The SimCity Thread of Offline Play

[Tani Coyote]

If corporations are just privately owned, profit-driven governments, then surely they can see that it's in their best interest not lose the trust of 'the people' (the consumer) by evading the big issues, while spinning lies and half truths together? Good god, you'd think they'd have learned something from the world of politics, but oh, they haven't. I can see EA/Maxis heads rolling soon, a symbolic scapegoating gesture to placate the masses, while continuing to avoid addressing the game's problems and the cloud of bullshit that has formed around them.

 

Well ultimately it comes down to competition. Is there an alternative series to the Sims or SimCity?

 

If not, that's the problem; they will continue to pee all over their consumer base because they know they'll keep crawling back. Once an alternative shows up, however, THEN they will correct their behavior. Monopolies are bad; if EA has no one giving them a run for their money, they have no incentive to improve or engage in respectable business practices.

 

We probably will see some of Maxis' creative team replaced, but it likely won't address anything. If EA's not given any market incentive, they won't care to change a thing.

[Patticus]

There was a game released not too long ago called Cities XL, wasn't there? I don't know how good that was though, and games like that are few and far between, tending not to threaten EA's dominance of the modern city/person management 'genres'. Also, as far as I know, no major pushes have been made in the retail sphere to beat The Sims at its own game. At least, none that I'm aware of. Zynga's Ville series of social games has tried to ape its success in the Flash game world, with some success, but that's a whole different game sphere entirely, and EA/Maxis have tried to fight back with SimCity and Sims flash games of their own, with only marginal success.

[Tornado]

Cities XL is still released with regular updates, but it's like the Microsoft Flight Simulator to SimCity's Ace Combat.

[Candescence]

There's also Civitas, which is currently trying to attract funds via Kickstarter, and is nearly at the halfway mark. The intention is basically an indie attempt at competing with SimCity by excluding DRM, and adding in features that SimCity sorely lacks. I really hope it gets funded.

[Patticus]

Just pledged $15 to the Civitas fund. Looking forward to seeing what comes of it, and hopefully watching it topple SimCity until Maxis and EA finally learn their goddamn lesson.

[Badnik Mechanic]

And now for my next trick... I shall make your copy of SimCity disappear!

 

For some reason, random copies of SimCity are vanishing without a trace. It seems mainly tied to those who bought the digital copy from amazon, you log into your Origin account only to discover that the game has gone, when you enquire as to why, it seems that Amazon have issued a charge back on the product even though you never asked for a refund.

 

 

So whats Amazon's take on it, well according to reddit, Amazon have no idea whats going on but are working with EA to resolve the matter.

 

Just... Wow, tune in tomorrow for the next disasterous news story.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Probably trying to recall all of the copies so they can claim that the customers are liars because they never purchased the game, thus they can't criticize the game.

 

...Hey, it's EA, king of doing everything and anything shady under the sun in the video game industry.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Oh dear. First DmC, then Aliens, then Sim City. It's like all the big publishers are having a big competition about who can piss off their fan base the most.

[Yuli Ban]

I really hope that disaster trailer isn't indicative of the finished product. I'm going to expect a lot more than simply blank tiles following an earthquake or meteor strike; rubble mounds, ruined looking roads, craters/fault lines etc.

This. Screams. Pure. Unadulterated. Irony.

 

Wow. That 3D engine is looking better and better each time they show it.

I admit, the game LOOKS awesome and stylized like you wouldn't believe... BTW, lurking through your posts on this thread, although you won all your battles, your optimism for the game must've been crushed. Then again, you were dealing with one-sided opinions and whatnot, so I couldn't tell if you were ever optimistic with the game.

 

Wow.... wow. wow... wow.... WOOOOOOW!

 

How to destroy another players city.

 

Step 1: Go into online mode.

 

Step 2: Go to a random city.

 

Step 3: Select 'Parks'

 

Step 4: Place them on his residential areas.

 

You have now vapourised the entire population of that city. Effectively destroying it. Should point out, it's not known yet if this sync's to the players city due to the fact nobody can test it due to the game booting people off every few moments.

 

Amazon Customer review score = 1.5 out of 5.

 

And on Metacritic....

 

Colonial Marines user review score = 3.5

 

Sim City 2013 user review score = 2.5

 

Aliens it is then.

 

And to think my nostalgia of SimCity 2000/SimCity 4/ one playthrough of SimCity 1 was making me guilty of not buying the game upon release.

That's you and your friends hardly the counts as every gamer on the planet.

Sim City is like the C&C franchise it is a niche game with a niche audience.

There goes the audience...

 

I guarantee this game will be a huge step backward from the previous game in terms of gameplay.

Fantastic call, good sir! A year ahead in the making! Good one, chap, good one!

[Yuli Ban]

Eh, meant Colonial Marines, not Colonel Marines.

Seriously, I'm looking this game up and I'm am cracking up like nobody's business. This is poor. This is really poor. In fact, I've re-installed SimCity 4 on my pathetically weak computer just to mock this monstrosity of ,modern gaming.

2013 hasn't been too good year for video games and it's only just begun!

[MykonosFan]

Eh, meant Colonial Marines, not Colonel Marines.

 

For what it's worth, I keep making this exact mistake, repeatedly.

[Badnik Mechanic]

EA has censored it's own customer support number from it's forums.

 

They are also deleting any topic which talks about this act.

 

EA = Comedy Stalin.

[Tornado]

Me? Optimistic about something? You must be new he-

 

 

 

 

Oh. You are new here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I admit I was wrong, though I honestly truly expected them to at least pay lip service to going through with what they were originally saying.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Tornado

[SuperLink]

I genuinely can't get over how badly this is all going, this is utterly ridiculous.

 

However what frustrates me more than anything is that I'm near-certain that EA will completely get away with this and everything surrounding it, as much as I want this to have a seriously negative effect on their awful design philosophies and inherent brand power.

 

EA: Challenge Everything, never get Challenged back.

Edited March 16, 2013 by SuperLink

[Patticus]

RPS is still on this.

 

A key moment in the week’s SimCity shenanigans was unquestionably the appearance of a video from a modder, Azzer, announcing he’d found a way to remove the game’s offline timer. The final nail in the ridiculous-claims coffin, this mod demonstrated that everything but the asynchronous multiplayer was running on your home machine. We got in touch with the man behind the mod, one Azzer, and he had a lot more to say. In his opinion, the information coming from the servers is so rudimentary that despite Maxis’s claims, there shouldn’t be any problem at all in simulating the regional play offline.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/16/simcity-modder-tells-us-offline-regional-play-easily-done/

 

Check out the full article to see how they've been moderating their forums. It's hilarious. In fact, maybe I'll post it here in a bit. I'm getting more enjoyment out of watching EA / Maxis tie itself into knots than I probably would from the game.

[redhellc]

I know it's bad to laugh of other peoples misery, but I can't help myself. Sorry but this is so fucking stupid, its on the same level as war z...

 

Well EA is just likes killing maxis's franchises, just like any other studio they have....

 

But seriously now, its so sad to see the industry go so low in these past months, it started with War Z, then Aliens, the rayman legends thing and now SimCity...Really so sad, if this keeps going the industry will kill it self again. 

[Willsy]

Maybe this is Sonic's chance to shine again? Let's hope Sonic Team show what they're made of (see what I did there), and don't go down the same path as the rest of the industry.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Wil348

[Badnik Mechanic]

Maybe this is Sonic's chance to shine again? Let's hope Sonic Team show what they're made of (see what I did there), and don't go down the same path as the rest of the industry.

 

lol erm... thats a bit of a stretch isn't it?

 

This is just one companies epic cock up, theres been plenty before and they've been just as high profile as this.

 

Not to mention, SimCity, a city building simulation has a disasterous launch, hey Sonic is going to do really well this year, come on.

[Salamander]

Maybe this is Sonic's chance to shine again? Let's hope Sonic Team show what they're made of (see what I did there), and don't go down the same path as the rest of the industry.

 

You say this right after Sega released Sonic Dash...

[Emmett L. Brown]

If you really want a Sonic analogy, then I hope this disaster is the Sonic 06 it takes to make Maxis turn around and raise the bar.

 

I don't have any scenario where EA makes a turn for the better. They're The Worst Company In America for a reason.

[Patticus]

Maybe this is Sonic's chance to shine again? Let's hope Sonic Team show what they're made of (see what I did there), and don't go down the same path as the rest of the industry.

 

Unless Sonic Team is making a city sim of its own, there's no way this scandal is going to provide any kind of opportunity for its signature series.

 

That is of course, unless you're referring to Maxis' behavior, in which case it's a pretty sad indictment of the industry when "Don't lie to or mislead your customer base, don't shit on the community and don't ban them from all your online service's games just for criticizing your shitty behavior" becomes a unique opportunity for a company to get ahead.

[Dr. Homem]

You got to at least give some credit to EA/Maxis for giving us a drama better than any TV series. SimCity has been the most entertaining game this year for me and I didn't even have to buy the game.

[Tornado]

Unless Sonic Team is making a city sim of its own, there's no way this scandal is going to provide any kind of opportunity for its signature series.

 

And then, Sonic Team releases ChaoCity, the long awaited sequel to the Chao Gardens; which is such a massive success that even Sonic Heroes weeps in its sales inferiority.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Tornado

[Badnik Mechanic]

EA: No! It's those meddling kids!

 

Look whats been found in SimCity's code.

 

kNoRepeatNetworkAlertSeconds : 15,
        kNetDownForceQuitAfterMinutes : 20,

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold... the SimCity offline switch. Altering the number there will determine how long you can play offline before the game shuts down, deleting the line most likely means unlimited offline play without any problems other than saving the game.

[EmmBee]

All of this talk about how bad SimCity 5 is made me go back to SimCity 4, since I've owned it for ages now, but never really bothered installing it. Honestly, until now I never managed to make a city last that long. The tutorial helped out a bunch. 

 

Aaaaand now I'm going into debt because I can't balance the budget. I adjusted the police department's budget so the capacity is a bit smaller, since we don't have that many criminals. And suddenly the Police Chief is pissed off at me because they need more money for funding.

 

No idea what I can do to make more money, because there's no demand for anything and raising taxes seems to always get my Sims pissed off at me.