Introducing SC4Evermore

If you’ve been over to SC4 Devotion’s temporary front page of late, you’ll notice there’s discussion of a new site, SC4Evermore.  RL has been very brutal for me of late, so I’ve been a bit slower in terms of getting the official word out about what’s happening with SC4 Devotion and SC4Evermore (outside of the respective sites’ homepages).

What is SC4Evermore?

SC4Evermore (or SC4E, for short, https://www.sc4evermore.com) is a new, download-focused SC4 site that I’ve started.  Its primary goal is to create a stable platform through which SC4 custom content can be preserved and shared in an easier-to-access modern form.  The initial first goal with the SC4Evermore project is to make available the files that were previously hosted on the SC4 Devotion LEX, prior to the last-minute webhost-mandated PHP 8.1 upgrade that took SC4D (in its familiar form) offline on June 11th, 2023.  All of the files that were previously hosted on the temporary SC4D frontpage have been made available at SC4Evermore, and more will be coming in the days and weeks ahead.

The name itself is a tribute to two community figures, Maxis’ Wren Weburg (of Wren Insurance fame), who formerly ran a site called SC4ever, and the “SC4, Forevermore!” catchphrase used by popular BATer DuskTrooper.  Symbolically, SC4E also happens to come directly after SC4D in alphabetical order.  The new name also emphasizes that the site is intended to be a true community effort, and we look forward to sharing more details on this end in the near future.

The SC4 Devotion Discord Server has also been rebranded to become the SC4Evermore Discord Server, and has recently been converted to a full Community Server, which brings with it new functionality, including Forum Channels–the first of which we’ve now launched with NAM development threads.

Rather than running on custom or commercial software, SC4E is running on Joomla, since it is an actively-maintained, open-source content management system (CMS) with the necessary features and plugins to run a viable file exchange.

Why aren’t all of the LEX‘s files available already?  And why didn’t you just try to get the LEX back up and running?

The LEX had 4198 files in its database prior to being taken offline, and many of those files had descriptions with information about dependencies and the like.  Recreating all of that is going to take a lot of time, and it’s been slower going of late due to the fact that, since the closure, heavy-duty RL has affected many of the key stakeholders involved. 

The LEX’s custom software, while at least partially fixable, suffered from an onerous and ancient account system, which was a common source of complaints (see the frequent password/registration issues).  Additionally, its key feature that helped make the dependency-heavy file ecosystem manageable, the Dependency Tracker, was very resource-intensive, and severely taxed our server (particularly in terms of RAM usage).  Upgrading the server or changing webhosts is not an option at this time (and won’t be until 2025), so there was a real need for something less intensive.

To deal with the loss of the Dependency Tracker, offer a more streamlined and complaint-free distribution system, and curb server RAM usage, there has been an effort underway (spearheaded by Tyberius06, Ulisse Wolf, and myself) to repackage many key LEX files into a more convenient form that doesn’t require exotic infrastructure, as evidenced by the LEX Legacy packs we’ve been compiling since SC4D was knocked down by the PHP issues.  This also takes time, but we hope it will lead to a much better experience for users of SC4 custom content in the long term.  We’ve been prioritizing more frequently-used files, especially dependency packages that also get used by many files on the STEX.

What’s happening with the SC4D Forums and Wiki?

Both the SC4D Forums and wiki are back online (still operating on the sc4devotion.com domain, so the original links to them still work without issue).

However, we have, for the time being, placed the Forums into a semi-archived, read-only state for everyone, except staff and members of custom content teams with established private development forums on the site.  As mentioned, we have added Forum Threads to the Discord Server.  The decision on the read-only/semi-archived state of the Forums is not a final one, but we will only consider a full reopening if we know it’s going to attract enough activity to justify it.

The Wiki, operating on a fragile install of an older version of MediaWiki, has a number of issues, including certain articles being inaccessible or impossible to edit–something which cannot be fixed without doing a full reinstall of a newer version of MediaWiki that is fully compatible with PHP 8.1, and likely a manual reimport of all the articles and data currently on it (which was required previously with the 2019 migration).

Why have I been having issues with incomplete downloads on SC4Evermore?

One of the issues with running a file exchange which allows guest downloading without user accounts (which were a frequent source of complaints about SC4D and the LEX) is that it is a lot more susceptible to issues with bots.  We had numerous cases in the first few days that SC4E was open with bots downloading the same file repeatedly (and often large ones, at that), sometimes as many as hundreds of times in a row in a short time span, which seems to have had the effect of a mild DDoS attack.  We’ve started implementing solutions to curtail this bot activity without introducing roadblocks that hamper the experience for legitimate users in other ways, including getting CloudFlare protection working on the site.

Thank you for your support, and we hope you find SC4Evermore to be a useful resource to further your enjoyment of SimCity 4!

-Tarkus