Sim City

Grumpypants

Dcully wrote: »

I dont want a ****ing free game, i have every game the listed anyways.
Even if i didnt have those game s i still dont want a free game i want a Sim City that works, no im not talking about the online issues, im talking about the countless other issues mostly down to Maxis.

Seriously you cannot defend this game, anyone still trying to do so are deluded.

I'm not defending the game even though I am still enjoying it. Some like it, some don't. To be honest I don't care if you don't like it.

I am attacking the now ridiculous amount of garbage that is being spouted out by people who should know better. If someone goes to write an article to attack a game at least use things that are true.

Reekwind

Grumpypants wrote: »

You can't play Simcity on a plane? Is that a serious complaint so for the few hours 2 or 3 times a year you will not be able to play on a plane so what.

Adding "say" to a sentence indicates that what follows is an example. Not being able to play the game on a plane is an example of being unable to play when offline. The European equivalent would be being unable to play on the train

Deployed Soldiers in Iraq can't play? Well yes they can same way they play SWTOR, WOW, BF3.

You can't play when the servers are down? So just like every multiplayer game ever made !

Any particular reason that you ignored the following paragraph that explicitly tackles this nonsense about it being a fundamentally multiplayer game?

On day one, the game didn't work. Day two? Game didn't work.? Well it did work that is why the servers where full! The game worked for the vast majority of people. A large % still had issues but these lasted for around 2 days.

Out of curiosity, where did you get this notion that the game worked for the "vast majority of people"? That's contrary to pretty much everything that I've heard

Slutmonkey57b

Grumpypants wrote: »

EA has a very clear, transparent history about how much it hates piracy !

Whatever next a bank that hates bank robberies? :rolleyes:

The problem is that if you punish legitimate buyers, pirates are unaffected. If you want online only piracy protection, you should make sure it works, and does not negatively impact the buyer. Look at the way steam works: games are tied to your steam profile, there are anti-piracy elements in place, but the whole thing (nowadays) is utterly transparent to the buyer, and they're hardly aware it even happens.

EA have singularly failed to do that. Tying SimCity to origin and online play serves two purposes for EA:
Setting up an in-house rival to Steam, of which they are obviously massively jealous (as most publishers are).
Forcing their own DRM design on users which links into that Steam rival.

Rockstar, Microsoft and EA have all looked at Blizzard and Valve, and can see the value of what they built. It makes sense for them to try to replicate that success. However, instead of concentrating on quality and transparancy of their "linked online presence", they've assumed that "slap up something quick and force users onto it" will garner the same results. It won't. Steam almost didn't survive the initial user backlash, until such time as Valve fixed it.

I suspect that like MS and Rockstar, EA will just have to abandon their efforts eventually, as they share the same internal company commitment to quality and customer service (ie none).

Dcully

Grumpypants wrote: »

To be honest I don't care if you don't like it.

To be honest I don't care that you somehow enjoy a clearly broken game but each to their own.


It must be close to the single most broken game and lied about game in history.

I always find twitch TV a good barometer of how popular a game is.
This night 2 weeks ago there was 35+k sc viewers ,this night last week 6k and tonight 800 or so, speaks volumes.

simon360

Overheal wrote: »

There is a reason I won't touch a Command and Conquer game again, and it's a tragedy.

Oh the joys of the corny acting in Red Alert 2 got ruined in Red Alert 3

Grumpypants

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

The problem is that if you punish legitimate buyers, pirates are unaffected. If you want online only piracy protection, you should make sure it works, and does not negatively impact the buyer. Look at the way steam works: games are tied to your steam profile, there are anti-piracy elements in place, but the whole thing (nowadays) is utterly transparent to the buyer, and they're hardly aware it even happens.

EA have singularly failed to do that. Tying SimCity to origin and online play serves two purposes for EA:
Setting up an in-house rival to Steam, of which they are obviously massively jealous (as most publishers are).
Forcing their own DRM design on users which links into that Steam rival.

Rockstar, Microsoft and EA have all looked at Blizzard and Valve, and can see the value of what they built. It makes sense for them to try to replicate that success. However, instead of concentrating on quality and transparancy of their "linked online presence", they've assumed that "slap up something quick and force users onto it" will garner the same results. It won't. Steam almost didn't survive the initial user backlash, until such time as Valve fixed it.

I suspect that like MS and Rockstar, EA will just have to abandon their efforts eventually, as they share the same internal company commitment to quality and customer service (ie none).

Basically you are saying

Good guys Valve tie you to their service to play their games.
Bad guys EA/Sony/Microsoft/Blizzard tie you to their service to play their games.

nesf

Dcully wrote: »

It must be close to the single most broken game [...] in history.

You Sir, need to play more games!

Kiith

While i can't say if it's the most broken game in history, it's without a doubt the worst launch of a major title in history (or at least that i can think of). Even worse then Diablo and error 37. It's been a pr disaster for EA and Maxis.

Probably won't change anything though, as it still sold well.

Slutmonkey57b

Grumpypants wrote: »

Basically you are saying

Good guys Valve tie you to their service to play their games.
Bad guys EA/Sony/Microsoft/Blizzard tie you to their service to play their games.

You're easily confused, it seems.

Valve tie your game into their service in such a way that it is not intrusive, destructive, unreliable, or counter-productive. Valve tie your game to your steam account, activate it, and then leave you alone. You want to play offline? no problem. You want to install on another machine? No problem. You want to give your game to someone else? No problem. You want to buy a copy for someone else? No problem. You want to save your game? No problem.

Other publishers sell games on steam, and Valve will honour their DRM schemes, if the publisher wants. All that does, however, is show how arbitrarily stupid other DRM schemes are.

MS like to use their DRM to prevent you from saving locally. You can launch the game through steam, but then you've got to also sign into MS to save your game. Moronic system. All the while you're playing, you have to leave a connection to an unreliable, badly coded, buggy MS piece of software running. Needless software bloat on your machine, and a diminished user experience.

Rockstar sold games through steam, then forced people to sign into a stupid social app which provided absolutely no useful functionality that the buyer needed, wanted, or asked for. Again, software bloat on your machine, another account to set up and remember a password for, and another buggy app causing crashes and corruption.

EA? Well, EA know that Valve get a cut of sales from steam and they don't like it. They let bricks and mortar stores take a cut of sales, and they let wholesalers take a cut of sales, but they don't like it in the digital domain. So they set up a rival service for their own titles. Fair enough. Unfortunately, that service is 10 years too late to the party, buggy, intrusive, and stupid. There's nothing in it for buyers other than access to EA titles. I see little or no benefit in accessing EA titles, as I don't fancy buying a re-skinned version of the same game every 12 months.

PC gamers are already using steam. Steam does everything they want, and does it the way they want it. Any rival service has to do it better, easier, cheaper, or it won't survive. Origin is not that service.

Maximilian

Grumpypants wrote: »

EA has a very clear, transparent history about how much it hates piracy !

Whatever next a bank that hates bank robberies? :rolleyes:

How about a bank that treats every single one of its customers, without exception, like potential bank robbers. :rolleyes:

Maximilian

nesf wrote: »

You Sir, need to play more games!

Sword of the Stars 2. wow that was a broken game.

nesf

Maximilian wrote: »

Sword of the Stars 2. wow that was a broken game.

I know, it was great, I got it for a fiver a few weeks after release in Game.

I hear it's been patched up pretty well now, I haven't tried it yet.

Mc Love

Any idea if they are working on a patch or not to fix some of the issues like the traffic and robot sims

VinLieger

Mc Love wrote: »

Any idea if they are working on a patch or not to fix some of the issues like the traffic and robot sims

Traffic has been slightly fixed afaik, not sure about sims and the documented problems with buses and trams. And they deffinitely havent done anything with the first come first served ai system

Sierra Oscar

Probably going to start a new city now, any free slots in any of your regions?

Eoin247

Tried playing again yesterday. 3 rollbacks in under an hour. This game isn't even playable for me at the moment.

What good is a sim city where you lose your progress after 20 minutes. What a joke

Sabre0001

For anyone tempted, but who doesn't want to spend their money, Click is running a competition.

Mitch Connor

Maximilian wrote: »

How about a bank that treats every single one of its customers, without exception, like potential bank robbers. :rolleyes:

chains on the pens....

Grumpypants

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

You're easily confused, it seems.

Valve tie your game into their service in such a way that it is not intrusive, destructive, unreliable, or counter-productive. Valve tie your game to your steam account, activate it, and then leave you alone. You want to play offline? no problem. You want to install on another machine? No problem. You want to give your game to someone else? No problem. You want to buy a copy for someone else? No problem. You want to save your game? No problem.

Other publishers sell games on steam, and Valve will honour their DRM schemes, if the publisher wants. All that does, however, is show how arbitrarily stupid other DRM schemes are.

MS like to use their DRM to prevent you from saving locally. You can launch the game through steam, but then you've got to also sign into MS to save your game. Moronic system. All the while you're playing, you have to leave a connection to an unreliable, badly coded, buggy MS piece of software running. Needless software bloat on your machine, and a diminished user experience.

Rockstar sold games through steam, then forced people to sign into a stupid social app which provided absolutely no useful functionality that the buyer needed, wanted, or asked for. Again, software bloat on your machine, another account to set up and remember a password for, and another buggy app causing crashes and corruption.

EA? Well, EA know that Valve get a cut of sales from steam and they don't like it. They let bricks and mortar stores take a cut of sales, and they let wholesalers take a cut of sales, but they don't like it in the digital domain. So they set up a rival service for their own titles. Fair enough. Unfortunately, that service is 10 years too late to the party, buggy, intrusive, and stupid. There's nothing in it for buyers other than access to EA titles. I see little or no benefit in accessing EA titles, as I don't fancy buying a re-skinned version of the same game every 12 months.

PC gamers are already using steam. Steam does everything they want, and does it the way they want it. Any rival service has to do it better, easier, cheaper, or it won't survive. Origin is not that service.

Everything you list as a plus for Steam Origin does just as well, the only difference is that Origin doesn't have a gifting/swapping games function, but all my friends are functioning adults capable of buying their own games so that is irrelevant.

You install your game on Origin then it leaves you alone, want to play offline? no problem it works in offline mode.

Want to install on another machine? No problem it lets you do this and with less intrusion than steam! who require you to validate each and every PC you install steam onto with a password via email. Something Origin doesn't do.

PC gamer's are using Steam, 54 million of them. PC gamer's are also using Origin, 40 million of them. Isn't competition great !

You seem to forget that PC gamer's hated steam, it was (ironically enough in this anti DRM fueled rant) a method of introducing online DRM!!

Grumpypants

Maximilian wrote: »

How about a bank that treats every single one of its customers, without exception, like potential bank robbers. :rolleyes:

This is why banks store all the money in a big pile in the middle of the floor and say only take what is yours we work on a honor system.

Or like when you go on a plane and they check your ticket to make sure you purchased a ticket for the flight? Isn't that scummy they are treating you like someone that sneaks onto planes. What they should do is just open the gates let everyone on that way the legitimate customer will not be treated like potential stowaways.

youreadthat

Oh great. The only region I've played the game properly in since release (25ish hours) has had my 2 biggest cities rolled back. I got bored and started another region, only for the stupid auto terraformer to screw up the first coastal road I placed.

So many stupid things annoy me. I felt I'd pretty much got everything I could out of the game anyway. This isn't a game with longevity. I think that's about it unless there are major changes.

At least I got free BF3 though!

TheChrisD

Grumpypants wrote: »

Want to install on another machine? No problem it lets you do this and with less intrusion than steam! who require you to validate each and every PC you install steam onto with a password via email. Something Origin doesn't do.

Actually, that's a good thing. Steam Guard offering two-step verification to help prevent account theft is a very good thing.

Overheal

I personally enjoy the benefits of 2-step and 3-step verification for my online services. Banking, Email, etc. and yes Steam, considering that steam is by itself several hundred dollars worth of digital license property, I'd rather like to hang on to it. Origin is demonstrably not hack proof - and neither is Steam. But one of those two is more secure than the other.

simon360 wrote: »

Oh the joys of the corny acting in Red Alert 2 got ruined in Red Alert 3

Actually its more to do with the fact that EA keeps repackaging and reselling the titles without any respect to legacy software support. The First Decade was riddled with compatibility issues. Not only had they not bothered to remaster anything (like the woeful experience that was Renegade) but they literally just slapped the original game files together on a DVD and said Here Ya Go. When you asked them for technical support for a game they sold you (even within the first 90 days) their response was "Try reinstalling it", ad nauseum.

Kirby

Grumpypants wrote: »

This is why banks store all the money in a big pile in the middle of the floor and say only take what is yours we work on a honor system.

Or like when you go on a plane and they check your ticket to make sure you purchased a ticket for the flight? Isn't that scummy they are treating you like someone that sneaks onto planes. What they should do is just open the gates let everyone on that way the legitimate customer will not be treated like potential stowaways.

Your analogy falls down when you realise there isn't an alternative to going to the airpot that is easier, faster and free.

If there was a luxurious plane that flew to your home, was faster than the airport one and dropped you wherever you wanted....for free.......people might complain more about the airport.

Queueing up and going through security is the only option. When you are the only game in town, you can do what you like.

Where as unscrupulous people can play games for free, without jumping through the hoops that the paying customer does.

So if you own an airport in your scenario, you either change you ticket policy or you lose your business. It's simple. Companies can bitch and moan about piracy all they want but situations like Spore, Diablo and Sim City just give people the excuse they need to do it.

If people are made feel like pariah's for doing it, they wont. When it suddenly becomes "socially acceptable" then you have a problem. It's one of the reasons piracy on the DS was so damned high. It was seen as "okay" by the masses.

If you have the moral and legal high ground and are in the right......why work so hard to give it away? You can't police piracy with brute force. Stop trying. You make it so the customer has the better experience by paying for the product. Piracy will reduce naturally on it's own when people realise they will have more fun by paying. At the moment, it's the reverse. The pirate gets his product without all the hassle that the legit customer has.

_Puma_

Grumpypants wrote: »

This is why banks store all the money in a big pile in the middle of the floor and say only take what is yours we work on a honor system.

Or like when you go on a plane and they check your ticket to make sure you purchased a ticket for the flight? Isn't that scummy they are treating you like someone that sneaks onto planes. What they should do is just open the gates let everyone on that way the legitimate customer will not be treated like potential stowaways.

Ya just don't get it do you... How about this, checking the ticket at the gate(one time DRM like steam and most games on Origin) then every 20 seconds of the flight(Always Online DRM in Sim City) an attendant disturbs you to check the ticket again in case it changed.(Unnecessary and punishing to the customer).

I called bull**** on the need for the always online connection for Sim City to work as a functioning single player game, which turned out to be true and blows their justification for the always online connection out of the water. I called it for what it was an intrusive, over zealous DRM policy. You dismissed my concerns as "moaning" and blindly quoted Lucy Bradshaw's little PR piece about "server computation" being neccesary for the game to work :rolleyes: Now you are dismissing people who want to gift a game as not being a "functional adult", whatever that means in this context, because it dosen't back up your point about Origin and Steam(Not that I care about either in the slightest).

I don't know when this thread turned into a Origin Vs Steam argument, most the last few points have gone way off topic about Sim City. There is no offline mode in sim city, they hastily implemented a 20 second DRM verification in the Javascript source code to implement the always online DRM for whatever reason, my guess EA wanted it implemented late on. I couldn't give a damn if it was done through Steam or Origin, the fact is it is there and there is no need for it. The part Origin plays in this is just vehicle to implement it, badly if I do say so myself.

In any case I think there is not much more to be written about Sim City. It has quiet rightly gone down as one of the biggest disasters of a game launch of recent times. What remains to be seen is if EA peruses with this current policy of always online DRM in their single player games. Will the recent "departure" of their CEO who was an advocate of their policy of providing an "Online Service" see this change?

Grumpypants

Kirby wrote: »

Your analogy falls down when you realise there isn't an alternative to going to the airpot that is easier, faster and free.

If there was a luxurious plane that flew to your home, was faster than the airport one and dropped you wherever you wanted....for free.......people might complain more about the airport.

Queueing up and going through security is the only option. When you are the only game in town, you can do what you like.

Where as unscrupulous people can play games for free, without jumping through the hoops that the paying customer does.

So if you own an airport in your scenario, you either change you ticket policy or you lose your business. It's simple. Companies can bitch and moan about piracy all they want but situations like Spore, Diablo and Sim City just give people the excuse they need to do it.

If people are made feel like pariah's for doing it, they wont. When it suddenly becomes "socially acceptable" then you have a problem. It's one of the reasons piracy on the DS was so damned high. It was seen as "okay" by the masses.

If you have the moral and legal high ground and are in the right......why work so hard to give it away? You can't police piracy with brute force. Stop trying. You make it so the customer has the better experience by paying for the product. Piracy will reduce naturally on it's own when people realise they will have more fun by paying. At the moment, it's the reverse. The pirate gets his product without all the hassle that the legit customer has.

Fair enough point re no comparable service but I guess you could steal a plane and fly it home for free

But it is very hard for companies to come up with ways to get that service to people. Look at Valve they created Steam and there was a massive back lash against it.

EA now have Origin and again a massive backlash against it you only have to look at the posts over the last few pages where it is called stupid, buggy, intrusive etc and all the customer has to do is click a button and their game works. Onlive uses a Netflix model and people don't use it because they don't own the games.

If anyone can come up with an easy system for people to buy, download and play there games that is simpler than Steam and Origin then i am all for companies using it.

Grumpypants

_Puma_ wrote: »

Ya just don't get it do you... How about this, checking the ticket at the gate(one time DRM like steam and most games on Origin) then every 20 seconds of the flight(Always Online DRM in Sim City) an attendant disturbs you to check the ticket again in case it changed.(Unnecessary and punishing to the customer).

I called bull**** on the need for the always online connection for Sim City to work as a functioning single player game, which turned out to be true and blows their justification for the always online connection out of the water. I called it for what it was an intrusive, over zealous DRM policy. You dismissed my concerns as "moaning" and blindly quoted Lucy Bradshaw's little PR piece about "server computation" being neccesary for the game to work :rolleyes: Now you are dismissing people who want to gift a game as not being a "functional adult", whatever that means in this context, because it dosen't back up your point about Origin and Steam(Not that I care about either in the slightest).

I don't know when this thread turned into a Origin Vs Steam argument, most the last few points have gone way off topic about Sim City. There is no offline mode in sim city, they hastily implemented a 20 second DRM verification in the Javascript source code to implement the always online DRM for whatever reason, my guess EA wanted it implemented late on. I couldn't give a damn if it was done through Steam or Origin, the fact is it is there and there is no need for it. The part Origin plays in this is just vehicle to implement it, badly if I do say so myself.

In any case I think there is not much more to be written about Sim City. It has quiet rightly gone down as one of the biggest disasters of a game launch of recent times. What remains to be seen is if EA peruses with this current policy of always online DRM in their single player games. Will the recent "departure" of their CEO who was an advocate of their policy of providing an "Online Service" see this change?

It would be more like they check your ticket then check every 20 mins that the engines are still on so the plane keeps working in the way the designers intended.

It is just a necessary by product of playing online that you need to be online. In a similar way Boards does not use always online DRM to prevent you from posting on its site. It is just necessary for you to be online, that is just how it works.

SimCity had a bad launch but one that was blown way out of proportion. It was summed up in an article on IGN "Some gamers may have to wait a few days to play their game" Shocking stuff indeed.

Overheal

Grumpypants wrote: »

It is just a necessary by product of playing online that you need to be online. In a similar way Boards does not use always online DRM to prevent you from posting on its site. It is just necessary for you to be online, that is just how it works.

No...... this has been covered extensively. The game does not require an online connection to be played. Even people within EA have confirmed this. The only thing that prevents the game from being played offline is the fact that your save file is stored online, and it tries to perform a sync every 20 minutes. It can just as easily be stored on a local drive. Try again.

_Puma_

Are you intentionally ignoring the point that it doesn't need to be online? Game works fine if it is not online for 20 mins..they just implemented the always online component as an artificial reason to justify the always online DRM, and some social aspects like leaderboards and cloud saves. Game is designed as a city building simulation, not an exercise in Social Engineering and playing online.

Does the planes engines shut down automatically if I lose my ticket and cant produce it in 20 minutes?

Overheal

can we stop with the AAA? Asinine Airplane Analogy