crashx

Yes thanks. If it is going to be a online game then they better support it like one. It's great to see them working on it, definitely.

The problem is they pretty much marketed that all of the sims had their own little lives going on. Had they just not mentioned it I don't think people wouldn't care...but since they made it seem like it mattered...people looked...and people said "Well hey...this isn't working how you said it would work."

Yep lots coming out now about how glassbox is a sham basically. Basically the citizens run a lot like the power system, they just fill whatever house they can and etc etc. Hopefully these problems can be fixed because I can't get a refund on Origin apparently. So basically the game is broken. I'm not even going to blame EA for that, That is on Maxis failing to deliver.

With PC games Modding is HUGE. Simply huge. One thing Maxis should mind the next time they make a game is that Modding is HUGE and that they should make sure the game is accessible to the community to make their own. You mention the Sims, well the Sims has always had a HUGE modding community. I doubt I'd still be playing that game as much as I do without all the mods, NRASS Mods that puts sense into the Sims world or even all the custom skin mods that make sims look less like they were made with clay. You look at some of the big PC games like Elder Scrolls, Look at what Modding did for Arma...I don't have to list all the games but Modding is huge. I think that is another thing about DRM is that it takes that away from customers. How are people going to mod this game? That's a big question here, because then people could just change what they don't like about the game. So you know what? That one little green square may not have been that bad of a idea. Minecraft has had a lot of success, if you are making a game that is supposed to be about creativity then let your customers get creative with it.

If you know who Boogie is, a youtuber about video games he gives a pretty good solution I think. Stop pre-ordering these games. This will be my last pre-order. I'll try my best not to do pre-order another game from here on out, it's guaranteed money for these companies and if the game gets bad reviews? well you already have the game. If the game has a game breaking bug or two...again you've already bought it. I think gamers as a whole should stop pre-ordering these games, but they always get us with these little bonuses. You eventually just say "Well, I'm going to buy the game any ways might as well get the pre-order bonuses."

The chief problem is they're also shedding a vast number of the ever impatient casual gamer crowd as well. But I imagine there's probably enough fools who'll take the bribes EA are offering. The casual crowd doesn't really care. They care about playing the game and getting enjoyment for however long they play it. That's pretty much it, they don't care about some battle against DRM as long as they play their game and have fun doing it then it really doesn't matter much. It's not that they are fools or are stupid, they just aren't that seriously invested to care. They get their entertainment out of the product and really that is what will count. They spend 60-80$ on a game they can't play and probably will never play stably, and that isn't stupid or foolish? What entertainment did they get out of it, as a frisbee or a drinks coaster? And now they've bought into always-online and other stupid EAxis decisions, the quality of their future games will continue to decrease, which I think is pretty a stupid way to behave. Never play stably? That's probably over stating things as people are starting to get playing now.

If they designed the game to be a online multiplayer game that gets it's information from the servers then even if they wanted to do that I imagine it wouldn't exactly be easy to do. I don't see how most of the simulation is done on EA's servers when people have been able to play the game for 20 minutes without being connected to the Internet. Plus this is 2013 we're talking about so any modern gaming rig should be able to handle all of the computations. I am pretty sure they could release and offline patch if they wanted to. Well it's what she said, you can play the game offline for a bit but that doesn't mean the game is designed that way. Unless she is flat out bold face lying about Question 14, people can play their games a bit offline but she said the regions are simulated on their servers not just the cities. I'm sure they could release a offline patch too, but if they designed a game around it then it may not something they can easily do.

If they designed the game to be a online multiplayer game that gets it's information from the servers then even if they wanted to do that I imagine it wouldn't exactly be easy to do.

The chief problem is they're also shedding a vast number of the ever impatient casual gamer crowd as well. But I imagine there's probably enough fools who'll take the bribes EA are offering. The casual crowd doesn't really care. They care about playing the game and getting enjoyment for however long they play it. That's pretty much it, they don't care about some battle against DRM as long as they play their game and have fun doing it then it really doesn't matter much. It's not that they are fools or are stupid, they just aren't that seriously invested to care. They get their entertainment out of the product and really that is what will count.

I will hold my excitement until I see the list. Not expecting newly released games...but we'll see. Could be a good move by EA.

I'll be very surprised at the next game that tries Always-Online DRM after Diablo 3 and now Simcity.

Maxis has stated that they wish for the tile size to increase, they forced it to be small because modern popular computer systems wouldn't handle the larger tile size well. It wasn't a design choice. They may have claimed it was a design choice to make it seem less drastic, but they want the tile size to be big just as much as we do. To go with the system they made. They made that system and they knew it's downsides. They could have easily just repainted Simcity 4, EA would not have cared. Their sports series do this a lot, EA just okays these games although it does encourage games to go online now, I doubt they tell their developers HOW to go about it. Just to do it. Maxis is to be completely blamed for their design choices, we can't blame everything that is bad on EA. Also Maxis makes all their games easily accessible on all computers. That's just a smart choice no matter what game you are making you want to make sure the largest number of people play it. I would be incredibly disappointed if this game was a repeat of simcity 4. Again, I think the new simulation is brilliant and would have been better had it been done a couple years from now instead in order to include larger city tiles. Most of the features of simcity 2013 are great. there are a few cringeworthy facts, but a solid game overall. the only killer to this game for me is the server apocalypse. I agree. I think it's a good game. The only downsides for me has been the server issues and the tile size. Fix those up and I'll be more than happy with this game. It's likely that EA did force this always online on Maxis, but it still was their job to create this game and they created a more than solid game that had a lot of potential to improve.

Maxis has stated that they wish for the tile size to increase, they forced it to be small because modern popular computer systems wouldn't handle the larger tile size well. It wasn't a design choice. They may have claimed it was a design choice to make it seem less drastic, but they want the tile size to be big just as much as we do. To go with the system they made. They made that system and they knew it's downsides. They could have easily just repainted Simcity 4, EA would not have cared. Their sports series do this a lot, EA just okays these games although it does encourage games to go online now, I doubt they tell their developers HOW to go about it. Just to do it. Maxis is to be completely blamed for their design choices, we can't blame everything that is bad on EA. Also Maxis makes all their games easily accessible on all computers. That's just a smart choice no matter what game you are making you want to make sure the largest number of people play it.

I don't see why. It was his decision to implement Glassbox and smaller cities undoubtedly so. EA publishes games, it does not make them. I mean if you hate this game for the small tiles that was a design choice that had nothing to do with EA. EA actually gives Maxis a lot of free reign, they gave them years to develop games like this and games like Spore. I'm sure EA pushed the always online on them (but that is just guessing) but I doubt they had anything to do with design choices.

Actually....that is pretty funny.