Sim City

Mc Love

Going to take a break from it. Best of luck to the rest of ye - I'd say its going to be like this the whole weekend

wayne040576

Wow.
Sorry about the large font. Posting on phone.

Publisher Electronic Arts has suspended some of its online marketing campaigns for SimCity in the wake of ongoing server issues, asking its affiliates to "please stop actively promoting the game" until further notice.

In an email sent this morning to marketing affiliate partners, EA Origin says it has "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." The email, obtained by Polygon, is directed at affiliates of EA Origin's LinkShare program.

"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," the email reads. "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."

TheDoc

Yeah havn't been able to login since I came home, o well

Hopefull,y sorted by 10:00 when all the lads get home from work

Drexel

me either!! Nightmare. Itll prob be after the weekend before its calmed down

twinsen

jonny666 wrote: »

me either!! Nightmare. Itll prob be after the weekend before its calmed down

Its going to be even worse than now

Drexel

twinsen wrote: »

Its going to be even worse than now

Cant get any worse than this!! Cant even get on!!

VinLieger

Kirby wrote: »

Servers are bloody awful at the moment. Constant disconnections. Nightmare :P.

Dont look at the monstrosity i created next to you

InTheTrees

Grumpypants wrote: »

Ok to explain it ...

Best explanation I've heard so far.

I still hate the idea of being dependent on external data coming in to my PC but I'm also willing to wait until EA gets its crap together.

IRL_Sinister

youreadthat wrote: »

what's your region called?

"Servers Busy".

VinLieger

IRL_Sinister wrote: »

"Servers Busy".

Started my city in it still not too sure how i wanna play it but most likely casino town

Kirby

Yeah I started my city in the "Servers Busy" region. Called it KirbyVille. Mining coal and Ore at the moment because the region is strong in it.....I'm exporting it to the other cities in the region along with a few cop cards and fire trucks. Also have schools and Universities to help with research. I've a much, much lower population than my first city. I'm taking it slow this time.

I also accidentally claimed another plot of land but the servers wont let me abandon it. I'll keep trying though.

TheDoc

If I paid for this game I'd be going spare

twinsen

East European servers seems running better than west

ahnowbrowncow

EA have postponed marketing the game to try ease the pressure on the severs. Things must be bad when EA don't want people to buy their game

nesf

It's reminding me of every MMO launch, stuck on a different server to the people I want to play with. Which, I'll be honest, frustrates me with a simulation game.


An incomplete list of things that annoy me so far:

1) If I have 6 Fire Engines and 6 fires, they all go to the same fire. If I create a new Fire Engine at a Fire Station it drives out past several fires to join the other 6. If this was a major industrial fire I might be convinced it wasn't a bug but this was a bungalow on fire. Why am I paying for multiple fire engines if they behave like this?

2) We were told a lot about how we would be able to watch the individual sims behaviour being modelled. I watched a Sim get on a bus saying she wanted to go shopping. The bus drove around the residential area until it was full, it then drove to the Shuttle Bus Station by the residential area and dropped them all off. The people then waited and got onto another bus, which did the same thing. Thing is, I'm told by the stats that the bus system is going great so I guess there isn't any correlation between this Sim behaviour and the actual game. Another time, I had about 100 sims cause an enormous traffic jam in a smallish city by going around an intersection in circles in a continuous line blocking any traffic from moving. Quitting out and going back in was required to fix this.

3) The default guide lines for roads seem to give me blocks too small for high density buildings a lot of the time. This is rather annoying, I hope there's some checkbox somewhere that I've missed that sets what distance is chosen.

4) The modelling seems weird, I can have low income shoppers complaining of a lack of shops with low income shops complaining of a lack of customers with a good road network and bus system between them. I can have a low value plot between two high value skyscrapers. Neither of these make sense. There's probably some hidden game logic behind it but we'll have to wait for the community to figure it out.


Overall, I'm enjoying it well enough outside of the server issues. But, it's a Sim City game, it's really hard for me not to enjoy them! (I even gave SimCity Societies a solid week of play ffs)

IRL_Sinister

nesf wrote: »

It's reminding me of every MMO launch, stuck on a different server to the people I want to play with. Which, I'll be honest, frustrates me with a simulation game.


An incomplete list of things that annoy me so far:

1) If I have 6 Fire Engines and 6 fires, they all go to the same fire. If I create a new Fire Engine at a Fire Station it drives out past several fires to join the other 6. If this was a major industrial fire I might be convinced it wasn't a bug but this was a bungalow on fire. Why am I paying for multiple fire engines if they behave like this?

2) We were told a lot about how we would be able to watch the individual sims behaviour being modelled. I watched a Sim get on a bus saying she wanted to go shopping. The bus drove around the residential area until it was full, it then drove to the Shuttle Bus Station by the residential area and dropped them all off. The people then waited and got onto another bus, which did the same thing. Thing is, I'm told by the stats that the bus system is going great so I guess there isn't any correlation between this Sim behaviour and the actual game. Another time, I had about 100 sims cause an enormous traffic jam in a smallish city by going around an intersection in circles in a continuous line blocking any traffic from moving. Quitting out and going back in was required to fix this.

3) The default guide lines for roads seem to give me blocks too small for high density buildings a lot of the time. This is rather annoying, I hope there's some checkbox somewhere that I've missed that sets what distance is chosen.

4) The modelling seems weird, I can have low income shoppers complaining of a lack of shops with low income shops complaining of a lack of customers with a good road network and bus system between them. I can have a low value plot between two high value skyscrapers. Neither of these make sense. There's probably some hidden game logic behind it but we'll have to wait for the community to figure it out.


Overall, I'm enjoying it well enough outside of the server issues. But, it's a Sim City game, it's really hard for me not to enjoy them! (I even gave SimCity Societies a solid week of play ffs)

#3 is the BIGGEST pain in the ass I've faced so far.

Mc Love

nesf wrote: »

It's reminding me of every MMO launch, stuck on a different server to the people I want to play with. Which, I'll be honest, frustrates me with a simulation game.


An incomplete list of things that annoy me so far:

1) If I have 6 Fire Engines and 6 fires, they all go to the same fire. If I create a new Fire Engine at a Fire Station it drives out past several fires to join the other 6. If this was a major industrial fire I might be convinced it wasn't a bug but this was a bungalow on fire. Why am I paying for multiple fire engines if they behave like this?

2) We were told a lot about how we would be able to watch the individual sims behaviour being modelled. I watched a Sim get on a bus saying she wanted to go shopping. The bus drove around the residential area until it was full, it then drove to the Shuttle Bus Station by the residential area and dropped them all off. The people then waited and got onto another bus, which did the same thing. Thing is, I'm told by the stats that the bus system is going great so I guess there isn't any correlation between this Sim behaviour and the actual game. Another time, I had about 100 sims cause an enormous traffic jam in a smallish city by going around an intersection in circles in a continuous line blocking any traffic from moving. Quitting out and going back in was required to fix this.

3) The default guide lines for roads seem to give me blocks too small for high density buildings a lot of the time. This is rather annoying, I hope there's some checkbox somewhere that I've missed that sets what distance is chosen.

4) The modelling seems weird, I can have low income shoppers complaining of a lack of shops with low income shops complaining of a lack of customers with a good road network and bus system between them. I can have a low value plot between two high value skyscrapers. Neither of these make sense. There's probably some hidden game logic behind it but we'll have to wait for the community to figure it out.


Overall, I'm enjoying it well enough outside of the server issues. But, it's a Sim City game, it's really hard for me not to enjoy them! (I even gave SimCity Societies a solid week of play ffs)

Agree with every one of those points above especially the one about the fire engines! I also have shops closing down, saying lack of customers yet my city is over half residential of all wealth types. Like you said there must be some logic behind it all.

Got into servers busy and started creating my city B'Oreing Place...and I tried to get resources like power & water from other cities but that option wasnt available.

Then got kicked out. Man this is infuriating

the_syco

I CAN NO LONGER REEEEEEEESIST IT... IT'S DRAWING ME IN...

So yeah, I bought it. I'll now complain about it even more, probably :P Meh. It only cost €40, so not all bad.

IRL_Sinister

the_syco wrote: »

I CAN NO LONGER REEEEEEEESIST IT... IT'S DRAWING ME IN...

So yeah, I bought it. I'll now complain about it even more, probably :P

Good luck getting on. I just gave up. GF been here all evening and now I get a chance to play and BAM!

Grumpypants

nesf wrote: »

3) The default guide lines for roads seem to give me blocks too small for high density buildings a lot of the time. This is rather annoying, I hope there's some checkbox somewhere that I've missed that sets what distance is chosen.

You can turn off the guides and put the roads where ever you want. Over to the left next to the guy with the hard hat there is a "guides" tick box. Switch it off and you can build all types of roads. Circle ones, wiggly ones and upgrade them to take more traffic.

fire engines I've no idea some of these sims are daft alright.

IRL_Sinister

Grumpypants wrote: »

You can turn off the guides and put the roads where ever you want. Over to the left next to the guy with the hard hat there is a "guides" tick box. Switch it off and you can build all types of roads. Circle ones, wiggly ones and upgrade them to take more traffic.

fire engines I've no idea some of these sims are daft alright.

The idea behind the guides is to actually enable maximum density, which when you get to 200K+ population you'll know ALL about

humanji

Seven hours non-stop. My eyes are killing me and I'm starving. And I'm hating myself for deciding to call it a night. I still prefer SC4, but this is a hell of a lot of fun.

IRL_Sinister

humanji wrote: »

Seven hours non-stop. My eyes are killing me and I'm starving. And I'm hating myself for deciding to call it a night. I still prefer SC4, but this is a hell of a lot of fun.

Logging off is definitely the worst part :P

the_syco

Installing atm. Gonna go watch some NCIS until this comes down. I'll try and join your city block for the craic. My name on Origin is thesyco666

youreadthat

Started a game on Oceanic 2 which is a new server I think. Region is called "eastern isles" if anyone wants to join.

Grumpypants

IRL_Sinister wrote: »

The idea behind the guides is to actually enable maximum density, which when you get to 200K+ population you'll know ALL about

lol I made a load of circles and diagonal roads. Looks cool but awful for getting high density buildings. Have a second city now that is all tight rectangles with high density roads and i'm packing them in nice and tight.

nesf

Grumpypants wrote: »

You can turn off the guides and put the roads where ever you want. Over to the left next to the guy with the hard hat there is a "guides" tick box. Switch it off and you can build all types of roads. Circle ones, wiggly ones and upgrade them to take more traffic.

The idea behind the guides was to take the square counting out of laying road to get exactly enough space for a max density building. The guides don't do this, they give you the space for a medium density building. This is a serious problem when the maps are so, so small because you have to go high density faster and don't have the breadth of citzens to demolish several blocks and relay road for new zoning when you run out of space.

You can always ignore the guides, you don't need to turn them off. It's a real pity because if they worked as intended it'd be a very handy tool.

the_syco

Right, game installed, and joined the region. My city is "Léim an Bhradáin"...

Grumpypants

nesf wrote: »

The idea behind the guides was to take the square counting out of laying road to get exactly enough space for a max density building. The guides don't do this, they give you the space for a medium density building. This is a serious problem when the maps are so, so small because you have to go high density faster and don't have the breadth of citzens to demolish several blocks and relay road for new zoning when you run out of space.

You can always ignore the guides, you don't need to turn them off. It's a real pity because if they worked as intended it'd be a very handy tool.

Ah I see, I've been just using the first guide line if I wanted medium density space and the second one to leave room for high density. Getting some sky scrapper popping up now in the big rectangles.

Lots of trial and error with the game I have had to go back and demolish so much from bad planning.

Slutmonkey57b

nesf wrote: »

It's reminding me of every MMO launch, stuck on a different server to the people I want to play with. Which, I'll be honest, frustrates me with a simulation game.


An incomplete list of things that annoy me so far:

1) If I have 6 Fire Engines and 6 fires, they all go to the same fire. If I create a new Fire Engine at a Fire Station it drives out past several fires to join the other 6. If this was a major industrial fire I might be convinced it wasn't a bug but this was a bungalow on fire. Why am I paying for multiple fire engines if they behave like this?

2) We were told a lot about how we would be able to watch the individual sims behaviour being modelled. I watched a Sim get on a bus saying she wanted to go shopping. The bus drove around the residential area until it was full, it then drove to the Shuttle Bus Station by the residential area and dropped them all off. The people then waited and got onto another bus, which did the same thing. Thing is, I'm told by the stats that the bus system is going great so I guess there isn't any correlation between this Sim behaviour and the actual game. Another time, I had about 100 sims cause an enormous traffic jam in a smallish city by going around an intersection in circles in a continuous line blocking any traffic from moving. Quitting out and going back in was required to fix this.

3) The default guide lines for roads seem to give me blocks too small for high density buildings a lot of the time. This is rather annoying, I hope there's some checkbox somewhere that I've missed that sets what distance is chosen.

4) The modelling seems weird, I can have low income shoppers complaining of a lack of shops with low income shops complaining of a lack of customers with a good road network and bus system between them. I can have a low value plot between two high value skyscrapers. Neither of these make sense. There's probably some hidden game logic behind it but we'll have to wait for the community to figure it out.


Overall, I'm enjoying it well enough outside of the server issues. But, it's a Sim City game, it's really hard for me not to enjoy them! (I even gave SimCity Societies a solid week of play ffs)

What you're describing is not much above the level of "detail modelling" done by previous Sim City games. More sprites, but that's about it.
All these things prove two points:

EA's line about "modelling every detail" and the subsequent necessity to offload some of the simulation onto the server is clearly nonsense. This could all be done on a client machine. Claims that PC's aren't powerful enough to do this on such small city sizes don't hold a lot of water when you consider how much tech has changed in the 10 years since the last Sim City game.

Reviewers who parroted the company line on the detail-level simulations clearly either didn't look into it very closely, or just assumed that Maxis/EA were telling the truth. If a consumer who's been playing for a few hours on a crappy on/off connection can find this out, a bunch of reviewers sitting on pampered servers should certainly have been able to.