Looks like the commands for an IRC client, I wonder if they were intending an in-game community based on IRC?

I'm not sure it indicates actual multiplayer capabilities, or just the intention. It just looks like someone dropped an IRC client library into the repo at some point.

Totally speculation of course, but maybe even just a dev tool in the repo that got sent around to different devs/studios so that they could communicate. Slack being IRC for work wasn't a new concept after all.

Compare to https://simcity.fandom.com/wiki/SimCity_2000:_Network_Editio... for the precedent

Interesting.

"The server does not automatically pause when all players are logged out."

So you were supposed to like log in for 30 min per day and play a little and then wait for tomorrow with the game server running? Seems like a Minecrafty way of playing. It would probably be fun for some IT-department to have an instance but it feels very niche.

It used to be pretty normal for someone in a friends group to run "the server" I think, for whatever game it may have been. Often just from a PC on their home network. I don't think it would have been a stretch, but it would have definitely been niche.

I really wish SimCity 3000 shipped with 3D views.

I remember reading articles on Happy Puppy around 1998 or 1999 that talked about the “promised land” with screenshots of 3D cities. These are still around if you look around

I am hopeful that someone on here that could share some lore about the development of that 3D version.

There was a racing game called Streets of SimCity, which was mediocre (an euphemism, actually it was just bad) as a racing game, but had the amazing feature that you could drive around your SimCity 2000 cities in glorious 3D.

Sadly I don't know of an equivalent for SimCity 3000.

SimCopter also supported SimCity 2000 cities.