SimCity Offline Mode Launches Today

[Andy Chalk]

SimCity Offline Mode Launches Today

Electronic Arts has taken the SimCity servers offline in order to roll out the long-awaited offline mode update.

You asked for it, and now, after a year of excuses, obfuscation and plain old dicking around, it's finally here: Electronic Arts announced that the "impossible" offline mode for SimCity - and yes, I'm still banging that drum - will roll out today.

"Today at 6am PDT [9am EDT] we will be releasing Update 10 with Offline play." Maxis wrote on the EA forums. "This involves server down time and the game servers will be unavailable for a few hours."

It's an awfully mundane message for what is a pretty big deal as these things go. SimCity launched in March of 2013 to no end of technical trouble, largely due to problems with the remote servers, leaving the game in a virtually unplayable state for many players. In response to demands that the always-on requirement be eliminated, Maxis and EA insisted that the game relied on remote connections for much of its "under-the-hood" work and said it wouldn't be possible to make it offline without dramatically re-engineering it, points that were quickly proven somewhat exaggerated by individual modders who were able to get the game running offline, with some limitations, in very short order.

It's an embarrassing climbdown for EA, but also long overdue - quite possibly to the point that it no longer matters anyway. Maybe this will make the prospect of picking SimCity out of the bargain bin a little more attractive, but will it serve to salvage the game, or EA's reputation? That I very much doubt.

Source: EA Forums [http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/10023460.page]


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[Tireseas_v1legacy]

I believe the appropriate phrase is "Too little too late."

From what I hear, Sim City was a fairly good game with some serious problems, the most notable being "always online" and city-size limits. At this point, they probably should have just released "Sim City Gold" or something with the patch, a full game with a bunch of the non-branded DLC attached to it with the offline mode. But the original game poisoned the well, so I doubt this will boost the sales even remotely to the degree that EA are hoping.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

SimCity launched a year ago?

Yeesh.

I guess all the entertainment I got from the game will finally be out of date.


Still not getting it.

 

[Artemicion]

SimCity offline mode launching, the official closing of the D3 auction house, FFXHD's NA release... today will henceforth be known as "the day everything went right in the gaming world".

It's still too little too late, though. I might actually play it now, but this proves more than anything that they had lied right to our faces about the impossibility of offline mode. We all knew the game had this capability, of course, but EA's gone from vehemently denying offline functionality to offering first-party support for it. One wonders what other gems they've got hidden up their sleeve.

 

[Weaver]

Unlike the others, I'm excited to finally play Sim City! Even if the game is total bunk, I feel I'll be able to get some joy out of it.

 

[the7ofswords]

While I agree to some extent that it does feel a bit too little, too late-ish, I will be firing this game up for the first time in many months. I'm looking forward to seeing what the modding community does with it now ... hopefully bigger maps and resources that don't run dry before you can really get your industry going.

 

[Clovus]

Simcity Offline? That's unpossible!

 

[Omnicrom]

SimCity offline mode launching, the official closing of the D3 auction house, FFXHD's NA release... today will henceforth be known as "the day everything went right in the gaming world".

It's still too little too late, though. I might actually play it now, but this proves more than anything that they had lied right to our faces about the impossibility of offline mode. We all knew the game had this capability, of course, but EA's gone from vehemently denying offline functionality to offering first-party support for it. One wonders what other gems they've got hidden up their sleeve.

If only D3 had also included an Offline mode. I love the game and enjoy playing it and think the recent patch was great, but including an offline mode for D3 would have instantly won huge points for Blizzard and I still don't get why they didn't do it.

 

[putowtin]

humm may pick this up now

Then again massive game back log and games on the horizon I want......

 

[Vivi22]

I believe the appropriate phrase is "Too little too late."

No doubt. The time to finally fix a disastrous launch problem is not more than a year after launch. Anyone who cared stopped playing long ago, and anyone who didn't is too used to being bent over and reamed to notice this new mode.

 

[kajinking]

humm may pick this up now

Then again massive game back log and games on the horizon I want......

Yeah I'm still not sure if I'll get this or just try out that new Banished game on steam. Simcity now has the issue of being over a year old, still not being that great, and competing against newer city-builders (Banished and Tropico 5).

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Sorry EA, but that's too little and too late.
I will enjoy SimCity 4 with my million mods and Banished. If you weren't so blind with greed, you could have earned more but not now.

 

[lancar]

I was mildly interested a year ago.

Now? Not so much.
Especially not since the game's other huge flaw is still there: the small plot sizes.
Also it still needs Origin, which, while not a dealbreaker, is still enough of a turn-off for me to simply not care about the game.

 

[gamegod25]

I believe the appropriate phrase is "Too little too late."

From what I hear, Sim City was a fairly good game with some serious problems, the most notable being "always online" and city-size limits. At this point, they probably should have just released "Sim City Gold" or something with the patch, a full game with a bunch of the non-branded DLC attached to it with the offline mode. But the original game poisoned the well, so I doubt this will boost the sales even remotely to the degree that EA are hoping.

If there is one things EA is good at it's making a latrine out of their own water wells.

While I suppose this patch is better late than never, at this point is an empty gesture and certainly won't improve their image as most people won't know or care anyway. And last I checked the game was still bugged up the ass to the point of being rendered almost unplayable. When the main selling point of your expansion, the mega towers, are broken even after being "fixed" then you have failed as a game developer.

As nice as that "SimCity Gold" idea would be that would require a company that values its customers and doesn't have their heads up their asses which, obviously, is not the case with EA. They are not worst company in the world but it is hard to argue that they aren't the worst game company. And when you are making Activision look good by comparison then you really need feel ashamed.

 

[webkilla]

Did they ever fix those horrible pathfinding bugs where the 'housing agent' would send all the cars in a city to a single house at a time?

 

[Atmos Duality]

I believe the appropriate phrase is "Too little too late."

^Almost this.
I'm going with "Too little too late you fucking liars."

It wasn't enough that they wanted to force Always Online on their users in spite of a near unanimous protest.
It still wasn't enough that they spat promises through their teeth that they couldn't hope to keep about the Always Online ("Oh no, SimCity won't be an unplayable mess on launch like Diablo 3. We're ready! Trust us!")

Even AFTER they fucked everything up gloriously, they still had the gall to try and tell us how NECESSARY and ESSENTIAL the Always Online DRM was and how HARD it would be to remove it from SimCity.

...And then someone managed a work around for the Online Check in under a week.
Not a complete work around, but it handily demonstrated how forced and artificial the always online element was.

 

[Trishbot]

EA once claimed this was impossible.

Everyone... don't you realize?

EA DID THE IMPOSSIBLE!