Simtropolis

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**Simtropolis**

URL	http://www.simtropolis.com/
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Fansite
Registration	Free, required for some features.
Owner	dirk
Created by	dirk

Simtropolis (ST, Simtrop) is a SimCity 4 fansite, established in September 2002. As of late December 2006, Simtropolis has an estimated 160,000 registered members, making the site the largest SimCity fansite on the Internet, and one of the remaining active SimCity communities. The site provides both an Internet forum and upload/download services for custom SimCity 4 contents. The site was born from a SimGolf fansite, with the administrators and prominent members of that site founding Simtropolis.

The website servers are based in Canada, and the webmaster goes under the username "dirk". He is helped in the task of maintaining the site by seven administrators as well as over thirty moderators. The site is based on the FuseTalk software.

1 Features
2 SimCity 4 resources
- 2.1 Awards
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Features

Simtropolis is primarily an Internet forum, used for discussions related to SimCity 4, such as news, tips and tricks, city planning, experiments and troubleshooting. In addition, the Simtropolis forums devotes a portion of its space for the custom contents development and modding, including two forums designated for activities in two of the largest SimCity 4 Modd Squad teams: the BAT Squad Certification (BSC) and NDEX, as well as the SimMars mod project for SimCity 4. Other discussions areas and forum sections cover real-life architecture, urbanism, and city planning, city journals (CJs), The Sims 2, and other standard off-topic discussions common in many Internet forums (Forum games, other computer and video games and completely off-topic discussions).

Simtropolis is a non-profit community. This means that the primary source of revenue is user donations. Users donating US$20 or more receive a free "STEX-CD" which includes many popular custom content for SimCity 4. In 2004, Dirk experimented with placing Google AdSense on the website, but the ads were pulled by Google who felt that the administrators of Simtropolis had encouraged clicking of ads by users by not shutting down threads referring to the ads. This explains why in their new Sporeum fansite these threads are not allowed.

[edit] SimCity 4 resources

Simtropolis also offers an area to upload and distribute custom contents for SimCity 4, dubbed the Simtropolis EXchange (STEX), which hosts thousands of objects created with the Building Architect Tool and Lot Editor, as well as maps, both real and fantasy. In addition to this, the STEX allows users to comment and rate contents based on the item's quality or usability (with the exception of game modifying mods). Simtropolis also showcases the best performing download of the day, or a daily "Star Performer", displaying the download on the front page for a day.

Also, a "Modds & Downloads" section is available, which included user-made mods to the game's features. These can include manipulating the game engine to increase maximum commute time lengths or altering the textures on road and street surfaces. In addition to the STEX and the Modds & Downloads section, Simtropolis manages an omnibus, which contains a database of useful instructions and tips on playing SimCity 4 and creating custom content for the game. There is also a chat facility, allowing members to interact with each other in real-time.

The resources at Simtropolis has grown large enough to attract users from outside English-speaking regions, some of whom have created a whole wiki dedicated to help navigate through the site.^[1]

In December 2005, the idea for a podcast was taken up by the stCast team. They first released a trailer in early December and they now produce monthly episodes with a multitude of items including a roundtable discussion, news, chat and other reviews.

[edit] Awards

Simtropolis organizes awards for members of the site who contributed or performed well towards the Simtropolis community with its Golden Llama Awards (known affectionately as "Trixies"), announced towards the end of each year. The type of nominations may range from friendly members, to custom content creators, to creators of cities showcased in city journals.

Two separate awards are also announced at the end of each month. One of these awards is given to a Simtropolis staff member and is known as the Employee of the Month Award. The other is given to a non-staff member and is known as the Member of the Month Award.