Righteous Wrath Online Community

So I bought SimCity 2013 and I was able to play it while in Beta, so I knew what to expect.  The game is very well done, removing some of the more tedious aspects of the now over 10 year old previous version, and adding in so much more game play elements that it is an instant hit to me.  It also will make you forget to sleep, eat, #1 or #2, cause ass to fall asleep and legs to cramp.  Fans of the old I highly, HIGHLY recommend the new...

But not right now.  Enter the DRM bug once again!  Why game companies see a need to force games to require Online Presence (and if to allow for more content - well ok), and/or require Online DRM to ensure you are not pirating the game, but then DROP THE BALL launch day because of it, I will never know!  You see SimCity requires Origin, and requires Online Servers that store your city.   So like an MMO, you have to pick your "Server" to get at your City.  This is kewl if you can get in, cause you will be able to share and play MP with your Region (Cities in one location) and your Friends.  But like a @%&#ty MMO, you:

• Don't know what Server you have "saved" cities in - I forgot to look when I did my first two Regions which server I was on, so now I don't know what to pick cause it doesn't show me in the server list
• Are given a @%&#ty Queue system that only tried to log you into the server you queue to every 20 minutes.  That's right, server says full, you wait in a queue for 20 minutes, and then you expect to be able to play???!?  Nope; think again!  Your client tries a login, sees game full and queue restarts to 20... so it really isn't a queue but just a count down timer.  Those whom have seen MMO queues, know that when the timer hits 0 you get to play... but the timer is dependent on how many in front of you and how many slots are opening on average - most are usually pretty accurate - not this one obviously

So the Internets told EA the Online DRM stuff was  going to be bad, and to be ready encase it went bad.  The big review sites said the same thing when interviewing the developers.  But still they went with it.

At least, unlike Blizzard with D3, EA is offering refunds if you are not happy.

Here are some sources if you want to look:

http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/03/05/ea-botches-launch-of-simcity-leaving-users-without-the-game-and-out-of-pocket/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=social%20media&awesm=tnw.to_j0cFD&utm_medium=Spreadus

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/04/simcity-review-in-progress


But I do still HIGHLY recommend this game to anyone whom loves simulation games.  Just wait a couple days or till it comes on sale before buying and/or trying to play.

The always on DRM will keep me away from this title, as well there seem to be a lot of drawbacks to this game that don't make a lot of sense like the small city sizes and lack of terraforming options, heck they don't even have subways.

I'm also a bit put off by the supply chain concept where you have to spend time managing individual resources through various processing steps before you can make / use high tier stuff. I realize this is to promote inter-city trade which is fine for multiplayer but sucks in single player because while you are in one city your other city is paused.

Not to mention day one DLC, there's no excuse for that on launch day at all.

I was genuinely looking forward to this but I'm glad I held off pre-purchasing it now (and yes there was a great deal of schadenfruede toward the hilariously long wait times people were experiencing for single player login)

Yeah, it wouldn't be so bad if it was DRM like Minecraft -> initial security check then go at it single player.

Actually the Smaller City Size (in comparison to the last SimCity) and Multiple City Region concept is kinda fun IMO.  Having the ability to specialize a City and then share resources between them does add something to the game that I didn't think at first I would like.  Having played it for over 10 hours now though I find it something very kewl about this new SimCity -> but it is something you have to try to like I think.  From the outside in it doesn't look that appealing.

From a high level it reminds me of Soviet planning to me actually
-THIS is factory town
-THIS is power plant town
-THIS is port town

I can remember having regions that had farms, heavy industry, a bustling downtown area, sprawling residential areas, smaller out of the way communities linked by highways and high-speed rail...

*sigh* makes me want to pull out SimCity2000 all over again

I guess the main reason why the game is hosted on servers at all is the processing power to actually run the cities is fairly intensive (so EA says) and they wanted the game to be able to run on a wide variety of systems (their words not mine).

Personally I'd be happier with a less "realistic" SimCity if it just ran without a network connection.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 08:43:53 AM
I guess the main reason why the game is hosted on servers at all is the processing power to actually run the cities is fairly intensive (so EA says) and they wanted the game to be able to run on a wide variety of systems (their words not mine).

Well, you know that's just bull.  Even if my machine is slow, I'm still only doing computations for one game; the server has to do computations for a thousand or more games to make it economically viable.  And no way are their servers a thousand times more powerful than people's home machines.

So is there a monthly subscription fee for this game, to support the cost of the servers?  Because if not, how are they going to pay the monthly costs of those servers a year from now?

You buy the game full price up front, I suspect the plan is to supplement running servers with pricey DLC. From what I recall a startling amount of profit was made from The Sims through upgrade packs, this is a different model though and IF it doesn't catch on, people who bought into it might get left with a game they can't play if EA pulls the plug on servers.

Honestly as soon as pirates figure out how to run this game in LAN mode I'll consider it, but not before then.

It's like a lot of EA games *cough BLOPS2 cough*, where until pirates figure out a way of setting up LAN servers it's not worth the time or money really (like why should I have to pay to host a clan-only server?)

You know what else is kind of strange, there were a considerable number of pre-orders, so you'd THINK EA would be ready for the first day bum rush (a-la Diablo III), but they weren't, they crashed and burned and now we're all talking about it.

You'd think large game companies would have this figured out, I mean look how damaging first impressions were to Diablo?

Actually even then, I can understand (if I don't sympathize) with Diablo III, with SimCity it just adds so much more humor to the situation and perhaps highlights exactly WHY "always on" always sucks.

Quote from: Thorin on March 06, 2013, 09:50:26 AM
So is there a monthly subscription fee for this game, to support the cost of the servers?  Because if not, how are they going to pay the monthly costs of those servers a year from now?

As Mr. Analog said, it is a pay once, play forever with DLC and probably some micro-transactions on the way.  So that would be the only way to keep the servers open... I would be very sad if they closed down the servers in say a year :(.

To put things in perspective the NHL '10 servers were shut down in '11

If they make this a series with iterations expect a 2 to 3 year server lifespan. It is not in EAs interest to keep things flowing for free.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 08:43:53 AM
From a high level it reminds me of Soviet planning to me actually
-THIS is factory town
-THIS is power plant town
-THIS is port town

I can remember having regions that had farms, heavy industry, a bustling downtown area, sprawling residential areas, smaller out of the way communities linked by highways and high-speed rail...

*sigh* makes me want to pull out SimCity2000 all over again

I guess the main reason why the game is hosted on servers at all is the processing power to actually run the cities is fairly intensive (so EA says) and they wanted the game to be able to run on a wide variety of systems (their words not mine).

Personally I'd be happier with a less "realistic" SimCity if it just ran without a network connection.

In Soviet Russia you do not review game, game reviews you!

Quote from: Mags on March 06, 2013, 11:16:03 AMIn Soviet Russia you do not review game, game reviews you!

In Soviet EA, game plays YOU!

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 11:22:08 AM

Quote from: Mags on March 06, 2013, 11:16:03 AMIn Soviet Russia you do not review game, game reviews you!

In Soviet EA, game plays YOU!

In Soviet Russia you do not get touche, touche gets you.


* (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GVU-Pc12twg/Tgsz4Z0FLiI/AAAAAAAAAf4/Z9LvA1qGUB8/s1600/in-soviet-russia-waldo-soviet-russia-finds-you-punisher-kevi-demotivational-poster-1251426472.jpg)

Quote from: Mags on March 06, 2013, 11:24:34 AM

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 11:22:08 AM

Quote from: Mags on March 06, 2013, 11:16:03 AMIn Soviet Russia you do not review game, game reviews you!

In Soviet EA, game plays YOU!

In Soviet Russia you do not get touche, touche gets you.


* (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GVU-Pc12twg/Tgsz4Z0FLiI/AAAAAAAAAf4/Z9LvA1qGUB8/s1600/in-soviet-russia-waldo-soviet-russia-finds-you-punisher-kevi-demotivational-poster-1251426472.jpg)

LOL!!

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 11:03:39 AM
To put things in perspective the NHL '10 servers were shut down in '11

If they make this a series with iterations expect a 2 to 3 year server lifespan. It is not in EAs interest to keep things flowing for free.

Welcome to the modern era of purchasing a "license to play a game" instead of actual ownership of a copy of a game.

Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 06, 2013, 12:00:48 PM

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 11:03:39 AM
To put things in perspective the NHL '10 servers were shut down in '11

If they make this a series with iterations expect a 2 to 3 year server lifespan. It is not in EAs interest to keep things flowing for free.

Welcome to the modern era of purchasing a "license to play a game" instead of actual ownership of a copy of a game.

Bigger than that, software as a service.

Bad for consumers, great for service providers (except it's not really).

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 06, 2013, 12:53:13 PM
Bigger than that, software as a service.

Bad for consumers, great for service providers (except it's not really).

Yep except it seems the Gaming industry missed one major part to Software as a service - cost savings to the consumer.... This game wasn't any cheaper than any other, and didn't save me any money on hardware/infrastructure costs - that is unless this Glass Engine requires 2 super gaming computers to every instance of Region on a server....

But even then, most software as a service providers do a subscription based model or a annual renewal, which of neither is more expensive or even the same amount as the cost of purchasing the products of similar design on the shelf.

Booo EA, terrible model.  Why did you have to move away from Steam and start your own digital delivery stuff... boOOO!

People were still willing to fork out money to use this, so as long as they are still out there EA is more than happy to take advantage of them.

But that's the real problem these days, and why I think we may be headed toward another bubble, you have these big publishers throwing large wads of cash at games that people are less happy about paying big bux to play. By all rights this client-server based game should have been free to play or at least subscription based to keep the lights on, but it isn't. How many more titles like this can EA support, particularly if people start catching on that this model isn't in their best interest.

How much longer can this go on I wonder? And will independent publishers take advantage of it?

Here is a look at the game from the Up-At-Noon host Greg Miller (IGN): http://ca.ign.com/videos/2013/03/06/simcity-why-stadiums-matter-colleges-suck-simeditors-episode-1

But you are right Mr. Analog, people like me will spend money because we love the game, and not boycott because the implementation is ass!  This however would be doubly a problem if the game was ass too ( Duke Nukem, Aliens: Colonial Marines ) - I really should stop buying games based on titles and video and wait for games to come out and be played through :P

I think there is a direct correlation between that feeling of getting @%&#ed over from buying a bad game on faith and the rise in popularity of shoot-from-the-hip first impressions vlogs (a la TotalBiscuit, Yogscast, et al).

Honestly there are some games I would have otherwise passed up based on either their crappy marketing or obscurity conversely there are some games that I would have normally bought in a pinch had I not seen what was actually going to be delivered (came awfully close to both Colonial Marines AND SimCity *shudder*).

I'm also a bit wary of pre-ordering now, like at the moment I am likely to buy Bioshock Infinite but I will wait until I see some actual hands-on-swearing-at-it gameplay because what has been presented so far has not been indicative of the final game, but I'm not going to pre-order just to get a free TF2 hat or something (been there, done that lol)

I fully expect it to be a great game but a lot of the gameplay elements presented so far make me wonder how it will actually work, if I knew previous Bioshock games had great FPS controls I wouldn't worry so much however I have played a lot of the previous titles and being able to pull of complex manoeuvres has not been a strong suit of the series.

That's the main thing I get from these first impressions videos, is a sense of what to expect, what I might like and what might annoy the piss out of me.

A disturbing thought...

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-R8XRnwt/0/950x10000/i-R8XRnwt-950x10000.jpg)

source: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/03/06

So yeah, the saga continues apparently people have been losing their progress (and in some extreme cases their whole cities). This is even worse than the worst case scenario presented by people prior to launch.

There ain't enough popcorn :)

Yeah I've read that, but I haven't experienced it myself  ???

On the subject of DLC, freemium business model, etc:

Quote from: http://dudehugespeaks.tumblr.com/post/44243746261/nickels-dimes-and-quarters

?Free to play? aka ?Free to spend 4 grand on it? is here to stay, like it or not.

I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm tired of EA being seen as "the bad guy." I think it's bull@%&# that EA has the "scumbag EA" memes on Reddit and that Good Guy Valve can Do No Wrong.

guys, I hate to break it to you, as awesome as Valve is they're also a company that seeks to make as much money as possible.



vs.



They're just way better at their image control.

Every console game MUST have a steady stream of DLC because, otherwise, guess what? It becomes traded in, or it's just rented. In the console space you need to do anything to make sure that that disc stays in the tray.

Remember, if everyone bought their games used there would be no more games. I don't mean to knock you if you're cash strapped -- hell, when I was a kid and I had my paper route I would have bought the hell out of used games. But understand that when faced with this issue those that fund and produce those games you love have to come up with all sorts of creative ways for the business to remain viable and yes, profitable.

Do Zynga's practices often feel sleazy? Sure. Don't like it? Don't play it. Don't like pay to win? You have the freedom to opt out and not even touch the product.

People like to act like we should go back to "the good ol' days" before microtransactions but they forget that arcades were the original change munchers. Those games were designed to make you lose so that you had to keep spending money on them. Ask any of the old Midway vets about their design techniques. The second to last boss in Mortal Kombat 2 was harder than the last boss, because when you see the last boss that's sometimes enough for a gamer. The Pleasure Dome didn't really exist in the original Total Carnage. Donkey Kong was hard as hell on purpose. ("Kill screen coming up!")

...my main point. If you don't like the games, or the sales techniques, don't spend your money on them.

You vote with your dollars.

via http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/03/01

This is a tangential conversation as we were talking about software as a service on fully priced games vs this which is discussing the "free to play" vs "pay to win" angle:

Some revisionist history in the quoted post (or EA astroturfing, you decide), when TF2 launched it was a stand alone game, designed with complete class balance, no extra items period. It became an immediate hit and was a big seller for Valve.

That "encapsulation" first changed with the Gold Rush Pack six months later in 2008 ( http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/April_29,_2008_Patch ) where you could earn items by acquiring achievements. This continued through 2008 with the Pyro and Heavy Update (again, adding weapons you could earn by playing the game). Maybe getting new items was part of the game plan from day one, but after the initial 6 months it was already a highly successful game!

Item drops and cosmetic items (aka hats) didn't make an appearance until 2009.

Again, none of this stuff you had to pay for, you just bought the game and if you played it enough you got things that slightly modified your experience.

In fact it wasn't until September 30th 2010, almost THREE YEARS after launch, that Valve added a store (the Mann-Conomy Update http://www.teamfortress.com/mannconomy/ ) where you could just buy the stuff you wanted rather than earning it. EVEN THEN it wasn't until almost a year later that TF2 went free to play.

Even after all this time the items you can pay for are either non-game-changing cosmetic items or weapons that are carefully crafted to include cons with whatever pros they infer.

EA has taken a different approach with titles like Battlefield Heroes, they had designed from inception a game that included a store, a store where you CAN buy superior weapons upon loading the game.

They designed it as a Free to Play game however to make their money they offer game-altering options right out of the gate changes it from merely "free to play" to "pay to win". This is a known quantity to EA, this is what they know gamers are going to spend money on in order to stay competitive, this has nothing to do with adding more fun to the game for the player or giving people bonuses, this is a meticulously thought out business practise where you get people playing a "free" game and then entice them through the very nature of the game to spend money on upgrades.

This gets worse when you are paying full price for what should be a fully featured game only to find out that it was designed with a business model that creates inequity between players on launch.

So yes, there are similarities between what Valve and EA are doing but there are some significant differences that cannot be ignored.

Yeah, what Valve does and EA does apen't even close to the same thing (http://www.teamfortress.com/mannconomy/images/gorilla_wink.jpg).

I just thought it timely to the discussion of EA housing a game on their servers that, arguably, does not require their servers to run it. For [future] profits, no doubt.

If you buy a game on Steam you are intrinsically tied to it, as you would be using Origin, as a gamer you know this, is it evil? Maybe. That's where YOU have to decide what is right for you.

Can you play you single player games you bought through Steam without an internet connection? Yes.

Can you play SimCity without an internet connection? No.

Can you play an MMO without an internet connection? No.

Can you play Team Fortress 2 without an internet connection? Yes.

Can you play Battlefield Heroes without an internet connection? No.

Now which of these seems more "evil"

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/07/ea-disables-non-critical-features-in-simcity-to-ease-server-problems?abthid=5138c96188275d4048000008

QuoteThe SimCity server difficulties continue, but EA has taken steps to put things right. The publisher has taken the decision to disable some of the game's non-essential features to soothe some of the server problems.

On the game's EA Forum, the community manager gave details about what was being done. ?We are continuing to do everything we can to address the server issues,? the post explained. ?In the meantime, so that we can give you as good an experience as possible, we are in the process of deploying a hotfix to all servers. This includes various improvements and also disables a few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements and region filters). Disabling these features will in no way affect your core gameplay experience.

"We will continue to let you know as we have more information. We know it has been said before, but we do appreciate your patience as we complete this latest update. Getting you playing is our absolute highest priority."

Ouch its like they've never done this before...

It's no secret that EA is in damage control mode at the moment.

I will be surprised if they patch it so you can play single player without logging on.

Maybe there's still hope for a non-pirated LAN option for their FPSs? (yeah right, but still a man can dream).

Amazon pulls SimCity due to poor reviews:

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/following-800-poor-reviews-amazon-stops-selling-download-copies-of-simcity-2013037/

LOL I like how it was pulled because of "reviews", but none of the reviews are on the content of the game cause all 740ish complaints were about stability, login servers, queues, etc.  The game itself as a game reviews quite high :P

I think it's a fair complaint for many of them "I bought the game and I can't play it therefore it's defective by design"

The message is clear though, gamers won't put up with this crap.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 07, 2013, 03:25:40 PM
I think it's a fair complaint for many of them "I bought the game and I can't play it therefore it's defective by design"

Also for some it's a chance for their comedic wit to shine for the whole world to see...

Quote from: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/following-800-poor-reviews-amazon-stops-selling-download-copies-of-simcity-2013037/
Half of the "good" reviews are joking sarcastic, this most helpful one is great:

"You'd think I'd be mega unhappy like everyone else at the constant waiting and lack of actually being able to play a game I purchased.
Well, you'd be wrong.

The hours upon hours since launch that I haven't been able to log in, whether it be sitting in queues, or server busy messages, or just plain old not working screens, I've managed to do a heap of things that I never do when I'm locked in my man cave playing video games.

I've washed the dishes, the laundry, changed the oil in the car, mopped the floors, dusted, did a spot of gardening, greeted my children who I hadn't really seen since Christmas, walked the dog, asked how my wife's day has been and listened to the entire response, restocked the groceries and many more things! My family has never been happier that they've got a father and husband again.

In fact, I feel like Simcity has given me a new lease on life. This wouldn't have been possible without the seemingly crazy decision to have constant online connections and server side save points even for single player.

So I can only thank EA and Maxis. Your failures have been my rewards. 5 stars!

in related "chance for good PR" news...

Quote from: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/bungie-starts-accepting-applications-for-destiny-beta-testers-2013037/
Last month Bungie revealed its next project as Destiny, and described it as an online shared-world shooter. It?s a massive undertaking that?s expected to have a 10-year lifecycle ... With less than 10 months until that tentative release date, and this being an online game, Bungie will need to do some external testing with a few thousand gamers at least.

Testing is good. #areyoulisteningEA?

Well, maybe the publishers will sit up and take notice.

..

But probably not.

Meanwhile, companies that find less invasive ways of confirming their games are not pirated are still pulling in big bucks.  Maybe not as much as they possibly could if only everyone paid for the game, but what's worse, a few pirates not paying or half your possible consumers deciding not to buy future titles based on too many botched releases?

Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 07, 2013, 04:23:03 PM
#areyoulisteningEA?

I wonder if Microsoft's Xbox team is also listening, and/or reading between the lines.

"If the Xbox 720 does turn out to be an always-connected device, this is a big plus point in Sony?s favor. Nobody likes being forced to maintain a connection in order to play." - http://www.geek.com/articles/games/why-the-playstation-4-should-have-microsoft-worried-20130221/?page=2

It's dumb, that's for sure, but I'm sure they will strongly consider it or at the very least make it a bit part of the allure of the device.

As if XBox Live Gold wasn't bad enough.

No one likes online access requirements.  That was a big issue when steam launched an they also had some early issues, but at least it was just authentication . You can play offline for a very long time once you authenticate at least onces.


Always on dependencies for DRM locking or saves must work and be very reliable. EA has made what is mostly a single player experience into an unnessary mess.

Have you guys seen this yet?

http://kotaku.com/5989350/nfl-punter-kicks-the-crap-out-of-ea-and-simcity

My god, those are hilarious

All Of The Jokes http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/03/08


I like the Tetris analogy. 

Quote from: Lazybones on March 08, 2013, 12:29:42 AM
All Of The Jokes http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/03/08


I like the Tetris analogy.

Hah! Classic!

Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 08:10:57 PM
Have you guys seen this yet?

http://kotaku.com/5989350/nfl-punter-kicks-the-crap-out-of-ea-and-simcity

Mr. Punter has some pretty sharp wit! https://twitter.com/ChrisWarcraft


from...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEyaS_sCUAAsTA1.jpg)


to...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEyabNcCYAAInZw.jpg)

There's a great collection of quotes of his floating around already haha

Hey Kids! Check out this "Ironic Video Title Of The Week" gold medal award winner!
SimCity is a Beautiful Disaster (http://www.gamespot.com/simcity/videos/simcity-is-a-beautiful-disaster-6400820/)

Spoiler

29Nov2012 Maxis Producer Jason Haber talks about all the things that can go horribly wrong for your beautiful metropolis in SimCity.



(comments)

Rikaelus Feb 6, 2013
A "Beautiful Disaster" indeed. A beautiful looking game destroyed by EA's fixation on multiplayer (have fun playing when they shut down the servers) and the requirement of their Origin software (enjoy EA monitoring all the apps you run).


kohle36 7 days ago
@Rikaelus That's actually what I thought the title meant when I followed the link here lol. I was hoping for some actual critique, not just another promo vid

(/comments)

[close]

btw, thanks blogspot for the free webspace -- someone created a blog JUST TO COMPLAIN ABOUT SIM CITY! in advance! (25Aug2012)
http://sc2013thedeception.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/message-to-maxis.html

Here is a good article summing up the whole state of the game: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/simcity-burning-a-warning-to-microsoft-sony-and-all-publishers-on-the-dangers-of-always-online-drm

Quote from: Melbosa on March 08, 2013, 10:31:47 AM
Here is a good article summing up the whole state of the game: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/simcity-burning-a-warning-to-microsoft-sony-and-all-publishers-on-the-dangers-of-always-online-drm

The comments are especially insightful here; "I never considered piracy until this"

In many ways I'm glad this has happened, especially to the "casual" gamer market because this kind of consumer abuse has been growing for years and needs to stop.

With luck, the Simolean stops here.

The fun continues...

EA disables "Cheetah Speed" to lessen server load, if anyone out there has played SimCity in the past you know how important being able to speed up what's going on in your city:

http://bit.ly/ZwwlMT

Amazon has the download version for sale again though now with a disclaimer about connectivity issues.

So they skipped play testing altogether on this one, despite all the issues the reporters also had.

1) Take a popular single player game people have loved for years and update the graphics and engine
2) add online social components to attract the facebook / farmvill crowd
3) Now make item number 2 mandatory and dependent on always on shared servers as both a form of DRM and game play.

Fail so bad at 3 that it takes the whole game down with it.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 08, 2013, 11:16:58 AM
EA disables "Cheetah Speed" to lessen server load, if anyone out there has played SimCity in the past you know how important being able to speed up what's going on in your city:

Yeah I can attest, this speed is paramount if you want to really be engaged in constant activities as you need the cash flow and building mechanics to be at a premium response.  Otherwise you might as well be playing a second game of something else on your PC while you wait for things to happen.

Wow EA must be really unprepared for the demand: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/simcity-marketing-pulled-by-ea

QuoteHello Affiliates,

EA Origin has requested to pause all SimCity marketing campaigns temporarily, until further notice. We have deactivated all SimCity text links and creative and we ask you to please remove any copy promoting SimCity from your website for the time-being. To be clear we are continuing to payout commissions on all SimCity sales that are referred, however we are requesting that you please stop actively promoting the game. We will notify you as soon as the SimCity marketing campaigns have been resumed and our promotional links are once again live in the Linkshare interface. We apologize for any inconveniences that this may cause, and we thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Origin.com Affiliate Team

An Open Letter to EA on SimCity: You Could Have Prevented This
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416387,00.asp


The writing was on the wall, or um online EA...

This is funny, from the SimCity Twitter Account:

QuoteDan Seamans ‏@carbonfibah
@simcity What are all of these yellow people running around my city with briefcases? Are they zombies/infected people?

13 mins SimCity ‏@simcity
@carbonfibah Thank you for the report, we will look into this.

2:27 PM - Mar 8, 2013 ? Details
7 mins Hardik desai ‏@harry2258
@simcity @carbonfibah Those are homeless people i think. Low wealth people who abandon their house become homeless.

5 mins G ‏@mijo028
@simcity @carbonfibah lol they thought it was an error LMFAO this guy probably doesnt even read the stuff

1 min Ralph Brandt ‏@dynamitenl
@simcity how long do we have to wait?? You have been working for 4 days already and still server problems! When will it be solved?

Even I guessed it when I first saw them in game...

Quote from: Melbosa on March 08, 2013, 01:39:01 PM
Wow EA must be really unprepared for the demand: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/simcity-marketing-pulled-by-ea

QuoteHello Affiliates,

EA Origin has requested to pause all SimCity marketing campaigns temporarily, until further notice. We have deactivated all SimCity text links and creative and we ask you to please remove any copy promoting SimCity from your website for the time-being.

"Don't advertise for our just-released product!" wow. imo this is UNHEARD OF for a non-tiny release of a product (that isn't causing death/injury to customers). This is gonna be retained in the mass tech-consciousness far more longly, deeply, and laughingly than the Sony rootkit and similar corporate faux-pas in recent memory.

Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 07, 2013, 04:23:03 PM
Also for some it's a chance for their comedic wit to shine for the whole world to see...

Quote from: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/following-800-poor-reviews-amazon-stops-selling-download-copies-of-simcity-2013037/
Half of the "good" reviews are joking sarcastic, this most helpful one is great:

"You'd think I'd be mega unhappy like everyone else at the constant waiting and lack of actually being able to play a game I purchased.
Well, you'd be wrong.
...

I just discovered that this dude has a total of 6 Amazon "reviews". All are Comedy Gold. GOLD, Jerry!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1XAECQ86E7KCK/

you know what the real sad thing is? I really wanted to play this on modern architecture.

That's the part that really burns, I have the money, I have the power, I want to buy in but I can't. Because it's dumb. We're all the same generation, what gives?

Vastly saddening.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 08, 2013, 04:30:22 PM
you know what the real sad thing is? I really wanted to play this on modern architecture.

That's the part that really burns, I have the money, I have the power, I want to buy in but I can't. Because it's dumb. We're all the same generation, what gives?

Vastly saddening.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-modern-alternatives-simcity/

Cities XL, Tropico, Dawn of Discovery and SimCity 4 are available on Steam.

I know what I'm downloading tomorrow...

/me gets his NES out...



edit: apparently the forum didn't like me typing NES?

I own CityXL which is ok, but not SimCity.  I think it held my interest for 10h before I was done as it just wasn't the same.

SimCity 4 would be a better choice I think.

Woah, someone managed to recreate SimCity in minecraft!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnZvOUvxRws

Check it out. It is incredibly accurate and awesome.

That minecraft video was great


EA is apparently making some progress on fixing the issues.

http://www.simcity.com/en_AU/blog/article/simcity-update-2-lb

Quote from: Tom on March 09, 2013, 01:24:21 PM
Woah, someone managed to recreate SimCity in minecraft!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnZvOUvxRws

Check it out. It is incredibly accurate and awesome.

The accuracy is astonishing!

TBH I wish they would just patch it so you could play local without having to go online

The SC-in-MC video got me to this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00XJ9qrtyHM#t=2m9s

which is hot-linked to the part where the EA decision-makers decide to open up the internet blogs etc. and see what people had to say about the SC launch.

Two Saiyans Play: Sim City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcHMHz3NoA)

Quote from: Tom on March 10, 2013, 11:31:26 PM
Two Saiyans Play: Sim City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcHMHz3NoA)

LOL

Looks like EA is giving us a free game (hmmm think its going to be Sims?): http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

And looks like Maxis is also saying something publicly: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/building-for-the-future

What I want to know is how didn't they see the demand comming? Forget the demand shown by pre-orders and beta testing. ITS FSCKING SIMCITY. Nearly every gamer type person our age is likely to have played it, and want to play the new version. It's a classic. I would want to play it if it wasn't bound to origin and ea. Well I still want to play it, but I have these inconvenient things called principles.

I really don't know what they expected.

Did the cry for offline play surprise them? It shouldn't have. Sim City at its heart has always been a single player offline game. I can't imagine it'd be that hard to have an offline mode where your stuff just isn't shared on a server. Plenty of other games do it. I know they say that the hard bits are all done on the server, but a decent modern pc should be able to handle a decent sized offline city without problems. They could even dump the code into a library and /share/ it between the client and server for this type of thing. Bah.

I think the online stuff is cool, but the way its been implemented seems short sighted to me. Your city is only available on a given server, and you can't get to it if the server is down or busy. You just can't play that city. I dunno. Making cities available on multiple cities would likely have complicated things on the backend, especially if you're on a shared region. It'd have to support connecting players from multiple servers to the same region. That'd take some fancy footwork I think. doable, but stupid fancy footwork. Though, it may have handled the load better, as any front end server could have taken load, instead of specific ones falling to their knees right away.

Just random crap I've been thinking about ;D

Quote from: Melbosa on March 11, 2013, 08:03:22 AM
Looks like EA is giving us a free game (hmmm think its going to be Sims?): http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

And looks like Maxis is also saying something publicly: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/building-for-the-future

from the corporate blog, found these...

Petition Level: lame* http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-100-refund-for-simcity-2013

Petition Level: reasonable http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-inc-remove-always-online-drm-from-simcity-and-future-games





*750 signatures, whereas the 2nd petition has reached 50,000 signatures.

The reality is publishers are greedy and will casually step over common sense to make a buck. If a game does poorly the blame can be assigned to the development team and management gets off scott free, except this time where you have a corporate strategy that's trying to make Origin into something as profitable as Steam, a desire to squish piracy and second hand game sales and you get ass backward thinking just like this.

The thing that irritates me so far has been EA and MAXIS response, they refer to the issue as post-launch teething trouble but it REALLY exposes the main problem, which is much bigger than badly calculated capacity requirements, there is a single point of failure for gamers that is 100% external to the users control.

This is something most gamers would be more sympathetic toward if the game model was more like an MMO or a free-to-play game.

Again, all these weaknesses are apparent in other games and online content providers like Steam. The key for success is either failure points like this are are so well covered they never (or rarely) fail or there is an alternative way to play your game that isn't dependant on some kind of host.

I was watching a livestream of a friend playing ranked Counterstrike last night and the queue was ridiculous, after 3 retries of 5+ minutes she and her team just gave up trying to play after having only one round. This is a problem for games like this, always has been and when your product is a multi-player game you really can't afford to have players stop playing because they can't connect to each other, but if your product is a single player game and your users can't connect to themselves? Well you better damn well fix that or suffer every single sling and arrow the combined rage of your customer base is going to throw at you.

It's a justifiable scorn well earned in my opinion.

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 11, 2013, 09:26:37 AM
It's a justifiable scorn well earned in my opinion.

idk why but that just jumped out me as a really cool rock band name.

Quote from: Melbosa on March 11, 2013, 08:03:22 AM
Looks like EA is giving us a free game (hmmm think its going to be Sims?): http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

And looks like Maxis is also saying something publicly: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/building-for-the-future

Wow, there are some angry, angry customers out there.

..

And some really disconnected reps writing blogs.  Both of those articles were basically just trying to trivialize the problems, the way they were written, and neither actually addressed the outcry of "give us offline or give back our money".  From what I see, that is really the core complaint - that SimCity 2013 requires you to stay connected to a server at all times.  Giving out an old game for free doesn't address that complaint, it skirts around it.

One of the comments pointed out something funny: the always-online feature is perceived to be anti-piracy, but if anyone has pirated the game and found a way around the always-online feature, they're having a better experience than paying customers.

If their client code is capable of running the city sim itself, I don't see why they'd be so adamant against actually saying they may provide it in the future. My best guess is they never actually implemented anything but lag hiding simulation on the client, as in entities will continue doing what they were doing if they haven't gotten an update in the past N ms (its a bit more complex than that sounds, but you get the point).

Quote from: Tom on March 11, 2013, 10:24:29 AM
If their client code is capable of running the city sim itself, I don't see why they'd be so adamant against actually saying they may provide it in the future. My best guess is they never actually implemented anything but lag hiding simulation on the client, as in entities will continue doing what they were doing if they haven't gotten an update in the past N ms (its a bit more complex than that sounds, but you get the point).

That's the real key, and it has nothing to do with providing great gameplay...

It doesn't seem like a great leap to imagine the reason for this architecture was to:

• Promote the use of Origin
• Dissuade Pirates
• Discourage Secondary Sales

If that's not the case, if it REALLY needs to send detailed calculations on the server then I have to say that it is a deeply flawed design that shouldn't be repeated, ever.

I can tell you outright that in my current experience with the game, many times you are told you have disconnected from the live servers, sometimes 1H at a time, and the game still functions.  So the idea that the "single" player game requires online interaction is a BS statement.  Well that is unless I am missing something with my 6 cities in one region.

That being said however, there is one component that does not seem to work in this "disconnected" state: New inter-regional connections.  What I mean is if you are already sharing something between cities and you get disconnected, it continues to work.  If you want to establish something new between cities in terms of resource sharing; it will let you click through the sequence but then nothing will start happening until you get re-synced up.

This is what I have been experiencing anyway.  The new server capacity they brought on after a week seems to allow me to play any time I wish without a Queue.

For my money, hearing that seals the deal. EA could make this an offline game.

Very interesting there Mr. Melbosa. Very interesting...

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 11, 2013, 04:45:03 PM
For my money, hearing that seals the deal. EA could make this an offline game.

Very interesting there Mr. Melbosa. Very interesting...

Ah, indeed. So it's purely for regional sharing. Makes me wonder what exactly the servers are doing then in sessions that aren't shared? And why it caused so much load?

http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-for-19-minutes

It apparently can run for up to 19min disconnected.... interesting.

Quote from: Lazybones on March 12, 2013, 02:36:09 PM
http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-for-19-minutes

It apparently can run for up to 19min disconnected.... interesting.

or maybe quite a bit more than 19 minutes:
http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-for-19-minutes?post=58212606

Or it could be different scenarios.  I know I've been disconnected from their sync servers for more than 2 hours according to the game notices and the afore mentioned functionality errors.  But in my case my internet was working so maybe their origin auth servers were up so it allowed me to play in "offline" mode till the sync servers came back. 

Perhaps I just received a different disconnect code than the testers above.  Who knows!!!

http://bgr.com/2013/03/13/simcity-pr-nightmare-analysis-372284/

Apparently now that users can play they are finding other bazaar issues with the game. IE the new simulations are kinda broke.

Quote from: Lazybones on March 13, 2013, 09:20:53 AM
http://bgr.com/2013/03/13/simcity-pr-nightmare-analysis-372284/

Quote
...characters in the game don?t actually have any permanent jobs or homes. They simply walk to the nearest available open job or a suitable home at certain times, a simplification that creates major headaches in city planning. Sims that start walking don?t switch to mass transit if they don?t find a job nearby; kids don?t get to schools easily; all cops go to a single crime scene even if police stations are carefully spread in different parts of the city. School buses, fire trucks and tourist hordes all seem to have trouble finding obvious routes to their goals. As a result, designing a functional city may mean planning a street grid and placement of different facilities in a deeply counterintuitive way. Players have to design their cities to suit bad algorithms, not realistic goals.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ermahgerd

I wondered about this as the first gameplay I saw showed busses and police cars forming convoys after brief amounts of time.

My face. There are palms on it.

More Funness:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/fans-press-uncover-massive-holes-in-simcitys-ai-server-connection

Quote from: Tom on March 13, 2013, 05:01:52 PM
More Funness:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/fans-press-uncover-massive-holes-in-simcitys-ai-server-connection

The videos linked in that article are unbelievable to be honest.

This completely smacks of the "ship it" attitude some game publishers, like EA have and abuse to make a deadline.

I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes?

The plot thickens:

Modder proves SimCity can run offline indefinitely:
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/modder-proves-simcity-can-run-offline-indefinitely-20130314/

dun-Dun-DUN!

Not the first video to show this but that large intersection pedestrian bug can get silly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVPEJ7QFXTI

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2013, 08:36:03 AM
The plot thickens:

Modder proves SimCity can run offline indefinitely:
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/modder-proves-simcity-can-run-offline-indefinitely-20130314/

dun-Dun-DUN!

Kickin' it up a Notch: https://twitter.com/notch/status/311535572596432896

Now the masses who are stuck inside MC will even know about this tomfoolery.

Can't Stop The Signal!


Oh, and GL denying this EA: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/maxis-developer-claims-simcity-doesnt-actually-need-servers-20130313/

Quote
On the face of it this looks like EA is making the features that require a server look far more important than they actually are. In reality, the main purpose of that server link is to ensure the game isn?t subject to piracy and remains linked to EA?s Origin system until such a time as they don?t want to pay for the servers required to run SimCity anymore.

The irony in all of this is that the compulsory server connection and terrible launch has meant there?s an even greater desire for the game to be cracked and an offline mode introduced.

EA and Maxis are now in a difficult position due to the growing evidence that SimCity doesn?t require a server. Do they come out and admit as much, or provide sufficient evidence to convince us otherwise? We don?t mind which of those we get, but we do need a definitive answer.

20min limit is a code thing
http://kotaku.com/5990997/coders-discover-20+minute-offline-timeout-in-simcity

I have read that the longer you're offline, the more likely it is that you'll loose progress when the server rolls your city back.

Quote from: Tom on March 17, 2013, 05:43:30 PM
I have read that the longer you're offline, the more likely it is that you'll loose progress when the server rolls your city back.

O probably but then again the only part of the game that appears to be online based is the saves and some very forgiving syncing of friends regions.

Quote from: Lazybones on March 17, 2013, 05:44:57 PM

Quote from: Tom on March 17, 2013, 05:43:30 PM
I have read that the longer you're offline, the more likely it is that you'll loose progress when the server rolls your city back.

O probably but then again the only part of the game that appears to be online based is the saves and some very forgiving syncing of friends regions.

Pretty much.

Quote from: Lazybones on March 17, 2013, 05:39:45 PM

20min limit is a code thing
http://kotaku.com/5990997/coders-discover-20+minute-offline-timeout-in-simcity

pastebin here -- http://pastebin.com/8NR1EdkN

FANTASTIC discussion here -- http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=525129 ( mobile less download = 100 posts/page (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/printthread.php?t=525129&pp=100) )



and summed up so beautifully by NMA* (http://www.youtube.com/user/NMAWorldEdition):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uFEYIVKOwA



* you surely recognize the work of these talented and prolific animators right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Media_Animation (their website is http://www.nma.tv/ )

I lost my mind at the Diablo III part hahah

Free Stuff named: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/18/ea-reveals-free-simcity-apology-games, http://www.ea.com/news/for-our-patient-and-amazing-mayors---a-free-pc-download-from-origin-?sourceid=Origin_AFF_LS315&c=TnL5HPStwNw&LSsiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-SETyfdVTzXpXuOC_zYDJBg

Best comment:

Quote from: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50449341&postcount=10
Originally Posted by zomgbbqftw:

Quote
So if the game detects you are offline it starts a 20 minute countdown, if you are not online before then it will force you to quit.

Removing this line allows indefinite offline play.

So wait... let me get this straight... You are telling us that this joke is essentially true:

Originally Posted by Septimius: 

Quote
Today someone will find this code snippit:

Code:
allowOfflinePlayMode = false;

Hahaha, golden

And EA CEO John Riccitiello gets the boot

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=749234

Maybe voting with your dollars actually works?

Officially they "mutually agreed to part ways".  I knew a guy who got "mutually agreed", and anyone who heard the details of how the meeting went knew that it was a firing with no real cause (other than the owner/CEO was an asshat and the person "mutually agreed" wasn't the ass-kissing type.

The part that disturbs me the most out of this press release is the outright naming of Popcap Games

In case you didn't know Popcap was a successful indie publisher responsible for Bejewelled and Bookworm Adventures (it employs Stephen Notley aka Bob the Angry Flower author) that was acquired by EA in 2011.

In 2012 it closed PopCap's Ireland studio.

Not sure what the deal was there but it reminds me of a capital holding company that took over a consulting place I worked for and started nonsensically removing business areas and employees it didn't see short term gains from.

Either way, the CEO is gone, a message has been delivered, however I feel EA has STILL not learnt the lesson here.

Here's the actual letter of resignation:

http://www.sidequesting.com/2013/03/ea-ceo-john-riccitiello-resigns/

Talk about reality distortion field:

QuoteThe progress EA has made on transitioning to digital games and services is something I?m extremely proud of. However, it currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued in January, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. EA?s shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss.

Emphasis mine, obviously.

But it reads to me like "our game's been rumbled I'm outta here before things get really messy"

I dunno, I get the feeling he got told he can either quit or get fired, and he decided it looked better if he quit.

At that level the choice is obvious, no one is ever fired but I'm sure the writing was on the wall.

At that level he was given his choice of Golden Parachute.

Heh, exactly.

Or:

(http://v.cdn.cad-comic.com/comics/cad-20130320-c775d.png)

hahaha accurate!

Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 11, 2013, 10:28:59 AM
That's the real key, and it has nothing to do with providing great gameplay...

It doesn't seem like a great leap to imagine the reason for this architecture was to:

• Dissuade Pirates

"Everybody is a pirate, so fix the SYSTEM" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZGuANKQaQ

Plus, and I don't care how much server code you claim is required for your game, it WILL be pirated if enough people want it.

5 years ago people were running their own WOW servers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHPOiOr94L8
Yahtzee.
'nuf said.

I actually kinda want to play... Been watching some lets plays. But theres still serious bugs, and theres still people losing their cities. It's retarded.

No way in heck am I going to put up with any of that. Once they fix their issues, then maybe I'll buy it.

I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL

All I wanted was an updated for modern coolness Sim City

What I don't want is:
-Unity
-EA
-Questionable AI
-Always on
-Tiny towns (and other lacking features from previous games yeesh)

AUGH

Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 04, 2013, 10:13:41 AM
Sim City

What I don't want is:
-Unity
-EA
-Questionable AI
-Always on
-Tiny towns (and other lacking features from previous games yeesh)

AUGH

I noticed a distinct lack of "POO MAP" in your list of Do Not Want.




PS: anyone else notice this about the "related videos" for this?

Quote
HaloForN00bz 19 hours ago
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE
The entire related videos bar is no longer all zero punctuation
In fact there are no zero punctuation videos there at all
Reply  ? 182 


yes1sir1no1sir 3 hours ago
I feel like The Escapist is actually doing me a favor now i can't just fall from Zero Punctuation to Zero Punctuation for 10 @%&#ing hours now.
I might actually be able to do something with my life now!
Reply  ?   in reply to HaloForN00bz


.
.
.



LearnDragonLanguage 10 hours ago
I guess you could say that the number of Zero Punctuation videos to the right is
(?_?)
( ?_?)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
zero.
Reply  ? 37   in reply to HaloForN00bz

Spoiler

ASDKFJ1234 10 hours ago
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...?.
/watch?v=QoPWALM2riQ
Reply  ?   in reply to LearnDragonLanguage (Show the comment)

[close]

FINALLY a POO map

a feature sorely missing from most games

I really liked the original SimCity.  It was dirt-simple, thus had a low barrier to entry, thus could be picked up and played by almost anyone.  And yet you still had to pay attention to what the people wanted, and watch the crime maps and fire protection maps, and if you didn't cheat it was actually difficult to both keep the city growing and keep your budget in the black.

If only there were somewhere that I could download it from (http://www.abandonia.com/games/393).

I mostly played the SNES SimCity (very similar to the original, only with a few added features), SimCity 2000 and it's sequel 3000.

I played SimEarth and SimAnt, as well as the first iteration of TheSims (when it got to the point where I was playing a game where a guy was in a house playing a game I quit because irony).

Each of these games could easily eat a day, it always felt productive and the best part was you evolved and built something over time (which is one of the reasons why Minecraft is so fun).

So many good memories.

We have the SNES SimCity as a Virtual Console game on our Wii.  I don't like the controls.  Still, we played for several hours before the kids got bored of the graphics...

Quote from: Thorin on April 04, 2013, 12:24:24 PM
We have the SNES SimCity as a Virtual Console game on our Wii.  I don't like the controls.  Still, we played for several hours before the kids got bored of the graphics...

Pphh Stupid Kids!

I played the SNES SimCity for /days/ on end. DAYS I TELL YOU! DAYS!

Well it's pretty boring to watch someone else play a game.  Throw in that the graphics are all blocky and not at all like a movie telling a story, and the game gets even more boring to watch.

Oh, I guess I should've said that I was the one with the controller, not them :)

Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 04, 2013, 12:25:05 PM

Quote from: Thorin on April 04, 2013, 12:24:24 PM
We have the SNES SimCity as a Virtual Console game on our Wii.  I don't like the controls.  Still, we played for several hours before the kids got bored of the graphics...

Pphh Stupid Kids!

Or... UNCOMMONLY SMART kids?
http://weknowmemes.com/2012/11/the-day-that-albert-einstein-feared-may-have-finally-arrived/

So now I see Maxis and EA finally responding fully to consumer demands and modder proof: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/01/13/simcity-offline-mode-is-officially-confirmed

Might have to jump back into the game after this release.  MP really never did anything for me in the game.

I've been watching a playthrough of the new futuristic expansion and the game is still riddled with bugs.

I still can't believe how they could take a game franchise that is so good and drive it into the ground so hard.

Yeah, its pretty crazy that they haven't fixed a majority of the AI bugs yet. And it seems they add more as they go.

What surprised me was how bad traffic pathing still is, I mean the roads this guy builds are ... not the best but given time all his streetcars bunched up in a conga line and things like Megatowers only seem to work when they feel like it, people complaining about sewage when he had zero sewage in the city. It's really weird, and in a way, sad.

Yeah, I saw a guy have issues with a megatower working great, then just stopped. Then had a sewage problem that was mostly fixed after he removed a road, it looked like there were too many paths to the sewage plant, and the pathing got confused. Admittedly his roads were really @%&# in that area (Sips!).

I assume you're talking Sips?

Yeah, Sips the roadmaster, not exactly the best urban planner, but it doesn't help when the AI routes people and vehicles in confusing/nonsensical ways

The most surprising bug that's still there is the conga line of buses / streetcars and the utter expense and failure of maglev stations, egads

One thing in previous SimCity games I really liked was adding subways, those really did the trick for dealing with high-density+high-traffic problem areas, and they didn't clutter up the scenery, I also liked that you could create your own plumbing that wasn't tied to the road, I suspect sewage AI routes the same way vehicles do which often doesn't make sense. I recall one gameplay video where there were two water sanitization plants at either end of a city and stuff was always routing to the smallest one first, in old SimCity you could set up pipe networks that would route stuff where it was supposed to go.

And in old-old-old SimCity you didn't have manage @%&# (literally).  To be honest, I liked classic SimCity but didn't like newer versions because it was too much micro-management for not enough gain.  And I like micro-management.

I spent a lot of time playing SimCity 2000 and at first I didn't like having to manage plumbing and water pollution etc but after a while even that is fun because you have to think years ahead of how you want things to grow and make them work...

I wish there was a modern graphics version of SimCity 2000!!

I found my SimCity 2000 CD recently. No joke. I'm tempted to try it.

Get ready for PIXELS with a capital P

So you're saying I shouldn't put it up on my 55" TV?

Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 13, 2014, 12:55:01 PM
Get ready for PIXELS with a capital P

Quote from: Tom on January 13, 2014, 01:06:50 PM
So you're saying I shouldn't put it up on my 55" TV?

imo the Mr. Analog post above is the reason you SHOULD!

even I had to push the monitor back

:)

Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 13, 2014, 01:56:36 PM
even I had to push the monitor back

:)

LOL!

Quote from: Tom on January 13, 2014, 02:18:31 PM

Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 13, 2014, 01:56:36 PM
even I had to push the monitor back

:)

LOL!

I forgot the last time I played it was on a 17" CRT, then I popped it on out of curiosity a few months back on a 23" LCD... it was BIG

Meatloaf sized icons!