SimCity 2013

[Arthur]

Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

 

EA’s claims about the necessity of online play – claims that more people are seeing for themselves not to be true, just by running the game with the internet cable yanked out – seem inexplicable.

[sonofsanta]

I did mean to post the other RPS story/opinion piece on SimCity the other day: SimCity Is Inherently Broken, Let’s Not Let This Go | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

 

These aren’t teething problems. These are continuous deep-running flaws designed to cripple the game for you as a player, simply to serve some nebulous notion of protecting the game against piracy.

 

..

 

What EA and Maxis have done with SimCity is attempt a year-long PR assault to suggest that the online-only nature of SimCity is designed to offer enhancements for gamers. This is simply not true. It’s utter rubbish. It’s a backward step for a format that seemed to be managing for years to offer single player and multiplayer options for games without the universe cracking in two. The idea that multiplayer-only is an enhancement is such an obvious piece of newspeak, such a ridiculous untruth, that we can only loudly and furiously react against it if we’re to not see it incredulously accepted as fact.

 

I am, as ever, in complete agreement with Mr. Walker on the matter. EA have somehow slipped back into full evil mode while we were all looking elsewhere and whinging about Call of Duty

[X-13]

EA have somehow slipped back into full evil mode while we were all looking elsewhere and whinging about Call of Duty

 

Wait... when were EA NOT evil?

 

Dead Space 3 microtransactions and then “We’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be.” [With the obligatory, "I didn't mean that".]

 

Plus forcing people to use Origin, which allows them to scan your computer.

[sonofsanta]

Wait... when were EA NOT evil?

 

Dead Space 3 microtransactions and then “We’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be.” [With the obligatory, "I didn't mean that".]

 

Plus forcing people to use Origin, which allows them to scan your computer.

 

A few years back they were investing in small studios (e.g. Shank), releasing new IPs (Dead Space) and generally just looking after developers a bit more than they historically had done. At the same time, Activision had gone Full Evil, closing down flagship studios when a single game failed even though it had received no marketing push (Blur), withholding royalties from developers (CoD:MW2), and letting Bobby Kotick speak.

 

Now, though, EA have done Sim City and Dead Space 3, and Activision have gone quiet.

[localzuk]

A few years back they were investing in small studios (e.g. Shank), releasing new IPs (Dead Space) and generally just looking after developers a bit more than they historically had done. At the same time, Activision had gone Full Evil, closing down flagship studios when a single game failed even though it had received no marketing push (Blur), withholding royalties from developers (CoD:MW2), and letting Bobby Kotick speak.

 

Now, though, EA have done Sim City and Dead Space 3, and Activision have gone quiet.

 

I dunno, EA have always been pretty evil. Just look at the mess they made of C&C when they closed Westwood Studios, the closure of Pandemic Studios, DICE Canada within hours of buying DICE, Bullfrog, and don't forget the mess that was Sim City Societies after closing Maxis...

 

No, EA in my view can't be looked upon very favourably in my mind.

[sonofsanta]

I don't think they ever went below about 85% evil, but in context of their usual evil they did slack off a bit, and have now returned to their earlier ways with all vigour and determination. I know that no corporation really cares about its customers, but most of them at least pretend.

[CAM]

They were showing positive signs before BF3 when Activision were in full evil and they promised the Battlelog stats system and other stuff that would be free compared to COD Elite which wasn't. Then shortly after release, after seeing how well COD Elite was faring, Premium arrived and we were fed expansions that weren't all that great and better described as "weapon and map packs" and often didn't translate back into the base game. B2K and to some degree CQ were the last proper updates. Very little from the last three expansions have crossed back into the vanilla game.

 

As for SimCity, I can't even play it. Anyone who has been following me on Twitter will know why, Tesco have run out of Limited Edition boxes and now rushing around trying to contact customers to give them a Standard Edition copy with a (probably not going to work) LE upgrade code via E-Mail. That's still useless if they haven't sent the Standard Edition disk!

[Bromcom_John]

They were showing positive signs before BF3 when Activision were in full evil and they promised the Battlelog stats system and other stuff that would be free compared to COD Elite which wasn't. Then shortly after release, after seeing how well COD Elite was faring, Premium arrived and we were fed expansions that weren't all that great and better described as "weapon and map packs" and often didn't translate back into the base game. B2K and to some degree CQ were the last proper updates. Very little from the last three expansions have crossed back into the vanilla game.

 

As for SimCity, I can't even play it. Anyone who has been following me on Twitter will know why, Tesco have run out of Limited Edition boxes and now rushing around trying to contact customers to give them a Standard Edition copy with a (probably not going to work) LE upgrade code via E-Mail. That's still useless if they haven't sent the Standard Edition disk!

 

We encountered an issue on Launch da, in that the Origin's sites add new payment method form was bust.

Tried to explain to the technical support guys that it was because the XML was badly coded and had resulted in a broken month selector.. I even sent them the extract from the page source that isolated the issue.. to no avail.

What they did do though was, after confirming that there was no way we'd be able to buy the version with all the bells and whistles from them direct that they would, once we'd bought a physcial copy from whereever, gift us the activation codes for the bits we'd be missing out on.

So the other half wended her way down to Game and got two physical copies from there and then, at 3pm the phone call we were promised materialised, she confirmed her activation code and they gave her the add on codes for the french and german city packs FOC.

 

So don't give up all hope that the standard version will not be able to deliver. Just get on the phone to help desk.

Worth a shot.

Edited March 13, 2013 by Bromcom_John

[CAM]

The pre-order is £29.99, that's considerably cheaper than Origin!

[CAM]

I checked & they have confirmed that it will be dispatched in the next 48 hours & will take 10 working days to arrive from then.

 

You have got to be kidding me.

[Rawns]

Another interesting post form RPS:

 

Modder Runs SimCity Offline, Maxis Remains Silent | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[featured_spectre]

Good to see to be honest. It was never the DEVS saying that it would take days of modding to run offline, it was the Directors saying this, making it a farce. One of the UK employees of EA that I know (primarily deals with motion detection bits for Fifa), said that the directors ruin a lot of things. For a while now, the fifa creators (as well as Madden in the US) have been saying to release one game, and sell a yearly update for £40 which includes updates for ultimate team as well as teams available. This would increase the longevity of a game, allow less servers to be updated to run and allow for graphics updates every 3 years which actually make a vast difference, instead of the incremental stuff every year.

[Sunnyknight]

Recently joined (Hi folks), and this caught my attention.

 

I'm 'trying' (being the key word) to play this, but it's kind of dull single player, thus i'm looking for any active players?

 

Sunnyknight123 - Origin Id.

 

See you around.

[Theblacksheep]

Despite all the DRM, its actually quite a good game.

[Sunnyknight]

To be frank, i totally dislike the area of land you start out with for a city. FAR too small. May have to develop a 3 way city (1 city for resi / 1 for comm / 1 for indust). Do love how you can follow the Police action / Fire incidents though.

 

Second major issue is not being able to claim a city on a server :s (12 days later, EA still working on it).

[benjie]

Recently joined (Hi folks), and this caught my attention.

 

I'm 'trying' (being the key word) to play this, but it's kind of dull single player, thus i'm looking for any active players?

 

Sunnyknight123 - Origin Id.

 

See you around.

 

Hi

 

My Origin ID is:benjie500

 

I have been playing on the European 5 server but will be willing to move to another to server to join you in a game.

 

Drop my a message later.

 

Benjie

[Sunnyknight]

Hi,

 

Will do when i get back from work today. Let's create Midgar again!

 

Sunny

[CAM]

How to circumvent the Server Full lockout by tweaking a config file:

How to force join a server your friend is on, but you cant join. : SimCity

 

 

It's modifying a config file (instead of config.cfg they call it something stupid thinking we won't snoop around with a text editor ) and the file's contents change every time you close the game. Doubt it's able to be picked up on, let alone banned. This isn't a hack or modding, all games have allowed modification of config.cfg

[Sunnyknight]

@CAM

 

Does this not give you the ability to control your 'friends' city and assets? Kind of worrying if you ask me. Test it and let me know

 

Sunny

[SBennett]

Did anyone else receive an email about getting a free game for the cockup they made?

[CAM]

@CAM

 

Does this not give you the ability to control your 'friends' city and assets? Kind of worrying if you ask me. Test it and let me know

 

Sunny

 

Not as far as I am aware. It's just a setting to say "I played on this server last" without selecting it from the list. You aren't logging in as your friend, you still log in as yourself.

 

And yes, the free game promotion opened last night. I picked up Dead Space 3.

[Sunnyknight]

@SBennett

 

I did, and funnily enough, just like @CAM i picked up DS3 . Still got BF3 update (6gb) and now DS3 to download on a ADSL connection 700kb/s isn't nice

 

@CAM

 

I'll give it a shot, still uneasy about it though. Blame you if anything goes wrong!

[X-13]

I'll give it a shot, still uneasy about it though. Blame you if anything goes wrong!

 

 

I would say "nothing will go wrong"... But, this is EA. The same EA who threaten to ban people who ask for refunds.

[Sunnyknight]

I would say "nothing will go wrong"... But, this is EA. The same EA who threaten to ban people who ask for refunds.

 

Lmao, i remember reading that somewhere. < not gonna end up doing that. Bail!

[CAM]

The ban is normal practice though. Some online companies will ban your account if you apply a chargeback to recover funds as you and your card are no longer trustworthy.

 

Of course, they screwed up anyway and logged all refund requests from Amazon as chargebacks and banned them by accident even if it was just a query. >.<