OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000 • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#91

Post by rage8885 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #15

Its very questionable to include the assets. The bottom of the readme says: > Includes assets and graphics extracted from the original SimCity 2000 Special Edition CD. These assets are NOT covered by the GNU General Public License used by this project and are copyright EA / Maxis. I'm including these assets in the hope that because the game has been made freely available at various points in time by EA, and because i…

I agree, but wanted to get something working out there first. I'm finishing up some code over the next day or two that will import the original assets from the game files without needing to include the assets within the repository.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#92

Post by xattt » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

Quequau wrote: post #26

I enjoyed the first SimCity and I really enjoyed SimEarth. However, at some point I really stopped enjoying SimCity... and I'm not sure if it's that the game got more obsessively micro-managing or I just grew out of that style of game play entirely.

I was a Maxis geek as a kid, playing everything they put out right from SC2K. SC4 killed it for me when I began to get good at it, and ran into the infamous traffic bug. Above a certain population level, there was an inevitable scenario of traffic chaos, no matter the mitigations you attempted.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#93

Post by rage8885 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #86

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SimCity 2000 even has a demo that includes most of the graphics assets. It wouldn't put much of a burden on the user.

They could do what many propiratary software developers do and simply write a wrapper that download and extract the assets on the users side during installation and have the user do the "compiling". If that work to avoid creating a derivative gpl program, or simply put the legal responsibility on the user, then surely it will work here too.

That's the plan here. Short term, it will include the ability to select and parse out the original assets - long term I'd like to do something similar to the approach that OpenRA has taken (in game asset downloader that makes it seemless to the user).

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#94

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

Would be great if it could use SQLite and Electron already installed in the system instead of downloading/building them from the Internet sources unless that's really necessary (I actually find it strange node/electron still don't take care of this by integrating SQLite int their standard APIs anyway).

The window just shows an empty brown field and nothing else, I could find no "start new scenario" or anything like that in the menu.

Otherwise the idea is amazing. Surely SimCity 2000 is one of the greatest games ever and I can't wait for it to be implemented and extended as far beyond what it originally was as possible.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#95

Post by ascagnel_ » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #14

ChrisSD wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks like thin ice. Basically they're hoping to remain too small for EA to bother with. IIRC, the usual workaround for asset licensing is to make an automated extractor for people who have the original game. This buys you time while you work on drop-in replacements.

Certainly bad practice. If developers want automation it's better to suggested to download assets (or even do it automatically) from Web Archive. They're exempt from DMCA and it's trustworthy source. https://archive.org/details/SimCity2000_Special_Edition_Maxi...

Frankly, I'm somewhat amazed that this is on archive.org. They may have a DMCA exception, but it's a bad look considering the game is still actively being sold on GoG and under copyright.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#96

Post by cuckcuckspruce » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

epicide wrote: post #88

Y_Y wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's absurd for a private citizen to try to change a law by lobbying.

I meant more trying to reduce/remove lobbying.

I agree. I think we should hang all lobbyists and then shoot them while they're hanging just to be sure.

It is absolutely anti-republican that entrenched special interests and corporations get more say and have larger influence in politics than the constituents of the state/district. Hang all the lobbyists, close the flow of donations from anyone other than individuals, and cut off the hands (metaphorically) of any representative that takes any money under suspicious circumstances.

If powerful corporations or special interests want to influence legislation, make them convince the people that something is a good idea and have the people contact their representatives.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#97

Post by rage8885 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #19

Gotta say 21 FPS not very pleasant to game with.

It does run fairly slow with some of the debug overlays on, but with the overlays off I get a solid 60fps - it's averaging about 4-5ms per frame draw without enabling the overlays. What kind of machine are you running it on? There's a ton of room for improvement still, this is just an initial release.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#98

Post by jagger27 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

matte_black wrote: post #80

bringtheaction wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, got a link for it?

Unfortunately it was quite a long time ago when I was into game development as a hobby, two MacBooks ago. I’d have to see if I still have the hard drive it was on. I never thought it would be useful for anything. In any case I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is inspired to write a similar tool, it’s really just laying down pixels and shapes in an isometric perspective, and a few other decorative touches.

You've got my wheels spinning. Go's image processing libraries are calling to me.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#99

Post by rage8885 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

blt wrote: post #24

is there source code to SC2K anywhere? If not, won't it be really hard to even approximate the simulation behavior?

There is no source code anywhere, unfortunately. I'm planning to approximate it the best I can based on information available online over the years and observing game behavior. In a lot of ways it's a fairly simple game but still has quite a lot of depth. My priority right now is getting rendering and some basic interactions (plopping buildings, networks, etc..) working and then move to implementing the simulation on top of that.

Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000

#100

Post by rage8885 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

willsr wrote: post #2

Hmm - cool project. Don't want to be a buzzkill, but copyright? Should probably remove the assets to avoid a takedown.

This is something I'm actively working on - I wanted to get an initial release out there but didn't expect this much attention so quickly! Hoping to have something out there to parse out the original game assets within a day or two.