fretz-

I'm not happy with the game, but I would definately buy it. I've had some fun with it, but it's a big let down compared to what I was expecting/hoping. There are some franchises that I would buy even if they were being sold by a snake oil salesman and the game was a packaged in a box made from dog $%&^! and it carried a 50% chance that the world would end if it was installed on my PC. Sim City is one of them.

...unless you purchased the physical product, in which case you can get a refund. Very territory dependant but there is a big diffierence between digital download and physical good where retail law is concerned. If EA were to then track back which Origin account the returned physical disc was linked to, and then banned that full account, removing access to other products on that account, they would not have a leg to stand on. I just assume nobody has ever fought it. EULA's are meaningless here, they do not trump statutory law. Id bet that in the EU, they wouldnt have a leg to stand on if they banned access to product X for chargebacking product Y under any circumstance. If that happened on my Steam account, which after 10 years of purchases has a significant value on it, I would fight it. As it stands I only have 1 game on Origin, so I wouldnt really care if they banned it.

Gotta love EA with their 'post your id' mentality. Battlenet has Digipass 2-step, Steam has hidden id and email auth, EA advise you to posy your id in public. Lol.

I am loving the recycling also. Am running a £25K p/h defecit on the budget but the profit from 2 fully upgraded recycling centres is putting me back in a juicy profit. Overall, Recycling and Waste Management are the only services I am struggling to keep pace with in a big population city. If they would collect all the Recycling there is out there I would be making millions!...

I have been trying to see how far I can push a single city in isolation in its region, got up to 290K and everyone was happy on the whole. Was so close to getting the level 6 City Hall upgrade and then there was a Zombie invasion and all of a sudden population starting collapsing dropping to 246K in the sapce of 1 evening (simcity time). Whole tower blocks 'devoured by zombies'..... 45,000 sims eaten by Zombies in a single evening. Harrowing.

Less than 50MB per hour. http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/107699/how-much-data-does-simcity-transfer The servers are only required because clent A doesnt have access to client B's city, so regional calculations are performed there. No city based simulation occurs there. Some interesting speculation here... http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/19xx7d/trying_some_technical_analysis_of_the_server/ If you dont want to read the Reddit, its basic discussion is that the issue is not with server load, or with node quantity, but the actual db layer architecture itself being screwed.

I'm arguing against false statements. Your avoidance of answering the question is deafening. I would not trust my bitcoin wallet to Mt.Gox, despite their vastly superior resources and technical ability. The same is true for my save game files.

The way that guy describes the EA campus, with banners extolling the company virtues but the reality being the exact opposite is textbook Orwellian Newspeak.

Catchin, since you work in hosting let me ask this, would you trust a Bitcoin fortune to Mt.Gox, or would you prefer to have control of it your self? Apologies for the OT but you are evangelical and refute all opinions other than your own with a "if i am happy with it, you should be", whivh is remarkable.

Im keeping an open mind. I'll buy a copy no matter what previews/reviews and pre-release net chatter says. If I am dissapointed with it when it arrives, it wont put me off buying any future releases. If someone wants to make a city management game, whether its maxis, firaxis or some other 'axis, I'll give it a go. Even though the game could be making a change of direction, and even though it wont turn out to be the fine-tuned perfect progression of SC4 Id love to see, it might just be a good game in its own right. I wont know the answer to that until ive played it with my own mouse - thats when I'll make my decision on it. If it turns out bad, I'll go back to SC4 while waiting for another release, which will continue to happen as long as video games continue to exist. I expect I'll see quite a few more SC games before I pass away and Im looking forward to trying every one of them whether they are true to the orginal series, of on a slight tangent or a major deviation from the SC concept.