gburn1984

I don't believe I can be any more smug than I am right now at this news.

I originally posted this discussion to see if the DRM was capable of being removed while not altering the entire game, but it sounds like there are way more pressing matters to address at the moment. And overloaded servers are not even the worst of it. Since I have yet to play the game, I can not offer any input on the actual game being broken. Like I said before, as long as an internet connection is always required, and I am not able to save my cities to my computer, I will not be buying SimCity. I am very confident many of the problems and glitches with the actual game play will eventually be patched out. Back to the original discussion, I wanted to know if the online requirement and server save requirement can ever be patched out as easy as these bugs? To be honest I believe that most of the simulation is already done on your computer. People have been able to keep playing the game for 20-30 minutes even after their Internet connection was severed. I think the reason why they have an always online DRM even for singleplayer is so you're dragged into the social aspect of the game such as achievements, leaderboards, etc. Because that's how EA wants to take this franchise into the future unfortunately. They can also dictate when you can play the game because guess what.... in 10 years this game won't be playable because EA would have shut its servers down and expects you to move on to the next SimCity game. But I don't think it requires a large effort to make the game's singleplayer have an offline mode. It's just EA being stubborn as usual. Thanks for your input The Legacy and Charzard. Your comments are both reassuring yet disheartening at the same time From what you are saying Charzard, the DRM is practically tacked on. The game seems to stand alone well without the Origin connection. This tells me the fix should be fairly simple, but EA will not budge unless we speak their language, which is money. I suppose the only thing to do is keep the pressure on and let EA know we are more than willing to give them our money for their game, but only if they fix some key things first.

While I find the release of a broken game infuriating and, quite frankly, inexcusable, it isn't exactly a deal breaker for me. I am confident whatever is broken with simcity can be or is already fixed. Bugs, broken code, and missing features can always be fixed with patches or expansions. I am worried "always on connections" not only won't be removed but can't. As YilmasRegin said, "the game is built on the principle of online play." I also heard during development that the removal of online play would be impossible because the game is designed around the concept and that removing online play would require a complete redesign of simcity. I always took that explanation as EA spinning us a story, but I don't know for sure. Is it possible for simcity to work if the constant internet requirement were to be removed by a future update? Or would that truly require the game to be redesigned from the ground up?

Yes there isn't much to say about simcity that hasn't already been said. It needs a lot of work. If EA wants my money, I'd be more than happy to give it to them. For that to happen ,though, they are going to need to allow me to play offline and save my cities onto my own computer, first and foremost. Any other flaws with the actual game play can easily be fixed with an expansion or even a patch. If I'm going to hold out hope for EA offering the game I've been longing for for almost 10 years, I'd really like to know if the "always online" could removed or at least become an option. I can't budge on this. Simcity is my canvas. I almost consider the cities I build to be works of art. I want to own my design. Yes EA owns the rights to the game. I believe I own the rights to my city design.

It's getting to be pretty unanimous out there. EA's absolutely baffling decision to require a constant internet connection and a force fed multiplayer for SimCity 2013 has completely hamstrung what could be a halfway decent single player experience. I don't know much about the code of SimCity 2013 or anything detailed about the actual design of the game, but in the future would it even be possible to create a Cities XL type fix for SimCity? Cities XL has already been down this road before and paid for it dearly. I thought it was long extinct but now I see it's recently experienced a resurgence. They have axed all the online multiplayer crap and really opened up Cities XL to the modders. I have no idea how ingrained the "always on Origin" is to the game design, but if the outrage continues over the DRM, can an expansion correct all that is wrong with 2013?