I don't really destroy anything that you could call a "city" anymore than I create Sims, establish their lives, and deliberately attempt to torture them--I just don't find it entertaining anymore, I guess.
That being said, there are plenty of times when I'd make a bad decision unintentionally and needed to reload. Why not? Instead of forcing me to attempt to correct something, let me simply go back. Likewise, if some sort of disaster does happen, and I'm unprepared/otherwise incorrectly handle it, I'd rather not be penalized for being a human and making a mistake.
So this is a little worrying. To be fair, since SimCity 4, we've basically established the model of "each city exists in a region, and if you save in that city, that's that." That being said, not being able to undo anything for the sake of online only is pretty disappointing. Having the option to build "testing cities" as mentioned doesn't really overcome that.
Looking at the E3 demo, it is interesting to see the combination of "ploppables" with actual construction efforts as in earlier games--though you can tell that, barring some graphical modifications, certain parts of the game look like ass up close (then again, this is a big picture game).
Considering the game has always to be on like Diablo III which has been a disaster, only Origin and already talk of DLC it completely killed my interest to buy the game.
If that stuff all bothers you, then you aren't going to be buying many games the next few years, sorry to say. D3 has been fine since launch day and they've sold some stupid number of copies, so I wouldn't call it a "disaster". DLC and Origin have been rehashed a million times all over the internet, so I'm not even going to bother trying again.
D3 has been great for me since launch day. And it's a wonderful game. But it is not a city building, destroying, building game. D3 is a single character progression game that doesn't really punish you for flying headlong into disastrous situations. SimCity is the simulation of the building of a city. Boo on not having local saving ability.
I don't have a problem with online required. I don't mind it for D3 and I don't mind it for anything else. However, I do think that server side saves are stupid and it sounds like they are taking a "whatever happens happens" approach, which is not cool for video games. Sure, it might be more realistic, but I don't play SimCity games for realism. I play them because I want to be a city building demigod and I want to be in control of the fate of my cities. Having that control taken away from me makes me feel unimpowered. I don't think that's a real word, but I'm sticking with it anyway.
Yea. Looks like I am buying the game 6 months after it comes out. *After* the community tears down all the restrictions and makes it offline single player with mods.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
Shurakai on
0
Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited June 2012
You know, when Blizzard implemented its thing for D3 and claimed it was to support an inherently multiplayer-focused game, I could at least see that. I still called bullshit, but at least they had some prior grounding with that angle.
But when you think "SimCity," multiplayer is the absolute last fucking thing that comes to mind. Because when anyone thinks of how they played those games, they thought of all the good times they spent with their buddies in restless nights at LANs solving their city's chronic traffic congestion, right? Right. Multiplayer-focused. I'm sure the three people that only played SimCity 2000 Network Edition would agree with you. Lick my ass EA/Maxis.
I dislike the online requirement simply because the Sim City games traditionally have long outlived their expected life cycle. I still have Sim City 4 installed on my desktop and poke at it occasionally. There are numerous fan sites with mods still being run and updated. Do you think Maxis is still actively supporting the game? Where will we be in 5 years when they've moved on and won't support the community and pull the plug from anyone playing ever again?
0
KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
Fuck, I'm going to re-install Sim City 4 tonight! DAMN YOU ALL!
Only thing I get legitimately pissed about nowdays is these developers talking about DLC before the game is even done. What the hell is this? I don't care about online only, I don't care about no saving (even think its kind of cool), and all the other stuff sounds great. I'm not a fan of Origin either, but I also don't have strong feelings about Origin, its just steam except ugly and dumber.
Yea. Looks like I am buying the game 6 months after it comes out. *After* the community tears down all the restrictions and makes it offline single player with mods.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
What past examples? Don't get me wrong, Simtropolis' mods and things like NAM are instrumental to me, but with those, we're not talking about something that fundamentally alters the nature of the game.
I don't think any amount of modding is going to allow it to be an offline only game if it isn't. The best hope is hoping Maxis decides to implement some sort of saving mode (like SC4, basically allowing you to undo a bad decision by exiting and loading the last safe), or some sort of more elaborate offline option (still a possibility).
Since SC4, we've basically accepted that each city will only have one save (without out of program backing up) as a consequence of the region mechanic. I suppose there's a possibility that we might still at least get (even if they remove multiplayer online mode), if people fuss enough about it. That just leaves online-only as a technical, rather than design, obstacle.
Or we won't, and we'll all just have to be disappointed, I guess.
I guess it's still too early to tell. Still, Maxis' commitment to making a multiplayer game where CitiesXL didn't really succeed is worrying. The Sims 3 did very well with no real multiplayer, small-scale DLC and mod support (albeit not as expansive as the community for The Sims 2). At the very least, it managed to avoid alienating anyone. I guess they figure SimCity's base is much less "casual" and will demand something like this to really take off. Oh boy...
Synthesis on
0
KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
Can someone tell me essential things to do for SIm City 4?
As in mods/add ons I should have.
Yea. Looks like I am buying the game 6 months after it comes out. *After* the community tears down all the restrictions and makes it offline single player with mods.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
What past examples? Don't get me wrong, Simtropolis' mods and things like NAM are instrumental to me, but with those, we're not talking about something that fundamentally alters the nature of the game.
I don't think any amount of modding is going to allow it to be an offline only game if it isn't. The best hope is hoping Maxis decides to implement some sort of saving mode (like SC4, basically allowing you to undo a bad decision by exiting and loading the last safe), or some sort of more elaborate offline option (still a possibility).
Since SC4, we've basically accepted that each city will only have one save (without out of program backing up) as a consequence of the region mechanic. I suppose there's a possibility that we might still at least get (even if they remove multiplayer online mode), if people fuss enough about it. That just leaves online-only as a technical, rather than design, obstacle.
Or we won't, and we'll all just have to be disappointed, I guess.
I guess it's still too early to tell. Still, Maxis' commitment to making a multiplayer game where CitiesXL didn't really succeed is worrying. The Sims 3 did very well with no real multiplayer, small-scale DLC and mod support (albeit not as expansive as the community for The Sims 2). At the very least, it managed to avoid alienating anyone. I guess they figure SimCity's base is much less "casual" and will demand something like this to really take off. Oh boy...
It alienated the fuck out of my wife the point that she doesn't even know im she'll ever play the game again.
Yea. Looks like I am buying the game 6 months after it comes out. *After* the community tears down all the restrictions and makes it offline single player with mods.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
What past examples? Don't get me wrong, Simtropolis' mods and things like NAM are instrumental to me, but with those, we're not talking about something that fundamentally alters the nature of the game.
I don't think any amount of modding is going to allow it to be an offline only game if it isn't. The best hope is hoping Maxis decides to implement some sort of saving mode (like SC4, basically allowing you to undo a bad decision by exiting and loading the last safe), or some sort of more elaborate offline option (still a possibility).
Since SC4, we've basically accepted that each city will only have one save (without out of program backing up) as a consequence of the region mechanic. I suppose there's a possibility that we might still at least get (even if they remove multiplayer online mode), if people fuss enough about it. That just leaves online-only as a technical, rather than design, obstacle.
Or we won't, and we'll all just have to be disappointed, I guess.
I guess it's still too early to tell. Still, Maxis' commitment to making a multiplayer game where CitiesXL didn't really succeed is worrying. The Sims 3 did very well with no real multiplayer, small-scale DLC and mod support (albeit not as expansive as the community for The Sims 2). At the very least, it managed to avoid alienating anyone. I guess they figure SimCity's base is much less "casual" and will demand something like this to really take off. Oh boy...
If the always online DRM is just a check to see if youre online, but all your city and stuff is stored client side, then you'll see a hack/crack for it within a couple of days.
If everything is server side you won't see offline play for an extremely long time, and when it comes it will be buggy and crappy.
Yea. Looks like I am buying the game 6 months after it comes out. *After* the community tears down all the restrictions and makes it offline single player with mods.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
What past examples? Don't get me wrong, Simtropolis' mods and things like NAM are instrumental to me, but with those, we're not talking about something that fundamentally alters the nature of the game.
I don't think any amount of modding is going to allow it to be an offline only game if it isn't. The best hope is hoping Maxis decides to implement some sort of saving mode (like SC4, basically allowing you to undo a bad decision by exiting and loading the last safe), or some sort of more elaborate offline option (still a possibility).
Since SC4, we've basically accepted that each city will only have one save (without out of program backing up) as a consequence of the region mechanic. I suppose there's a possibility that we might still at least get (even if they remove multiplayer online mode), if people fuss enough about it. That just leaves online-only as a technical, rather than design, obstacle.
Or we won't, and we'll all just have to be disappointed, I guess.
I guess it's still too early to tell. Still, Maxis' commitment to making a multiplayer game where CitiesXL didn't really succeed is worrying. The Sims 3 did very well with no real multiplayer, small-scale DLC and mod support (albeit not as expansive as the community for The Sims 2). At the very least, it managed to avoid alienating anyone. I guess they figure SimCity's base is much less "casual" and will demand something like this to really take off. Oh boy...
If the always online DRM is just a check to see if youre online, but all your city and stuff is stored client side, then you'll see a hack/crack for it within a couple of days.
If everything is server side you won't see offline play for an extremely long time, and when it comes it will be buggy and crappy.
I'm not optimistic, given the stated intention of a multiplayer region environment (which, by design, requires server side city storage).
Now, I wish we could get that--but an arrangement where in you've got server-side DRM (inconvenient but forgivable, even I tolerate Steam), but client-side save data is increasingly rare. The one example that comes up is ME3, where Bioware reserves the right to not fix anything that's broken and ban people for cheating around grinding/buying Bioware funbucks. A dual system--server-side multiplayer saves, client-side online saves--would make everyone happy, but would probably strike Maxis as being "too much trouble."
The more I think about it, the less optimistic I am. It might come down to running your own fake server, saving your data to it, and using that as a backup.
Or maybe, Maxis will reconsider and allow people to create local regions, which they can backup somehow. I guess it is too early to say. Right now, they seem pretty determined to follow their vision.
When I asked Lead Producer Kip Katsaelis if the 2013 SimCity would allow that same pleasure in its Glass Box-powered cities, the answer was a simple, disappointing "No." The online connectivity Maxis has built in means that reloading saved games will be impossible, even when no one else has a city in your region.
Nope.avi
Sorry, this is bullshit. If EA wants to treat me like a customer, I'll be their customer, especially for a new Sim City game. If EA wants to treat me like a criminal right from the get-go, they can get go get fucked. It's not the the much-vaunted online-only DRM works as intended anyway; Spore's DRM was cracked inside of 24 hours.
That sucks a lot, because I was looking forward to this release, but no ability to save my Goddamn cities? 'Oh, but you can cheat code your way out of any mistakes!' Yeah, no thanks.
Presumably this also means that mods won't / can't be implemented.
>:[
Boycotted.
D3 has been fine since launch day
Yeah, Diablo III has been 'fine'. So 'fine' that unless you buy an authenticator, your account is all but guaranteed to be hacked into and all of your stuff stolen.
When I asked Lead Producer Kip Katsaelis if the 2013 SimCity would allow that same pleasure in its Glass Box-powered cities, the answer was a simple, disappointing "No." The online connectivity Maxis has built in means that reloading saved games will be impossible, even when no one else has a city in your region.
Nope.avi
Sorry, this is bullshit. If EA wants to treat me like a customer, I'll be their customer, especially for a new Sim City game. If EA wants to treat me like a criminal right from the get-go, they can get go get fucked. It's not the the much-vaunted online-only DRM works as intended anyway; Spore's DRM was cracked inside of 24 hours.
That sucks a lot, because I was looking forward to this release, but no ability to save my Goddamn cities? 'Oh, but you can cheat code your way out of any mistakes!' Yeah, no thanks.
Presumably this also means that mods won't / can't be implemented.
>:[
Boycotted.
D3 has been fine since launch day
Yeah, Diablo III has been 'fine'. So 'fine' that unless you buy an authenticator, your account is all but guaranteed to be hacked into and all of your stuff stolen.
Totes 'fine'.
You didnt even go for the low hanging fruit and point out that servers have been down repeatedly.
Online-only DRM is total garbage, and no customer should be willing to accept it. If small indie publishers can accept the 'risk' associated with releasing DRM-free products, there's no excuse for large multi-million dollar entities.
When I asked Lead Producer Kip Katsaelis if the 2013 SimCity would allow that same pleasure in its Glass Box-powered cities, the answer was a simple, disappointing "No." The online connectivity Maxis has built in means that reloading saved games will be impossible, even when no one else has a city in your region.
Nope.avi
Sorry, this is bullshit. If EA wants to treat me like a customer, I'll be their customer, especially for a new Sim City game. If EA wants to treat me like a criminal right from the get-go, they can get go get fucked. It's not the the much-vaunted online-only DRM works as intended anyway; Spore's DRM was cracked inside of 24 hours.
That sucks a lot, because I was looking forward to this release, but no ability to save my Goddamn cities? 'Oh, but you can cheat code your way out of any mistakes!' Yeah, no thanks.
Presumably this also means that mods won't / can't be implemented.
>:[
Boycotted.
D3 has been fine since launch day
Yeah, Diablo III has been 'fine'. So 'fine' that unless you buy an authenticator, your account is all but guaranteed to be hacked into and all of your stuff stolen.
Totes 'fine'.
You didnt even go for the low hanging fruit and point out that servers have been down repeatedly.
He should have, given that "all but guaranteed" is basically a lie.
There are security breeches. To avoid angry hyperbole, anyway. And they've happened to accounts with authenticators unfortunately (not mine personally, but there have been claims).
I've still got a little to say about this game. I'm not a fan of always online, but I bought Diablo 3, so there's that. My biggest worry is still the mod situation. I am probably just over-reacting to certain bits of news since I've been so excited about SimCity games in the past. I had sky-high hopes for SC5.
With more of the always online thing coming back into the news, I'm still curious as to how they are going to allow for mods in an always online environment? Does anyone have any ideas? Can anyone provide me with an example of a game that requires always online and still allows for mods at the same time? Mods to me always seemed like a pretty singular experience, simply because not everyone is going to want the same mods you do.
That would pretty much be a requirement for mods that upset the original balance such as NAM. Wouldn't any balance disruption screw up the economy of one city over another person's?
I dunno. They've said mods for sure. But I'm still not seeing how at all.
edit: removed a couple sentences. not trying to start anything, so apologies. this is an honest question i have.
milath on
"No.. I was wrong. This must be what going mad feels like."
These Diablo 3 examples are terrible, back up your points with stuff that's more relevant, like other Ubisoft style DRM.
D3 servers have been pretty stable since the first week, although that was a disaster. Its a bad example though because D3 is on such a different level of scale when it comes to people trying to use their servers simultaneously. The hacking issues are also something that just doesn't apply to SimCity. The account hacking in D3/WoW is based on an organized base of hackers doing it for financial gain. There just isn't any part of that scenario that applies to SimCity.
The people saying the servers may be taken down in X years rendering the game unplayable, or lamenting the lack of saves - those are some legitimate and valid complaints.
I have a feeling the online only thing in this will be mostly DRM. I bet all the buildings, agents, and under the hood stuff is taking place on the client. I expect we'll see a crack fairly quickly for emulating the server locally. I could be wrong, it could be all server side, but I doubt they put forth that kind of effort.
So the SimCity closed beta signups are up...kinda. You have to upload your DxDiag file, but it looks like the server's full and can't actually take uploads right now. This bodes well.
So the SimCity closed beta signups are up...kinda. You have to upload your DxDiag file, but it looks like the server's full and can't actually take uploads right now. This bodes well.
No dice on IE for me. I've read a few things work, such as renaming the file DxDiag64.txt or 1234.txt. Still, the server says it can't move the file which leads me to believe the problem is server-side.
Supposedly that worked for people anyways. Plus, there's an IE option that changes that, which also doesn't work. Le sigh.
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Found out what's going on with some impressive google-fu.
The server is expecting unique filenames for some reason. Rename it to mr_michDXDiag.txt or something. I was able to upload it by renaming the file something odd.
I am kinda bummed about the always-on DRM. I travel for work a lot. Sometimes I end up in non-hotel housing when in a remote area. Commonly, the Internet access is filtered so game websites are generally out.
The DRM will kick my ass and prevent me from playing. It is just quite annoying that I can't even enjoy a single player form of the game if the previews are to be believed.
I played the alpha, and I am still super excited to play, I just am bummed about my limitations on playing it.
Also, the maps might be small. Hard to say. The map in the alpha build I played at Gamestop Expo was pretty large, IMO.
The maps are 1/10th the size of the previous games. You are required to specialize your city (business, airport, commercial, etc), no more metropolises. Always online. Required socialization with other players.
And yes, that map looks like R2D2. It's an EA meme: "The only people who enjoyed the old Simcity games were robots."
Oh, and those roads? Pre-made, and indestructible. You have to build around them.
Posts
That being said, there are plenty of times when I'd make a bad decision unintentionally and needed to reload. Why not? Instead of forcing me to attempt to correct something, let me simply go back. Likewise, if some sort of disaster does happen, and I'm unprepared/otherwise incorrectly handle it, I'd rather not be penalized for being a human and making a mistake.
So this is a little worrying. To be fair, since SimCity 4, we've basically established the model of "each city exists in a region, and if you save in that city, that's that." That being said, not being able to undo anything for the sake of online only is pretty disappointing. Having the option to build "testing cities" as mentioned doesn't really overcome that.
Looking at the E3 demo, it is interesting to see the combination of "ploppables" with actual construction efforts as in earlier games--though you can tell that, barring some graphical modifications, certain parts of the game look like ass up close (then again, this is a big picture game).
I was so hyped for a new Simcity too.
No guarantee that will happen of course, but given past examples.. yea.
But when you think "SimCity," multiplayer is the absolute last fucking thing that comes to mind. Because when anyone thinks of how they played those games, they thought of all the good times they spent with their buddies in restless nights at LANs solving their city's chronic traffic congestion, right? Right. Multiplayer-focused. I'm sure the three people that only played SimCity 2000 Network Edition would agree with you. Lick my ass EA/Maxis.
I'll be buying this game anyways.
What past examples? Don't get me wrong, Simtropolis' mods and things like NAM are instrumental to me, but with those, we're not talking about something that fundamentally alters the nature of the game.
I don't think any amount of modding is going to allow it to be an offline only game if it isn't. The best hope is hoping Maxis decides to implement some sort of saving mode (like SC4, basically allowing you to undo a bad decision by exiting and loading the last safe), or some sort of more elaborate offline option (still a possibility).
Since SC4, we've basically accepted that each city will only have one save (without out of program backing up) as a consequence of the region mechanic. I suppose there's a possibility that we might still at least get (even if they remove multiplayer online mode), if people fuss enough about it. That just leaves online-only as a technical, rather than design, obstacle.
Or we won't, and we'll all just have to be disappointed, I guess.
I guess it's still too early to tell. Still, Maxis' commitment to making a multiplayer game where CitiesXL didn't really succeed is worrying. The Sims 3 did very well with no real multiplayer, small-scale DLC and mod support (albeit not as expansive as the community for The Sims 2). At the very least, it managed to avoid alienating anyone. I guess they figure SimCity's base is much less "casual" and will demand something like this to really take off. Oh boy...
As in mods/add ons I should have.
It alienated the fuck out of my wife the point that she doesn't even know im she'll ever play the game again.
If the always online DRM is just a check to see if youre online, but all your city and stuff is stored client side, then you'll see a hack/crack for it within a couple of days.
If everything is server side you won't see offline play for an extremely long time, and when it comes it will be buggy and crappy.
I'm not optimistic, given the stated intention of a multiplayer region environment (which, by design, requires server side city storage).
Now, I wish we could get that--but an arrangement where in you've got server-side DRM (inconvenient but forgivable, even I tolerate Steam), but client-side save data is increasingly rare. The one example that comes up is ME3, where Bioware reserves the right to not fix anything that's broken and ban people for cheating around grinding/buying Bioware funbucks. A dual system--server-side multiplayer saves, client-side online saves--would make everyone happy, but would probably strike Maxis as being "too much trouble."
The more I think about it, the less optimistic I am. It might come down to running your own fake server, saving your data to it, and using that as a backup.
Or maybe, Maxis will reconsider and allow people to create local regions, which they can backup somehow. I guess it is too early to say. Right now, they seem pretty determined to follow their vision.
Nope.avi
Sorry, this is bullshit. If EA wants to treat me like a customer, I'll be their customer, especially for a new Sim City game. If EA wants to treat me like a criminal right from the get-go, they can get go get fucked. It's not the the much-vaunted online-only DRM works as intended anyway; Spore's DRM was cracked inside of 24 hours.
That sucks a lot, because I was looking forward to this release, but no ability to save my Goddamn cities? 'Oh, but you can cheat code your way out of any mistakes!' Yeah, no thanks.
Presumably this also means that mods won't / can't be implemented.
>:[
Boycotted.
Yeah, Diablo III has been 'fine'. So 'fine' that unless you buy an authenticator, your account is all but guaranteed to be hacked into and all of your stuff stolen.
Totes 'fine'.
You can't save and reload? Thats... ridiculous.
*edit
Half of the fun of these games is saving, dicking around, and then reloading!
You didnt even go for the low hanging fruit and point out that servers have been down repeatedly.
Online-only DRM is total garbage, and no customer should be willing to accept it. If small indie publishers can accept the 'risk' associated with releasing DRM-free products, there's no excuse for large multi-million dollar entities.
He should have, given that "all but guaranteed" is basically a lie.
There are security breeches. To avoid angry hyperbole, anyway. And they've happened to accounts with authenticators unfortunately (not mine personally, but there have been claims).
With more of the always online thing coming back into the news, I'm still curious as to how they are going to allow for mods in an always online environment? Does anyone have any ideas? Can anyone provide me with an example of a game that requires always online and still allows for mods at the same time? Mods to me always seemed like a pretty singular experience, simply because not everyone is going to want the same mods you do.
That would pretty much be a requirement for mods that upset the original balance such as NAM. Wouldn't any balance disruption screw up the economy of one city over another person's?
I dunno. They've said mods for sure. But I'm still not seeing how at all.
edit: removed a couple sentences. not trying to start anything, so apologies. this is an honest question i have.
"No.. I was wrong. This must be what going mad feels like."
D3 servers have been pretty stable since the first week, although that was a disaster. Its a bad example though because D3 is on such a different level of scale when it comes to people trying to use their servers simultaneously. The hacking issues are also something that just doesn't apply to SimCity. The account hacking in D3/WoW is based on an organized base of hackers doing it for financial gain. There just isn't any part of that scenario that applies to SimCity.
The people saying the servers may be taken down in X years rendering the game unplayable, or lamenting the lack of saves - those are some legitimate and valid complaints.
I have a feeling the online only thing in this will be mostly DRM. I bet all the buildings, agents, and under the hood stuff is taking place on the client. I expect we'll see a crack fairly quickly for emulating the server locally. I could be wrong, it could be all server side, but I doubt they put forth that kind of effort.
Steam: Kemlo
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/beta/info
yep, not working for me either, the dxdiag wont upload.
The server is expecting unique filenames for some reason. Rename it to mr_michDXDiag.txt or something. I was able to upload it by renaming the file something odd.
The DRM will kick my ass and prevent me from playing. It is just quite annoying that I can't even enjoy a single player form of the game if the previews are to be believed.
I played the alpha, and I am still super excited to play, I just am bummed about my limitations on playing it.
Also, the maps might be small. Hard to say. The map in the alpha build I played at Gamestop Expo was pretty large, IMO.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8875279.page
The maps are 1/10th the size of the previous games. You are required to specialize your city (business, airport, commercial, etc), no more metropolises. Always online. Required socialization with other players.
And yes, that map looks like R2D2. It's an EA meme: "The only people who enjoyed the old Simcity games were robots."
Oh, and those roads? Pre-made, and indestructible. You have to build around them.