Thousands Sign Petition Demanding Removal of SimCity DRM

[Ympulse]

That's right. Blame EA for Maxis' decision. Go internet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxis

Do educate yourself. Maxis IS EA, they have been for 16 years now.

Please educate yourself, Maxis operates as an independent company with EA proper as the publisher.

Just because the owning majority of the company is EA doesn't mean that they're EA. Significant difference.

But hey, 14 year-old logic is superior to someone that's worked with both companies. you're right.

 

[GonvilleBromhead]

That's right. Blame EA for Maxis' decision. Go internet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxis

Do educate yourself. Maxis IS EA, they have been for 16 years now.

Please educate yourself, Maxis operates as an independent company with EA proper as the publisher.

Just because the owning majority of the company is EA doesn't mean that they're EA. Significant difference.

But hey, 14 year-old logic is superior to someone that's worked with both companies. you're right.

But the servers and the customer service policies (where the vast majority of the problems originate) are EA's responsibility

 

[MorganL4]

Well the DRM bascially stopped me from buying it..... Historically, SimCity was always the game I played when my internet connection was not functioning. I was really excited to see the next installment until I read about the always online requirement, at which point I determined that I would not be purchasing it.

 

[Ranorak]

You know what I'm going to do?

Buy it next week.
The server rush has probably died down by then, and I get to play a nice multiplayer City builder.

...well.. I'm not sure I'm going to buy it just yet, wanna do a little bit more research into the gameplay.
Watch some reviews, but one thing I won't do is piss and moan about the Always On feature in a multiplayer.

God, it's like demanding you can play WoW without going online.

 

[Erttheking]

you have no right to complain or *****

Actually I have every right to do just that when I find faults with something I have purchased. Nobody has to do anything (unless their actions are criminal of course) But I am well within my rights to complain about a product if I purchase it and find it lacking. This is how products are advanced, by consumers who purchase your product or service provide you with feedback on how said product or service can be improved. So not only do you not understand how consumer rights work, but you are actively stomping on the advancement of the products we buy. SHAME ON YOU!

No, you have no right to complain when you buy something knowing full well that it has a certain feature. You aren't allowed to complain because you already told the company that you accept what they're doing and support it.

I'm sorry, but who are you to determine what people are "allowed" to do?

 

[Erttheking]

There's definitely a double standard as far as I've seen, when Blizzard did it with Diablo 3 thousands of people were actually DEFENDING them saying "it's always like this on launch day, don't worry things will get sorted".
But when EA do it then burn them down with fucking torches, eh?

Remember JimQ's boycotting episode? What did he say it is best to do in times like these again...buy the game, and THEN whine about it? But still buy the game, right? I honestly don't know whether that's going to work on EA.

Uh...quick question. How do you know that the thousands of people defending Diablo and the thousands of people angry at Sim City are the same people?

 

[Collin Stewart]

It can't work. They designed the game so that a lot of the calculations take place server side to make piracy impossible, for the same reason they can't remove it because they designed it from the ground up to run like this

the issue with that being is the eventually a pirate will mod the game to make the calculations client side instead of server side.
i mean dear lord there are pirates playing WOW right now what makes you think that server side city building will stop it?

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Uh...quick question. How do you know that the thousands of people defending Diablo and the thousands of people angry at Sim City are the same people?

They're PEOPLE, isn't that enough >_>
It can still be called a double standard even if different groups of people are doing it, double standards amongst people!

 

[Erttheking]

Uh...quick question. How do you know that the thousands of people defending Diablo and the thousands of people angry at Sim City are the same people?

They're PEOPLE, isn't that enough >_>
It can still be called a double standard even if different groups of people are doing it, double standards amongst people!

It seems less like a double standard and more like people with different opinions.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Not gonna happen. The game is designed as a multiplayer experience.

 

[Covarr]

A few people have pointed out that the DRM can't be removed, because all the simulation is server-side. Well allow me to retort:

Your favorite first person shooters are also unplayable when not connected to servers. They achieve an offline single player mode by running a local server. Maxis/EA could definitely do this, the only disadvantage being higher system requirements for offline mode. They won't do it, but they're certainly capable, without having to do any significant redesigning of the game.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

if modders/pirates can make Diablo 3 work offline (they can), then the actual developers sure as hell can and much faster as well.

I wonder how many times i'm going to have to say this today but Diablo 3 is a different game. It was always-on primarily because of the auction house, not because it 'needed' to be. In its current state, SimCity does 'need' you to be online because they've designed it so that many things run server side. This is evident by the fact that they've cut things like cheetah speed to reduce server stress.

Even if they could just flip a switch and make the game work offline, they're not going to do that because it would mean admitting they didn't need it to be online, which would mean taking responsibility for this mess.

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

The sad part is that all this drama could've been avoided if EA had given the game a self-sustaining single player mode offline to allow players to play the game traditionally; built immensely large and intricate cities, but with all the added benefits of the game. If the DRM only applied to the *optional* multiplayer with the bells and whistles, the issues would be forgivable. Unfortunately, all arrows point to an attempt to regulate players to prevent piracy at the expense of the consumer, rather than making a comprehensive experience that all players faithful to the franchise could enjoy. Making a game like the above is so easy for EA.

 

[Atmos Duality]

A neat gesture, but useless in practice.
SimCity is built around the entire game being controlled by EA from the ground up.

Removing the always-online component is akin to removing the skeleton from your own body.

 

[llyrnion]

Vote! That's what your wallet is for...

 

[Durrsly]

Not gonna happen. The game is designed as a multiplayer experience.

SimCity 2000 Network Edition. No DRM. No bullshit.

 

[TheComfyChair]

The problem is that the cities are stored on the server... This is like saying 'make an MMO work offline'.

It's not a case of removing a check in a launch program, it's a redevelopment of the game. So i don't think this is going to happen. It would be good if it did, but i doubt it will.

If the developers did their job properly then it would be a lot easier than you think to make it offline only, or even have the option to be offline while maintaining the ability to connect to servers.

I'm making assumptions here, but basically, the client and the server side of things will have different applications. The client will have to find what servers are available and connect dynamically. There will be more than 1 server, so it's not like this will be entirely hard coded. The server will then deal with all the server side stuff.

To make it offline only, EA could potentially include the server side of things with the game the player has, and then simply have the offline server mode connect to it.


As I said, I'm making assumptions here, but saying it is impossible is completely wrong, when in fact it probably wouldn't be that difficult to do.

Personally, I don't see why they didn't just include offline mode as standard. After all, it should be up to the player whether they play online or offline.

I didn't say, nor imply, that is was impossible I said it wasn't a case of 'hey guys, we turned off a small check in the launcher'. Therefore it'll take a redevelopment (note: not an overhaul of the entire system, but some work) of some core features of the game, therefore EA probably wont do it. Mainly because, well, they already have the money by now and they couldn't *really* care less.

We all said the simcity launch would be horrendous, yet millions have still bought it. So, in the end, all that's happened is that it's proven people are happy to pay money for massive inconvenience. I can understand diablo 3, to a degree, since people thought 'blizzard must be able to handle launches by now', but EA? They can't even get battlefield to launch without massive problems for a week and most of those servers are hosted by third parties!

All this is proving that people don't even take the 'once bitten, twice shy' approach to this kind of thing. But i can understand why, simcity looks like a great game and maybe, once it's on sale, i'll buy it even with the server hosted cities. But buying a game like this on launch is just asking for trouble.

Like i also said previously, nice if they did do it, and i'd then buy the game, but meh, somehow i doubt it'll happen. An online petition, a decent number of which will have already paid (and are therefore worthless to EA now aside from microtransaction revenue) wont change much either, in my opinion.