I'm happy to announce that the Metropolis Project now has it's own website!  It's still a bit rough around the edges but it's got all the basic things I wanted to have in place: a forum, some good static information, and a mechanism to start collecting pledges and/or donations (albeit a bit of a crude one, for the moment).  Head on over and check it out, the URL is:

http://themetropolisproject.org

Like I said, there's still a lot to do; I'll be looking forward to any criticisms or comments you guys might have!  As for this blog, I'm not sure yet whether I'll keep it going with the occasional update or just let it deactivate (I believe Simtropolis blogs are deleted after 30 days with no activity).  In either case, it will be Mostly Dormant, so check out the website, where, now that all this launch business is over, I can hopefully get back to writing some actual posts once in a while ;)

See you there!

Back from a winter holiday, and with good news!  The website is finished, except for a few minor hiccups;  It's currently being beta-tested and polished up.  I will be delaying the *official* launch a bit, though, as I'll be AFK on a trip for most of next week;  But if all goes according to plan, it should be open for business in less than two weeks time!

Hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2010!

Quick update here: still hacking away at the website;  Plenty still to do, but hopefully will finish up over the holidays.  Right now the biggest thing pending is to get a FAQ page up; But it's a bit tough thinking of questions on my own for things I already know the answer to, and I'm probably overlooking some blatantly obvious questions about things that seem apparent to me.  So, rather than wait until the site goes live and try to create the FAQ from the email I get (Q: Are you a trustworthy person capable of receiving the sum of 6,000,000 (six million) dollars of funds remaining in the account of Mr. Jason Samuels at the Central Bank of Nigeria since the unfortunate happenstance of his death with no heirs? A: No.) I thought I would pose the question to you guys first: What do people most want to know about Metropolis?  PM me, or leave your questions below!

Today I want to talk some more about lots, what they represent, and how they relate to the player.  For any city sim, lots form the foundation of a city's structure, dictacting what gets built where.  Being so fundamental, how they are treated makes a big difference in the game/simulation balance I talked about in my previous post.  Let's start by looking at what lots mean in real life terms, what they mean for gameplay, and some different historical approaches.  But first, the Disclaimer:

[More]

One of the crucial design challenges specific to a game like Sim City is where to draw the line between "game" and "simulation."  This may seem a purely semantic question, but in fact it has a lot of bearing on what the final software will look like.  A game and a simulation may overlap, but ultimately their purpose is different, and we need to decide whether our game is one or the other... or a mix of both.

[More]

As I've mentioned a couple times, the Metropolis project differs from other open source projects in its approach to volunteers;  Instead of the usual plan of attracting volunteers developers to work on an existing program, the aim is to build up funding prior to starting development at all.  However, there is still ample scope for volunteer participation, not only by developers but by community members with other kinds of skills.  Today let's look at some of the different expertise community members can bring to the table.

[More]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I think Metropolis will need to dispense with the Sim City 4 grid model (and I think there is a fair amount of community consensus on this as well).  Using a grid, as we all know, makes it difficult for any organic-looking city features: curved roads, of course, but also any thing that needs to conform to a terrain feature, a boardwalk for example.  But while we all want to break out of the grid, it must be admitted that it's also very useful:  Many cities are built on a grid basis, and a grid makes it easy to fill up space in a logical fashion.  So, how can we dispense with the grid while keeping it's benefits?

[More]

One of the gripes that has come up with Cities XL is that having fixed lot sizes makes it a major headache to expand a road;  To accomodate the extra space it is often necessary to demolish the lots lining the road on at least one side.  Typically the retort is that "well, it's a headache in real life too."  True enough, but it's not necessary in real life to tear down the entire lot to shave a few extra yards off it (and then leave it vacant because it doesn't "fit" anymore!)  While part of this is a problem with how roads are laid, it also indicates a deeper problem with the zoning model in both Sim City 4 and Cities XL.

[More]