EA Admits That SimCity Could Have Been Offline

[rob_simple]

I don't understand how, if it was possible, then giving people the option to play offline would in anyway affect the desires of these thousands of people who wanted to play an MMO.

Ah, artistic vision: The last bastion of the developer with no leg left to stand on.

 

[gentlemanghost]

"But we rejected that [subset offline mode] idea because it didn't fit with our vision."

Can't decide if your "vision" is clouded by your greed or your stupidity...probably both

"But we're also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality."

Can't decide whether to say "LIES!" or "*cough* *cough* bullshit *cough*"

Show me THREE people who enjoy being forced to stay connected to the Internet to play a SINGLE player game

The only way this article could me more hilarious is if the meteors in the graphic were replaced with feces

 

[The Great JT]

FANS: "There's no reason for SimCity to be online only!"
EA: "Phah, what do you know, you're only fans and we're game developers!"
-Now-
EA: "Erm, don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you were kinda right about that whole 'doesn't need to be online only' thing? Maybe we can agree to disagree on a few things?"

 

[mfeff]

Umm, thanks for the launcher(though I don't understand why you linked those mods) as I've just started playing SimCity 4;I thought that this year's release would be my first intro to the game series, but I don't need to explain why that's no longer a desirable option.

Though I have to say I'm terrible at SimCity 4; I only made one city in which my residents were happy AND I was making money, at all other times, I spend way too much money on amenities and I barely have any high-income housing.

The launcher will save you the trouble of editing the .ini to remove the "intro movie". It also allows for 1080p resolution. The NAM mod is such a major improvement to the roads that no game is complete without it.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Who are these people who they're hearing from ("thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality")?

Seriously, who are these people?

I'm guessing they're EA employees.

I thought this would be a rather boring year because we wouldn't be able to top last year's awful Diablo 3 release and the ME3 outrage, but EA seems to be well on the way to surpassing both of those with this hideous tale of inept management, terrible coding, and corporate lies, and it's only March! EA never disappoints in the drama, because they always disappoint in the games.

 

[Powerman88]

Let me preface this with this. The first Simcity game is the first video game I ever purchased for myself and I have played every iteration since. I have also put in about 23 hours into the new Simcity 5 since it came out. Stick with me on this.

I actually like the small city size and the online functionality. I like the fact you have to plan cities and that you can't just expand willy nilly; you need to be smart about land usage as it is a resource much more precious than money. I like the social aspects and the regional play.

What really bothers me is that this game is a Beta. The traffic is broken. The simulation is not as deep as they advertised. The game shipped broken and they did not plan for success (as a small business owner I see this as ridiculous but whatever).

In the 30 years I have been playing video games I have never had to wait a week to play one. What really bothers me are the apologists in every forum I have been trolling (isn't controversy fun) who have been berating people for being angry at EA. The day we don't expect a full priced product to at least function out of the box is a sad day. We don't owe the developers anything, they owe us. When we give $63.70 USD (or whatever you paid in your country) for a product you are damn right we are entitled to a working product. This isn't 1850 and we aren't buying snake oils from a passing salesman. This is 2013 and we are purchasing a product from a billion dollar company that has been around for a lot of years.

I really wanted to believe in EA. I wanted to believe that they actually could justify the always on DRM and forced online connection, and that the online only was an upgrade. I think it can be. I also think this game needs another year in development and we paid full price for a beta.

With that said, anyone want to join my region on US East 4?

 

[GundamSentinel]

And the trainwreck keeps going and going. Artistic vision, HA! Just like the ME3 ending, right? If you wanted to implement interconnected cities you could've done it in offline mode as well. Everything said by EA or Maxis just seems to be digging an even deeper grave.

 

[poiuppx]

*sigh*

This, right here, was where I knew we were headed the moment they announced Always-Connected. Which, as an aside, was the moment I decided not to buy.

I'm not some torch-and-pitchfork hater of EA; I try to judge every title that hits shelves on its own merits, not the merits of the company in question. But that said, I don't FORGET the names on the box, either. Ubisoft still gets a fair bit of second-thoughts from me before any purchase because of how they treated the PC side of their consumer base, for example. And with Diablo III, I more or less shelved any interest in Blizzard's works for the foreseeable future because I happened to be a Diablo fan who was 'playing it wrong' (ie, I liked single player only, thanks).

But if being a dick or refusing to let me just have my game unsullied by online malarky was enough to turn me off THOSE guys, what EA/Maxis have been up to should be enough to turn me off electronic devices in general. Relying on external elements to run one's game rarely works out well. Servers overload. They lag. They break. They need to go down for maintenance. They rely on both my connection and yours not sucking. And at the end of the day, they rely most of all on you not deciding in a year or two to just pull the servers entirely and let the game die. Speaking as someone who doesn't trade or sell his games and has busted out NES games for especially nerdy parties, the idea of me investing at-launch cost for a game that is so dependant on online play that I have no way of knowing if in two years I could even USE it... no.

I hope, I pray, that someone is getting the boot over all this and that someone in a position of authority at EA is taking the right lessons from this. But even if they do, I question whether it will be enough at this point. Again speaking as someone who never really had a hate-on for EA, what I have now instead is healthy distrust in their products and capabilities. I'm much more likely to hold off and wait for reviews and fan reaction in future before even glancing their way. I am a 100%-certified lost sale for all opening weekends until proven otherwise, and in this day and age that time period is obscenely vital for companies.

Obviously, I can't speak for everyone. But I have to imagine that without changes there is a tipping point where people will respond to 'EA' the same way people respond in the theatre to a trailer that shows M. Night Shamalyan's name. You can burn folks only so much, provide crappy service only so many times, before people start to walk away. And while I'm willing to walk back if you prove yourself, I question how many others can be bothered to when the industry is pumping out games left, right, and center for all genres anyway.

And to the inevitable person who will jadedly say the population will just eat up whatever EA tosses out there and this doesn't matter? Warfighter. Thank you.

 

[MrMan999]

I'm glad to see that the consumers are getting wise to EA's BS. Hopefully EA will learn that if you treat your customers like shit, you lose in the Long Term.

 

[templar1138a]

Oh man, is Jim Sterling going to have a field day with this one.

 

[Lieju]

I don't have that much of a problem with their choice to make the game that way.

But the fact is it doesn't work, and you end up with an experience that's not a good MMO or a good singleplayer game.

 

[Theysaid]

I'm not going to whine about always on DRM. If I like the game and have friends that are going to play too, then always on DRM doesn't really matter much to me. There are games (like SimCity) that should really have a single player mode (seems like a good way to waste time on a flight, for example), but if I'm going to play with friends most of the time I will probably get my money's worth in game time.

With that said... if you're going to go the always on DRM route, you better make it work correctly. Always on DRM was the most controversial aspect of the new Sim City, so how could they have missed that the game would perform so poorly online? While some people were never going to buy the game because of always on DRM, I'm sure there were a bunch of potential players on the fence waiting for first reviews (myself included). Many of us were probably saying, "I'm really not fond of the DRM, but if it gets good reviews, I'll buy it."

Always on DRM was the game's most glaring "defect" before launch... and it was even more defective than we knew. EA doesn't deserve my money -- not because of the always on DRM, but because they knew this design choice was under the microscope and they still failed miserably.

 

[Atmos Duality]

They thought they could half-ass it and push this through as rapidly as possible. What is astounding is how absolutely incompetent they are. If they had any shred of intellect, they MIGHT have pulled this off. They MIGHT have been charging people stupid sums of money for a SINGLE BUILDING. They almost DEFINITELY would have gotten away with it if the game was free to play.

Unfortunately, their greed is overshadowed only by their blind incompetence and brilliant IPs must suffer. But hey, this means that new IPs and indie titles may flourish, so there's that.

All this boils down to is the "evolution" in gaming that so many keep spouting on about.
And that "evolution" is "less for more".

Less core content, more DLC. Less community involvement and mods, more content from the publisher.
At this stage, Piracy provides more of a quaint pariah for justification than anything; I'd even call it a convenient excuse to enforce such price-gouging practices.

But the worst part: Gameplay design is the first to suffer.
Diablo 3 was just the start, with its watered down depth, increased grind and near-total emphasis on gear over player ability.

SimCity is lazily programmed and is easily the worst simulation in the franchise.

 

[Simalacrum]

Now that the offline functionality has been proven beyond any doubt, I think gamers need to keep up the pressure; bring along petitions, boycotts, etc, and demand that EA/Maxis bring out an offline mode in a future update. Forcing players to play a certain way really isn't on, and furthermore, alienates players that don't necessarily have a good enough internet connection, such as those in less developed nations.

 

[GAunderrated]

*sigh*

This, right here, was where I knew we were headed the moment they announced Always-Connected. Which, as an aside, was the moment I decided not to buy.

I'm not some torch-and-pitchfork hater of EA; I try to judge every title that hits shelves on its own merits, not the merits of the company in question. But that said, I don't FORGET the names on the box, either. Ubisoft still gets a fair bit of second-thoughts from me before any purchase because of how they treated the PC side of their consumer base, for example. And with Diablo III, I more or less shelved any interest in Blizzard's works for the foreseeable future because I happened to be a Diablo fan who was 'playing it wrong' (ie, I liked single player only, thanks).

But if being a dick or refusing to let me just have my game unsullied by online malarky was enough to turn me off THOSE guys, what EA/Maxis have been up to should be enough to turn me off electronic devices in general. Relying on external elements to run one's game rarely works out well. Servers overload. They lag. They break. They need to go down for maintenance. They rely on both my connection and yours not sucking. And at the end of the day, they rely most of all on you not deciding in a year or two to just pull the servers entirely and let the game die. Speaking as someone who doesn't trade or sell his games and has busted out NES games for especially nerdy parties, the idea of me investing at-launch cost for a game that is so dependant on online play that I have no way of knowing if in two years I could even USE it... no.

If we could get thumbs up both mine would be pointing straight up at you. Well said! I am the exact same as you in how you feel. I judge each game by its own merits and I don't forget the major fuck ups they do.

Ubisoft has done a lot of damage with PC players so I normally heavily research their games and if I like it I still buy it discounted heavily. They have thankfully wised up a bit recently and are slowly working to make things better. I actually am starting to like the idea of Uplay because it is not an exclusive BS crap like origin. It is still an extra thing to log in but as long as I can put it in my steam library I am less inclined to resist a buy on Uplay alone.

Blizzard had my complete trust until diablo 3. Because of all the BS they pulled I am not buying HoTS (a game I would normally buy day 1) and instead am watching a Let's play for the story and will probably get the game whenever it goes on sale if at all.

EA has lost the most business with me these past few years due to their constant stupidity. I am not even pitchfork mad at them anymore I just want them to fuck off for 2 seconds so I can enjoy one of their dwindling catelog of good games. Let's see due to origin, always on DRM, and general fuckary I have not bought ME3, BF3, DS3, and Simcity (off the top of my head).

Isn't it funny and sad how this is one of the best generations in terms of variety and quality of games yet it is also the worst generation because of all the unnecessary bullshit they put with these amazing games?

 

[Drejer43]

I would be okay with the always online drm if the servers actually worked, does anyone know if they work now?

 

[Candidus]

Hey there MAXIS!

I've got a great deal for you, as someone who hasn't yet purchased SimCity. Ready? Here it is...

You keep your "vision" for Simcity.

And I'll keep my money.

 

[Atmos Duality]

See, part of this would be fine, if they took DOTA 2's model; if they made a free to play game and pretty much handed off the creative control over the non-essentials, they could have pulled it off. Instead, EA seems absolutely determined to make all the mistakes and learn nothing. Determined. They learned nothing from Valve and Steam with Origin and they learned nothing from Blizzard and Diablo III and SimCity. They are just a terribly run company.

What bothers me is that people seem to completely ignore this trend and continue to not only support the publisher with preorders but also support them vocally.

You can't be this passive. You can't be this complacent. You just can't.

Valve is devilishly clever like that, but that's because unlike EA, Valve started out as community modders for Doom and Quake (I was part of that mod community; I bug tested Action Quake2, the literal prototype for Counterstrike).
They know just how powerful community involvement is. Team Fortress 2 was a raving success well before it went F2P; it wasn't flash-in-the-pan Shooter #348 that people play for a month and then swiftly forget.

Where EA sees marks and Preorder-suckers to be milked and neglected...Valve sees enthusiasts.
Not because of any wishy-washy "for teh arts" reason, but because that's how they got started.
I shouldn't have to point out just how successful a business model it is. It makes Online-Only/Service-Centric games like DotA2 worthwhile.

For all the evil genius (and potentially dangerous) marketing strategies Valve employs I'll grant them this:
They don't just slapdash the game together (SimCity) or make brutal concessions on the gameplay (Diablo 3) because they're too busy optimizing the milkers for their digital cattle ranch.
Valve's gameplay is at least mechanically functional, and to date, ALWAYS pretty good to start with.

What does EA offer? What does SimCity offer?
Multiplayer? You aren't even interacting much with the other players. You can send cash and resources; but when a city isn't being used, its assets are frozen in time and at best, is providing a passive effect for the rest of the region.

And outside of that interaction, the rest of the gameplay is strictly WORSE than previous SimCity games.
Now hackers/modder have discovered features and tools from previous SimCity games in the game client ready to be drip-fed to the players. (There's no other logical for them to be in the game client otherwise, save astonishing stupidity)

Yet EA is expecting people to accept all of this bullshit, always online, with a smile and an open wallet.
There is no question in my mind that this was exploitation first, and a game second.

If that's truly the "evolution of gaming" I keep hearing touted, then I want it terminated.
This serves no purpose except to push the medium further into the cesspit of LCD-centric stagnation.

 

[Something Amyss]

You misunderstood me.

No, I basically went on a tangent. Pointing out, after the fact, that the ideal result would be for people to do something that I paralleled to your statement.

Now, you did specifically state that they could go to the guy who cracked it, so I commented that it wasn't a complete crack. This is kind of not helpful.

Ok... your kind of creeping me out... >_>

What about my kind creeps you out?

 

[Something Amyss]

Hey there MAXIS!

I've got a great deal for you, as someone who hasn't yet purchased SimCity. Ready? Here it is...

You keep your "vision" for Simcity.

And I'll keep my money.

If only more people would do this.