Sim City 5

[Dan]

Don't know why people don't just connect to an open server, I've had no problems whatsoever with the European East 2 server.

[Schlitzbrille]

Question to anyone who has this: How bad is the downloadable content in a "This really oughta have been in the game to start with" sense?

We don´t know yet. But if you consider that there are already... 4-5 pices of DLC depending on if you preordert the game or bought the collectors edition there might be a ton of stuff coming. (most of the fear here is directed by The Sims 3 which is very much loaded with rather expensive DLC. - We don´t know yet how many city sets or superhero building alike gimmiks there will be and how much they´ll cost.

Thanks anyway. Looks like I'm gonna go find a copy of SimCity 4 then.

[Quom]

Don't know why people don't just connect to an open server, I've had no problems whatsoever with the European East 2 server.

because we already have shit internet so connecting to a server on the other side of the world isn't really appealing for a full full-priced game (meaning most games on PC are cheaper than console and most are discounted extra on top).

If I'm paying top dollar I expect no issues, especially for a single player game.

[Lint]

http://kotaku.com/5989350/nfl-punter-kicks-the-crap-out-of-ea-and-simcity

[SeanDMan]

If not for the always on DRM bullshit I'd probably have bought this today. Bought HOTS instead. I'll stick to Sim City 4 until this is cracked (which won't be much longer) so you can play it without being online.

[=BK=]

This is the closest thing to an appropriate thread...is there anyway to play the original Sim City on a modern computer?

[SeanDMan]

Almost certainly yes, but 2000 is abandonware now and miles better so you might as well play that.

[Herr Matzat]

If not for the always on DRM bullshit I'd probably have bought this today. Bought HOTS instead. I'll stick to Sim City 4 until this is cracked (which won't be much longer) so you can play it without being online.

So you replaced the game with always online DRM with a different game that also brings always online DRM?

[SeanDMan]

Starcraft is inherently an online game. I was, admittedly, annoyed by my SC not working when my modem was down, but it can be enabled to be played offline.

SimCity is not a multiplayer game.

[Herr Matzat]

I agree. I think you can even play the single player offline, just without the archivments enabled. Yet still i wonder if the HOTS launch will be much smother. Bliz failed launching Diablo 3 and i think... mostly depends on how many people go out to buy HOTS next week.

[SeanDMan]

I agree. I think you can even play the single player offline, just without the archivments enabled.

You can and you can't. It's very much like Steam, if you know you're going to be offline you can set it so that you can play, but with me, my modem died, and so I haven't played SC II since... well, basically years.

[Herr Matzat]

You can? Dident know that. I only experienced it when the Bliz servers were down. But once you are somewhat multiplayer ready beating the campaign on ultra issent much of a chalange anymore soooo.... Sim City 5 talk again?!

[Sousa]

It's amazing how my interest in this game went from "I wish I had a computer that could handle this game" to "thank god I don't have a computer that could handle this game because I might have actually bought it."

[Herr Matzat]

Ah well. With everything negative you can say about EA published games... in todays world i expected nothing else from a online only game launch. Maybe people have reliable servers in a week or so. Give it another month or two till the game might be down to 15€ and they patched bigger areas to build cities in.

Actualy i think you don´t even need a high end PC to play this.

[LUKIE]

I don't understand how some people online are defending EA when this exact same thing happened with Diablo 3. EA didn't learn and they don't care because people are going to keep buying their games and putting up with this bullshit.

[Sousa]

Ah well. With everything negative you can say about EA published games... in todays world i expected nothing else from a online only game launch. Maybe people have reliable servers in a week or so. Give it another month or two till the game might be down to 15€ and they patched bigger areas to build cities in.

I swear to god, video game fans are willing to suffer any kind of abuse and still keep making excuses.

No. SimCity is broken. At launch. That is some class A bullshit from a company that has specialized in class A bullshit (their updates have made The Sims 3 practically unplayable on a computer I modified specifically to play The Sims 3... Google "Error Code 12").

If your washing machine worked 10% of the time right after you bought it, you'd take it back to the store. If your washing machine worked only 90% of the time after you bought it, you'd take it back to the store. If your washing machine worked 10% of the time only because it was trying to connect to BleachNet, a complicated social experience ostensibly for allowing unprecedented laundry interaction but in reality a means of stopping people from stealing washing machines, you'd never buy that brand of washer again.

I have no idea why anyone would put up with this bullshit. None. But video game fans do, again and again and again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play SimCity 2000, which despite being a nearly 20-year-old game beats its newest iteration because

1. it's still a lot of fun

2. IT FUCKING WORKS

3. (except the sewer and subway parts, which have never really worked right, but hey, I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know)

4.

[LUKIE]

From what I am reading due to no regulation of the videogame industry in the US that if you bought the game and it is completely unplayable you would have no legal way to get your money back.

[LUKIE]

In a post on the EA forum, responding to the lack of server capacity, senior producer Kip Katsarelis blamed the problem on people enjoying the game; "What we saw was that players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave the game, which kept our servers packed and made it difficult for new players to join."

We thought the game was shit so we didn't think we would need many servers.

IT'S YOUR FAULT CONSUMERS!

[Herr Matzat]

Ah well. With everything negative you can say about EA published games... in todays world i expected nothing else from a online only game launch. Maybe people have reliable servers in a week or so. Give it another month or two till the game might be down to 15€ and they patched bigger areas to build cities in.

I swear to god, video game fans are willing to suffer any kind of abuse and still keep making excuses.

I am not makeing excuses. I just did not expect better.

[SeanDMan]

With the EA Bullshit aside, the game actually looks pretty good. I listened to TotalBiscuit and his absurdly hot wife do a playthrough and quasi review and they had a lot of positive things to say about the game, but there were a few key negatives that really turned me off:

1. The city size is much, MUCH smaller than in previous iterations of the game. The size is meant to simulate about 2 square kilometers, I believe they said they'd been told by Maxis. So basically it could cover a few neighbourhoods.

2. The regions themselves are much smaller. Gone are the 16x16 grid of cities you could build in SimCity 4, allowing you to construct Manhattan, the boroughs, the garden city etc. Instead, the regions seem to have around five or six cities each, and an "Achievements Island" where you can build stuff like Arcologies and Landmarks and shit. OooooooOOOooooOOOOoooofuckoff.

3. The way the AI behaves is very strange. TB showed an example of this with his public transit system; instead of having buses spread out throughout the city, for some reason 4 buses all clumped together into a congo line and ran bumper to bumper across one stretch of vertical road, making an arbitrary mid avenue U turn to restart the loop. As well, certain buildings won't operate unless the population can support it (IE you can't have a garbage incinerator up and running until you have people educated enough to run it) but others don't have the same limits (IE he was able to staff his nuclear plant with yokels, although to be fair, it did later melt down due to the staffing issue).

4. There are no subways. This is pretty inexcusable.

5. It's obvious the game is built to be a DLC delivery platform. For $20, you can buy the "Foreign Cities Style" pack, which gives you access to a unique building and a unique infrastructure option in either German, French, or British style. This is annoying for 2 reasons. It's pay to win DLC because the infrastructure makes your city more efficient, so if you don't buy it your city will be objectively worse off than those who do. Secondly, the "here's a neat landmark" shit is stuff that THE COMMUNITY USED TO DO FOR FREE. Remember WinSkurk? You used to be able to render and texture your own buildings and share them for free. Maxis gave you the tools to do this. EA took them away because they realized they could make more money.

So yeah, I don't feel the cost is worth it. I own SimCity 4, it looks to me like it's a better product on balance.