toblix

Oh hey, a blog update! Apparently they've got traffic improvements on the way.

But there isn't a "single player component." There is just the game. The exchange of goods and services and guys and ambulances is an integral part of SimCity the game, which is just one game, and it's a multiplayer game.

Yeah, you'll need to have a friend who's already in the region (me or Gwardinen) and have logged on to that server at least once. Then one of us can invite you, and it'll appear in the little "invites" thing in the main menu.

IMHO: Jesus, quoting is broken right now. But creating an offline mode would be tons of work, not only to design and implement, but to support as well. They can't just make a button that disables all the online stuff – they still have to design that experience as a fully-realised part of the game, compensating for the missing online functionality. It's a big undertaking. Also, who knows what role the servers will play in a year or two? It's like the Xbox hard disk – making it optional limited what you could expect of, and do with, the platform. With SimCity, having everyone always online makes that a thing you can continue to design the game around. Asynchronous, yes, but not turn based. They have a constant stream of events going back and forth, and these are related to points on the continuous timeline. You can't just queue them up and then hit a button to sync them. Also, as I mentioned, I'm assuming they'll make more use of the MMO stuff in later upgrades and expansions, which would mean the game is more in a constant state off flux with regard to core functionality and mechanics. Who knows what kinds of interactions, asynchronous or not, they've got in the pipeline? How is that a complete lie when it's obvious that all the intra-region stuff requires the server? Just because someone would like to turn those things off, or could live without them, they're still a part of the game. Demanding they redesign the game to make it playable offline is crazy. If, in a year, SimCity has no meaningful functionality that depends on a server, it's a valid discussion. At this point it's premature.

The problem is that if they cave in now, and make that offline mode, they'll have to maintain and support that mode going forward, and include it in all future plans and changes. I completely understand that they'd rather get the current infrastructure nice and stable, and then go ahead with their master plan, whatever that is, instead of completely changing it to satisfy the small fraction of players who would rather mod it. Being able to mod a game is sweet, but it's a reasonable requirement of all games, especially ones designed around multiplayer. To me, demanding an offline SimCity version is almost like demanding an offline World of Warcraft (and I'm assuming here Maxis have plans to greatly expand the multiplayer aspects of the game in the coming years.) I think the fact that earlier SimCity games were playable offline, or that you can get parts of the the current game working offline right now, or that a side-effect of the online requirements works as a piracy protection are all irrelevant in this discussion.

Yeah, I played with mouse and keyboard, and never had problems with sneaking around killing no-one.

I only played the version of Sim City 4 with fucking sweet music.

«Netflix finally brings Facebook integration to US customers.» Finally!

RPS has a thing with some examples and videos. The SimCity Blog entry today was super-weirdly talking about streetcars without mentioning general traffic. I hope Glassbox is built in such a way that cars can have pathing behaviour that's different form that of sparks and poop.

The way traffic works in this game almost feels like a bug they've not fixed yet due to the server capacity stuff. It's hard to believe they've created this sophisticated piece of software without even a rudimentary graph traversal algorithm, which would do wonders for traffic without affecting game performance at all. Now that servergate is winding down, hopefully we'll start to see patches fixing the most glaring problems. I'm interested to see how this version of SimCity will evolve, now that's it all server all the time. Will we see MMO-like frequent updates and changes, or will they stick to the Sims-like smaller expansion packs that adds pets and vacations? Anyway, if you're playing this game, you sure could do worse than claiming a plot in the Thumb region on North America East 4. It seems like you have to need to have joined that server at least once to be eligible for invitations. Friend me or Gwardinen, and we'll hook you up!

All the way to the top.

Oh, for sure, it's not necessarily a bad thing that they'll be selling stuff. By the way, have they actually said they'll be doing that at all? There's no mention of it in the game, so far, right? Like a menu thing? Maybe it'll be handled through Origin, rather than in-game. Anyway, as long as they're not charging for stuff that ought to be a patch, they should go to town, and if they end up selling additional systems or something else that makes the simulation even deeper, I'm in.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people at EA wanted to make SimCity free to play, but they probably decided the internet would explode too much if that had been announced. I wouldn't be surprised if it was supposed to be free to play at one point, though. Maybe Maxis' old school cred managed to hold off the suits. However, I'm counting the days until they announce the first thing we have to pay for that people will rage about since they think it should've been in the game, like bigger cities or better citizen AI. EA have been slightly humbled by launchgate, but that last a couple of months, tops. EA expects to make tons of money off in-sim purchases, I bet.

Will playing from Europe be a problem, prrformance-wise?

We could talk with voices

Actually, that's just happening in «Idle Banter,» but still.

We (some of us, anyway) tried the asynchronous thing already, and even though it was fun, it seemed like the asynchronous nature led to it slowly fizzling out into nothingness, and it became something of a chore having to read up and remember the game state once a week or whatever. Even though it looks like it's working for a bunch of people (there were a bunch of games going on on the board we used,) it seems like an actual, regular, synchronous thing would maybe work better.

Sure, but there should also be a part at the end where the player can override that by choosing whatever ending they want, for example by entering different doors, or "doors." They can have different colours to make it easier, like red and green maybe, but that's just off the top of my head; feel free to run with it.

Sweet, but that update may also have broken the «go to first unread post» star next to each thread, at least for me ...

I'm eagerly awaiting mine – I hope it'll turn out better than the Novint Falcon. The key thing is support, and it feels like everyone is eager to add it. If the SDK is good, and it gets supported by a mainstream FPS thing like CoD or Crysis, it might really catch on. Even though things seem to be going great (high dev kit demand (most of it misguided, and not for developing anything at all, like mine,) lots of PR and some high-profile hiring, there are probably a million marketing and financial obstacles they're going to face. If it becomes a success, I wonder how the MS and Sony will react. There are already the Xbox 720 VR goggles rumors ... maybe 2013 will be the year or virtual reality?

Do the sims pay for everything through taxes, like education, security, public transportation and healthcare, or do any of these come with a profit/income?

A proper game designer would have you feel bad first, and then press Z to comfort him.

I started watching Beverly Hills Cop 2 on Netflix, but noticed it wasn't in HD, so I pirated a Bluray rip and watched that instead, and now my life is a torrent of conflicting emotions. Watching these movies some twenty-odd years later is great. It's fascinating to experience, in parallel, watching a terrible eighties movie and reminiscing about a cool and funny movie. The story is a terrible mess, and it's hilarious when he does crazy characters to trick people. ALSO, I watched Demolition Man, and I had forgotten the fucking sweet mixtrack accompanying Simon Phoenix beating up a bunch of future cops. I've even added a link to the exact right time

What does that mean? I'm pretty sure people can add me on Origin – OR CAN'T THEY?!