New SimCity Will Require Always-On Internet - UPDATED

[viranimus]

Truly regretable because I have been wanting a new SIm City for a while. So in short this is an absolute NO GO for me now for no other reason than this. Guess someone didnt want my money.

Hope cities XL 2012 can scratch that itch.

 

[Faerillis]

Online DRM is fine so long as they make it well known that it's required. Considering the release date is still TBA and this piece is already out, that requirement is met.

Seriously, you don't get pissed off that an XBox Game can't be played on a PS3, or that you can't use the 64-bit mode of PC games on a computer that only runs XP.

 

[zehydra]

If *my* game is determined by what other people are doing, then it's not really *my* game, is it?
I was actually interested in this game until I read this; when will companies learn this is not how you win over the PC gamer market?

Who said it was your game?

All they've basically said is that this game's gonna be an MMO, so not really a typical SimCity game.

 

[samaugsch]

"I don't wanna be on the internet." -People on the internet

You're missing the point. People don't want a game that just kicks them out when they lose the connection like it's made by AOL.

 

[samaugsch]

Where do you live?
Because i dont understand how my internet is this

[http://www.speedtest.net]good.
While i live in a small town in holland.
I just dont get it.

I live here.

[http://www.speedtest.net]

This is a fairly average day for me.

Good lord. How do you even manage to put up articles on here?

 

[xDarc]

I didn't buy BF3 because of Origin (i didn't care about mass effect), I won't buy the new SimCity because of Origin. BF2, BF2142, Spore, CnC4 and other other games left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not just because I don't want another piece of digital distribution software on my computer, it's because I don't care for EA's games any more either. Do pirates even bother anymore? I wouldn't waste the bandwidth on their rushed shit. I haven't seen anything recently that was compelling to buy. Battlefield 3 was close, but then I just went and played the other grey/brown modern shooter.

I'm with this guy. Most of the stuff they make now a days isn't even worth a free download IMO. Since about 2006, I only buy 1 or 2 games a year and play them until I can't stand them anymore.

I have dozens of the old encylopedia sized boxes that PC games used to come in from 1994 to around 1998.

 

[irishda]

"I don't wanna be on the internet." -People on the internet

You're missing the point. People don't want a game that just kicks them out when they lose the connection like it's made by AOL.

And yet that's where games are headed. This is the future that so many gamers, even popular websites like Penny Arcade, love to push; a future where brick-and-mortar institutions are obsolete and every sort of product is handled online. It's a future where everybody's assumed to be online, and this is one of the side effects.

Don't get me wrong, I hate when games do this shit. But hey, stuff like this is becoming an inevitability because we're turning to the internet for making more and more things obsolete.

 

[cookyy2k]

Another issue this raises is that EA will use the lower than expected sales figures of this title as rationale for producing more cookie cutter FPS games which sell. I think they're hamstringing their own developers so they can point to this as an example of what happens when they create non mainstream titles

That plus pirates, so they can go with more intrusive DRM and more feeling like its entire fan base are criminals.

 

[likalaruku]

Judging by the responses, I suspect EA may "make adjustments" after poorer than expected launch sales. My internet IS on all day, so it doesn't bother me.

 

[Sansha]

Oh good. Another chance for pirates to try and justify their pirating of every game they see.

"This is why people pirate, herp derp! My internet is bad, so I, like, can't play my game I paid for and stuff. I won't get it this then I guess. Or maybe crack it or something. *goes to pirate half the Steam library*"

Ugh.

This.

I don't see the problem with staying connected to the internet all the time. Every single person I know is only offline when their computer is turned off because with even the cheapest modern broadband, staying online all the time is easy.

I do feel for the people with unfixable crappy connections, but like OP said, Steam does the same thing and nobody complains. Same with Blizzard and Battle.net - playing SC2 single-player requires being online all the time, then Diablo3 does the same thing and - oh noes!
And really, you can blame the pirates for stuff like this. They have nobody but themselves to blame for all this DRM rubbish.

That said, I don't even touch EA games anymore. They're a company too obsessed with their bottom line (as a businessman I somewhat empathize), but they take it way too far and end up driving away customers. I wish Will Wright was still running the show at Maxis.

Origin sucks. Stick your games on Steam and call it a day already.

 

[Gather]

I wonder who else thinks the phrase "although it's a possibility in the future" can easily translate to: "We don't actually plan to put it in but we will say this to quell the fans but they'll have to settle for a mod-less experience after launch because it's too difficult to code it in."

 

[Vault101]

hahahahahahahaha..yeah

fuck that shit
no seriously, this is downright insulting

Oh good. Another chance for pirates to try and justify their pirating of every game they see.

"This is why people pirate, herp derp! My internet is bad, so I, like, can't play my game I paid for and stuff. I won't get it this then I guess. Or maybe crack it or something. *goes to pirate half the Steam library*"

Ugh.

its not pirates trying to justify priacy

I was a PC gamer who NEVER pirated, I bought my games..I put up with shitty DRM anyone acuses me of being a pirate they can go fuck themself preacher style (not you nessicaryly)

why punish your paying customers? pirates gonna gonna pirate...

its the princple....I dont want to HAVE to do this...I dont want my game to be unplayable if there is a problem with the internet or they finally shut downt he servers

or say I take my laptop somwhere where there isnt internet

 

[Ghost77]

If you want to see sad, this is a pretty good day on my internet connection.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1862194943.png

So no new Simcity for me.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Wrong. I can set Steam to play in offline mode. I can play Half-Life 2 without being on the internet. I can play anything except my multiplayer games with Steam in offline mode.

One is an option, the other is mandatory. Big difference.

That's odd. In my country, I can put Origin into offline mode and still access Mass Effect 3 with no problems at all. But then, in my country it's generally considered rude to begin a conversation with someone by saying "WRONG."

Probably not a connection between the two. I'm just saying.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Good lord. How do you even manage to put up articles on here?

Some days are better than others. And on days when people say to me things like, hey, here's the link to our multi-gigabyte Witcher 2 press build, let us know what you think, I just cry.

 

[Rouzeki]

I don't see the problem with staying connected to the internet all the time. Every single person I know is only offline when their computer is turned off because with even the cheapest modern broadband, staying online all the time is easy.

true, except sometimes broadband is just an impossibility.

I do feel for the people with unfixable crappy connections, but like OP said, Steam does the same thing and nobody complains. Same with Blizzard and Battle.net - playing SC2 single-player requires being online all the time, then Diablo3 does the same thing and - oh noes!
And really, you can blame the pirates for stuff like this. They have nobody but themselves to blame for all this DRM rubbish.

Steam and even SC2 aren't EXACTLY like this. at least with those two you can set up a play offline option, allowing you to at least salvage some of the game to play offline. granted to constantly maintain SC2's it would be more then a hassle, but its at least THERE.

Im one of the Diablo III ragers in part because there IS no wiggle room. trying to play it single player (unless they have countermeasures for connection issues) will put you in positions where a rogue connection drop could force a black hole on however much time of dungeon crawling you've been doing. sorry about the rare sword, it's gone because your ISP or B.net took a random dive.

whats wrong with maintaining those options anyway? its Diablo 3! long awaited sequel with more then a fair number of people loving the prior 2. if they just left offline only single player in, where would be the next best reason for not liking it? the change in tone? i don't know...

ugh, back on topic before i go further off it.

That said, I don't even touch EA games anymore. They're a company too obsessed with their bottom line (as a businessman I somewhat empathize), but they take it way too far and end up driving away customers. I wish Will Wright was still running the show at Maxis.

Origin sucks. Stick your games on Steam and call it a day already.

This i completely agree with. they've been playing ball in such a fashion you just don't want to be anywhere near them. forcing origin on people will not help it considering the twitch anger EA already generates as is.

and for the post above me---

Good lord. How do you even manage to put up articles on here?

Some days are better than others. And on days when people say to me things like, hey, here's the link to our multi-gigabyte Witcher 2 press build, let us know what you think, I just cry.

i feel like just drinking to that pain. my worst days with connections are 1g-3g smartphone connections in the aforementioned Dead zone i may soon live in. the signal wavers so much, I wonder why i bother, but some articles must be read, and at least one ZP must be watched.

...that probably didn't help, but I feel th' pain, even if its a little bit.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I do feel for the people with unfixable crappy connections, but like OP said, Steam does the same thing and nobody complains. Same with Blizzard and Battle.net - playing SC2 single-player requires being online all the time, then Diablo3 does the same thing and - oh noes!

Steam and Origin don't do the same thing, though. They do use the internet for DRM but it can be disabled in offline mode and even in regular, online mode, they don't crap out by default if the connection drops. They're both problematic for similar reasons, but not as bad as the always-on DRM practiced by Ubisoft, and now Blizzard and seemingly EA.

 

[Xangi]

To take a horrible 4chan meme and use it, 0/10 would not play.

But seriously, people should stop buying these games, and this would stop happening, but every time people say they're going to make a stand and boycott something, it just falls through and they buy it anyway. Pathetic really.

 

[Something Amyss]

To be clear, this isn't the same as the usual quickie call home to Origin that drives so many people to distraction; that's not really a big deal, relatively speaking, since it's exactly the same thing Steam does and nobody seems to have a problem with that.

Methinks thou doest underestimate internet hypocrisy.

I agree that this is a bigger issue, as my internet connection drops sometimes 5-6 times a day. This is a different scenario that screws over anyone whose connection is anything less than 100%. And we've seen the servers on the host end go down before, too. Assassin's Creed 2 had this problem almost immediately.

The US infrastructure is a joke. While I'm less familiar with other countries, we're a big market.

Oh well, I've been playing Sim City 4 since a Steam sale a couple of years ago, and I'm pretty sure I can enjoy it for years to come.