimCity Educational Version Unboxing & Overview
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXRNtuAGTg
|
| SimCity 30 Years Later: A Retrospective
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrScy1icWjI
|
| The Sims 1: An LGR Retrospective Review
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsob06m9p_4
| lazyfanatic wrote:
| Clint is great!
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I can't help but think your username was inspired by LGR.
| Put another coin in the 'HN usernames are on topic' jar.
| nimajneb wrote:
| I never had SimCopter, but I did have the vehicle based one. I
| remember having fun playing in it in cities I made. Is it
| called Streets of Sim City?
| partiallypro wrote:
| I remember being able to do this in SimCopter, but at least as
| a kid I could never get it to import right.
| jgosar wrote:
| SimCopter was actually the inspiration behind this project, but
| what annoyed me was that the buildings mostly looked nothing
| like in SimCity 2000.
| jtokoph wrote:
| My biggest disappointment was the lack of Arcologies in
| SimCopter. If I remember correctly, the land they were
| originally on was just empty once imported.
| jgosar wrote:
| Unfortunately that's the case in MineCity 2000 as well
| omnibrain wrote:
| I'm quite sure, that at least the one with the glass dome
| on top was in the game, because I remember trying to land
| on top of the glass dome.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| I spent a lot of time in SimCopter as a teenager. It was always
| fun to get to explore the cities I had spent so much time
| curating in SC2k.
| justusthane wrote:
| SimCopter was awesome! I had forgotten all about it. I didn't
| realize you could import SimCity cities!
| Arrath wrote:
| God I love SimCopter. played it so much as a kid but I never
| got to the fanciest helicopters because every run hit a bug
| where I couldn't enter the hanger anymore, I was too young to
| know that patching a game was even a thing, if it ever got a
| patch to fix that.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Thanks for this, I usually hate to say sequels are bad (since
| Simcity 2000 was itself a sequel and much better than the
| original SimCity) but that series really went off the rails
| around when Simcity 3000 came out.
|
| (It's a shame we didn't get a higher resolution version of
| Simcopter and Streets of Simcity instead of a long string of
| "The Sims" plus... well I quit gaming before they took GTA
| online, but I got the impression the GTA community is more into
| murdering sex workers for cash rather than equipping your car
| with an airfoil _and_ a hopper so you can jump high in the air
| then glide down into areas of the map your opponent cannot
| reach.)
|
| Ps I've never seen that domain you can also play Simcity 2000
| at https://archive.org/details/SimCity2000
| jl6 wrote:
| > Playclassic.games does not intend to violate any copyright or
| violate any license of a game.
|
| I thought there was a chance this site might have arranged
| licenses from the original publishers, funded by revenue from
| the (many) ads, but no, it appears to be good old fashioned
| piracy.
|
| Edit: I tried Settlers, which has one of those copy-protection
| systems that involves entering information that can be found in
| the printed manual. Either I got very lucky, or this game has
| been cracked. Or, as the site euphemises it, "unblocked".
|
| Now, I'm sympathetic to the cause of video game preservation
| and use of abandonware, but the second you put ads around it
| and make money off it for yourself, you cross a line.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Plus, intent isn't relevant. If the copyright holder doesn't
| pursue, you're fine. If they base their decision on "intent,"
| then fine.
|
| Infringement is infringement, intentional or not.
| coldpie wrote:
| Hard disagree. Severs aren't free to run. They're welcome to
| recoup those costs and even make a profit from providing a
| valuable service. Ethically they're doing nothing wrong by
| letting people play a 30-year-old game for free, even if
| they're in violation of our utterly insane copyright laws.
| jl6 wrote:
| I didn't see any statement on the site that the ads and
| donations were ringfenced to cover server costs.
| coldpie wrote:
| Sure, I said they're welcome to make a profit.
| Sargos wrote:
| A website costs a few bucks a month to run and the files
| should be distributed via BitTorrent anyway. This service
| could be funded by any single individual.
| coldpie wrote:
| Sounds like you're volunteering! Have fun!
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| But where can we play simcopter? I need the ability to dangle
| my passengers out of the helicopter in a threatening way. It's
| been awhile.
| coldacid wrote:
| Someone actually went and created patches and installers to
| work with modern Windows for both SimCopter and Streets of
| SimCity.
|
| http://krimsky.net/patchers.html
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| SimCopter wasn't the only game that allowed you to import from
| SC2k -- the city import is the only notable feature of the
| otherwise-unremarkable Streets of SimCity[0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_SimCity
| somat wrote:
| The music, the music was the other remarkable feature of
| streets of sim city.
| boole1854 wrote:
| "I'm just a splatter, splatter, splatter on the windshield
| of life."
|
| https://youtu.be/uqnU8wAyHdQ?t=3999
| ffmpegy wrote:
| that game had so much potential, so many bugs...
| [deleted]
| missblit wrote:
| Streets of Sim City was great. I'd use a bug to create
| glitchy self-intersecting bridges I called "super springs"
| which launched cars straight up. The AI certainly didn't know
| what to make of that.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Streets of SimCity was great for making an outrageous racket
| by using the increased gravity cheatcode. Every polygon
| intersection would trigger the "suspension crashing" sound
| effect. Fantastic fun.
| hawski wrote:
| I liked to play the SimCopter demo and thanks to it Wagner's
| Ride of the Valkyries still remind me of the game. I suspected
| (or maybe just hoped) that you could somehow import SimCity
| 2000 cities (I had the original boxed release, the first game I
| owned), but either it was not possible to do in the demo or I
| just failed to find the way (I was barely a teenager without
| the Internet access).
| xattt wrote:
| This is kind of like being a fan of early Simpsons, where
| exposure to one thing leads you to find out more about the
| thing they're drawing inspiration from.
|
| The association of Flight of the Valkyries and helicopters
| came from Stanley Kubrick's Apocolypse Now.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> 'Stanley Kubrick's' 'Apocalypse Now'
|
| ...in what possible world; lol. I want to see that world.
|
| I think you mean Francis Ford Coppola. :P Or 'Full Metal
| Jacket' - but your statement as it stands just makes me
| giggle.
| xattt wrote:
| Oh god, I am grown man who did not know the difference
| between these movies.
| lostgame wrote:
| lol, it's okay; we all make mistakes. :)
|
| I only found it so funny because obviously, those are two
| of the most significant and important films / directors
| of all time; and the concept of 'Stanley Kubrick's
| Apocalypse Now' is just both utterly fascinating and
| totally humorous.
|
| Not sure what your age has anything to do with your
| comment or mine; though? Except that I guess that
| obviously as a grown man you'd have a much easier time
| identifying these two films and their directors than,
| say; a 20-year-old? Is that what you're saying? Sorry; I
| think it just went over my head.
| tialaramex wrote:
| They may well just mean that making these sorts of
| mistakes feels worse when you're an adult. When children
| don't know the difference between a goose and a duck, or
| between N Sync and the Beatles, we don't think much of
| it, whereas suddenly as an adult this seems like a big
| deal.
|
| I used to get Al Pacino and Robert De Niro muddled up,
| like badly enough that it made it difficult to follow
| Heat (which features both actors in major roles)! No,
| they don't look alike, I don't know why I couldn't keep
| that straight.
|
| Whereas I had no problem distinguishing the real Queen
| Amidala (Natalie Portman) in the Phantom Menace while
| apparently that plot point caught out other people I
| watched it with the first time - shrug.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| And of course there's The Simpsons association of
| Apocalypse Now and Highway To Hell!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBcZvviml_w
| NexRebular wrote:
| I remember it was possible to import your own maps in the
| demo... by just copying your own city over the demo one.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| A noble quest
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