SimCity Reticulating Splines on Mac This Month

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

SimCity Reticulating Splines on Mac This Month

After months of delays, the Mac release of SimCity is just a few weeks away.

The and then August [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122557-Electronic-Arts-Disables-Non-Critical-SimCity-Features-UPDATED], a deadline the developers will hit with two days to spare.

When announcing the last Mac delay in June, a blog post from Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis stated it was "because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet." The team wanted to make sure that the Mac experience was as good as possible, he explained. To make up for the delay, developers promised to make the SimCity Launch Park, complete with Edgewater Bay region, available for Mac gamers with their purchase.

For faithful PC city-builders, Update 6 [http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-update-6] was made available last week, providing RCI improvements, additional building height and color variations, and the free Granite Lake region map.

As a Mac user, I was looking forward to this for a long time, but it's hard to muster up much enthusiasm so far after the PC release--especially considering how disastrous [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122550-Maxis-Adding-More-SimCity-Servers-Over-Next-Two-Days] the first launch was. Then again, maybe getting SimCity six months later will be a blessing--if the gameplay issues are worked out and the always-online factor isn't causing so many problems, perhaps Mac gamers will get to enjoy SimCity without the drama.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/5/4590786/simcity-mac-release-date-aug-22]

Permalink

 

[kajinking]

People still play this game?

...

People still want to buy this game?

 

[Covarr]

if the gameplay issues are worked out and the always-online factor isn't causing so many problems, perhaps Mac gamers will get to enjoy SimCity without the drama.

The game still requires a constant connection. They've improved their servers, so it's not as painful, but it is still always-online. As for the gameplay... cities are still too small, and more importantly traffic still needs to be entirely reworked. This game can't be good without a serious overhaul to the traffic and AI, something that Maxis has shown no signs of even considering.

P.S. Thanks

 

[geizr]

Still not buying it. Got burned once already by the always-online with Diablo 3, which I have uninstalled with no plans to ever reinstall. Just not going through that trauma again.

To be honest, ever since EA got ahold of it, Sim City has just never been as good as Sim City 2000 (I've never played Sim City 3000, so I don't know how that compares). I used to run that game on a 293MHz pentium machine with 256MB RAM. Had a higher frame-rate, could make a bigger city, and had far few crashes (as in none at all) than what I can get in recent versions running on a machine with a 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo and 4GB RAM.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

For a tiny moment, I read "SimCity Reticulating Splines on Mars this month" and was a little bit excited... But then I re-read the line and went back to being disappointed with Maxis and EA.

I'd like a (working) Sim City on Mars.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Yay! Now more people can play their broken game! Seriously Mac users, steer clear of this one. I desperately wanted to like this game. I accepted the small plot size thinking that I could just play a whole region myself and get the same basic feel of the sprawling city.

But the core design is broken. At a point in every city, no matter what you do, the traffic will disable your town. As there is only one way in and one way out of your city and the design of the game is to keep it this way. There's an occasional plot that has a highway that runs through, but even that will end up broken.

This is not a good product, and adding more servers was the start of fixing the problems, not the end. And patches have done little to help the core broken design. They've put out a few fires, but the inferno rages on. Adding more servers was like using a fire extinguisher on a burning stove while ignoring that the walls are also engulfed in flames.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Mac users can finally feel the pain and misery of playing Sim City!

You can look forward to...

DRM!

Traffic issues!

Being charged an arm and a leg for DLC building packs!

Fixes to traffic issues being sold as DLC!

And much, much more!

 

[CriticalMiss]

we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet

That still annoys me, apparently they were happy enough to unleash the plague of SimCity on Windows but it took five months for it to be ready on the Mac when they had announced a same-day release. Maybe Windows isn't 'Primetime' to them and the shitty launch was a punishment for not being Jobsologists?

 

[Evil Smurf]

What's the bet it goes on Origin?

 

[fix-the-spade]

<spoiler=I'll just leave this here, it sums up my thoughts better than words alone><youtube=qtIOlaCjyh0>

I'd like to think EA have learned from the PC version's epic train wreck, but more likely they've cut the relative number of servers and backup available, because this is EA we're talking about.

 

[Best of the 3]

After all the stuff I've heard about the game, I feel glad for Mac users. At least they've gotten the warnings and seen the damage in advance.

 

[Erttheking]

I've always thought Mac users took pride in having a computer system that was relatively virus free.

Why would any self-respecting Mac user willingly install this piece of malware on their system?

I have no idea. This isn't something I'm exactly salivating over, I saved that for X-COM.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

>Smock My Knickers
Okay. Beginning to smock knickers...

Now smocking knickers... [27% smoked]
Now smocking knickers... [45% smoked]
Now smocking knickers... [96% smoked]
Reticulating splines...

Knickers successfully smoked!

*** Nobody STILL understands it, you knob ***

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game or QUIT?
> |||