cwhomer

The story went quiet rather than disappearing. The people most passionate about the franchise came to the conclusion this entry isn't worth fighting for anymore. There are problems (small city sizes, pathfinding issues, an underwhelming Glassbox engine, embarrassing DLC) an offline mode won't fix.

Factories, corporate headquarters, stores. These are all things that produce or sell toothpaste and belong in a city.

I'm beginning to change my mind about EA. The company is delivering at least three good laughs a week and it's not costing me a penny. While I feel bad for some of the studios' employees caught up in this mess, this isn't all bad news for the industry. EA's bad missteps will eventually create a vacuum that some of these people will be positioned to fill

This is hilarious. This saga has now moved beyond "tragedy" and squarely into comedy.

SimCity players want an online experience. SimCity players have always wanted an online experience.... Was cheetah speed re-introduced because Maxis fixed the issues with it, or because so many fewer people are playing? There are a number of steps EA could take, but are they willing to do so? I think not. Expect a flood of poorly-conceived and half-finished DLC as EA tries to rake in as much money as possible while it still can. And when we're talking about unexpected server costs, let's not forget the free games EA wound up giving away because of the launch disaster.

Tacky and it appears they have huge footprints relative to the neutered map sizes. Wouldn't it have made sense to release something more substantial and interesting in light of people's concerns about DLC? Ham-fisted acts like this are why EA has such a bad image. This is an EA attempt to milk the kiddies before they move on, because once that happens not many people are going to be playing this game and none of them will be buying this garbage.

I believe the situation is actually worse than this. Merely ignoring what the fanbase wants is one thing, acting exactly opposite to its desires while continuing insist it is not only listening but intergrating what the fans want is another. This kind of shabby dishonesty is not going to improve the image of EA or Maxis, because it leads to customers feeling insulted and cheated. If your business model is great for the consumer and what the consumer desires, then be honest about it.

Does it matter whether the always-online requirement is DRM driven or not? The fans didn't ask for it before and don't want it now. EAxis could start improving its image by admitting this was a poor decision and stop insisting it listens to the fan base. Instead we get the exact opposite argument, one implying that most people wanted a "social experience" and critics are either too ignorant or biased to see this truth. Good luck winning hearts and minds with such logic.

The right time for me to consider this SimCity will be when its feature list meets or exceeds SimCity 4. This includes not only comparable region sizes, transportation options, and an offline mode but clear, dedicated, and consistent support by EAxis for a free modding community. Without the fourth the rest are irrelevant.

The next line is even more laughable in light of teleportation:

'"I can't overstate how completely evil complexity is, especially in a sandbox game," he said. ' There's a difference between reducing micromanagment, making tradeoffs between simulation depth and CPU usage, and streamlining gameplay versus gutting out almost all meaningful strategic depth. Complexity is only evil when you plan to rush a game through production, target it to casual gamers, and plan on those casual gamers shelling out money for DLC that does nothing to fundamentally add to or improve play. "Constantly ask yourself: What can I remove from the game?" Anything you can get away with selling later? No one is going to convince me that with today's advancements in software engineering and hardware, Maxis couldn't have found a way keep subways in a franchise that has had them since 1989. DLC can be a good thing- as one example Paradox does a fantastic job with their DLC expansions- but it's very hard, nearly impossible, to create a DLC that adds depth and strategy to a game designed to contain very little of either to begin with.

I have just updated the Launcher to try and combat this bug, I have tested it using virtual box and I would very much appreciate any feedback if it still doesn't work. I had this problem this morning, running Windows 7. For me, it was a permissions issue and I was able to fix it without the updated launcher.

This poor launch seems to have affirmed people's fears of SimCity "5" being another Diablo III: a souless, DRM/DLC driven shadow of a beloved franchise. It certainly has for me. But there's something to take heart in. Diablo III may have cost 60 dollars, but Torchlight II- developed by many of the original Diablo crew and capturing the spirit of the earlier, better received games- cost only $20 and it even had an offline mode. I can't say whether or not SC5 will be a financial success for EA, but I'm fairly certain it won't be seen as a success among the fanbase. That will leave a big opportunity for someone, perhaps someone tired of EA's constraints, to take up a new city sim project in the near future.

Solved. As I suspected, Windows generated copies of the dat files and placed them in a folder where they could only be located, and deleted, manually. Anyone else who may have this problem in the future: remember to check your users/app data folders for duplicate files.

My first attempt involved a city of about 13,000 and I noticed that there was a massive spike in all RCI Demand categories. I consider this a negative difference. Plus, I've been playing SC4 on and off since it came out so I can live without this particular bugfix. I am more curious about whether I have some larger issue, system conflict, or am simply missing something when it comes to the Dat Packer as it's something I'm interested in using for other plugins. From what I've observed something doesn't seem to be working right. I'm not sure why this fix would create a demand spike in the thousands for every RCI category, for example, or why things don't return to normal after swapping in the original simcity_1.dat file. That's a topic for another thread if no one else has run into the issue here.