SimCity Patch 4.0 Adds "Launch Park" For Early Adopters

[Steven Bogos]

SimCity Patch 4.0 Adds "Launch Park" For Early Adopters

The new patch also re-enables leaderboards, a feature that has been disabled since shortly after the game's disastrous launch.

Oh SimCity. God bless you for trying. Despite most people have written off the game as being fundamentally broken, you have to admire Maxis' dedication to keep trying to fix it. turned them off [http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9437292.page#28136320] in an effort to ease server strain.

It isn't stipulated just how early of an adopter you had to have been to receive the "Launch Park," but we can probably assume if you were one of the players who could take advantage of EA's free game apology [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122763-SimCity-Apology-Offers-One-Of-Eight-Free-Games], you'll be eligible. The new region, Edgewater Bay, features seven cities clustered around a single Great Work site. Shortly after the game launched, players were quick to discover that large regions were actually made up of several 4-city clusters that had little to no interaction with other clusters in the region. Edgewater Bay's seven city cluster, if it actually offers the full range of interactivity between cities, should be a step in the right direction.

Leaderboards, dynamic global market prices and region filters, which have been disabled for several months, will finally be re-enabled in the patch. Cheetah mode, which was disabled at the same time as these features, and arguably had the greatest affect on actual gameplay, was re-enabled in a previous patch.

Other fixes include cities actually getting enough rain to replenish their water tables, and some tweaks to the borderline demented behavior of your city's brave firefighters.

Patch 3.0 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123794-Patch-3-0-For-SimCity-Promises-to-Fix-Traffic-Again], released earlier this month, aimed to fix traffic and other bugs.

Despite publishing several patches and a couple pieces of DLC for the game, Maxis and EA have still refused to comment on the fact that hackers have discovered the game's "always-online" requirement (as well as the small city sizes) are a complete fabrication, and the game is actually completely playable offline. Until they address this, they can give me all the free early-adopter DLC in the world and I will still never buy another EA game again.

Source: EA Forums [http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9437292.page#28136320]

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[Eri]

Maybe I'll buy it on Steam when it gets really cheap to just try it out.

Oh wait

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The patch also adds a new region, and re-enables several features (including leaderboards) which have been disabled since shortly after launch, when Maxis turned them off [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.402853-Electronic-Arts-Disables-Non-Critical-SimCity-Features-UPDATED] in an effort to ease server strain.

In other words enough people have stopped playing for them to enable previously advertised features.

Yay.

 

[Kahani]

exclusive to "early adopters.

So they're not even pretending to want new customers, but are just desperately trying to get the existing ones to stay with them. I wonder how that's working out for them.

In other words enough people have stopped playing for them to enable previously advertised features.

Oh, right.

 

[1337mokro]

Despite publishing several patches and a couple pieces of DLC for the game, Maxis and EA have still refused to comment on the fact that hackers have discovered the game's "always-online" requirement (as well as the small city sizes) are a complete fabrication, and the game is actually completely playable offline. Until they address this, they can give me all the free early-adopter DLC in the world and I will still never buy another EA game again.

Basically this. They put artificial limitations everywhere, broke their own system with a city so tiny it can barely support any specialization, whilst simultaneously player have been finding constant exploits and workarounds like putting your waterpump next to a wastetreatment plant equals infinite water. Opening another city giving it lots of money and then building really expensive public services and such all there, leaving the city then never opening it again, effectively leaving it paused whilst forever providing power and buses to your other cities. You can scam the system by increasing taxes to maximum every single hour at 03 then dropping them to 0% for the rest of the hour then putting them back up to max at 03 the next hour. This should really just show you exactly how much here is broken by design.

 

[Johkmil]

Snip

Basically this. They put artificial limitations everywhere, broke their own system with a city so tiny it can barely support any specialization, whilst simultaneously player have been finding constant exploits and workarounds like putting your waterpump next to a wastetreatment plant equals infinite water. Opening another city giving it lots of money and then building really expensive public services and such all there, leaving the city then never opening it again, effectively leaving it paused whilst forever providing power and buses to your other cities. You can scam the system by increasing taxes to maximum every single hour at 03 then dropping them to 0% for the rest of the hour then putting them back up to max at 03 the next hour. This should really just show you exactly how much here is broken by design.

When all of this is possible, is there any reason to bring back leaderboards? Seems like acceptable glitches in a single-player game, but quite disruptive in a multiplayer environment with leaderboards.

 

[1337mokro]

Snip

Snip

When all of this is possible, is there any reason to bring back leaderboards? Seems like acceptable glitches in a single-player game, but quite disruptive in a multiplayer environment with leaderboards.

Of course not, you can still make cities entirely without any utilities or just with residential and shopping only. The game is broken and they are just throwing in leaderboards to pretend like there has been some progress made with this fundamentally broken game.

 

[Roxor]

The patch also adds a new region, and re-enables several features (including leaderboards) which have been disabled since shortly after launch, when Maxis turned them off [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.402853-Electronic-Arts-Disables-Non-Critical-SimCity-Features-UPDATED] in an effort to ease server strain.

I don't know why, but I find the idea of this to be very funny.

Solvemedia: forget this

I'm sure a lot of people would like to.

 

[Longstreet]

It's logical that they make this patch for early adopters.

They don't got anything BUT early adopters.

Unless you have been living under a rock, no one with half a brain would have bought this game 2/3 days (although that probably still counts as early adoptors, it's usually a numbers game) after launch with the uproar that happened.

I can see this being used in a few marketing classes in the future as a prime example of how not to do things.

 

[Fordo]

I'll be curious to see what lessons, if any are learned for SimCity 6.

 

[CriticalMiss]

There can't be many games have gone to version 4.0 or higher within months of release. Do EA think it is some kind of badge of honour?

 

[SmugFrog]

There can't be many games have gone to version 4.0 or higher within months of release. Do EA think it is some kind of badge of honour?

I think it's to wow the players, making them think "They're up to FOUR POINT OH! OMG! THERE MUST BE SOME GOOD STUFF IN THERE NOW!"

Rather than the 1.04 (if that's what it should be? I don't know I don't play the game).

If they ever make it fully offline, the one requirement I want about it, I'd actually pick it up despite the bugs.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

There can't be many games have gone to version 4.0 or higher within months of release. Do EA think it is some kind of badge of honour?

More like another Medal of Honor... if you get my drift.

Haha Warfighter sucks Haha

Yeah, I can't think of a recent EA game that came out and was actually praised by gamers for innovation and fun, or even just having better than average gameplay and style. ME2 back in 2010 maybe... which is too bloody long for such a huge company. Yet they still tumble ever onwards with no signs of stopping, like a frictionless plague victim catapulting through a neonatal unit.

 

[penthesilea180]

I am so glad I never purchased the new Sim City. I played in the Beta and decided that when I had to wait eight hours to actually sign in and play that I would wait a few months after the launch until they worked out the kinks. Now I'm thinking this game is just one giant Möbius strip and the more they try to fix it the worse it actually gets.