SimCity Expansion Could Add Offline Mode

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Expansion Could Add Offline Mode

A hypothetical SimCity expansion just might turn the game into everything fans wanted it to be.[/B]

They could, but they won't. Because of MONIES!

Of course, that was a joke. They won't because sim city is MMO.

 

[Sansha]

An expansion.

They're releasing an expansion pack, which they absolutely will charge for, which makes the game what it always should have been.

This is so laughably typical of EA. So glad to be completely done with that company and to have invested exactly zero dollars in this SimCity apocalypse.

I don't understand why people keep buying EA products then ***** themselves silly when they get screwed, again.

 

[Akexi]

Oh my, they're willing to sacrifice their artistic vision? Shocking.

 

[Lo Flying Frying Pan]

It is a shambles of a game. I am grateful that my friend took the bullet on this one over me. If they intend to sell this for profit, then I find it an outrage. Most of these features seem better suited for the initial release. I wasn't fool-hardy enough to buy into this bad joke when it released and I'm still not interested. If the expansion fixed this train-wreck's problems, then I'd only find myself forgiving if it was handed over to the current game-owners for free.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Considering that gamers are apparently responsible for EA getting named the worst company 2 years in a row, I might find it humorous if EA decides to slap them in the face with an xpac that "fixes" the "problems" people had with SimCity to begin with.
At this point I doubt they really care about looking good to the public anymore, they have Star Wars on lock, they still sell a lot of copies of their bigger franchises. And I'm sure they believe that the vocal wing of the gaming community is a very loud minority, hence the couldn't be paid to give a shit whether or not they're liked.

 

[Snazzymathematics]

Download update to play offline, because logic.

OT: Isn't the Xbox One doing that?

 

[A-D.]

Optimism. Ah, you poor, poor fellow. You have not yet seen the world with eyes as old to remember EA in all its terror.

In short, they will fucking charge for it. Honestly, by now, SimCity is The Sims, the same expansion-policy and all. Its actually funny, given all the nasty fallout from the release, the server failures etc, when you go to any store to buy that game, its still full price. Hell i've even seen sell them their DLC for a higher price than they would prolly cost online (and thats basicly graphics).

So yeah, you better believe that EA will try to squeeze as much money out of people as they can, for as long as they can. Aint like Sims 3 now costs 600+ bucks for basegame and all the other crap, on top of asking for more money so they can sell you crappy furniture online for like 5 dollar for a fucking couch.

Don't mistake my post for optimism. I don't have the faintest hope in EA's ability to "do the right thing". I've been around more than long enough to watch them destroy just about every franchise I've loved.

I'm simply stating that if, on the off-chance a brick fell from the sky and knocked some sense into their heads, they would at least merit props for doing something that was unambiguously correct for the first time in several years.

Ah, my bad. The first line was actually sarcasm, the rest was more general. Should've made that more clear.

But if a brick fell from the sky and knocked some sense into their heads, they'd be dead, because the brick would be the size of the moon. The only thing that will help EA is failing epicly and imploding and then picking up the pieces and restructuring itself to work in the new market.

As long as they hold onto their "old world view", nothing will change, even if you literally slap sense into every single last one of them.

 

[KDR_11k]

At very least they should allow handling the multiple cities of a region as districts of one big city so you get full sharing of money, power, water, etc. Currently you can't buy all surplus water output in one city with one other city, I guess because it wants to give every city a chance at buying water. Doesn't work so well if you're trying to have two cities cooperate tightly. So they should be handled like the islands in Anno, not completely different matches.

 

[Donzacuceron]

Of course it won't change a thing about EA flaming being fashionable, but if implemented this certainly would transform SimCity in a pretty good game.

The logical thing here would be to assume that maybe they'd even learn something from it as well, but honestly... I doubt it.

If it was called Sim Town I would be inclined to agree.But it isn't.It's called SimCity but this isn't SimCity, SimCity is about doing what you want not what you have too and If I want a metropolis New York type City well I'm S.O.L. aren't I.What I am saying is unless they make the cities bigger and the A.I. less mentally deficient this is in no way a Sim City game even less a good SimCity game.

 

[Kargathia]

Of course it won't change a thing about EA flaming being fashionable, but if implemented this certainly would transform SimCity in a pretty good game.

The logical thing here would be to assume that maybe they'd even learn something from it as well, but honestly... I doubt it.

If it was called Sim Town I would be inclined to agree.But it isn't.It's called SimCity but this isn't SimCity, SimCity is about doing what you want not what you have too and If I want a metropolis New York type City well I'm S.O.L. aren't I.What I am saying is unless they make the cities bigger and the A.I. less mentally deficient this is in no way a Sim City game even less a good SimCity game.

In case it escaped your attention: drastically expanding city size did feature in their survey.

Also, given it's a survey, and not an announcement, they don't need to mention them cleaning up AI. Unequivocal improvements like that (some would consider it bugfixing) aren't exactly something you need to poll your playerbase about.

That's of course not a guarantee it's actually happening, just that it'd be outside the scope of this topic.

 

[Jadedvet]

Traffic is still broken, RCI is still broken. Removing the login and increasing city limits are good ideas and should have been done from the start but now, its just not enough to make me re install.

 

[unstabLized]

Wait... Expansion? Not a patch? As in, they might/probably will charge for it?

No.. Just... No... Too little, too late, and it still comes off as a dick move to charge for something that can be implemented easily with a patch.

 

[conmag9]

So, we'd have to pay extra to be able to actually play the game the way any sane person would have designed it?

Screw you sideways with a rusty poleaxe, EA.

CAPTCHA: Thick and thin. Yes, they are rather thick in the head, and thin on good ideas, aren't they?

 

[Olas]

So if making an offline mode constitutes an expansion are they basically admitting now that making it required in the first place was a contraction?

 

[Olrod]

Its broken. Its been broken well before the marketing scheme they called a beta.

Too little, too late. Simcity likely isn't making EA money and now they want a way out of the server costs.

As it is, reddit and the official forums are dead. Most of the threads are people bashing it, the new patch fixing nothing, or saying they stopped playing.

I don't even think anyone plays anymore. If you try to make games a service, you better hope you can offer actual service instead of excuses and half baked ideas.

Did I just spend 5 minutes watching a video stating how SimCity is broken because of the way the game displays the cars? Seriously? The way it shows the traffic?

That's so much of a non-issue it almost detracts from the validity of the legitimate complaints against the game, such as the pathfinding. You know, the way the cars actually move around the game world, rather than the spacing:speed ratio and such.

 

[Avalanche91]

I don't get it..... How am I supposed to play my MMO offline?

 

[Strazdas]

yes, the whole league of 5 players still playing may enjoy this.
the offline "impossible" mode is finally out. and cities without limits will not really work due to lifecycle in the game and theres no avoiding traffic jams.

Also, can't you do offline mode already via some tinkering?

I'm pretty sure somebody hacked that less then a week after the release.

if i remember correctly it took around 2 weeks till offline version showed up on torrent sites. at least the one whos forum i read (its sad when the best forum in your local language is on a torrent site.....)
edit: doublechecked, a month not two weeks......

Typical EA, re-releasing a crack as DLC

ouch, that was so hot it set whole (sim)city on fire.

2x the city size is still TINY. Why can't you allow SimCity 4 size as long as your PC can handle it?

if anything the "plot size" should be an option in world creator/chooser. and the more precide choices the better. the "infinite space til lyour pc freezes" are no good for low end pcs and long gameplay, but if you woudl be able to limit yourself aritificially to, say, 5 times the size of current cities, then you can still run it and still ahve a long gameplay hitting the walls of the map. I like what OpenTTD did with their map size choices, you can chose one of 10 sizes in height and weight going from 64 grids to 4096. so you could make a 64x64, a 4096x4096 or a 4096x46 if you dared the challenge of logistics. and the 64 was a quick few hour game while 4096 ones could last you weeks (like real weeks of gameplay) till explint even aprtially. was fun logging with 2 friends in a 1024x1024 map competing for area and then hoping we dont kill eachother businesses overnight i won by the sheer fact of finding a nice stable market and nolifing

2) Was their initial surge of players lost like SW:TOR's player base after the first six months?

in comaprisong to SimCity, SW:TOR had a very lenghty lifecycle, if you get my meaning.

I wouldn't give any praise for this, Hackers and code breakers groups just finally revealed they have a working origin crack to make Simcity offline. This was revealed late last week. People can play Simcity 5 offline with a crack now, so what does EA do? Remove the DRM to try to get some good praise.

erm what? late last week. since i dont download, ill need a moment to check where i saw it last time.
2013-06-10
16:52:44
Yeah..... took them a month. (and it has patch 1,2 cracked too at least judging from the title), whatever that patch brings (i really dont read patchnotes)

OT: Isn't the Xbox One doing that?

Yes, the first launch of Xbone will require internet to download a patch that allows you to play offline. because they went 180 after the machine was already built. and yes, thats the logic they use, sicne you know, everything is conencted all the time now right? right? hey where are you going?

 

[hooblabla6262]

Did they really need a survey to figure out that people would like all of these features?
Makes you wonder if this survey is even real. Or if EA is that dense.

Anyhoo, I bought the damn game. It's fun and broken. I'll build a city till the traffic slows my fire service, then watch the whole thing burn. Great burning-city simulator.

We should draw up some sort of video game industry standard for good business practices, and force it down the industries throat. Out of love.