SimCity: The City Simulator

[toblix]

I'm toblix. Add me to your game or however it works.

[Jon_Danger]

This extremely blows.  Also, Toblix your profile is private.

 

After some frustrating searching around, North America East 2 seems to be working properly.

[Nappi]

EU copies don't technically go live until Friday, but the European servers are already up. All servers are functionally identical, it's just when you login to them you can only join regions hosted on that server. It's merely a question of playing where you think you'll get the best ping/where your friends are.

 

Mine unlocked today. I think UK copies unlock on Friday.

 

The installation was much smoother than I had expected. I was even able to start up the game. 

[Dewar]

North America West 2 has been working all right for me (occasional server disconnects, but it recovered gracefully) until about 10 minutes ago where the whole thing took a crap. Now it's saying there's a 20 minute queue on any of the servers, which is bizzare as most of the east coast should be asleep by now.

[feelthedarkness]

Oh My:

 

 

[Dewar]

Shame that's not real.

[feelthedarkness]

aww. I got punked.

[Codicier]

Yeah but its still great

[Scrobbs]

This one is though!

 

[Thrik]

Maybe if it were SimCity 4...

 

One thing I'm wondering: I've seen a lot of stuff said about the new SimCity not featuring terraforming like its predecessors, yet in some shots I've seen rivers and roads that go uphill. Is this some kind of marketing evil or is there at least some ability to do more than build roads, foliage, and buildings on a flat expanse of land?

[Salacious Snake]

That's just a pre-made region that comes with a big hill.

[Argobot]

You can't change the landscape, but the game lets you build roads across chasms or uphills. Personally, I'm ok with not being able to alter the landscape like you could in previous SimCity games, because my first instinct is to just completely flatten a territory. Being forced to build a road up a mountain is so much fun.

[Thrik]

Oh so there city plots that sit on land more interesting than a football pitch, then. That's at least something.

[Thrik]

Also, I recall that The Sims 3 had a similar thing to this. You could buy any number of plots of land in a huge neighbourhood, one of which came with the game. As time went on other (much different) neighbourhoods were added, and I'm sure you were eventually able to craft them yourself.

 

So perhaps at some point in the future SimCity will follow the same (microtransaction-studded) road of opening up a region editor for more advanced users.

[Salacious Snake]

The land-sculpting (the part you'd do prior to founding a city) in SimCity 4 was my favorite part of the game, so I'm a bit bummed about it. 

 

I wanna get my Bryce 3D on.

 

 

edit: There's supposed to be a video here, but it's not showing up for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx58fTIWBDE'>link

[Dewar]

I see a really good game here underneath all the network problems. I mucked up my first city fairly badly, so I started a new city in the same region, sent various service vehicles there from my old city to save on costs, and started over. I was able to build a huge industrial area and put in a rail and bus station, then hopped back to my old city where my housing was expanding out of control, put in a rail and bus there, and bam! jobs! Now I can bulldoze some of the industrial zones in my first city to make room for my solar plant and garbage dump that I accidentally walled in.

 

Traffic is still a pain though, even with buses both of my cities are a gridlock.

[Astro Creep]

According to The Verge, EA is disabling "non-critical" features like leaderboards and achievements. Things that "justify" the fact that it's online-only in the first place.

 

I haven't had this much fun (albeit mixed with secondhand embarrassment) reading about a disastrous launch since The War Z. It's an absolute shame that it had to happen to a beloved franchise like Sim City, but maybe this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

 

I was really looking forward to this, but all of the issues that the guys at Giant Bomb and the Thumbs highlighted during their streams were incredibly off-putting, and that wasn't even the entirety of what people are experiencing.

 

EDIT: Sorry, it was The Verge, not Ars Technica

[brkl]

Ahahaha, excellent.

 

In reference to Steam sale thing.

[Thrik]

You'd think that after the massive controversy that erupted when Maxis released their last game, Spore, going remotely near intrusive DRM and/or mandatory online connectivity would be either avoided completely or planned and executed to absolute perfection.

 

In a word: nope.

[tegan]

You'd think that after the massive controversy that erupted when Maxis released their last game, Spore, going remotely near intrusive DRM and/or mandatory online connectivity would be either avoided completely or planned and executed to absolute perfection.

 

In a word: nope.

 

I think you're underselling it a bit. Spore's DRM was the specific thing that made it the most pirated game of 2008. It accomplished the exact opposite of what it set out to do.

[Frenetic Pony]

I think you're underselling it a bit. Spore's DRM was the specific thing that made it the most pirated game of 2008. It accomplished the exact opposite of what it set out to do.

So has this DRM, Amazon has stopped selling Sim City. That's right, it's gotten such poor reviews it's been pulled from the largest online retailer in the world. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/ea-disables-non-critical-gameplay-features-to-relieve-simcity-servers/

 

In my own way I find this awesome. I've wanted to see EA CEO Ricittiello out for a while now. Between last quarters disappointment, and now with both Sim City and Dead Space 3 "disappointing" in sales, at least there's a chance. Of course, all the smart money's left EA a while ago, meaning the remaining stock holders are the dumb ones.

 

On the other hand I feel bad for the Maxis guys. I don't know if it was there fault exactly, or who's fault all this stupid trouble was. Still, it can't be a good feeling. Maybe Riccietiello will get fired before they do, as the man seems want to fire people for failure, as he's apparently(?) closed down "Danger Close" and "Visceral Games" for Medal of Honor and Dead Space 3 already.

[Codicier]

& as a follow up to that good news we have this story doing the rounds on twitter
 

https://twitter.com/NrFive/status/309583968053895169/photo/1

 

OK fair enough if your terms & cons say no refund, then no refund, but saying "WE WILL BAN YOU IF YOU ARGUE" hardly seems a civilized way of doing things.

 

That said Sean also highlighted on twitter how Ocean Quigly  has put himself out there and tried to do whatever he can to help.

 

It's really sad to see what looks like a really interesting piece of work by a group of individuals who clearly give a damn being ruined by the practices of a corporation that clearly doesn't.

[Astro Creep]

Polygon just posted a second update to their review, I won't spoil the new score.

 

Good on them for finally addressing the issues that they were previously arguing didn't exist on Twitter yesterday and Tuesday.

[Codicier]

Polygon just posted a second update to their review, I won't spoil the new score.

 

Good on them for finally addressing the issues that they were previously arguing didn't exist on Twitter yesterday and Tuesday.

 

Urk its actually kinda painful to see that, but perhaps its going to take a reaction this bad for companies to finally take a step back from always on DRM.  I wish honestly that Polygon & some other outlets had done what QT3 & PC Gamer are both doing & delay the review until they have had time to see how the game operated in a live environment. Sure stick the reviewers thoughts up there as a "review in progress" but don't stick a score on for a game which is selling itself as a service until that service has been tested.

[Astro Creep]

Urk its actually kinda painful to see that, but perhaps its going to take a reaction this bad for companies to finally take a step back from always on DRM.  I wish honestly that Polygon & some other outlets had done what QT3 & PC Gamer are both doing & delay the review until they have had time to see how the game operated in a live environment. Sure stick the reviewers thoughts up there as a "review in progress" but don't stick a score on for a game which is selling itself as a service until that service has been tested.

 

Yeah, they (Polygon) have done themselves no favors by lowering the score twice now. Their review-by-committee system is weird in and of itself, though. I'm also not a fan of arbitrary numbers being used to denote a game/film/album's quality anyways simply because of how many companies use the 7-10 Scale. EA could easily look at just the early impressions and say "Oh wow, look at all of these 9s! Nothing was wrong with the game, let's do another!". Or, and perhaps more likely, they'll use only the lower scores like these and deny bonuses to the developers like Bethesda did to the New Vegas team.

 

It's just an absolute shame how this has turned out. The devs deserve much, much better than this. The game looks fantastic, and most non-server-related complaints could easily be patched out. But instead this debacle is the main focus.