So is modding dead?

[pkdust 6]

is the sim city modding community dead or what, has the entire community died or something?

[CapTon 592]

is the sim city modding community dead or what, has the entire community died or something?

Nope not at all. The modders are just hard at work and everyone else don't really have anything to talk about involving modding

[stormgear 10]

They just opened a new forum about User Generated Content yesterday here: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/4227.page

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Oppie has spend a lot of time digging through the code to find out of to do modding. Most SC4 modders who have expressed interest in modding for SC2013 have said that they are waiting for modding to be made available to them first and many of them haven't bought SC2013 yet because without modding, it doesn't interest them enough. But as Stormgear said: Maxis had started the official modding discussion on the EA forums and, just to be as dramatic as possible, the decisions made there will make or break the future of the game.

[pkdust 6]

Excellent. Hopefully this sim city will last as long as SC4

[crimsondesigns 0]

Very much alive, and even includes people like myself who don't even have the game installed anymore!

[jaredh 195]

Excellent. Hopefully this sim city will last as long as SC4

 

There is probably exactly 0% chance of that.  SC4 cost EA no ongoing money (well, except a marginal website they had to keep running) while SC2013 costs them far more in server costs.

 

Seeing as how almost no online games from as far back as 8 years ago are still up, I'd say that 0% is accurate, seeing as how all but maybe 2 games from those 8-10 year old games still online are MMOs with very big monthly incomes....something SC2013 won't ever achieve.

 

The only way SC2013 is online in as far out as 3 years is if they strip the always-online component out.

[Rokugatsu 126]

Seeing as how almost no online games from as far back as 8 years ago are still up

 

 

SC is not an online game, and comparing it to MMOs makes no sense at all. Sooner or later they will turn off the servers and make an offline patch. This game doesn't need online to be alive, it's actually one of the reasons why it's not bigger than it could.

[MafiaMueller 1]

 

Seeing as how almost no online games from as far back as 8 years ago are still up

 

 

SC is not an online game, and comparing it to MMOs makes no sense at all. Sooner or later they will turn off the servers and make an offline patch. This game doesn't need online to be alive, it's actually one of the reasons why it's not bigger than it could.

 

 

i totally agree, an MMO is comprised of countless number of people playing the same game at the same time together, while SC2013 has online play its not an MMO by no means, MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online, while SC2013 is more like an LMO Limited Multiplayer Online since you are limited to how ever many cities are in a region, not to mention you are even limited more, because of the big maps have multiple great works that only the surrounding cities can assist in and are not linked to other great works and those surrounding cities. 

 

SC2013's online is ultimately meant for storage and to make it piracy proof(ish) with a benefit of not having to create every city in the region 

[reReticulated Spline 69]

 

Excellent. Hopefully this sim city will last as long as SC4

 

There is probably exactly 0% chance of that.  SC4 cost EA no ongoing money (well, except a marginal website they had to keep running) while SC2013 costs them far more in server costs.

 

Seeing as how almost no online games from as far back as 8 years ago are still up, I'd say that 0% is accurate, seeing as how all but maybe 2 games from those 8-10 year old games still online are MMOs with very big monthly incomes....something SC2013 won't ever achieve.

 

The only way SC2013 is online in as far out as 3 years is if they strip the always-online component out.

 

 

You cannot compare this game to subscription based games. I can tell you that the Battle.net servers on which you can play Warcraft 2, Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 etc. are still active. And with Maxis announcing that they are looking into an offline I think your % is a bit off.

[jaredh 195]

 

 

Excellent. Hopefully this sim city will last as long as SC4

 

There is probably exactly 0% chance of that.  SC4 cost EA no ongoing money (well, except a marginal website they had to keep running) while SC2013 costs them far more in server costs.

 

Seeing as how almost no online games from as far back as 8 years ago are still up, I'd say that 0% is accurate, seeing as how all but maybe 2 games from those 8-10 year old games still online are MMOs with very big monthly incomes....something SC2013 won't ever achieve.

 

The only way SC2013 is online in as far out as 3 years is if they strip the always-online component out.

 

 

You cannot compare this game to subscription based games. I can tell you that the Battle.net servers on which you can play Warcraft 2, Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 etc. are still active. And with Maxis announcing that they are looking into an offline I think your % is a bit off.

 

 

I should have said "Excluding Blizzard, the only company that even remotely stands behind their old games" in my original post.

 

As far as EA is concerned, SC2013 *IS* a subscription game.  They expect than most people playing will constantly buy their DLC.  The only difference is you aren't locked into paying $$$ every month...and the chance the game gets shut down quicker is higher because the constant revenue stream doesn't exist.

 

And let's be realistic....their "investigation" of offline mode is very likely nothing but lip service.  They used the same terminology concerning larger maps.  They might release an offline mode some day, but if you think its going to happen before 3rd quarter 2014, I think you are going to be disappointed.

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Heh, don't say on a blizzard fan forum that blizzard cares for their previous games. Ever since they made WoW and became super popular, their original fanbase has decided that they changed and care only about money.

 

Online games that aren't subscription based games are relatively new, we haven't seen their end-of-life yet. I'm not going to predict how these type of games will end, but Simcity isn't going to be dropped in the next few years, that's for sure.

 

In terms of lip service and pr, you have to diferentiate between who is making the statement. For example, developers LOVE their own games, and will want to add as much to them as possible because it's their darling. If you listen in on Maxis, you'll probably find that it's developers have wanted larger maps from the beginning of the development, but ran into technical problems and had to drop it for the launch, hoping to include it later. If they said they worked on it the last few months, you can bet they did just that. Offline is another matter because EA has a stake in this (always online being their strategy) so they might block it. 

 

There are people who work on making a game and people in charge of the strategy surrounding it. Chances are, the first group loves the Simcity franchise even more than you do and nothing would please them more than add everything the fans ask for. And EA forcing them to make Simcity always online and then not giving them enough server budget was as much a jerk move towards them as it was to us gamers. Doubly so because many gamers then blamed them for it.