Simcity (2013)

desijut

To be released in early March, this game looks awesome. I stumbled across this after wanting to fill a void of wanting to play a citybuilder, and then downloading simcity 4, which is awesome too, and then thinking surely another should be out? And that's how i found out about it.

I managed to get my hands on the beta, which lets you build a city for an hour and then starting over again. I've had 5-6 play throughs of it and still can't get enough!

For those who havent looked at this, seriously have a look at what it has to offer.

Sakonosolo

Apparently the area that you're allowed to build in in this game is pretty small compared to the games that came before it. And that always online bullshit. I actually never got into the Sim City games despite me liking the idea of it.

Cyber-Robin

I love Sim City and I was excited for this.

But the always online thing made me cancel it. My internet is barely reliable as it is. I don't wanna be screwed over by it on a game that shouldn't even need it

desijut

The map was pretty small, they claimed it was a medium from simcity 4, but it felt more like a small. HOWEVER, you do get 16 cities in a region so having city specialisation will be interesting. I managed to zone the whole grid in one hour, however, it was mainly low density and every time I still enjoyed it a lot.

Online only thing is annoying, it had no need for it

GJardim

There's a decent beta playthrough to check the game out.

The always online will be a troublesome to me at night, since my internet provider is having issues in peak times, other than that I'm good to play it. But I already saw some people that tried to complain about it not even getting an answer, but getting banned from EA games forums, one of them was just someone asking to them add a offline mode for the game, doing some decent feedback about it and what could be done better in-game.

Also, maybe it's because it's the beta version, but the game seems really fast-paced and easy, even Simcity 3000 wasn't this fast-paced.

desijut

Im hoping it was like that because it was the beta, i felt it was too fast too. Im managed to get a 55k population in an hour on one try, with a few buildings upgrading to medium density

Sakonosolo

So did anyone get this game? Apparently the servers are fucked and almost nobody can play the game. For days after its release. They're taking things out of the game to try to stabilize it but no dice I guess. Pretty embarrassing stuff that people can't play a historically single player game that they bought because EA can't keep their servers up. For a single player game.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/07/simcity-getting-additional-server-capacity-and-maintenance-as-players-struggle-to-connect/

stephen

I feel bad for the team that made the game, but EA deserves every last ounce of shit they'll eat in the public sphere for their always-on DRM. Just goes to show, if you're going to force people to conform to that option, you damn well better be capable of making it work without a hitch. It's too bad–I was really excited about this game and was thinking of preordering but I'm DEFINITELY glad I didn't give them any money now.

DarthAsthma

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122565-Amazon-Refuses-to-Sell-SimCity

Dryish

@DarthAsthma:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122565-Amazon-Refuses-to-Sell-SimCity

Fuck EA. Honestly, I knew they were rotten to the core before and I absolutely hate them now for murdering the SimCity franchise in every respect, but this is just beyond ridiculous. They are acting like ten-year-olds when they should be running an actual serious business venture. "You don't like our products that are faulty and not even close to what we promised they would be like and don't want to pay us money? WELL WE'RE NOT PLAYING WITH YOU ANYMORE GO AWAY!"

Yeah. Fuck EA. I'm boycotting all their crap from hereon out.

Hiroy

EA dropped their ball a long time ago for me.
http://www.destructoid.com/ea-s-fake-protest-creates-some-real-protest-136115.phtml
Long time ago.

GJardim

I honestly thought they would work on a singleplayer thing for the game, but I think I'm expecting too much from EA and this just proves it. The game itself is good, not great, but it's enjoyable [EA] IF YOU CAN PLAY [/EA]. I'm actually frustrated with all this, guess I screwed myself by buying it (atleast I got the preorder discount, not like it'll be ever used, but whatever).
Also, a review about Simcity. http://www.jonathancresswell.co.uk/2013/03/review-simcity/

Darkstorm

Why don't you get your money back?

GJardim

@Darkstorm:

Why don't you get your money back?

I'll try to do it.

EDIT: Appearently you can't be refunded if you bought the game by Origin (which I did) so yeah… Freaking shit.

Robby

EA is just evil, I guess.

Damn shame they have Bioware.

Sakonosolo

@Darkstorm:

Why don't you get your money back?

They're not offering refunds and if you try to do a chargeback they'll ban your Origin account.

GJardim

@Sakonosolo:

They're not offering refunds and if you try to do a chargeback they'll ban your Origin account.

Banning is ridiculous.
Well, I learned my lesson, never buy anything from EA again.

Darkstorm

@GJardim:

I'll try to do it.

EDIT: Appearently you can't be refunded if you bought the game by Origin (which I did) so yeah… Freaking shit.

I know that at least some people have had success by asking for a refund in chat, and then when refused asking to speak to a superviser, whereapon they are then given a phone number to call.

Hopefully thats not the same phone number thats been reported as having 3400mins+ wait time though

tatermoog

I can't imagine what it must feel like to be one of the developers/designers right now who worked on the game with no say in the DRM. That's years of work, man.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Oh, and not criticizing the boycott/demanded refunds. Just hate the situation for everyone.

Zack

What's a chargeback?

Also,
[hide]

[/hide]

Sorry about those who bought the game (and the development team who had no say), but I do hope this diasaster is as big as possible to hopefully discourage more DRM practices or at least give more room for thought.

Darkstorm

@Zack:

What's a chargeback?

If you pay by credit card you can tell your bank to reverse the transaction.

Zack

@Darkstorm:

If you pay by credit card you can tell your bank to reverse the transaction.

and….is there any reason that's ban-worthy?

Darkstorm

@Zack:

and….is there any reason that's ban-worthy?

Because EA like money?

Zack

@Darkstorm:

Because EA like money?

Makes sense. Just seems strange to ban someone over an action as long as it's legal. It's not like they're saying they'll pirate the game.

Sakonosolo

So you use your credit card and pay for the game, then you can't play it so you do a chargeback, which is pretty much ripping the money right out of EA's hands. So you'll get your money back, but EA isn't going to like you taking your money back like that.

Darkstorm

Yeah. You haven't had any kind of cancellation of the product, so in theory it's like having your cake and eating it too….except here the cake only shows up now and then and EA have taken away the cherries, icing and chocolate to try and bake it quicker.

People have got refunds, and I suspect anyone who is singleminded enough to wait till they can get hold of a supervisor on the phone will get a refund, it's just that EA are trying to put as many barriers in the way as possible to minimise the amount of cash they leak.

Zack

Right. I think I also remember a time they took away the 'unsubscribe' button after a certain event in SWTOR as well making the process much more tedious.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

lol http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-marketing-campaigns-asks-affiliates-to-stop

Honestly, the only thing that might get them some goodwill back now is to turn off the mandatory DRM if possible.

TakinawaTonfa

So I take it this game and it's PR are still in a massive train wreck?

Urouge

Maxis apologized and claims that on March 18th they'll be giving a free game to everyone who bought Sim City and went through this. Of course, they don't say what it is, so expectations on that front should be low. They also claim to have more than doubled server capacity and are still adding more, which I guess is making the game more playable already (they claim to have reduced 80% of the "disruptions" so far if they're to be believed). Apparently they expected beta numbers of people but wound up with release numbers of people, duh. Of course, I have no proof that it's actually more playable, but since the statement came from Maxis rather than from EA I actually read it.

I was really torn about this game a month ago. I didn't like EA, Origin, or the DRM idea at all, but I love Maxis. I figured I'd eventually buy the game anyway since I'm a Sim City junkie, so in the end I decided to support Maxis and preorder the game to get the in game bonuses for doing that. I didn't really expect the launch to go smoothly but I also didn't really care. Online launches almost always suck and get ironed out in a month or so. I bought the game for the long term, and didn't even really intend to dig into it until April or something. It's sad, but I own the game and I didn't even realize the problems were as bad as they were until I saw the fan upheaval. I've only tried to play it twice, and both times were during a low server load I guess because it worked just fine for me (I suppose 9 AM will do that).

I'm still going to try to avoid most stuff that has anything to do with EA, Origin, or single player DRM, but I also decided not to let that spite stop me from supporting the developers I love who just happen to be stuck with crappy publishers. I think it's a really good game when it's working. I also don't blame Maxis for the problems, so I still love them. Some people would get mad at me for "enabling" EA to pull this crap, but I figure as long as I reject most of their other titles on principle that'll be a good enough statement for me. So far, Dragon Age 2 is the only other Origin game I own (dunno what I'll do about DA3 yet).

I'm probably in an extremely tiny minority of people who don't regret buying this game. I'm confident that I'll enjoy it for a long time and get my money's worth out of it in the end, so I haven't even considered seeking a refund.

Zack

@Urouge:

Maxis apologized and claims that on March 18th they'll be giving a free game to everyone who bought Sim City and went through this. Of course, they don't say what it is, so expectations on that front should be low. They also claim to have more than doubled server capacity and are still adding more, which I guess is making the game more playable already (they claim to have reduced 80% of the "disruptions" so far if they're to be believed). Apparently they expected beta numbers of people but wound up with release numbers of people, duh. Of course, I have no proof that it's actually more playable, but since the statement came from Maxis rather than from EA I actually read it.

I was really torn about this game a month ago. I didn't like EA, Origin, or the DRM idea at all, but I love Maxis. I figured I'd eventually buy the game anyway since I'm a Sim City junkie, so in the end I decided to support Maxis and preorder the game to get the in game bonuses for doing that. I didn't really expect the launch to go smoothly but I also didn't really care. Online launches almost always suck and get ironed out in a month or so. I bought the game for the long term, and didn't even really intend to dig into it until April or something. It's sad, but I own the game and I didn't even realize the problems were as bad as they were until I saw the fan upheaval. I've only tried to play it twice, and both times were during a low server load I guess because it worked just fine for me (I suppose 9 AM will do that).

I'm still going to try to avoid most stuff that has anything to do with EA, Origin, or single player DRM, but I also decided not to let that spite stop me from supporting the developers I love who just happen to be stuck with crappy publishers. I think it's a really good game when it's working. I also don't blame Maxis for the problems, so I still love them. Some people would get mad at me for "enabling" EA to pull this crap, but I figure as long as I reject most of their other titles on principle that'll be a good enough statement for me. So far, Dragon Age 2 is the only other Origin game I own (dunno what I'll do about DA3 yet).

I'm probably in an extremely tiny minority of people who don't regret buying this game. I'm confident that I'll enjoy it for a long time and get my money's worth out of it in the end, so I haven't even considered seeking a refund.

You might be disappointed considering EA's reputation for how quickly they shut down online servers. :ninja: Depends on how long you plan on playing though. I've certainly known others who said they liked the idea of specialist cities.

GJardim

Tropico took advantage of the Simcity's situation and now is 75% off on Steam. Sneaky.

tatermoog

In terms of Maxis's unrealistic expectations for launch, one person in the video game industry pointed out how they emphasized not appropriately predicting player behaviors, so he suspects they weren't expecting players to launch directly into marathon sessions. The beta, meanwhile, tended to cap play at hour-long chunks, so…

Still bad planning.

Zack

Yeah. Games like SimCity seem the type to encourageg marathon plays.

Urouge

@Zack:

You might be disappointed considering EA's reputation for how quickly they shut down online servers. :ninja: Depends on how long you plan on playing though. I've certainly known others who said they liked the idea of specialist cities.

I figure the worst case scenario is about 3 years. And that should be more than enough time for me to get my money's worth out of it. Of course, they can expect me to bitch at them when they do it regardless.

Cymelion

@Zack:

What's a chargeback?

This commentator explains it in the first section of his video in relation to Natural Selection and Sim City about 1:50mins in. And again 8:40mins in depth.

1PceXperience

este hombre habla por muchos~

Foolio

Pretty ridiculous. People are upset about your game, so you decide to piss them off and possibly ban them? That's going to do wonders for EA's already terrible reputation. They are definitely up there in the worst publishers in existence category. My last job I worked at a game publisher and I was upset at how many people they UNBAN to make the masses happy… but hey they were raking in the dough and the players. Is EA insane?

Also 1PceXperience in the spirit of the Dressrosa Arc you should learn enough Spanish so that 95% of your inserted phrases aren't horribly garbled crap that you pulled out of some translation engine.

1PceXperience

@Foolio:

Also 1PceXperience in the spirit of the Dressrosa Arc you should learn enough Spanish so that 95% of your inserted phrases aren't horribly garbled crap that you pulled out of some translation engine.

I'm trying to do both actually. I've received post complaining about my Spanish, and to be honest it my Spanish is absolutely dreadful; however, I do not intend to stop. Many times I try to use simple spanish phrases such as "I like this" or "good job". Ya know… phrases in which I know I'm saying them correctly. Other times I do go to the google translator.

If I'm offending you than I am sorry. lo siento~ but I will still try my best to use correct Spanish in it's correct form. Please bare with me

Foolio

@1PceXperience:

I'm trying to do both actually. I've received post complaining about my Spanish, and to be honest it my Spanish is absolutely dreadful; however, I do not intend to stop. Many times I try to use simple spanish phrases such as "I like this" or "good job". Ya know… phrases in which I know I'm saying them correctly. Other times I do go to the google translator.

If I'm offending you than I am sorry. lo siento~ but I will still try my best to use correct Spanish in it's correct form. Please bare with me

As long as you're trying! And nah I wasn't offended really it just didn't seem particularly "in the spirit" to use bad Spanish. But, then again, it would probably be in accordance with how Oda mangles foreign languages :D

stephen

To be fair, the CC chargeback -> account ban thing makes perfect sense, it's actually the refusal to allow refunds with a voluntary deactivation of one's game that is the real issue. A chargeback is essentially the nuclear option for the consumer, it's a one-sided thing that says "I bought this game, now I'm taking my money back" without any input from the publisher. So if someone issues a chargeback, they have no idea if its a legitimate protest or someone just trying to scam them out of their product, which makes an automatic ban of their account sensible.

What they SHOULD do in order to avoid the ridiculous PR disaster and scorched-earth customer lockouts is just relax their refund policy for SimCity. The damn game is entirely online-dependent, so it's not like they can't just issue a refund, flip a switch and deactivate the individual installation to ensure the entire transaction is on the up-and-up.

Foolio

Oh, I didn't read enough about it to know they were only threatening it for chargebacks. But the entire situation is nonetheless ridiculous. Wanting a refund for a broken game is perfectly reasonable. It makes me want to wave around my cane and rant about how back in my day, games had to work when they were released.

Darkstorm

and the hits just keep on coming

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-14-simcity-modded-so-it-can-be-played-offline-indefinitely

Sakonosolo

Have you heard all the stuff about how a lot of the simulation is lies too? Apparently for every house you build, 6 real, simulated people are added into the game, as well as a number of ghost people meant to boost the visible population. Sims also don't live in a single house or work at a single job. They leave their house and go to the closest open job, and then leave and go to the closest empty house. There's a lot of this stuff that people are finding out.

Darkstorm

Yeah. High density housing which supports 600 people also has 4600 extra ghosts to bump up the population count. Traffic AI is also horribly broken too

labmate

So, in short, this game blows.

Sheep

@Darkstorm:

and the hits just keep on coming

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-14-simcity-modded-so-it-can-be-played-offline-indefinitely

You know, this is what bothers me the most about this always online idea, it doesn't even work.
Seriously, I would've bought the game if it was possible to play while offline, but this idea in particular pisses me off so badly that I'll download it instead, just so I don't have to deal with this crap, and my game becoming worthless after 3-4 years.
I'm the kind of loser who still pops in games like sierras pharao or zeus even today, so the always online format is a total deal breaker for me.

Darkstorm

I hear you. I stick to GOG these days. With the right VM I'll be able to play the games I've bought there forever.

Does really limit the selection of new games though.

GJardim

So that's why all my cities had a constant lack of labors. Also the traffic AI is hilarious, like "My house is there, I should go straight, but I'll just make a turn there and another there, maybe park my car to get a bus…"

Sakonosolo

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Offline-Mode-Now-Available-General-Public-53739.html

Two variables in the config file. TWO VARIABLES IN THE CONFIG FILE TO PLAY OFFLINE. This launch is providing endless entertainment to me.

The cities are still saves on EA's servers so someone still needs to get around that but it's apparently very simple to play offline now.

GJardim

So it was two variables. What about that "hard work" that would be necessary to attain such a thing?
This is starting to turn into a "laugh to not cry" thing.