Discussion about Always-On Connection to Origin

[CaptCity 4,893]

This is not a discussion of DRM nor Origin per se, but how they relate to SimCity. Hence the name of the topic.

[whitesox130 50]

This is not a discussion of DRM nor Origin per se, but how they relate to SimCity. Hence the name of the topic.

What I don't understand is what DRM has to do with Origin. I know next to nothing about Origin. All I know is that Origin is some type of interface where you connect to play games with other people through the Internet, and that EA makes extensive use of it.

[cirugo 1,889]

This is not a discussion of DRM nor Origin per se, but how they relate to SimCity. Hence the name of the topic.

What I don't understand is what DRM has to do with Origin. I know next to nothing about Origin. All I know is that Origin is some type of interface where you connect to play games with other people through the Internet, and that EA makes extensive use of it.

Origin is an EA exclusive online portal to EA games. As far as DRM goes, it's the reason many of us believe that this SimCity is online-only. Their gameplay explanations were weak to begin with and even more so now that they're trying to promote the fact that you can play your own region without having to interact with others. If this is the case then why the internet connection requirement? They get a very well-deserved comeuppance at their Reddit AMAA in my opinion.

[JaceTwice 115]

This is not a discussion of DRM nor Origin per se, but how they relate to SimCity. Hence the name of the topic.

What I don't understand is what DRM has to do with Origin. I know next to nothing about Origin. All I know is that Origin is some type of interface where you connect to play games with other people through the Internet, and that EA makes extensive use of it.

Origin is an EA exclusive online portal to EA games. As far as DRM goes, it's the reason many of us believe that this SimCity is online-only. Their gameplay explanations were weak to begin with and even more so now that they're trying to promote the fact that you can play your own region without having to interact with others. If this is the case then why the internet connection requirement? They get a very well-deserved comeuppance at their Reddit AMAA in my opinion.

I wouldn't call baseline gameplay mechanics a weak argument for their online desisions. Are you deliberately ignoring what's been confirmed by Maxis or something?

Again, Maxis has stated multiple times that the Global Economy (Which is the reason the game is always online) is a vital gameplay mechanic for SimCity2013. Many of the games systems tap into the data that the global economy produces in a non-trivial way. So it isn't something that they can just change or turn off without breaking the way the game works on a fundamental level.

Also I know that some people will call services like Origin and Steam a form of DRM since there are quite a few games out there that cannot be played without installing and running either service.

[baertooth 330]

I wouldn't call baseline gameplay mechanics a weak argument for their online desisions. Are you deliberately ignoring what's been confirmed by Maxis or something?

The point is there is except for sharing cities and markets that have been influenced by other players, everything else can be done with an off-line AI.

[JaceTwice 115]

The point is there is except for sharing cities and markets that have been influenced by other players, everything else can be done with an off-line AI.

The markets are what's important though. They've been implemented in such a way that they're vital to how the simulation works. The global market is one of the factors players have to contend with should their cities use up all of the resources they have (which seems to be inevitible)

The global economy doesn't tie in to any of those things! The economy is primarily there to help in the simulation of resources and trade between cities. Part of that whole "cities don't exist in a bubble" thing that Maxis is pushing.

Maybe you're thinking of CityLog, the feature that tracks stats and has the leaderboard integration? I'm not sure if that requires an internet connection to work. Regardless, the game would need the internet connection anyway due to the simulation.

[baertooth 330]

The point is there is except for sharing cities and markets that have been influenced by other players, everything else can be done with an off-line AI.

The markets are what's important though. They've been implemented in such a way that they're vital to how the simulation works. The global market is one of the factors players have to contend with should their cities use up all of the resources they have (which seems to be inevitible)

The markets can be simulated with number generators. And as a player I would rather have the option to cut off my region from the global economy and make my resources non-depleting so I can avoid the extra work that comes with this "feature".

[mk11232 105]

The markets can be simulated with number generators. And as a player I would rather have the option to cut off my region from the global economy and make my resources non-depleting so I can avoid the extra work that comes with this "feature".

How do you expect EA to get your credit card information and entice you to buy "sim gold" to augment your depleted resources to continue building your city if you isolate yourself?

/no they haven't announced sim gold for resources yet

//it's only a matter of time and the only other logical reason to have online-only depleted resources in single mode

[JaceTwice 115]

The markets can be simulated with number generators. And as a player I would rather have the option to cut off my region from the global economy and make my resources non-depleting so I can avoid the extra work that comes with this "feature".

I'd actually really like this as a future patch. The origin servers will inevitably be shut down some time in the far flung future and it'd be a nice gesture by Maxis to extend the longevity of the game that way. Plus by then they should have a reasonable amount of data from the live global economy to create a simulated one.

Though I think there's a bit of irony in a statistics based economy when one of the big selling points of the game is that every aspect is fully simulated and "real".

[baertooth 330]

From what I understand there is a cap on the number of agents the game tracks to 200,000. If that's true then the "simulate everything mantra" seems specious to me.

Also I have a hard time with the global economy as it's been explained. If there are limited resources per region and the resources can deplete, how do they account for new regions? I mean will there a set number of regions when the game is released or can Maxis add more regions for selection? Lets say like if the game turns out to be popular can they add more regions if there weren't enough regions on the outset?

My point is if the resources can deplete and that's a feature of the game and an expectation of the market that eventually all resources in all regions will deplete, then how does Maxis account for new regions? Do you see how pointless the argument for the global economy becomes because ultimately they will be able to screw with the underlying economy anyways? And this is just one of a few different aspects that say no matter what it's not going to be a free market. Maxis, from what I can see, will have to control the markets regardless making moot any argument that SC2013 must be online for the global economy. If not, then they are risking a market meltdown (or several) and annoying their paying customers. And once the conversation starts to revolve around trolls or trade guilds...

Finally, if the resources are depletable, then what about the upcoming resource slump built into the economy? What game play do they have in store for that eventuality? How about... annoy the customer? That's the game play I'm expecting from such a feature when all I want to do is play cities not an economy simulator.

[snick25 384]

Yep, it was confirmed way back in the development process that there would be a limit of 200,000 agents per city. Once that limit is reached? I'm not sure, but if my memory serves me correctly all excess data would be handled via a statistical simulation just as in previous SimCity games.

So this idea of the all-knowing, all-encompassing simulation, unless the facts have changed, is a farce.

[JaceTwice 115]

From what I understand there is a cap on the number of agents the game tracks to 200,000. If that's true then the "simulate everything mantra" seems specious to me.

Also I have a hard time with the global economy as it's been explained. If there are limited resources per region and the resources can deplete, how do they account for new regions? I mean will there a set number of regions when the game is released or can Maxis add more regions for selection? Lets say like if the game turns out to be popular can they add more regions if there weren't enough regions on the outset?

My point is if the resources can deplete and that's a feature of the game and an expectation of the market that eventually all resources in all regions will deplete, then how does Maxis account for new regions? Do you see how pointless the argument for the global economy becomes because ultimately they will be able to screw with the underlying economy anyways? And this is just one of a few different aspects that say no matter what it's not going to be a free market. Maxis, from what I can see, will have to control the markets regardless making moot any argument that SC2013 must be online for the global economy. If not, then they are risking a market meltdown (or several) and annoying their paying customers. And once the conversation starts to revolve around trolls or trade guilds...

Finally, if the resources are depletable, then what about the upcoming resource slump built into the economy? What game play do they have in store for that eventuality? How about... annoy the customer? That's the game play I'm expecting from such a feature when all I want to do is play cities not an economy simulator.

Yeah, the fine details of the global economy haven't really been told yet, but Maxis released some interesting tidbits about it in the AMAA recently. As far as the regions are concerned I'm pretty sure that players can just make a new region filled with new resources anytime they want.It's what the player actually goes and sells out to the market that affects the global economy. I can't imagine Maxis making a finite number of resources across all of the active games of SimCity. From what I could gather the only influence maxis has on the economy is a set price ceiling and floor for each commodity, just to make sure that nothing goes wildly out of balance (they've also said that this is one of the things they want to test in the beta.)

Yep, it was confirmed way back in the development process that there would be a limit of 200,000 agents per city. Once that limit is reached? I'm not sure, but if my memory serves me correctly all excess data would be handled via a statistical simulation just as in previous SimCity games.

So this idea of the all-knowing, all-encompassing simulation, unless the facts have changed, is a farce.

I haven't heard of the switch back to statistical simulation myself but it seems plausible. Let's just remember that Agents aren't the be-all-end-all of the simulation though. Agents only account for things that are moving through the city at any one point in time. And 200,000 moving objects is a whole lot to keep track of in any video game.

[whitesox130 50]

I started off with the Simcity 1 (on the Amiga) and have bought every SC related PC game since. I'm highly disappointed by the news.

This is EA's attempt to cut off the used game market and it effectively means you don't buy Simcity 5, you rent it. This is also a privacy issue as EA doesn't need to know when or anything else about the game after I bought it for my own personal use. If that's part of the condition to buy the game, than I decline. And online Simcity 5 would be better served with a city exchange service where one can upload and download cities. Only a segment of the community wants to interact with other's cities. Personally, and from observation of the community in general, that's a low low priority feature when compared to advancing the actual city simulation.

I'm not 100% completely killed on buying SC5 but my stance now is to wait until after the game has been released and see what happens. But for now I'm going to have to say I'm leaning against buying it and give up on being a long time SC devotee. You'd think after 10 years, the load of BS that was Societies (though I ended up liking it heavily modified), and the painful lesson of Cities XL, EA might have come up with a better game plan than this?

Who says Maxis cares about priorities? One fixed tile size, no subways, no bordering cities, no expressways even, but damnit, we still have disasters!

[snick25 384]

I haven't heard of the switch back to statistical simulation myself but it seems plausible. Let's just remember that Agents aren't the be-all-end-all of the simulation though. Agents only account for things that are moving through the city at any one point in time. And 200,000 moving objects is a whole lot to keep track of in any video game.

Which is one of the reasons I believe Maxis got a tad too ambitious this time around. I'd personally be fine with a simpler, less intensive simulation à la SimCity 4.

[zulhirosue 4]

reason for this idea for stay online while we play the game because they want all everybody want to play this game have to get original game key... not pirate copy... this idea is very successfull is you see some other game like diablo 3... play the game still connect to server.. the contra for this idea... if internet connection not fast.. it will effect your game performance.. and if server down for maintainance or update... all player also cant play the game!!.. yeaahhhh nice idea!

sorry for bad english....

  Edited December 19, 2012 by CaptCity  
Edited for language. See the site rules.

[Hoipus 292]

Time for some predictions/bets guys: How long do you think the online services will last before being shut down?

I give them a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 6.

[Shark7 118]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

[flyer2359 92]

Time for some predictions/bets guys: How long do you think the online services will last before being shut down?

I give them a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 6.

Sounds like a good guess. If they come out with a new SimCity within a couple years after this one releases, I don't see the SC2013 server staying up for more than 3 or 4 years.

[Hoipus 292]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

With that same line of thought, I could also say that if I were to somehow lose my copy due to events out of my control (who knows, maybe my laptop killed itself and the disk inside it), I would still have access to the game.

Not trying to defend origin, but I do find that sort of feature convenient.

[cirugo 1,889]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

With that same line of thought, I could also say that if I were to somehow lose my copy due to events out of my control (who knows, maybe my laptop killed itself and the disk inside it), I would still have access to the game.

Not trying to defend origin, but I do find that sort of feature convenient.

Option to save to the "Cloud"...fine. ONLY saving to the "Cloud" ...not fine.

[Hoipus 292]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

With that same line of thought, I could also say that if I were to somehow lose my copy due to events out of my control (who knows, maybe my laptop killed itself and the disk inside it), I would still have access to the game.

Not trying to defend origin, but I do find that sort of feature convenient.

Option to save to the "Cloud"...fine. ONLY saving to the "Cloud" ...not fine.

I thought we were discussing installation sources here. You can still install Origin games from disc as long as you install Origin... right? Or is that one of the areas in which it doesn't work like steam?

[cirugo 1,889]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

With that same line of thought, I could also say that if I were to somehow lose my copy due to events out of my control (who knows, maybe my laptop killed itself and the disk inside it), I would still have access to the game.

Not trying to defend origin, but I do find that sort of feature convenient.

Option to save to the "Cloud"...fine. ONLY saving to the "Cloud" ...not fine.

I thought we were discussing installation sources here. You can still install Origin games from disc as long as you install Origin... right? Or is that one of the areas in which it doesn't work like steam?

I believe so. The only game that I have that required installation of Origin was Star Wars: The Old Republic (an MMO which I cancelled because of EA's insistence upon moving ahead with this direction for SimCity) and the game installed from the discs. I would assume it would be the same here although I don't know how it's going to work as far as installation goes...I do know that the game saves are not local though and that is what I was referring to and what I thought you were referring to.

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Another disadvantage of being forced to use Origin (or any other distribution software):

Many Internet service providers place bandwidth caps. If your computer crashes and you are nearing the bandwidth limits, expect hefty surcharges. In some jurisdictions, bandwidth caps can be as low as 50GB per month! Physical discs are better in this case (I actually do not mind using physical discs).

[kolakube 9]

As I wrote in the 'will you buy Simcity 2013' poll....

Sorry if this offends anyone.

I really really want to BUY a copy of this and fund future releases of SimCity. The better this sells the more chance that is to happen so I want to play my part and buy this.....

I have bought ALL previous versions of SimCity starting out on the Commodore Amiga.

  Edited December 21, 2012 by CaptCity  
Discussion of piracy not permiitted.

[~Dee~ 215]

Another disadvantage of being forced to use Origin (or any other distribution software):

Many Internet service providers place bandwidth caps. If your computer crashes and you are nearing the bandwidth limits, expect hefty surcharges. In some jurisdictions, bandwidth caps can be as low as 50GB per month! Physical discs are better in this case (I actually do not mind using physical discs).

I wish I had 50GB, I get 12GB per month.

As you can imagine I can't do much with that, view a few videos, check out some forums and email and it's gone.

I certainly don't have enough bandwidth to play a online only game every day.

I prefer disks too.

[Pandemic 32]

Quoted from PC Gamer:

The most controversial topic in Maxis’ Reddit AMA last week was SimCity’s use of always-online DRM. Many fans objected to the principle of needing to be online when playing the game alone. “If a game requires me to be online all the time to play it, sorry, I can’t get behind buying it,” one comment read.Another: “Didn’t work for Diablo 3 not going to work for you. Sorry, just lost a buyer.” (Diablo 3’s record sales would beg to differ, unfortunately.)

Today, Maxis frontwoman and senior VP Lucy Bradshaw has stepped in in an attempt to clear the air. In a statement on simcity.com, she touches on EA’s design motivations and technical reasons for implementing an always-online requirement in all SimCity modes, emphasizing that the game “was designed to be connected from the ground up.”

“GlassBox is the engine that drives the entire game—the buildings, the economics, trading, and also the overall simulation that can track data for up to 100,000 individual Sims inside each city. There is a massive amount of computing that goes into all of this, and GlassBox works by attributing portions of the computing to EA servers (the cloud) and some on the player’s local computer,” Bradshaw writes.

If I’m understanding that correctly, Bradshaw’s saying that offloading certain aspects of the simulation to SimCity servers is not only the way the game is designed, but a technical requirement. Bradshaw reflects this again in a later paragraph: “Trades between cities, simulation effects that cause change across the region like pollution or crime, as well as depletion of resources, are all processed on the servers and then data is sent back to your city on your PC. Every city in the region is updated every three minutes, which keeps the overall region in sync and makes your decisions in your city relevant to any changes that have taken place in the region.”

Though indirectly, this represents Maxis’ closest answer to why players won’t be able to elect to make a city or region as single-player-only upon creation. Bradshaw later brings up that having all players online grants Maxis the data it needs to “create weekly global and local challenges for our players that keep the gameplay fresh and surprising.”

It’s admittedly tough to be direct about these issues without being antagonistic, but I think Bradshaw should have been more frank—her comments are separated by generalizations about Maxis’ vision for the game that we’re already firmly acquainted with, and only water down her explanation. Maybe GlassBox—even in a single-player context—genuinely requires help from servers in order to do all it does. I don’t believe that could be the case, but I’m also not a technical director. If there is a legitimate technical need for all players to be online while playing SimCity, I might recommend to EA that they offer fans a visual or more detailed explanation of that system.

The question I have for Maxis is the same one I had for Blizzard prior to the launch of Diablo 3: if hacking, mods, unregulated user content, or similar concerns are part of the reason you’re integrating an always-online requirement, why not allow players to opt into a single-player-only mode that permanently isolates their game save? Why can’t we simply log in upon booting the game, and not require us to be online every moment?

Link

Original blog by Lucy Bradshaw, Senior Vice President of Maxis:

Hi everyone – I’m Lucy Bradshaw and I lead the Maxis Label here at EA. Last week, we held a Reddit Ask Me Almost Anything (AMAA) where we gave fans a chance to speak directly to the development team creating SimCity. First off, I want to personally thank everyone who asked us questions and participated in the event –the team really appreciates your feedback. We received some great questions on a range of topics, including the city size, the GlassBox engine powering SimCity, and even how many splines we’ve reticulated over the years (short answer: a lot).

One particular topic that was brought up during the chat was our decision to require an online connection to play the game. I’ve also been talking to fans directly on this subject and I wanted to put some of my thoughts on this here on our blog. I understand why this may be a concern for fans who have been playing SimCity for decades now. Like all of you, I’m a long-time SimCity fan. But it’s not just me – we have several veterans from previous versions of the game here at the Maxis studio, and we are all proud and excited about the game we’re making and we think you’ll really love it.

Creating a connected experience has always been a goal for SimCity, and this design decision has driven our development process for the game. This is easily the most ambitious game in the franchise and we’ve taken great care to make sure that every line of code embodies the spirit of the series. To do this, we knew we had to make sure we put our heart and souls into the simulation and the team created the most powerful simulation engine in its history, the GlassBox Engine. GlassBox is the engine that drives the entire game -- the buildings, the economics, trading, and also the overall simulation that can track data for up to 100,000 individual Sims inside each city. There is a massive amount of computing that goes into all of this, and GlassBox works by attributing portions of the computing to EA servers (the cloud) and some on the player's local computer.

Perhaps Ocean said it best when he said that real cities do not exist in a bubble; they share a region and affect one another. GlassBox does more than just segregate computing tasks, it also allows us to make it so that you can create specialized cities that are visually unique and personalized, and that can be economically integrated into a larger region. You’re always connected to the neighbors in your region so while you play, data from your city interacts with our servers, and we run the simulation at a regional scale. For example, trades between cities, simulation effects that cause change across the region like pollution or crime, as well as depletion of resources, are all processed on the servers and then data is sent back to your city on your PC. Every city in the region is updated every three minutes, which keeps the overall region in sync and makes your decisions in your city relevant to any changes that have taken place in the region.

Running the regional simulation on our servers is something we also use to support features that will make this SimCity even more fun. We use the Sim data to update worldwide leaderboards, where you get to see your city or mayoral standings as compared to the other cities in your region and between all of the regions in the world. And since SimCity is a live service, we're also using the data to create weekly global and local challenges for our players that keep the gameplay fresh and surprising.

We think this is the best SimCity ever and it wouldn’t be possible without the technology that powers our game. SimCity was designed to be connected from the ground up. We built the game around GlassBox, which takes the game to another level. And, we’ve given the player control over how to play. You can set your region to private and never interact with other people, or you can play exclusively with friends or join a public region.

We’re entering the final stages of development. We're still tuning and refining the game but already it has that special magic that sucked me into the franchise in the first place. We really look forward to seeing what you will create and how you will Mayor come March 5th.

Thanks,

Lucy

Link

Thoughts?

[Shark7 118]

With all this discussion, I think it still all comes down to this. EA is going to miss out on sales to people like me that refuse to download the Origin spyware on their computer just to play a game. And while I know some of you will disagree, in my world, any program that scans my computer without me telling it to is spyware pure and simple.

A virus scanner is different, you don't have to have it for the game to work, and I opted to install and use it. Unfortunately, if you want to play the new Simcity (and many other titles for that matter) then you get no choice. Granted, you opt out the way I am, by not buying or installing the game.

It sure seams as DRM measures have gotten more draconian the more games get pirated. Perhaps this is an example of the old saying "The tighter your grasp it, the more it slips through your hands,"?

I personally prefer to buy my games and get a physical copy. I don't really like these DL only titles to start with...if you lose a HD to a crash or do upgrades, then not only do you have to reinstall the game, you have to re-download it first. With my physical copy I can just plop the CD in the drive and install it quickly.

With that same line of thought, I could also say that if I were to somehow lose my copy due to events out of my control (who knows, maybe my laptop killed itself and the disk inside it), I would still have access to the game.

Not trying to defend origin, but I do find that sort of feature convenient.

Well, I have had a computer quit with a disk inside the drive. I've never seen a CD drive that doesn't have a manual release to open the tray and retrieve the disk. In the very rare event that a CD actually breaks inside the HD, well...not much you can do about that (I've had that happen once in the 30+ years I've been playing computer games).

In truth the problem with CDs and DVDs is common to all media...it degrades over time, eventually becoming unusable. It may take decades for that to happen though, so long as you do proper storage and care of the disk.

That isn't to say that I won't Digital DL a game, but I prefer to do business with publishers that offer both the download and the physical copy. Meaning you don't need the CDs in the tray to play the game, but you have it handy if you ever have to reinstall. Funny thing is, with all the PC games I currently have from one particular publisher, I have both digital and physical...and the games do not have DRM other than a serial code you enter ONCE at installation. In other words, they are old school, the way it was when I started playing games all those years ago.

Just seems to me that the DRM measures are becoming oppressive. The old way with the serial numbers doesn't really bother me...I feel that is reasonable.

[Cobraroll 138]

[Large quote]

Thoughts?

Sounds like they wanted the game to be Online-only at the very beginning of the design process, and worked from there. As she stated, there are some advantages of connecting the game that tightly to the servers, but frankly, it was never required. I can understand how this multiplayer is going to be a fun experience for some, but there still is no excuse not to have a single-player option. A home computer could just as well manage to keep neighbouring cities updated with crime and pollution, it's all a matter of how detailed you want it to be. "Global economy", "Leaderboards" and all that sounds just like excuses to keep it all online at all times. I would prefer the game to have a multiplayer OPTION, not to keep everything on servers at all times. These statements also make it pretty clear that they would have to radically alter things to keep the game alive after the servers inevitably are shut down.

The detailed simulation is also to blame for the small cities. They could make small cities with lots of life, and individual sims and whatnot, or they could go the route of the previous games and have vast cities where the sims were just numbers. I'd have preferred a compromise, an evolution of the MySim thing in SC4, where you can have a few sims of your own and they could interact with their environment. It wouldn't bother me if only one sim in a thousand was fully simulated, if it saved up enough computing power to create a proper metropolis. Instead, we get villages populated by a few thousand okayishly simulated people.

[Rokugatsu 128]

[Large quote]

Thoughts?

Sounds like they wanted the game to be Online-only at the very beginning of the design process, and worked from there. As she stated, there are some advantages of connecting the game that tightly to the servers, but frankly, it was never required. I can understand how this multiplayer is going to be a fun experience for some, but there still is no excuse not to have a single-player option. A home computer could just as well manage to keep neighbouring cities updated with crime and pollution, it's all a matter of how detailed you want it to be. "Global economy", "Leaderboards" and all that sounds just like excuses to keep it all online at all times. I would prefer the game to have a multiplayer OPTION, not to keep everything on servers at all times. These statements also make it pretty clear that they would have to radically alter things to keep the game alive after the servers inevitably are shut down.

The detailed simulation is also to blame for the small cities. They could make small cities with lots of life, and individual sims and whatnot, or they could go the route of the previous games and have vast cities where the sims were just numbers. I'd have preferred a compromise, an evolution of the MySim thing in SC4, where you can have a few sims of your own and they could interact with their environment. It wouldn't bother me if only one sim in a thousand was fully simulated, if it saved up enough computing power to create a proper metropolis. Instead, we get villages populated by a few thousand okayishly simulated people.

We already have a game that lets you build huge, realistic cities with no simulation, it's called Cities XL. At first it was fun, but I prefer SimCity to be a good simulation game and not just a tool to build nice looking cities.

But even though Im exiting about multiplayer, I agree that there should be offline singleplayer mode as well.

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Now that we are getting closer to the release date, I wonder given the fact that EA would prefer players to buy off origin, how would the servers cope when all those who pre-order and those who purchase on day of release start to download what I assume would be several GBs of data files almost simultaneously? I have never purchased anything from origin before and definitely have not purchased online games on day of release before.

I would imagine that if the servers buckle under the number of downloads on day of release, EA would have loads of unhappy and pissed customers. Thus it has always been my preference to purchase physical copies of games. Unfortunately in EA's case they have made it abundantly clear that they would prefer u purchase from origin (from the point of the exclusive deluxe version).