The reason this is online only even for single player is not DRM but rather the game processes each and every Sim individually. No single home computer has that kind of power.
I don’t have any experience with World of Warcraft and similar games, but my understanding is that the players pay money for additional items and features, so that there is ongoing revenue from users. I think that’s one model the EA is going to emulate in SimCity. Also, I think they’re going to release multiple follow-ons to SimCity, much in the way that The Sims had many such additional games. Basically, they’ve neglected SimCity for like a decade and they’re trying to revive the franchise.
Disgusted by the fact that I can’t seem to ever play a game I payed for, I opened a Pit Thread about it here.
To me, a lot of the complaints seem to be of the type “I don’t like change”. The typical post you’ll see on gaming forums whenever the developers change anything. I wish there were a region editor and that I could make larger cities. But I always get fed up with the simulation in SimCity4. So that part of this SimCity is a lot fun for me, even if I can’t do everything I’d like.
I doubt the servers will be shut down for a long time. I’m sure they’ll sell expansions for SimCity just like they do for The Sims. And add subways, highways, a region editor, a building editor, new buildings, vampires, whatever… Because EA is in the business to make money, they’ll add to the game things people want. “Micro”-transactions and pay-for expansions are good for gaming because they keep the developers in a tighter loop catering to the players.
Nor, apparently, do the EA servers :smack:
I’ve heard that as a reason why the cities are so small this time round, but that’s the developer’s issue, not something that should shaft the end consumer. In any case I doubt it very much, always-only is a tried and true DRM technique.
Even if no home computer has that kind of power, neither do EA’s servers - North Korea has better launches. Retired EA online services - another reason I don’t trust my game to EA’s always online policy.
Is there any sort of sand-box mode? Or cheat codes for Simoleons? You see, I’m a big fan of the franchise, but I’m really not interested in setting tax rates or selling bonds or all that minutia … I just want to build a kick-ass looking city. I ended up hating SimCity 4 because of this (though I think there were cheat codes, but it was just too difficult (and time consuming) to pull of an aesthetics-only city).
And say what you will about Sim City Societies, at least it’s relaxing to me while I plop down neighborhoods at my whim.
When you start a city you have an option to use Sandbox mode where you have all the buildings and infinite funds.
Yes, you can explicitly set up a city to play in “Sandbox” mode, which enables cheat codes, and all unlocks and disasters.
Cool. Thanks. I may consider it after all (always-online notwithstanding).
Ninjaed!
Anyway, I’ve been enjoying it thoroughly. I won’t say the naysayers don’t have a point – and everyone’s frustration with EA’s utter failure to correctly anticipate demands proves their point – but it is a great game once you get pass the server mess. That’s not trivial, I know.
EA made almost a billion dollars last quarter.
I think it’s more likely that Obama will reveal he was actually born in Kenya than EA going bankrupt in five years.
I don’t think they’ll go bankrupt either (sadly), but see the link above on retired EA online services;
"But as games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level – fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles – where it’s no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running. " - EA
So in 5, 10 etc years when EA’s pouring all it’s efforts into The Sims 6 or Medal of Honor Battleshooter 3 or whatever, do you have faith in a company that couldn’t even provide the game to play on launch day will maintain the servers in perpetuity? Or that the servers won’t at some point crash thus wiping out all your save games (no saves on your machine, only the EA servers)?
Sure, once upon a time you could buy a game and then play it. Do people really expect things to stay the same forever?
Time to pull your horse-cart over, Grampa, and watch the dynamo of progress blow your wooden doors off!
I don’t think they’ll go bankrupt either, but you tout this $922M revenue figure while conveniently omitting their $45M net loss for the quarter.
WARNING WARNING WARNING
You cannot play at all if no servers are available. It’s not simply a matter of authenticating your copy of the game (though it does that, too). It will not launch the game at all if it cannot find a server to connect to. And it may dump you out if you somehow lose your connection.
That there are a good number of us (twelve at last count and rising) willing to put up with the server mess (and it’s a big, big mess) and play together in our own SDMB region probably speaks to the strength of the actual game itself. It’s a really good simulation, when it actually works.
My wife and kids are about to go out of town for three days, so by God the server issues better be pretty well resolved by tomorrow afternoon because that’s when my marathon starts.
I officially declare SimCity…lame…
Those people playing currently Sim City 4 (out of protest or whatever) - are you getting it to run on Windows 7 64bit multi-core PCs?
A few months back, when SimCity 5 was announced, it sparked me to try to run SimCity4 + Rush Hour Exp on my new machine - try is the key word.
It was pretty stable on my old single processor XP machine (albiet a bit slow on the bigger cities), but on the Win7 box it would just crash after about 5-10 minutes (and take down the machine with it - as we used to say in the 1980s, “Big Red Switch Time”); even after adding some tweaks I found on various sites (compatibility mode, single processor, etc), no luck.
If you’re getting it to work on Win7 64, on a Dell XPS, what’s your secret?
Don’t hold your breath. EA just asked affiliates to, essentially, “Stop trying to sell the game.”. That doesn’t speak well of their optimism about getting this working in the short term.