EA Forum user mods game to play offline, enables debug mode, and places highways/rail in and outside of city boundaries...

[Charizard 284]

The person who modded the game posted on the EA SimCity forum but his post has since been removed by the mods. He was able to enable debug mode so that highways/rail could be placed in and outside of the city boundaries. So the terrain outside of the city boundaries is indeed editable. He also allowed the game to be played offline indefinitely. Apparently the full debug mode allows terraforming but he wasn't able to access that. The funny thing is after he used debug mode to place highways in and outside of the city boundaries, the server saved the editing and the highways were still present when he reloaded the game. It's such a shame that the game has the tools for terraforming, highway/rail placement, and being able to play offline but they chose to instead impose limitations upon the player. So much potential here (disregarding the current glaring bugs with the glassbox engine). I'll quote the original post that was posted in the SimCity forums before it was removed.

 

Azzer007
Still no notification of any kind from any forum moderator or admin as to why my original thread got deleted, or my posts on this thread.

All of my posts have been very civil, polite, and they are on a subject matter Ocean Quigley and Guillaume Pierre have shown support for on Twitter at some stage or another - modding.

The mods themselves have been educational, experimental, and positive.

I will give the links one more time. If this post is deleted with no rhyme or reason, then, well, sheesh, let's hope it gets passed around elsewhere, and maybe Rock Paper Shotgun will do another SimCity article, this time on modding!

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a9n5j/yo...ys_outside_of_city_boundaries/

While I am not aware of any rules broken, while a mod is on a rampage, I wouldn't advise others to invoke their wrath. Feel free to pass the link around - but best do it on other websites than this one for now - I don't want anyone getting in trouble

[Kythlyn 80]

Good find. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this.

[Wiimeiser 452]

Though it's not visually appealing, that's not important at this time. What matters is it's possible.

  Edited March 14, 2013 by CaptCity  
Removed off topic content.

[bcnurse247 33]

someone busted the game out of it's "always online" server prison???  Really??

 

*mouth hanging open*

[Frode789 70]

No surprise here.. We all knew it was Maxis's choice to put those limits on the users.

[baertooth 330]

I predict this will get shut down soon as well though the topic is hugely valid if anything just to have what Mr Chimp said, let EA explain this.

 

And I know this is verboten but again, extremely valid...

 

What will this game look like after it's cracked?  Will there be two versions then?  The official online version we know now and an offline version that's more like SC4?

 

I bring this up because it contradicts Maxis' assertion that SC2013 had to be online and now with this revelation, that it's going to be really easy to crack it in a way that will have legitimate customers lining up for the cracked version simply because it works more like how the customer wants it and that isn't available if you go the legal route.

[simcopops 37]

So the tools were always there just like any other simcity game but now when we want any of these extras we will be charged for each square section of extra highway. Why don't companies learn your customer isn't a feeble sheep that just follows.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Problem is... even if we get an unofficial (or official) mod for bigger playable cities, the glassbox engine is stil completely hopeless. It will make things even worse in terms of gameplay.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, Cool_Z, that's 'Defective by design' done right.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Yup... "OMG our engine sucks so much... what can we do ???" "Well, let's make them play on tiny maps and they might not figure it out" 

[General Stubbs 3]

That is amazing. Think of all the good this discovery can do!!!

Half the bugs are complaining about the traffic. WE WON'T HAVE CHOKEPOINTS ANYMORE!!!

My question is: Why wasn't this implemented in the start?

[yigald1 1]

The OFFLINE issue always arises, and it's of course legitimate to demand it.

 

But there is another aspect, where the offline issue makes so much trouble. Yesterday night I play with my 3-cities region, which had already an "atlantis" city (i.e. a lost city, which Maxis/EA promised to recover for me), and just when one of the remainder 2 cities start thriving, I got a message saying that the city was not built correctly, and I have eather create a new city, or ask for a rollback. I chose to rollback, and then what ? I got an EMPTY city. 

 

Now, if the game was a normal offline game (leave aside server connection problems), then in this case, I would reload the game from my personal recent save.

 

I had to abandon the whole region.

[strokesboy21 11]

this is brilliant news think that the maxis bird has got a lot of explaining to do but if she wants a dinner date i would 

[nats 99]

This is getting just stupid really. Maxis/Ea should just be flaming honest and nice to their fans for once and remove the DRM, provide a load of free content and some very good patches (increasing plot size for one) and do that pretty much immediately or at the very least issue a formal statement of the intent to do it. Then people might actually buy the game and people who have bought the game might actually begin to play it.

 

This has to be one of the worst major game release day cock ups I have ever seen and Ive seen some bad ones. If they dont do something very constructive immediately this game will be in the bargain basement pile faster than you can say llama speed.

 

I, like many people I presume, have almost given up on the Simcity game but I stay in touch with developments at the moment in case anything changes to actually make me feel like buying it. But so far nothing has and I will eventually give up on it altogether.

 

The really stupid thing is the situation is getting worse not better.

[Board_Marshal 104]

I'm flabbergasted that EA/Maxis, for whatever reason, fails to account for how many highly intelligent and/or highly talented people there in the world today.  I'm sure there's many intelligent/talented people at EA/Maxis but such a small group of people simply can't measure up to that much larger number of people.  So many people who are just as smart/intelligent (or more so) apply those abilities to other areas of work/life but at home are dedicated gamers. 

 

I suspect that with a much better launch and a game simulation engine that worked in a manner which everybody accepted and approved of there would still be hundreds of people getting into the game's code and finding ways to make it better.  The behavior of the production/publication companies, when it comes to the types of games being released using the current business model (always-online or have to go through Steam, free-2-play but micro-transactions, DLC, multiple immediate post release patches, social gaming, etc) is to just shrug their collective shoulders and say "this is the state of PC gaming, deal with it".  I would say that players hacking your games to make them better "will always be the behavior of the players, embrace it".  The guy's at IGN made a comment in a video yesterday that if nobody was interested in the game then nobody would be being vocal about its flaws, it would just die a silent death.  What you have here are players seeing the potential of what was envisioned for SC2013 and being angry that the execution and/or the approach seems to have gone sideways (90 degree turn) resulting in having being given a glimpse of greatness only to have it be sucked into a super-massive black hole.

 

With all that said EA/Maxis, you need to expand into the information vacuum which you've left because people are pouring their unfiltered rage into the information world like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and utterly decimating this game and the EA/Maxis reputation/image/and any goodwill that you may still have had.  I don't know who your PR people are but they've clearly gone catatonic or have outright had a stroke and died.  What is going on is not going to be forgotten or blow over.  With ~20 years of gaming under my belt this is THE epic fail of my lifetime which will be the gaming industries benchmark which by all future game launches and failures will be measured.  Is mitigating this of any importance because your response thus far suggest either frank incompetence, bad counsel, or worst of all that while you are aware and it does matter but its deemed not worth the work.

[snwboardn 18]

That is good news... i heard they are already on damage control trying to lock out the packages that make this possible. I would definitely leave this as an educational purpose only for the time being. The last thing you want is for your files to be reported to the server as being modified... At that point it technically could be considered "cheating" and you could lose your entire Origin account. 

[macvirt 361]

I predict this will get shut down soon as well though the topic is hugely valid if anything just to have what Mr Chimp said, let EA explain this.

 

And I know this is verboten but again, extremely valid...

 

What will this game look like after it's cracked?  Will there be two versions then?  The official online version we know now and an offline version that's more like SC4?

 

I bring this up because it contradicts Maxis' assertion that SC2013 had to be online and now with this revelation, that it's going to be really easy to crack it in a way that will have legitimate customers lining up for the cracked version simply because it works more like how the customer wants it and that isn't available if you go the legal route.

 

Well, to keep it simple (ignoring for a moment the EA discretionary reservation of arbitrary power through its EULA) the introduction of an offline & local save feature set would not be cracking or hacking. It would be a case of modification of packages and introduction of packages, something Maxis already announced on Twitter to be allowed. 

 

Ofcourse EA could still cause arbitrary issues, after all connecting via Origin is such a requirement under the EULA, but technically it is now possible.

 

What interests me is how this really presents a potential conflict between the Maxis level and the EA strategic level. 

[GenXisT 127]

I'm flabbergasted that EA/Maxis, for whatever reason, fails to account for how many highly intelligent and/or highly talented people there in the world today.  I'm sure there's many intelligent/talented people at EA/Maxis but such a small group of people simply can't measure up to that much larger number of people.  So many people who are just as smart/intelligent (or more so) apply those abilities to other areas of work/life but at home are dedicated gamers. 

 

I suspect that with a much better launch and a game simulation engine that worked in a manner which everybody accepted and approved of there would still be hundreds of people getting into the game's code and finding ways to make it better.  The behavior of the production/publication companies, when it comes to the types of games being released using the current business model (always-online or have to go through Steam, free-2-play but micro-transactions, DLC, multiple immediate post release patches, social gaming, etc) is to just shrug their collective shoulders and say "this is the state of PC gaming, deal with it".  I would say that players hacking your games to make them better "will always be the behavior of the players, embrace it".  The guy's at IGN made a comment in a video yesterday that if nobody was interested in the game then nobody would be being vocal about its flaws, it would just die a silent death.  What you have here are players seeing the potential of what was envisioned for SC2013 and being angry that the execution and/or the approach seems to have gone sideways (90 degree turn) resulting in having being given a glimpse of greatness only to have it be sucked into a super-massive black hole.

 

With all that said EA/Maxis, you need to expand into the information vacuum which you've left because people are pouring their unfiltered rage into the information world like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and utterly decimating this game and the EA/Maxis reputation/image/and any goodwill that you may still have had.  I don't know who your PR people are but they've clearly gone catatonic or have outright had a stroke and died.  What is going on is not going to be forgotten or blow over.  With ~20 years of gaming under my belt this is THE epic fail of my lifetime which will be the gaming industries benchmark which by all future game launches and failures will be measured.  Is mitigating this of any importance because your response thus far suggest either frank incompetence, bad counsel, or worst of all that while you are aware and it does matter but its deemed not worth the work.

 

This whole post!

[macvirt 361]

That is good news... i heard they are already on damage control trying to lock out the packages that make this possible. I would definitely leave this as an educational purpose only for the time being. The last thing you want is for your files to be reported to the server as being modified... At that point it technically could be considered "cheating" and you could lose your entire Origin account. 

 

Yes, hearing things to the same extent. Validation as well as the Origin inspection. So the trick may very well be to just be smart with custom packages and removal of the required Origin elements. 

[nafeasonto 18]

What just annoys me to the core is that EA/Maxis and the CEO came out and DIRECTLY LIED.  Now that's ridiculous.  It's sad that the gaming community basically has no rights and is subject to whatever the companies do to us.

[snwboardn 18]

What just annoys me to the core is that EA/Maxis and the CEO came out and DIRECTLY LIED.  Now that's ridiculous.  It's sad that the gaming community basically has no rights and is subject to whatever the companies do to us.

 

Of course they did? My Navy recruiter lied to me (told me there were bowling alleys onboard aircraft carriers)... My car salesman lied to me... The door to door salesman lied to me... I am not saying it is right but you do have freedom your freedom is to keep your wallet closed. 

 

Like it or not the online aspect is not going anywhere, it was stated before launch and any lie as to why it HAS to be there is irrelevant it is there we all knew it would be... If they remove it one day that is great if not... whatever 

[macvirt 361]

What just annoys me to the core is that EA/Maxis and the CEO came out and DIRECTLY LIED.  Now that's ridiculous.  It's sad that the gaming community basically has no rights and is subject to whatever the companies do to us.

 

Welcome to the reality of our society. If you do not like it, do not participate in consumptive behaviour that enforces it. We're at a point where we mostly think that our systems cannot function without this kind of behaviour, pure and simple. This is nothing specific to the gaming industry, it is innate to our systems of organisation in all aspects of our society. Politics, economics, culture, family units, everything.

 

But to keep it specific, it should already be clear that this is how things are done. If people do not like that, they should not buy in to it. Literally.

[GenXisT 127]

What just annoys me to the core is that EA/Maxis and the CEO came out and DIRECTLY LIED.  Now that's ridiculous.  It's sad that the gaming community basically has no rights and is subject to whatever the companies do to us.

 

Of course they did? My Navy recruiter lied to me (told me there were bowling alleys onboard aircraft carriers)... My car salesman lied to me... The door to door salesman lied to me... I am not saying it is right but you do have freedom your freedom is to keep your wallet closed. 

 

Like it or not the online aspect is not going anywhere, it was stated before launch and any lie as to why it HAS to be there is irrelevant it is there we all knew it would be... If they remove it one day that is great if not... whatever 

 

So basically what you're saying is that companies (or services or whatever) have no responsibility whatsoever and it's the consumer's problem if something like SC2013 happens?

 

Unlike cars or something like that where you actually get to try it out first, we didn't get much of a chance with this game.  And the chance we got was well hampered by the servers... and we were ensured that it would be fix with the release.

 

It wasn't. It was a lie... so much of this has been lies.  And you're gonna blame the consumer?

 

Pound sand, mate... 

[macvirt 361]

Everybody has responsability. We just live in a society where taking responsability is directly dependant on the commercial functioning of dependancies. 

 

The reigning mindset in our industry among the big publishing / investment houses is that customers are resources. Which is only natural considering how that mindset came to be over the decades. As an industry we're hardly an exception in this regard. Far from. 

 

The trick is either not minding that it can hurt, or to not enable it. One of the two. The first maintains the mindset and the system in general, the second requires consumers to not enable it by removing their commercial enablement. In simpler terms, if consumers buy in to it they enable these matters, if the do not buy the results of it they disable the functional requirements of the mindset.

 

It is a debate very similar to that of who carries guilt, the person wielding the gun, the one building it, the one selling it, or even the victim. It is an intrinsic dynamic of enablement of dependancies. The consumer carries as much "guilt" as the John Doe CEO who makes a career out of it.

 

It's not simply economics, it's basic psychology of human dynamics. 

 

So yes, blame lies with the consumer. It also lies with those who ride on it, who instigate it and so forth. But it is the consumer who is the only party in the dynamic to have the power to force adjustments to the mindset that continues this kind of issues. That however remains largely theoretical, because people tend to be aware mostly on an individual level and not on a group level. 

[mastorofpuppetz 199]

The hilarious thing is they thought the community would never notice these thigns, EA your community is not stupid quite the opposite, they will spot flaws really quick, heck some of the community can fix games companies won't.

[Sunfighter 186]

Cant wait till the figure out how to get the zones to build outside the friggin dotted lines. I already knew you could build roads outside them, and the cars use those roads outside the dotted lines..so its not like the SIM just just stops happening.

[ifurkend 0]

I'm flabbergasted that EA/Maxis, for whatever reason, fails to account for how many highly intelligent and/or highly talented people there in the world today.  I'm sure there's many intelligent/talented people at EA/Maxis but such a small group of people simply can't measure up to that much larger number of people.  So many people who are just as smart/intelligent (or more so) apply those abilities to other areas of work/life but at home are dedicated gamers. 

 

I suspect that with a much better launch and a game simulation engine that worked in a manner which everybody accepted and approved of there would still be hundreds of people getting into the game's code and finding ways to make it better.  The behavior of the production/publication companies, when it comes to the types of games being released using the current business model (always-online or have to go through Steam, free-2-play but micro-transactions, DLC, multiple immediate post release patches, social gaming, etc) is to just shrug their collective shoulders and say "this is the state of PC gaming, deal with it".  I would say that players hacking your games to make them better "will always be the behavior of the players, embrace it".  The guy's at IGN made a comment in a video yesterday that if nobody was interested in the game then nobody would be being vocal about its flaws, it would just die a silent death.  What you have here are players seeing the potential of what was envisioned for SC2013 and being angry that the execution and/or the approach seems to have gone sideways (90 degree turn) resulting in having being given a glimpse of greatness only to have it be sucked into a super-massive black hole.

 

With all that said EA/Maxis, you need to expand into the information vacuum which you've left because people are pouring their unfiltered rage into the information world like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and utterly decimating this game and the EA/Maxis reputation/image/and any goodwill that you may still have had.  I don't know who your PR people are but they've clearly gone catatonic or have outright had a stroke and died.  What is going on is not going to be forgotten or blow over.  With ~20 years of gaming under my belt this is THE epic fail of my lifetime which will be the gaming industries benchmark which by all future game launches and failures will be measured.  Is mitigating this of any importance because your response thus far suggest either frank incompetence, bad counsel, or worst of all that while you are aware and it does matter but its deemed not worth the work.

 

This whole post!

Almost the same during the closed beta of Cities XL which all testers implored Monte Cristo to abandon the MMO mode which wouldn't work on city builder game. The only difference is that Monte Cristo eventually made most MMO-exclusive features available to single player mode before shutting down the MMO server and closing down the company. Sad thing is EA naively thought they could make a better online-exclusive city builder. In the end the publisher once again victimized the developers and players for their fiasco.

[PieceOfMind 3]

Everybody has responsability. We just live in a society where taking responsability is directly dependant on the commercial functioning of dependancies. 

 

The reigning mindset in our industry among the big publishing / investment houses is that customers are resources. Which is only natural considering how that mindset came to be over the decades. As an industry we're hardly an exception in this regard. Far from. 

 

The trick is either not minding that it can hurt, or to not enable it. One of the two. The first maintains the mindset and the system in general, the second requires consumers to not enable it by removing their commercial enablement. In simpler terms, if consumers buy in to it they enable these matters, if the do not buy the results of it they disable the functional requirements of the mindset.

 

It is a debate very similar to that of who carries guilt, the person wielding the gun, the one building it, the one selling it, or even the victim. It is an intrinsic dynamic of enablement of dependancies. The consumer carries as much "guilt" as the John Doe CEO who makes a career out of it.

 

It's not simply economics, it's basic psychology of human dynamics. 

 

So yes, blame lies with the consumer. It also lies with those who ride on it, who instigate it and so forth. But it is the consumer who is the only party in the dynamic to have the power to force adjustments to the mindset that continues this kind of issues. That however remains largely theoretical, because people tend to be aware mostly on an individual level and not on a group level. 

Gosh, your posts are consistently in a higher plane.  Always enlightening to read.  Good stuff.

[snwboardn 18]

 

What just annoys me to the core is that EA/Maxis and the CEO came out and DIRECTLY LIED.  Now that's ridiculous.  It's sad that the gaming community basically has no rights and is subject to whatever the companies do to us.

 

Of course they did? My Navy recruiter lied to me (told me there were bowling alleys onboard aircraft carriers)... My car salesman lied to me... The door to door salesman lied to me... I am not saying it is right but you do have freedom your freedom is to keep your wallet closed. 

 

Like it or not the online aspect is not going anywhere, it was stated before launch and any lie as to why it HAS to be there is irrelevant it is there we all knew it would be... If they remove it one day that is great if not... whatever 

 

So basically what you're saying is that companies (or services or whatever) have no responsibility whatsoever and it's the consumer's problem if something like SC2013 happens?

 

Unlike cars or something like that where you actually get to try it out first, we didn't get much of a chance with this game.  And the chance we got was well hampered by the servers... and we were ensured that it would be fix with the release.

 

It wasn't. It was a lie... so much of this has been lies.  And you're gonna blame the consumer?

 

Pound sand, mate... 

 

She said we have no rights... I made a simple statement that we have the right not to buy the game... I am not sure how that is blaming the consumer. If you think I am defending Maxis and EA you are sorely mistaken but there comes a point in time that you have to have some sort of consumer responsibility. 

 

If we just mindlessly keep buying products from EA they will never learn, there is only one thing they listen to, it isn't the forums it is the amount of zeroes in their bank account... I voted with my wallet, I am not the owner of this game... How did you vote?

[Board_Marshal 104]

 

I'm flabbergasted that EA/Maxis, for whatever reason, fails to account for how many highly intelligent and/or highly talented people there in the world today.  I'm sure there's many intelligent/talented people at EA/Maxis but such a small group of people simply can't measure up to that much larger number of people.  So many people who are just as smart/intelligent (or more so) apply those abilities to other areas of work/life but at home are dedicated gamers. 

 

I suspect that with a much better launch and a game simulation engine that worked in a manner which everybody accepted and approved of there would still be hundreds of people getting into the game's code and finding ways to make it better.  The behavior of the production/publication companies, when it comes to the types of games being released using the current business model (always-online or have to go through Steam, free-2-play but micro-transactions, DLC, multiple immediate post release patches, social gaming, etc) is to just shrug their collective shoulders and say "this is the state of PC gaming, deal with it".  I would say that players hacking your games to make them better "will always be the behavior of the players, embrace it".  The guy's at IGN made a comment in a video yesterday that if nobody was interested in the game then nobody would be being vocal about its flaws, it would just die a silent death.  What you have here are players seeing the potential of what was envisioned for SC2013 and being angry that the execution and/or the approach seems to have gone sideways (90 degree turn) resulting in having being given a glimpse of greatness only to have it be sucked into a super-massive black hole.

 

With all that said EA/Maxis, you need to expand into the information vacuum which you've left because people are pouring their unfiltered rage into the information world like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and utterly decimating this game and the EA/Maxis reputation/image/and any goodwill that you may still have had.  I don't know who your PR people are but they've clearly gone catatonic or have outright had a stroke and died.  What is going on is not going to be forgotten or blow over.  With ~20 years of gaming under my belt this is THE epic fail of my lifetime which will be the gaming industries benchmark which by all future game launches and failures will be measured.  Is mitigating this of any importance because your response thus far suggest either frank incompetence, bad counsel, or worst of all that while you are aware and it does matter but its deemed not worth the work.

 

This whole post!

 

Almost the same during the closed beta of Cities XL which all testers implored Monte Cristo to abandon the MMO mode which wouldn't work on city builder game. The only difference is that Monte Cristo eventually made most MMO-exclusive features available to single player mode before shutting down the MMO server and closing down the company. Sad thing is EA naively thought they could make a better online-exclusive city builder. In the end the publisher once again victimized the developers and players for their fiasco.

 

I enjoy Cities XL despite that it brings my computer to a crawl at mid-to late game.  It has lots of novel concepts that could have been brought to SimCity2013 (as a social scientist I appreciated the "class stratification" of citizens even though the class system has a longer tradition in the UK and Europe than in America).  I digress.

 

I don't mind the online component (I'm not talking about the "always-online" requirement but what the servers can add and do for the player) but I believe the online component is one part failure of concept and one part failure to execute.  I could see how some would argue that SC2013 should have been designed as a single player game and then had the online stuff added on top so those who found online appealing could use it and those who didn't could refrain yet still have a full game.  I can also see how it was argued (for whatever reason) that for the online interaction component to be successful it had to be a part of the game from the beginning, from concept through design to post release support.  Not integrating it into the core game design may result in it being viewed as "just added on, nice but not important". 

 

Maxis/EA had to "sell, sell, sell" it verbally to convince us it (the online component) was going to be good instead of believing that the added features of the online component would speak for itself.  It makes me think that they didn't have faith in their product.  If something is great then nobody needs to TELL you its great, its just intrinsically great.  If the mechanics and gameplay provided by the online component via the serves was really awesome and everybody without question wanted to use them then there would be no need to advertise, its awesomeness would speak for itself.  In effect we would "choose" to be "always-online" because not being online was nice but the features added by the servers were so cool that it playing offline was good, but not great. 

 

This shouldn't be mistaken for purposefully making an average "offline" game and the only way to really get your money's worth is to play online.  Every feature that can be executed by an individual home computer should be part of the "offline" experience.  No moving stuff that could be done by the PC to "the cloud" because, who are we kidding, we're going to figure out what can and can't be done on our own PC's, am I right?  If the content of what's handled by the server is so cool, so engrossing, so sophisticated, so challenging then we'll naturally be online most of the time.  This is why I say its one part failure of concept.  They wanted an online portion to make it social but their concepts just aren't compelling enough to make us want to be online.  It's a carrot and stick approach.  Make the online stuff a huge, fresh, bright orange carrot and we'll chase it.  Their carrot is small (innuendo?, I guess).  Instead the "always-online" is a huge mallet that they use to beats us over the head while they're telling us "its great, isn't it".