Simtropolis

Simtropolis
File:ST logo.png
Link
Homepage
SubSections
Forums	Forums
Exchange	STEX Exchange
Knowledge Base	http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/index.cfm?FTVAR_SUBCAT=137&nocookies=y&subcatname=SimCity%20Omnibus%3A%20%20Search%20Here%20First
Chat	Chatroom
City Showcases	http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/categories.cfm?catid=36&entercat=y
General Information
Founding	Founded on 11 January 2003
Webmaster	Dirk
Administrators	Aronion MrCinatit RalphaelNinja Rybolton Samantha SkiGeek Zelgadis
Languages	English
Alexa Ranking	51,597

Simtropolis (ST) is most likely the largest and most developed site in the whole community, and is based in Ontario, Canada. It was started by dirk on January 11, 2003, shortly before the release of SimCity 4. It is home to the Simtropolis Exchange (STEX), an open file exchange.

Site Sections

The site is technically divided into four major sections: the Forums, the STEX, the Modds & Downloads section, and ST Chat.

Forums

Like many fansites, the Forums are the heart-and-soul of Simtropolis. Most of the boards are related to SimCity 4, though the number of boards has been decreasing as of late, as several of them were merged in September 2008. There is also a single forum for SimCity Societies, one for Cities XL, three subforums for The Sims 2, and an active Off-Topic area.

STEX

The Simtropolis Exchange, or STEX, is an open exchange to which anyone can upload, the only such exchange apart from the main EA Simcity 4 Exchange. This open arrangement has both benefits and drawbacks. The file size limit for the STEX is 10MB, and anything larger must go in the Modds & Downloads section.

Modds & Downloads

Simtropolis has a section on its server dedicated to modifications (or "modds") made for SimCity 4--on the site, this section is known as the Modds & Downloads section. Examples of modds hosted include the Network Addon Mod, the Sim Mars modd, various game tweaks, and much more. There are also a number of 3rd party applications and tools housed in this section that help with the creation of modds, as well as generally enhancing the SimCity 4 experience. Some of these include ILive's Reader, wounagaine's SC4 Terraformer (albeit now outdated), DarkMatter's FiSHMan, among others.

There are a few people in the SC4 community who are noted for being prolific modders and application creators. The following users are perhaps the most notable in this regard; their accomplishments and works are listed below. If you click the link under their names, you are directed to their People: article, where you can find more information.

Tropod is one of the most prolific modders in the history of SimCity 4 content, whose work was crucial in laying the foundation for the entire area of modding. Among other things, he founded the NAM Team, contributing a substantial body of work to the Network Addon Mod continuing to this day, and his discoveries on building stages eventually led to the development of the Colossus Addon Mod.

ILive's Tools have been a standard in modd creation for years. His "Reader" program, in particular, first made it possible to create modifications for SC4, and have been crucial to the modding community since it was made. ILive has created programs that, among other things, help in changing building parameters and viewing props.

DarkMatter has contributed perhaps the largest number of modding tools including DatGen and the Lot Information Generator His tools help in creating essential files for custom content.

RalphaelNinja is perhaps the most prolific modder in the community, having created many of the early modds that today are considered essential for the full enjoyment of SC4. His credits include the Radical Ordinance Mod and the Abandonment Dilaptation Mod

Omnibus

The Omnibus is a section of the site that contains a series of tutorials on various game topics, forum usage, and interviews with various members.

Simtropolis Help Squad

The Simtropolis Help Squad, commonly abbreviated SHS, was founded to create articles addressing commonly asked questions and a more obvious way to answer any questions newer members have, directing them to an article if one pertains to their questions. While they still create new articles, the SHS is nowadays also the group responsible for getting regular-member created articles into the Omnibus.

SHS members are generally very knowledgeable about the game, and use this knowledge to help new members to the best of their ability, answering the questions they have on the forums.

History

The Simtropolis Help Squad was founded in 2005 as a team that would both create articles for the Omnibus and assist Simtropolis members with their individual issues and questions. The group quickly gained popularity, and was given a private forum by the ST Administrators.

When Simtropolis upgraded to version 5.0, the old Omnibus had to be separately converted into a format that would be compatible with the new, forum-based Omnibus. The SHS was given this task, which was the first of several tasks directly given to the SHS by the ST Administration.

One of the advantages of the forum-based Omnibus was it allowed the ST administration to appoint Omnibus moderators who could directly upload and edit articles in the Omnibus. With this ability, the SHS was able to cut out the 'middle man' that was the administration, and it was able to add articles to the Omnibus much more efficiently.

Chat

The ST Chat is a chat room hosted on-site, which is known for its particularly colorful discussions.

Site Hack

The so-called Simtropolis Site Hack of 2008 was an event on May 23 to 25 2008, in which Simtropolis experienced the server equivalent of a break-in in their database. Malicious code was injected into the database through a loophole in the forum software. The code was linked back to a Chinese group attacking major websites. Simtropolis was not directly attacked, but was "in the way".

Simtropolis experienced periodic outages over the next 3 days, until only the forums were back online. A week later, the STEX came back online as well.

The event resulted in a wide-spread truncation of many longer posts on the forums, resulting in major damage to numerous long-running City Journals, as well as numerous tutorials. Many CJ authors searched Google Caches to retrieve lost data.

Awards and Events

Trixies

Every year, Simtropolis hosts the Golden Llama Awards, better known as the Trixies. Any member registered at Simtropolis is eligible for a Trixie.

Member of the Month

At the beginning of every month, the MOTM Committee unveils the past months member and employee of the month. Any registered member can be eligible for the MOTM award, however it is noted that anyone who campaigns or attempts to fish for a nomination will be disqualified from winning for life. Nomination can occur at any point during the month, by a private message to the MOTM_inbox account. An explanation of why the member was nominated is recommended, as it assists the Simtropolis staff in making their decisions during the voting process.

After nominations close at around the 25th of the month, members of the Simtropolis staff and the MOTM Committee place their votes for who they believe should win the MOTM award. The employee of the month is determined by the admin staff. Voting for these awards is not public in order to prevent cheating and bad voting. The full list of winners can be found here