Just have to say on word really "local server".Ilikemilkshake said: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.Mr.Tea said:if modders/pirates can make Diablo 3 work offline (they can), then the actual developers sure as hell can and much faster as well.
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.
There is not a massive supercomputer doing mega calculations that our computers could not handle, it would not be cost effective. The server only notices you have gone if you disconnect for 3 minuets, so no, all important calculations (sim pathing / city development) are done on your end, otherwise as soon as you disconnect and stop receiving server data your city would not change.
So, whatever program that handles the rest of this info (leader-boards / achievements / some region communication and misc functions), would quite happily run on your PC as a "local server". This holds true to Diablo 3, Sim City, world of warcraft and pretty much any other online game.
**********Quick Update. I frequent a forum (not sure the rules on linking to other websites so will leave it out for now) where a player has clocked the internet usage on loading up a city, it weighs in around +50mb each time, so its no wonder the servers are being hammered. Here is the quote
"Doesn't help that anytime you try to join a stupid game it downloads all your "savegame" from the stupid EA server and its liked 50mb+ of crap that should be on your comp in the ****** first place."