The new SimCity...*sigh*

[-Brett-]

Steven wrote:

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Between this and the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle from last year, I have to wonder if EA is going to start considering March releases to be cursed in the future...

I could see that happening. It's easier to blame a curse than admit that there's something wrong with their company and it's policies.

[TheGodBen]

Squiggy wrote:

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The reviews I've read said that (connection issues aside) it's a solid game. Yeah, the cities are a little small...but it's still fun during those fleeting periods of playability.

Initial reviews were glowing, more recent reviews have been mixed, as has the fan reaction. Other than the server issues and small cities, the simulation is apparently a bit wonky. The decision to simulate each citizen as an agent sounds great on paper, but the AI controlling the sims is pretty stupid. There are inexplicable traffic problems because the sims can't path-find properly. Sims will complain about the lack of nearby stores even if they live right next to a commercial district. If you have 5 concurrent fires and 10 fire trucks (as might happen after a meteor strike), all 10 fire trucks will travel to a single blaze instead of spreading out, allowing the fire to spread.

Also, things like this happen:



The craziest thing is that sims don't have set homes or jobs. When they go to work in the morning, they travel to the nearest job for their skill level, and if that's full then they'll travel to the next nearest, then the next nearest. When they go home at night, they travel to the nearest free residential building instead of travelling to the home they came from. That may sound like a comical communist utopia, but I read that it caused a nuclear meltdown for one player. Nuclear plants need college-educated workers to operate safely, but when a number of high-skilled jobs opened closer to the workers than the nuke plant it caused all the worker to get new jobs, and the nuke plant was forced to hire low-skilled workers instead, leading to an accident.

Some of these issues may be patched out in time, but it seems that SimCity is yet another game that has been pushed out the door before it's ready. At least it has led to some comedy.

Holdfast wrote:

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Now that a few days have passed, have the server troubles settled down?

And has cheetah speed been reactivated yet?

From what I've read, the server issues have eased a bit over the last day or so, but there are still problems. Cheetah speed is still disabled, as are many of the region features.

[Sheep]

Squiggy wrote:

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The reviews I've read said that (connection issues aside) it's a solid game. Yeah, the cities are a little small...but it's still fun during those fleeting periods of playability.

Ignoring the server issues (which I really shouldn't be doing given how much the game depends on them), the game's mechanics appear to be solid. However, I've read in more than one place that the AI is dumb as hell. In addition to what TheGodBen pointed out above, I've read that the traffic AI makes no sense and traffic is hopelessly snarled despite your best efforts. Sounds like they need to work on more than just getting their servers up and running.

Unlike everyone who complains about always-on online and DRM and buys the damn game anyway, I'm sticking to my guns and spending my time with Lara Croft after finding out my old ass PC can still run the Tomb Raider at 40fps in 720p on high graphic settings.

[Cutter John]

And I'll be on Steam, buying and enjoying -$20 indy games.

[Haggis and tatties]

Always on DRM means my money stays in my wallet, i really cant see why i should pay them £40 for the possibility of playing my game, if my internet is up, and if their side of things are working.

Far too much hassle for a game to be honest, and all the while the supposed reason for this always on DRM, affects only the honest people, while the pirates happily play away at a hacked versions enjoying it without all the hassle.

I think we all know the real reasons why they are pushing this always on DRM, because it stops second hand sales, and gives them full control of the game you bought, so in a way your only renting the game, they never loss control of the game.

[PsychoPere]

Holdfast wrote:

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Now that a few days have passed, have the server troubles settled down?

Last night I couldn't get a server connection, but I just finished spending a couple of hours in game with no problems. I'm enjoying it so far.

I definitely don't have a clue as to what I'm doing, though. Almost bankrupted my city within the first fifteen minutes.

[ATimson]

Haggis and tatties wrote:

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Always on DRM means my money stays in my wallet, i really cant see why i should pay them £40 for the possibility of playing my game, if my internet is up, and if their side of things are working.

Far too much hassle for a game to be honest, and all the while the supposed reason for this always on DRM, affects only the honest people, while the pirates happily play away at a hacked versions enjoying it without all the hassle.

If this were truly always-on DRM, that would be true. But it's not - this is a multiplayer-only game, like World of WarCraft, which is a whole different ball of wax. The pirates can't just hack away a DRM check; they'd need to (re)develop the server software that EA is running in order to play.

[What's his face]

Bought the game. Initial server issues the first day, but things have calmed down.
Loving all the new features, but my only issue is that city size is too small. Hopefully larger cities are allowed in the future.

[Haggis and tatties]

ATimson wrote:

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If this were truly always-on DRM, that would be true. But it's not - this is a multiplayer-only game, like World of WarCraft, which is a whole different ball of wax. The pirates can't just hack away a DRM check; they'd need to (re)develop the server software that EA is running in order to play.

Oh the pirates are smart buggers, i doubt it will be long before this game is playing offline with some lan hack to connect directly to your friends pc and join their game.

Still my ISP is simply to unreliable to gamble £40 on a game that requires me to be constantly connected to play, i have a LTS for Star Trek online and even after 3 years its up and down all over the place, always seems to be down when i have spare time to fire it up, plus add to that the amount of times my ISP goes wonky and its been easy to steer clear of games with this type of DRM.

Possibly in the future when optic fibre is the norm and we all download 100 gig games in 3 mins this type of DRM will work because nobody gets issues, but by the time the UK internet gets to that stage i will have no doubt been disconnected from my life ISP for good.

[FPAlpha]

Yeah well.. that's rather an issue with your ISP if he's giving such unreliable service.

Mine here in Germany is topnotch when it comes to reliability.. i can count on one hand the times when the internet was down in something like 10 years i've been with them (starting with 56k modems to DSL and then Broadband).

However a realiable ISP is unimportant when the company itself has technical problems (as it's always the case with game releases.. it seems companies never learn or they simply don't care and weather the storm until it passes). You could have the internet connection from God and it wouldn't do much good if the other side can't listen and respond.

This together with game design options means i'll most likely not buy it.. maybe in a few months if they decided to increase city sizes significantly and the servers run stable but definitely not now.

[PsychoPere]

firehawk12 wrote:

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So, has anyone tried to play together yet? I wouldn't mind joining a region.

I'd be interested in a TrekBBS region.

[ThunderAeroI]

PsychoPere wrote:

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I'd be interested in a TrekBBS region.

The problem is that only seven of us could be in a region at a time. and we would need to figure out each other city specialty.

That said, if someone makes one I'd join.

[PsychoPere]

Only seven players can be logged into a region at a given time, even if that region includes more than seven cities?

[JarodRussell]

So you build your city on a server, and it has 6 neighboring cities created by other players. What if those players never return? Do the neighbor cities simply get replaced by new ones?

[ThunderAeroI]

JarodRussell wrote:

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So you build your city on a server, and it has 6 neighboring cities created by other players. What if those players never return? Do the neighbor cities simply get replaced by new ones?

Pretty much, you can choose to abandon a city...honestly though I doubt that if you really left the game to never come back you would abandon the city.

Also, I find the speed control thing odd. Say you and a friend are playing at the same time. He plays at speed 1 and you play at speed 3 and the region shares resources and what speed do the cities share resources at?