Author Topic: EA Throws Up All Over Itself (Read 1017 times)

vicious796 · « **on:** March 08, 2013, 02:24:14 PM »

Thousands of players - including many beta testers - urged EA not to go forward with this DRM "always on" internet bullshit. Suck on it, EA. This is exactly why I didn't preorder this game.

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/simcity-launch-complete-disaster-201105322.html

xShadow · « **Reply #1 on:** March 08, 2013, 03:39:57 PM »

What's funny is that's exactly what MMORPGs are... Yet no one complains about those because there is no history where they didn't have that DRM. That's the only reason I actually had to buy Guild Wars 2 to play it with my friend. I didn't mind it as much, because I actually have a decent job now.

They could have gotten away with this more easily if they just pitched it as an mmo-ish installation to the series in the first place. Which, they might have tried. I don't keep up with gaming news much. I just buy crap that's on sale in Steam.

zherok · « **Reply #2 on:** March 08, 2013, 04:49:33 PM »

It's not really like an MMO, at least in terms of how it plays. I don't play WoW asynchronously with everyone else on the server. But that's exactly how SimCity works. And it's slow. Or was, I got a refund already. It'd take a couple minutes to even post a message to the region wall. A bit hard to hold a conversation while you're talking to people as if they were on another planet.

The simulation has been compromised in order to justify this form of DRM. The maps were small, a couple hours and you were probably nearly out of room. Cities cap out in the low hundreds of thousands of people, when previous games could hold millions.

All so the game could slowly sync other small cities in the region, forcing you to cooperate with other players (who can choose to screw you over by purposefully trolling you with high crime/pollution cities.) Or you can opt to play every city in the region, building up prop cities to support the one city you actually want to play.

So right now they're disabling features like achievements and whatnot, as well as the fastest simulation speed. All because their forced cloud computing solution wasn't up to par with even the scaled back demands people wanting to play put on it.

FlyinPenguin · « **Reply #3 on:** March 08, 2013, 05:23:25 PM »

I remember the good old days when Will Wright was at the helm of Maxis. Ah, the memories. Fun times.

newy · « **Reply #4 on:** March 08, 2013, 05:45:39 PM »

Will Wright likes the reboot...

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1840472/will_wright_talks_new_simcity_discusses_city_size_limit.html

AceHigh · « **Reply #5 on:** March 08, 2013, 06:13:19 PM »

Quote

This team has put everything into this game and won't stop until things are smooth. We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding.

Customers, motherfuckers! It's customers for you, not "fans".

xShadow · « **Reply #6 on:** March 08, 2013, 08:28:02 PM »

Quote from: zherok on March 08, 2013, 04:49:33 PM

It's not really like an MMO, at least in terms of how it plays. I don't play WoW asynchronously with everyone else on the server. But that's exactly how SimCity works. And it's slow. Or was, I got a refund already. It'd take a couple minutes to even post a message to the region wall. A bit hard to hold a conversation while you're talking to people as if they were on another planet.

I was mainly talking about how the drm worked. I didn't really read the details of how it worked. The concept actually sounds pretty cool. It's just that they forced their fans into it, and the game ended up sucking because of it.

Quote

The simulation has been compromised in order to justify this form of DRM. The maps were small, a couple hours and you were probably nearly out of room. Cities cap out in the low hundreds of thousands of people, when previous games could hold millions.

Yeah they fucked up.

And yeah the "fans" vs customers distinction passes me off, too. It's worst in f2p MMORPGs.

Nikkoru · « **Reply #7 on:** March 08, 2013, 11:49:47 PM »

Yet again, another Aesop on the perils of the preorder.

My father loves the Simcity franchise. He's going to be disappointed since - even if the online was working - he only really games at his cottage which doesn't have a phone let alone Wifi.

zherok · « **Reply #8 on:** March 09, 2013, 02:09:04 AM »

Quote from: Nikkoru on March 08, 2013, 11:49:47 PM

Yet again, another Aesop on the perils of the preorder.

Amazon was thankfully taking refund requests with no questions asked. Even got the promotional $5 credit I had gotten for them accidentally canceling my preorder for Simcity only days before added back to my account.

AceHigh · « **Reply #9 on:** March 09, 2013, 09:58:59 AM »

My friend was excited and asked me if I wanted to play with him so we could build two cities next to each other. Now I dropped the bad news asking him to wait with this.

A lot of people will be disappointed it seems.

dakarv · « **Reply #10 on:** March 09, 2013, 10:19:08 AM »

the first people who suggested that their games single player content should also require online login should have been beaten mercilessly, then the games industry could have moved on from there

I havent even played any games like this where I don't play exclusivly online and it still pisses me off

The thought of not being able to play a game on your pc because you have to be constantly connected to their servers, just to make more people play online and pay extra money. Then without fail the servers crash because they're trying to save as much money as possible and aren't entirely sure how many people will be online at once with their stupid new system

newy · « **Reply #11 on:** March 09, 2013, 10:20:06 AM »

It shows again, doesn't it? EA knows how to ruin the reputation of game franchises...

Shohei-kun · « **Reply #12 on:** March 09, 2013, 08:51:36 PM »

This is nothing new. EA has a history of being thickheaded money-mongers. Just look at the EA Spouse scandal back in, what, 2008? They don't know how to treat their employees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LE0ycgkBQ for lols.

Showdown · « **Reply #13 on:** March 09, 2013, 09:51:20 PM »

Despite the calamity, many SimCity builders found a way into the lagged servers and kicked off an architectural tour de force not seen since the construction of the pyramids. Katsarelis reports that in just a 24-hour period, SimCity gamers created more than 38 million buildings, 4.6 million miles of roads, and laid 40 million pipes "filled up with poop."

Lol.

FlyinPenguin · « **Reply #14 on:** March 17, 2013, 08:19:51 AM »

Quote from: newy on March 08, 2013, 05:45:39 PM

Will Wright likes the reboot...

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1840472/will_wright_talks_new_simcity_discusses_city_size_limit.html

Something about that article screams "I have to say something positive because EA has a major investment in my company and I can't freely speak against them due to risk of biting the hand that feeds".

I really don't think this is a DRM issue per se. I think Maxis, under the heavy hand of EA, really tried to change the Sim City formula and be inventive. It just failed miserably. Server issues aside, the whole point of Sim City has been to create a sprawling metropolis. The city is sized is so small in this it seems to defeat the purpose. Then again, I have always thought it would be fun to be able to trade resources with real people's cities. I guess I will just stick to Sim City 4.

They should have just expanded on Sim City 4 to include online functionality with an offline option and they would have had themselves a hit.

AceHigh · « **Reply #15 on:** March 17, 2013, 03:06:38 PM »

If you want an example of the city build game that has online DRM that makes it look like a service, then look at how Anno 2070 did it:

I hate myself for this, but Ubisoft's DRM actually looks like a service, so developers really did it right with that game. To begin with the multiplayer is real because players play on the same map, there is an offline option and the game will work, however there are plenty of incentives to stay online. There is actually some elements that remind of MMO content like daily quests, mini campaigns that are basically "global events" and even letting players to vote for one of 3 factions for presidency which will give global bonuses to all players in any game.

Of course this credit should go to developers that provide content making the always online DRM tolerable. And... ugh... can't believe I will say something good about them, but Ubisoft gets some credit for actually providing functioning servers to their customers.

So yeah, Maxis failed as much as EA.

Tiffanys · « **Reply #16 on:** March 18, 2013, 03:10:16 PM »

So uh... if Sim City 4 is so bad, why don't people just keep playing Sim City 3? Is 4 really all that much of an improvement?

AceHigh · « **Reply #17 on:** March 18, 2013, 03:20:00 PM »

You mixed it up a bit, In the old days they loved huge numbers so you got SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000, then they released SimCity 4 because lower amount of digits was more trendy I guess...

Anyway, the new one is SimCity 5 if publishers were not so gay and made a "reboot" of every fucking game out there.

But yes, the 4th one even had a cool expansion "Rush hour" giving you the numerous road types and intersection to get the perfect traffic flow. Fourth game is by far the one I played the most and consider the best in the series.

deadskin · « **Reply #18 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:20:01 PM »

Their CEO just stepped down. I guess he played SimCity too?

Triltaison · « **Reply #19 on:** March 19, 2013, 05:01:19 AM »

Quote from: deadskin on March 18, 2013, 10:20:01 PM

Their CEO just stepped down. I guess he played SimCity too?

Doing an article chain from that one, spotted an article saying the always-online has been cracked with a simple removal of two lines of code. People are working on getting local saving working now, which shouldn't take long given the size of the fanbase.