SimCity

[Loony BoB]

Gamasutra - News - Report: Maxis developing SimCity 5, featuring new Glassbox engine (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/163430/Report_Maxis_developing_SimCity_5_featuring_new_Glassbox_engine.php)

Yay!

[Pike]

I heard about this! Hux went and looked it up on one of the SimCity 4 sperg forums and found a very roughly translated (from German) article as well as a lot of concept art.

First Image of SimCity 5, from German magazine GameStar (http://www.simtropolis.com/news/_/first-image-of-simcity-5-from-german-magazine-gamestar-r139)

Let's just hope it doesn't turn into a Societies/Spore.

[Jessweeee♪]

Yay! I used to watch my grandpa play Sim City when I was super tiny.

[Old Manus]

I just came a little.

[Dignified Pauper]

Well, here comes another waste of time. SC4 was so amazing... ugh. I'm going to need to build such a perfect city. Hopefully, they fix traffic problems so I don't need mods to manage traffic.

[edczxcvbnm]

I am a wait and see on this. I loved Sim City 3000 but I loathed 4. I didn't like the way they handled road building and zoning at all. This wasn't a problem for most people but I disliked it that much. I also felt a lot of what they added didn't really add that much.

I have CitiesXL and that takes to a SimCity sort of thing that I like.

I also had no problem with Sim Societies. It was a fun experiment in a different way than what people were use to. I had fun corrupting sections of my society and watch things clash.

[Jiro]

Been a while since I played, maybe I should pick it up when it drops and build a city just to ravage it with disasters.

[Pike]

http://i.imgur.com/sjmcb.png

Launch arcologies confirmed :hyper:

[Rostum]

It looks amazing, I can't wait!

[Madame Adequate]

SimCity | The Android's Closet (http://www.theandroidscloset.com/2012/03/simcity/)

[Dignified Pauper]

The trailer was launched. I'm too lazy to link. Note, it is NOT in game graphics. It's just a trailer.

[Formalhaut]

39741
It looks like something from a Disney movie, but never fear. This is in fact a screenshot of the latest in the Sim City franchise, after a pretty incredible ten year absence. To be honest, I forgot all about Sim City, but the news have sparked new interest in me, and if you are a fan of any of "The Sim" series, so will you.

But first, some of you may be wondering what the hell I am on about. Well, the Sim City series or game began way back in 1989 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(1989_video_game)) on the PC, and boy was it different.

39742
My, that's quite the gridlock there


Naturally, the series has progressed from there, and as of the future release of this new game, there will be a full six games. But what has remained constant throughout the entire series is that the game is up to you. There's no real "story" to it; play it how you want. If your a fan of nurturing your sims with managing your environment, transportation and education, then credit to you. If you prefer a "Jenga" style game where you build your city then destroy it by invoking God's wrath, then by all means!

This latest game, slated for release in March of this year, continues with the tradition of it's predecessors, but enhances it with a fresh modern facelift.

Perhaps the most striking difference is Maxis's new GlassBox (http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/08/simcity-inside-the-glassbox-engine/) game engine, and it allows you to visualise data in a very professional way. Do you remember those graphics that News programmes sometimes use to illustrate statistical data about how badly your country of origin is doing? Well the GlassBox engine does just that! Things like energy, wealth and even sewage can be tracked.

39743
It certainly looks slick, and will help aid more "visual" players who may find it harder to truly grasp numbers. SimCity also helps new players with the new neighboured city approach. Basically, your city will exist alongside two others, and you can trade resources, purchase electricity and the like. If your city is struggling, a friendly neighbour may very well save your hide.

Another new feature is specialisation. Whereas before, your city was just a generic creation, now you can focus your city on focusing on specialising it as a tourist hotspot, or as a thriving business city.

The latest SimCity game also expands upon the online gameplay. While SimCity 4 touched on it, this one first begins by allowing you to collaborate with other users with resources and other stuff. Negotiating an exchange of fuel for example becomes more interesting when it's between two humans, not an A.I. There are other benefits too: the whole "cloud" business is utilised once again; your city is stored in the cloud when your offline but continues to trade with other cities while your gone traversing in your own. Neat idea.

However, one thing about this multi-player aspect that I am concerned about is that you have to be online at all times, even to play single-player. Fans of Diablo III (which is mainly single-player with some multi-player to it) were less than impressed (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/05/16/the-real-reason-there-will-never-be-offline-single-player-in-diablo-3/) whenever the servers went down, even if they were playing single-player.


39744
Oops!


One potential problem I could see is me working nicely on my city, only for the server to go all wonky, and me consequently losing my progress. It's only a small concern, and I am sure that Maxis have thought up of contingencies, but I do admit "always-on DRM" does sound slightly annoying. Still, with the benefits of staying online in SimCity I guess it's worth having.

To conclude then, this latest SimCity game certainly appeals to me. I love tinkering with my own creations and letting my happy Sims travel around the city. Some may call it escapism, I call it letting my creativity flow. Questions still abound of course which is to be expected with a game yet to release, but the details that have flooded so far have certainly reignited my love for all things simulation.

But don't just take my word for it. Below, a video by the creative director of the game. It definitely does more than my simple text can.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aluNM_2G-cc


Main source: SimCity preview: Hands-on with EA's fascinating city-building sandbox (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a453819/simcity-preview-hands-on-with-eas-fascinating-city-building-sandbox.html)

[Fynn]

I've been watching this for a while. Might get it, though I've never played SimCity before. But I love the Sims, especially 3 :D

[Formalhaut]

I've been watching this for a while. Might get it, though I've never played SimCity before. But I love the Sims, especially 3 :D

I loved the SimCity series for the strategy, and the Sims series for the sheer pleasure of making my Sims happy. :)

In case your wondering why this piece was so damn long, I actually wrote this for the frontsite, completely forgetting it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy or Square-Enix XD

[Skyblade]

I've been watching this for a while. Might get it, though I've never played SimCity before. But I love the Sims, especially 3 :D

I loved the SimCity series for the strategy, and the Sims series for the sheer pleasure of making my Sims happy. :)

In case your wondering why this piece was so damn long, I actually wrote this for the frontsite, completely forgetting it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy or Square-Enix XD

That makes two such articles today, the first being the Mt. Coronet one.

Is the site growing past Square-Enix and Final Fantasy..?

[Mirage]

Forced online. I dunno man, sounds sucky. I'm fine with online activation upon installation, but forced to be always online is too much.

Sure, you can argue that everyone is online nowadays, but what about when you because of unforseen reasons lose internet access? It doesn't happen often, but the few times it does happen, people tend to want to play single player games, seeing as they can't play multiplayer anymore.

[Formalhaut]

Forced online. I dunno man, sounds sucky. I'm fine with online activation upon installation, but forced to be always online is too much.

Sure, you can argue that everyone is online nowadays, but what about when you because of unforseen reasons lose internet access? It doesn't happen often, but the few times it does happen, people tend to want to play single player games, seeing as they can't play multiplayer anymore.

That's what I was pointing out. Many fans of Diablo III were rightly aggravated by always-on DRM. I've never played the game, but a quick google search easily led me to juicy information.

It remains to be seen how much of a problem it will be. Still, it IS SimCity. I'm willing to have some aggravation for some city building.

[Ouch!]

EA is claiming that part of the reason that internet is required is that constant connection allows them to run a lot of the game server side, which has given them greater flexibility regarding what they're allowed to add (specifically down to how every single Sim that ends up living in your city will follow unique protocols). I have no problem with it requiring a constant internet connection. I'm excited.

[Old Manus]

I seriously, seriously want this game to not suck (like Societies did). I poured years of my life into SC3000, and it is still a magnificent game (I always preferred it to SC4). I can't wait. I read through a few of those AMAs they did on reddit over the last year and it definitely sounds good, but they were always sure to avoid answering questions like 'Is it going to be casual nonsense like Societies or are you bringing it back to the proper simulation of SC3 & 4', by repeating that they were trying to cater 'to both audiences' and throwing in weasel words like 'accessible', which raised my eyebrow.

Aside from all that though, the always-online connection thing is just retarded and annoys me greatly.


EA is claiming that part of the reason that internet is required is that constant connection allows them to run a lot of the game server side, which has given them greater flexibility regarding what they're allowed to add (specifically down to how every single Sim that ends up living in your city will follow unique protocols)Haha, did they actually say that? What a load of obfuscatory bullshit. We all know why they've made it mandatory.

[Laddy]

I can't wait. Let's pray it's good.

[Loony BoB]

So... hearing both good and bad things. Anyone get it? What's the verdict?

[Old Manus]

You were hearing good things?

[Loony BoB]

Penny Arcade. Gabe seems to love it. :p

[Ouch!]

Apparently the game is pretty fantastic if you can play it.

That's a big if in the United States. Apparently the EU and Asia servers are doing fine.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I had (have?) the beta/demo and it was fun. I might wait until it becomes cheap to get the actual game though.

[DMKA]

All I've heard about it is how disastrously unplayable it is since EA did some BS where you have to constantly be connected to the internet to play it even though it's single player, and for some reason the servers kick people offline repeatedly.

And then there's this:

EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban | Gamechup | Video Game News, Reviews, Features, Guides (http://www.gamechup.com/ea-refuses-to-refund-user-for-simcity-threatens-account-ban/)

[Loony BoB]

Wow.

Okay, I don't think I'll feel so bad if I, uh, look for a way to try before I buy. :shifty:

[Formalhaut]

I'll wait for the price drop.

That, and when I can upgrade my computer to something half-decent. :p

[Madame Adequate]

EA has also disabled the fastest game speed to reduce the load on their servers.

Worst launch since Challenger.

[Ouch!]

Wow.

Okay, I don't think I'll feel so bad if I, uh, look for a way to try before I buy. :shifty:
I think you're missing the part where it requires connection to a server with an authenticated account.

[DMKA]

Wow.

Okay, I don't think I'll feel so bad if I, uh, look for a way to try before I buy. :shifty:
I think you're missing the part where it requires connection to a server with an authenticated account.

And devs wonder why everyone hates DRM.

[Skyblade]

Wow.

Okay, I don't think I'll feel so bad if I, uh, look for a way to try before I buy. :shifty:
I think you're missing the part where it requires connection to a server with an authenticated account.

Find a friend with the game? Y'know, if any of your friends were stupid enough to buy it?

Yeah, this launch has been a trainwreck. Man, I wish EA would die.

[Loony BoB]

I'm living in hope that 'workarounds' will be made.

[Skyblade]

I'm living in hope that 'workarounds' will be made.

Eh... I really hate piracy. If a game's not worth buying, it's not worth playing. I'm certainly not going to reinforce the need for companies to make more DRM and authentication systems.

And Penny Arcade's "good things" were given with the caveat that they had no experience with the online section (since the review version didn't have it) and were mostly extrapolating potential. Single player's fun, apparently, but it's not single player, so...

Things have changed (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/amazon-pulls-simcity-ea-removes-features-from-the-game-everything-else-is-f).

[Loony BoB]

I'm not a massive proponent of piracy in the gaming industry by any means, but if it's the only way to make a game work then perhaps the developers should think very, very long and hard on such matters. I'm hearing that there are all kinds of other problems (eg. size of areas available to build on) so I'll probably just not get it at all.

[Dignified Pauper]

Size isn't a big deal. it's the broken simulation, pathfinding of traffic, and bad region play. It has all the elements of being incredible, it's just that they haven't implemented the code well. It's really really buggy.

Although, they have thrown a lot of support behind it. It literally gets better everyday I play.

[Slothy]

I'm not a massive proponent of piracy in the gaming industry by any means, but if it's the only way to make a game work then perhaps the developers should think very, very long and hard on such matters. I'm hearing that there are all kinds of other problems (eg. size of areas available to build on) so I'll probably just not get it at all.

When it comes to game releases this horrendous, or even simply cases where pirating nets you a superior product to the purchased version, I think companies deserve to have their stuff pirated. People downloading an illegal version of the game shouldn't get a better user experience than paying customers, ever. Which is why I generally don't like DRM. More often than not it punishes paying customers with a shitty experience so that it can fail to prevent piracy. And given the track record so far, always online methods of the sort used by Simcity do even more to ruin the user experience all so they can be next to impossible to pirate.

But I'd love to get an honest answer from EA about whether they feel having a disaster of a launch which has seen such wonderful things as disabling features in desperate attempts to get it to run, as well as pulling their advertising of the game and Amazon refusing to sell it for the time being were worth giving the finger to the pirates. Because I really can't see them saying it was worth it if they were going to be honest with themselves.

[Shauna]

Maxis is taking full responsibility (http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/08/rumor-ea-maxis-takes-full-responsibility-for-simcity-issues/), telling people not to blame EA for this mess. Of course, EA are quite happy for the little guy to take the blame for the whole thing.

[Slothy]

Considering Maxis is a subsidiary of EA, them telling people not to blame EA sounds a bit like if my right foot could tell someone not to blame me for kicking them in the testicles.

[Skyblade]

I'm not a massive proponent of piracy in the gaming industry by any means, but if it's the only way to make a game work then perhaps the developers should think very, very long and hard on such matters. I'm hearing that there are all kinds of other problems (eg. size of areas available to build on) so I'll probably just not get it at all.

When it comes to game releases this horrendous, or even simply cases where pirating nets you a superior product to the purchased version, I think companies deserve to have their stuff pirated. People downloading an illegal version of the game shouldn't get a better user experience than paying customers, ever. Which is why I generally don't like DRM. More often than not it punishes paying customers with a troutty experience so that it can fail to prevent piracy. And given the track record so far, always online methods of the sort used by Simcity do even more to ruin the user experience all so they can be next to impossible to pirate.

But I'd love to get an honest answer from EA about whether they feel having a disaster of a launch which has seen such wonderful things as disabling features in desperate attempts to get it to run, as well as pulling their advertising of the game and Amazon refusing to sell it for the time being were worth giving the finger to the pirates. Because I really can't see them saying it was worth it if they were going to be honest with themselves.

So, if I write a book, and someone comes and re-edits it, or adds a chapter, and then gives it away to tons of people, I deserve to have my stuff pilfered because "my" version is inferior?

It's still their intellectual property. Yes, others can improve upon it. Heck, that's why modding communities exist for PC games and have done since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't change the fact that they didn't make the game, and it's not their property.

Justify it however you want, it's just an excuse to steal from the companies. If you decide to play their game, they should get paid for it. There is nothing forcing you to play it. There are tons of other games out there, heck, even free ones. If you decide to use their property, you should pay them for it. Buy the game and then crack or pirate it, and I won't care. But to play it without paying the company is theft, and I won't support it. If you want to punish the company, don't buy it and don't pirate it. Just realize that they made a crappy, extremely sub-par product, but it is still their product, and find something else to play.

[Slothy]

So, if I write a book, and someone comes and re-edits it, or adds a chapter, and then gives it away to tons of people, I deserve to have my stuff pilfered because "my" version is inferior?

Your analogy isn't even close to the same thing as a game with DRM. Now if you released a novel where the last chapter was written in a language you made up and you had to go online with a code which came with the book to get a translation guide which let you translate that last chapter so you could actually read it, then it might be a comparable analogy. Or if you needed to go online to even get the last few chapters of the book, and tough luck for you if the publishers servers are down.

We're not talking about people going and simply adding something to a game to improve it and releasing it free to the whole internet. We're talking about cases where the DRM free pirated copy actually runs better than the purchased version. There is no excuse for that. When it comes to something as completely basic as a game actually running, if the people who download it for free get a copy that runs better than the purchased copy because the DRM has been stripped out then there is something fundamentally wrong, and if nothing else, that company doesn't deserve your business. Because in such circumstances, that would mean they deliberately sold an inferior product to you to try and prevent people from pirating it. But since they failed at preventing that anyway, it just means they knowingly sold you an inferior product to keep investors happy.

Make up any bullshit analogy or misinterpret my argument anyway you please, but my point stands: any company which knowingly sells you an inferior product doesn't deserve your business, and I have no sympathy for them when their game gets cracked and anyone can play it in the way it should have been released to begin with.

And in the case of Simcity that's exactly what EA did: they sold a product they knew wasn't going to be up to snuff. Jim Sterling just recently did a video on the whole debacle which makes the point quite clear in fact. Because some people look at the Simcity release and defend it saying things like "oh, well we knew it was going to have some server problems at launch." And we did. Anyone with half a brain who has seen games release with major always online components like this has seen this happen repeatedly. And that includes EA. Yet they still put it out there without the net code being up to snuff and without enough servers. I find it very unlikely that they didn't see this coming, and yet they were still totally unprepared for it. Sorry, but there is no excuse for selling a shitty product to consumers, and saying you'll make it better at some indeterminate time in the future doesn't make it okay.

The last thing companies that release titles like this deserve is to be paid for it. Whether that means simply not buying it or pirating it, I could care less. The end result to their bottom line is the same. But perhaps the biggest travesty in all of this is that in the long run this might still be a financial success for EA, and the next time they release a game, the majority of people will simply forget this whole mess and jump in with both feet again.

[Loony BoB]

From what I understand, you are buying a book which...

- Requires you to be sitting in a chair in order to read it - you can't lie down and read it, you must be sitting in a chair.
- May on occasion drop out of your hands at certain points of you reading it. If this happens, it also wipes your memory of what you have recently read, forcing you to re-read up to that point and hope that it does not drop out of your hands again.
- Has had some entire (good) chapters removed because they were inconsistent with the other chapters - well, certain sentences were, anyway.
- Is a rather small book compared to similar books you got from this author, yet is the same price. One could argue that the content is better, when you are able to read the content.
- May have some sentences of the book coated in black ink. This is quite accidental, but that's the way it is.
- Most of the issues could potentially be avoided if you were to be able to read it while lying down, however when you lie down the book knows and removes all content from it's pages.

Again, I'm not a big proponent of piracy of video games at all. I pay good money for pretty much every game I play, and I rarely buy pre-owned let alone pirate games. But if it's an option between not being able to play the game and being able to play the game, I would prefer to be able to play the game. I might even pay the money to the company anyway. Lord knows I just spent £9.99 on SimCity 4 Deluxe and it just crashed on me and I lost a lot of progress. =|

[XxSephirothxX]

I got the game cause it came with a $20 credit on Amazon. The launch has, obviously, been a trainwreck, and I didn't try to play it until Friday. And I don't think everything is quite working right yet, so it's hard to tell exactly what elements of the game work on a mechanical level.

The game looks really awesome and it's super fun and satisfying to see your city grow. The big concept is to have lots of cities within a region working interdependently, but that only seemed to kinda be working this weekend. And that causes a lot of frustration, because the city plots aren't big enough for you to build everything in them. But when it's unclear how much you can rely on your neighbors, you can't easily make a city that's just dedicated to tourism, or just focused on industry, or whatever. It's also a design issue that this stuff is so unclear and opaque--I should be able to tell if these systems aren't working cause the servers are off, or if they are working and I just don't understand them.

I had a lot of fun with it over the weekend, and I honestly love all the ideas behind the game in theory. But it seems like the way traffic works--the pathfinding Marick mentioned--is pretty garbage, and there are a lot of frustrating elements that will wreck your city while you're sitting there going "what did I do wrong?" I hope it improves in the next couple weeks.

[Madame Adequate]

I'm not a massive proponent of piracy in the gaming industry by any means, but if it's the only way to make a game work then perhaps the developers should think very, very long and hard on such matters. I'm hearing that there are all kinds of other problems (eg. size of areas available to build on) so I'll probably just not get it at all.

When it comes to game releases this horrendous, or even simply cases where pirating nets you a superior product to the purchased version, I think companies deserve to have their stuff pirated. People downloading an illegal version of the game shouldn't get a better user experience than paying customers, ever. Which is why I generally don't like DRM. More often than not it punishes paying customers with a troutty experience so that it can fail to prevent piracy. And given the track record so far, always online methods of the sort used by Simcity do even more to ruin the user experience all so they can be next to impossible to pirate.

But I'd love to get an honest answer from EA about whether they feel having a disaster of a launch which has seen such wonderful things as disabling features in desperate attempts to get it to run, as well as pulling their advertising of the game and Amazon refusing to sell it for the time being were worth giving the finger to the pirates. Because I really can't see them saying it was worth it if they were going to be honest with themselves.

So, if I write a book, and someone comes and re-edits it, or adds a chapter, and then gives it away to tons of people, I deserve to have my stuff pilfered because "my" version is inferior?

But that's not even close to an analogous situation? It's more like if you release a book that you can only read between 6 and 9 am, only in your back yard, and you have to pay for the last three chapters. And for half the people the words keep sliding off the page when they try to read it even when they meet all those conditions.

And yeah I agree 100% with Vivi. If buying the game is more of a hassle than pirating it, then you've fucked up and deserve the inevitable pirating, because you are punishing paying customers for it. Now look at something like Steam or GoG where you can buy games with a couple of mouse clicks and get them downloaded, installed, and playing with a couple more - I not only happily buy games on services like that but I even repurchase games I already own because it's so much more convenient than finding my old CDs. People will pay for convenience.

[Skyblade]

So, if I write a book, and someone comes and re-edits it, or adds a chapter, and then gives it away to tons of people, I deserve to have my stuff pilfered because "my" version is inferior?

Your analogy isn't even close to the same thing as a game with DRM. Now if you released a novel where the last chapter was written in a language you made up and you had to go online with a code which came with the book to get a translation guide which let you translate that last chapter so you could actually read it, then it might be a comparable analogy. Or if you needed to go online to even get the last few chapters of the book, and tough luck for you if the publishers servers are down.

We're not talking about people going and simply adding something to a game to improve it and releasing it free to the whole internet. We're talking about cases where the DRM free pirated copy actually runs better than the purchased version. There is no excuse for that. When it comes to something as completely basic as a game actually running, if the people who download it for free get a copy that runs better than the purchased copy because the DRM has been stripped out then there is something fundamentally wrong, and if nothing else, that company doesn't deserve your business. Because in such circumstances, that would mean they deliberately sold an inferior product to you to try and prevent people from pirating it. But since they failed at preventing that anyway, it just means they knowingly sold you an inferior product to keep investors happy.

Make up any bulltrout analogy or misinterpret my argument anyway you please, but my point stands: any company which knowingly sells you an inferior product doesn't deserve your business, and I have no sympathy for them when their game gets cracked and anyone can play it in the way it should have been released to begin with.

And in the case of Simcity that's exactly what EA did: they sold a product they knew wasn't going to be up to snuff. Jim Sterling just recently did a video on the whole debacle which makes the point quite clear in fact. Because some people look at the Simcity release and defend it saying things like "oh, well we knew it was going to have some server problems at launch." And we did. Anyone with half a brain who has seen games release with major always online components like this has seen this happen repeatedly. And that includes EA. Yet they still put it out there without the net code being up to snuff and without enough servers. I find it very unlikely that they didn't see this coming, and yet they were still totally unprepared for it. Sorry, but there is no excuse for selling a troutty product to consumers, and saying you'll make it better at some indeterminate time in the future doesn't make it okay.

The last thing companies that release titles like this deserve is to be paid for it. Whether that means simply not buying it or pirating it, I could care less. The end result to their bottom line is the same. But perhaps the biggest travesty in all of this is that in the long run this might still be a financial success for EA, and the next time they release a game, the majority of people will simply forget this whole mess and jump in with both feet again.

Oh, absolutely. I completely agree that EA doesn't deserve our business. If I was talking to EA, I'd be pointing out that if a single person spending a few weeks or a few days with reverse engineered, unfamiliar code can produce a product that runs better than their mutlimillion dollar project involving thousands of workers, they may need to rethink their lives.

I am not, at all, advocating giving EA money.

I'm simply not advocating pirating their products. SimCity is a poor, buggy, extremely broken game produced by a heartless corporation. Don't buy it, by any means.

However, since you don't buy it, you shouldn't be playing it, and that's where the analogy fits. Regardless of how bad a product they release, regardless of what insane restrictions they put on it, it's their property to do with as they please. If I did release a book which required you to be standing up, in an unlit room on Sunday in order to read it, would any of you read it? Would you even bother to find a pirated copy?

I don't agree with their practices, and I don't want them to be rewarded for them. I don't want them to make any money off this game (or any other they release, for that matter). But I still feel that as long as it is their product, they are entitled to monetary compensation from those who buy/use it. If you did buy it, and it doesn't work, by all means, take them to court, or crack/pirate it until you get what you paid for.

But if you haven't paid for the product, you don't get to play it. Otherwise it's theft. It's why we have copyright laws, heck, it's the basis for pretty much all property laws we have. It's not yours. It's not the worlds, it's not the guy who hacks it, it's EA's. They own it, and they can do what they want with it.

Ever anti-piracy feature I've seen in games can be traced back directly to people pirating the game to play it without paying for it. I've seen them all my life, from passwords from the original Civilization's manual to the always-online-DRM that is plaguing current releases. If people didn't pirate these games, these features would be unnecessary.


It's a game. You want to play it. You guys love SimCity and you want to see another installment of it. That's wonderful, and I understand that. But it's not your game unless you pay for it. It's EA's. Hackers may make a better version, and there have been games in the past that have been nigh-unplayable without unofficial patches. But you should still buy the game if you're going to play it, or you're just hurting the industry.

Electronic technology has pushed far beyond the bounds of the law, and it's been in a legal grey area for a long time. The legality of EULA's is largely ambiguous. The rights to resell or return digital property is up in the air. The ability of companies to hamper promised services with thinks like these DRMs is still questionable. These laws are being written and shaped by our actions, as we go forward. When companies can simply point to hundreds of thousands of people pirating their property, it doesn't make our claims of their crippling services look any better.

I like my property to be my property. I don't want DRM or always-online requirements in my games. I don't want companies to be allowed to void accounts and services at a whim. And I don't endorse or agree with behaviour that strengthens their positions. Clearly, if people are pirating their property, steps need to be taken to stop that, and the law will (and should) side with that.

A pirate is a thief. Until and unless you pay for the game, you're stealing it from EA. Sure, EA crippled the game, made it virtually unplayable, and has tormented and harassed users of their services (users who should file for harassment, denial of service, and fraud charges against EA, by the way). But SimCity is still their property. Pay for it or don't play it.



There's got to be an indie developer out there making a similar game. Fund them and hit them up for a SimCity style game. Or go back and play the old ones, or find a similar genre. But don't steal it.

[Quindiana Jones]

But I want to play it. I want to play the game that they should have made. Fortunately, somebody else has fixed all the problems and made the game playable and, oh, how nice! They're giving it away for free.

Don't be so hilariously archaic. The line you've drawn for yourself is non-sensical, at best. If developers make their product as difficult and punishing to use as possible, then they're products should be pirated until they stop being so bloody useless. The way to stop piracy is to make consistently high quality games that are easy to access and reliable to play. Being a whiny bitch has been proven not to work.

Holy trout, I just reread your post, and it gets better. You're fine with piracy as long as people have already bought the game and dicovered it's unplayable? Haha, I'm glad you have money that you can just throw away, but most people don't have the luxury to buy things they know don't work.

Oh, and bollocks to it, I may as well address this as well. If developers made their products more easy to buy and play, then piracy wouldn't be necessary.

[Skyblade]

I'm fine with people getting what they paid for out of a product. If you purchase it and it doesn't work, you're free to do what you need to do to restore functionality. You're also free to employ legal actions against the company that made the faulty product for fraud and denial of service.

You're not free to use a product you haven't paid for. That's theft, regardless of your reasons.

[Quindiana Jones]

Theft is a criminal offense; piracy is a civil offense. You sound like a PSA remix.

[Madame Adequate]

Going to put on my mod hat for a second and gently remind people that whilst it is admittedly pertinent to the discussion, this thread is about SimCity, not the ethics of piracy in general. I think at this point we've derailed enough in that direction. (Although admittedly it's not like anyone's been able to play the game to discuss it :p)

Something I heard which some players have been testing, and as far as I know it's a legit thing, is that the game starts inflating your population figures after you build for a short while. The example I saw was a city whose actual simulated population was approximately 15,000 residents was being displayed as over 100,000. I can understand if things were padded a little but that's 85% of the city not existing, which is a pretty damning indictment of the Glassbox engine.

Also, a Maxis insider has stated that it'd be pretty easy for them to remove the always-on stuff. Maxis Insider Tells RPS: SimCity Servers Not Necessary | Rock, Paper, Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary/)

[edczxcvbnm]

I will just stick to Cities XL. It is basically SimCity, is offline and is fun. I think the game is more akin to Simcity 3000 than simcity 4. I basically say that because I did not like 4 at all :/

[Shauna]

Also, a Maxis insider has stated that it'd be pretty easy for them to remove the always-on stuff. Maxis Insider Tells RPS: SimCity Servers Not Necessary | Rock, Paper, Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary/)

Hahaha, like two days ago Maxis released an official statement that the servers were necessary. I wonder what they will do now that the truth is out!

[kotora]

Going to put on my mod hat for a second and gently remind people that whilst it is admittedly pertinent to the discussion, this thread is about SimCity, not the ethics of piracy in general. I think at this point we've derailed enough in that direction. (Although admittedly it's not like anyone's been able to play the game to discuss it :p)

Something I heard which some players have been testing, and as far as I know it's a legit thing, is that the game starts inflating your population figures after you build for a short while. The example I saw was a city whose actual simulated population was approximately 15,000 residents was being displayed as over 100,000. I can understand if things were padded a little but that's 85% of the city not existing, which is a pretty damning indictment of the Glassbox engine.


Anyone interested in reading about this: EA Forums (http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9359265.page)

What is basically happening with this game is that EA is lying to us over and over again about their shitty product. Instead of just putting their efforts into making a good game. I don't get it man. It's not like they had to invent anything new - they just had to take what SimCity 4 did and improve on it.

[Skyblade]

Did anyone honestly expect EA's game servers to handle the load of hundreds of billions of Sims?

Or, for that matter, for Maxis's Glassbox to handle even hundreds of thousands on one machine?

It's EA. They lie, ruin games, and ruin game companies. Have we forgotten ME3's ending debacle already?

[Loony BoB]

It doesn't matter if it was unlikely - you were paying for a game that worked, and if it didn't work, well... if you got a TV that didn't work, would you be happy if they said "Hold on, we'll just remove some features and then it'll work."

[Skyblade]

It doesn't matter if it was unlikely - you were paying for a game that worked, and if it didn't work, well... if you got a TV that didn't work, would you be happy if they said "Hold on, we'll just remove some features and then it'll work."

Well, no, but I wasn't discussing the removal of features so much as I was the inability to deliver on promises/expectations.

The only "removed" feature was Cheetah mode, which was done specifically to ensure that they could keep watch on the players.

I was referring to features that never existed. I honestly never expected my machine to handle hundreds of thousands of Sims all at once, and the failure isn't a big surprise.

I think there are other issues, that are surprising, that deserve more attention.

First up, while I have no problem with the game only tracking a few tens of thousands of Sims instead of hundreds of thousands, it seems it can't even do that. It seems that each Sim is randomly generated each time it's created, with different models and mannerisms. So the Sim who leaves work is a different Sim than the one who left for work, sharing only a last name. Heck, Rollercoaster Tycoon did a better job of tracking patrons than that a decade ago.

Then too, apparently the basic mathematics of the game seem broken, as tax income doesn't scale with either real or phantom population, resulting in you needing an exponentially higher tax rate as your population increases.

The game seems basically broken on so many levels.

[Loony BoB]

When you pay for a service, you should expect the service. If you don't expect the service to deliver, that's the fault of the service provider, and you should be reimbursed and they should expect people to look elsewhere for that service in the future.

You can say "But seriously, did you think they would pull through?" all you like, it doesn't change the fact that they are obligated to do so because of their own decisions.

PS. Cheetah mode is a neccessity for SimCity as far as I'm concerned.

[Yar]

There are games that I love playing with others and there are games that I prefer playing totally on my own. SimCity is one of the latter.

It's really sad. I can see this game had a lot of potential but was ruined by just stupid and asinine decisions. :(

[Skyblade]

When you pay for a service, you should expect the service. If you don't expect the service to deliver, that's the fault of the service provider, and you should be reimbursed and they should expect people to look elsewhere for that service in the future.

You can say "But seriously, did you think they would pull through?" all you like, it doesn't change the fact that they are obligated to do so because of their own decisions.

PS. Cheetah mode is a neccessity for SimCity as far as I'm concerned.

Well, yeah, but that's what you talk to lawyers or complain to the company about.

[Madame Adequate]

I was referring to features that never existed. I honestly never expected my machine to handle hundreds of thousands of Sims all at once, and the failure isn't a big surprise.

Well yeah, that's sort of what people are mad about. Maxis/EA specifically said "Hey, remember how the old SC games used abstraction to make it look like it was a simulation? Well no more!" and acted like they've conjured up a system, Glassbox, that's downright goddamn magical.

Turns out it's even less advanced than other SC games and they're devoting more to smoke and mirrors than to any sort of meaningful simulation.

[Loony BoB]

Lawyers? Over a video game? Really? xD

[kotora]

When even Fox News gets it right, you know shit got fucked up (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/simcity-pr-nightmare-escalates/)

[Madame Adequate]

Lawyers? Over a video game? Really? xD

That is not unreasonable when someone commits mass-scale deception and sells a product which varies from "Not what was advertised" to "Completely broken". I completely fail to comprehend this notion that videogames somehow shouldn't be subject to exactly the same standards and consumer protection laws as every other industry that exists but it's not exactly a helpful one.

[Loony BoB]

I'm more thinking along the lines of "is there anything that costs £40 that is worth going to court over? Wouldn't the court proceedings cost so much more?"

I suppose it might work if there was a very large group of people working together as one in the case so the cost could be shared, but then you have to take into account the cost of your time, and I for one couldn't justify taking a day off work for £40.