It's Diablo 3 All Over Again with the SimCity 5 Launch

[sliem]

I read some reviews. Some bad ones are:
-city size is very limited
-no subway
-plenty of obvious bugs
-long wait time in queue
-can't load game to try different approach when your city gets a disaster

I'm not buying this game. Stupid always-on requirement (DRM) and all above. One review says this feels like simvillage or simtown.

 

[Onus]

Always-online to play a single-player game is a dealbreaker. If you can't trust me not to be a pirate, that's YOUR problem, not mine.

 

[helz IT]

Too many singleplayer games are being ruined by companies who are trying to tack on social features as if anyone really wants them. If SC2 or Diablo 3 had offline modes, I'd have bought them on release. As it is, I've never even played them in spite of previously being an avid Blizzard fan.

I play a lot of MP games as well as SP, and I sure don't do it for the "social" benefits. I've met far more assholes on the internet than I've made friends, but I play MP because working with or against humans can be a lot more challenging and interesting than any AI. That's often worth it in spite of all the baggage that goes along with playing over the internet (immaturity, racism, sexism, server problems, internet problems, guild/clan drama, etc. etc. etc.), not because of it.

Why in God's name would anyone want to introduce all that crap to a singleplayer game? I play SP to avoid all that.

 

[kinggremlin]

[citation][nom]mobrocket[/nom]EA:why should we invest in faster and better servers when we already got the money from the people who pre-order/bought the gamewe dont care if they can play the game, we can if they can pay for the game[/citation]

I preordered the game. They didn't get my money until yesterday. You don't get charged until the game is released.

Had no problem dl'ing the game yesterday, but connecting to play last night was a pain in the ass. The NA servers were all swamped, so played on a European one where everyone was sleeping. Now today, I can't connect to those servers. So quite the annoyance.

I still play SimCity4 on occasion, 10 years later, so I feel no need to throw a temper tantrum like some of the 10 year olds here because I can't play right now. A few days of poor connections will hardly ruin playing the game in the years to come.

 

[bigdragon]

This is not Sim City. It is Sim Town. You build a town that exists off an interstate exit. You get no more than 12 city blocks when using streets or 8 when using avenues. It is a joke of a game. In the beta they filled up their test servers repeatedly. EA should have seen this coming. I was willing to ignore the Origin requirement to buy Sim City 5, but the beta quickly told me cities are too small and the lack of local save games prevents experimentation. I also hated how often the servers would fail and boot you out of a single player game. EA clearly did not bother to research the original Cities XL and its failed on long component or bother to check the multitude of other massively online game first week problems. It is 2013! We should not still be seeing these kinds of mistakes.

I'm so frustrated maybe I should make my own 3d city game.

 

[kinggremlin]

Also, the developers have confirmed that larger cities will be possible in the future. They claimed the reason for the size limit was for performance reasons. While I know everyone here already has their tri-SLI Titan setup with 5Ghz nitrogen cooled i7 (or at least that's what they claim), the vast majority of people who will be playing this game don't have uber setups like that. Not sure why the graphics can't be turned down more to address that though.

 

[kinggremlin]

You get no more than 12 city blocks when using streets or 8 when using avenues.

You're doing it wrong if that's all you can fit.

 

[jonyah]

I was roped in by D3, but not again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

 

[smeezekitty]

Not only do I have to deal with the always connected DRM crap because EVERYONE is a pirate (sarcasm) but there is a long wait queue?

If I wanted to play simcity, it means I want to play it now. Not wait 10-20-30 minutes.
Playing simcity 1 on an 8088 sounds like more fun.

 

[cpy]

Stop complaining about game you haven't even played, watch Totalhalibut video on youtube to get the idea about the game first, only thing you read is rant from other jerks who rant because they don't have anything better to do, complaining about thing you never saw or know about is pure fail, sure DRM sux, but i'm only buying this SC because of online features. Also small city zones are to well force people to cooperate and play multiplayer as to have 1 big do it all yourself city.

 

[Ninjamonkeh]

I can update that I have been trying to connect to any of the servers since 2pm est its now 3:30pm est and im stuck in a endless loop of it saying its checking for updates even though it says 100%. If your on the fence about buying this game , wait a month or 2 , or better yet get any other non EA game from STEAM. I can guarantee Origin is crap , and EA doesnt care about you after you give them your money.

 

[internetlad]

and that's why I refuse to use Origin. Seriously this is babytown frolicks.

Valve would take every step possible to avoid the release of a huge title and have issues like this, and if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't let the issues last this long, nor let it happen a second time.

EA deserves none of my money, past, present or future. They are literally the cancer plaguing not only the PC market, but the console market too. When EA wins, everybody else loses.

 

[DRosencraft]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]It wouldn't be... except that it requires a constant GOOD connection to play... understand? Not just a quick 1/10th of a second DRM check.DRM hurts gaming.... pirates hurts gaming. EA (Electronic Assholes) hurts gaming.[/citation]

It's a self-feeding cycle. Pirates do their thing, game companies take efforts to stop them, pirates get more aggressive, developers take more aggressive steps to stop them, etc, etc, etc. There are two options; pirating diminishes to the point that developers can't defend harsh DRM measures, or developers give up the fight against pirates. I don't see either happening any time soon, so we're stuck lurching through these problems. Most will simply stop worrying about it when they get faster, cheap, internet or these companies quickly roll out more server bandwidth.

 

[PadaV4]

Check out teh reviews on amazon!! A huge amount of one star reviews bloating out the sun! Looks dark for EA. Everybody should demand a refund lol.

 

[lindethier]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]It wouldn't be... except that it requires a constant GOOD connection to play... understand? Not just a quick 1/10th of a second DRM check.[/citation]

This right here ^. I never bothered trying Diablo 3 just because I don't like always on DRM, especially if I just want to play the single player portion of the game.

 

[opmopadop]

All Sim City 5 needs is a RMAH and to be released into 3 parts and Blizzards awesome-less ideas have succeeded.

Of course Blizzard could take a leaf out of Apples book and sew EA for stealing their mind (and game) destroying ideas.

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]kinggremlin[/nom]I preordered the game. They didn't get my money until yesterday. [/citation]
Then you need to check the charges on your bank accounts more often. EA charged for pre-orders the second the orders were made.

 

[SirGCal]

[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]It's a self-feeding cycle. Pirates do their thing, game companies take efforts to stop them, pirates get more aggressive, developers take more aggressive steps to stop them, etc, etc, etc. There are two options; pirating diminishes to the point that developers can't defend harsh DRM measures, or developers give up the fight against pirates. I don't see either happening any time soon, so we're stuck lurching through these problems. Most will simply stop worrying about it when they get faster, cheap, internet or these companies quickly roll out more server bandwidth.[/citation]

Pirates do their thing (with games) for only a few major reasons.
1) games are just too expensive. Although I don't agree with this, if games were cheaper, a lot of piracy would cease.
2) cause they can. Sometimes it's just that simple.
3) to bypass DRMs. I do NOT support piracy, but to be honest, I have used noCD patches and such to bypass my legal copies needs for such DRMs simply for convenience. That is what a lot of piracy really is and if the companies just did away with these checks and found something that actually worked, there wouldn't be a need or desire for other piracy.

It is a self-defeating circle. But honestly the corporations don't have a prayer to beat the pirates. Simply, too many capable hackers, too few/slow/and/or/ignorant of corporate coders to work against it. Perfect example for that is BluRay security. It won over HDDVD in the movie world cause of it's security features. But the day a new disk is produced with new features, there's new decryption code released within a few hours at most to defeat it. Begs the question, why bother honestly? People like myself will buy what they desire. Others will simply steal it without really too much trouble at all. Make stuff more affordable and usable and you remove the primary reason for the pirating effort to begin with. Games or movies, etc. And I don't even download MP3s of whatever band I'm listening to. I might make them from my own legal media for my car and portable player but... I do not condone piracy. But I simply don't understand why companies think these efforts actually do any good to stop it. It just aggravates the legal users and gives the pirates something else to do.

 

[ringzero]

That seals it. Not buying.

 

[deck]

"the most advanced simulation engine ever"

LOL. As a city simulator, Sim City 4 is superior in virtually every aspect.

Honestly EA, the task before you was simple. Take Sim City 4, remove the grid. That is a game I would buy.

 

[Guest]

Nope, they will not get a penny from me, SimCity 4 is still better IMO

 

[deck]

[citation][nom]cpy[/nom]Stop complaining about game you haven't even played, watch Totalhalibut video on youtube to get the idea about the game first, only thing you read is rant from other jerks who rant because they don't have anything better to do, complaining about thing you never saw or know about is pure fail, sure DRM sux, but i'm only buying this SC because of online features. Also small city zones are to well force people to cooperate and play multiplayer as to have 1 big do it all yourself city.[/citation]

DRM aside, for me, this game is an epic failure. It lacks all of the features that I would expect from a Sim City title and adds features that I can't imagine anyone would care about. EA has ruined one of the great game franchises.

 

[Guest]

I still play Civ iii. What happens in a few years when Sim City 5 players move on and servers are empty of players. Will I still be able to install and play? or will it just be one more DRMed constant online connection dead game.

 

[pdfsmail]

What happened to the old Sim City we all know and love!!??... o wait we all know the answer... wonder if we will ever see an epic game like SC4 and earlier... without the dumbing down gameplay and always on DRM crap. I didn't pay for that.

An OPTION to play online / multiplayer would be fine with me... but the whole being required to be connected even in private use and no local saving makes me a sad panda.

 

[thecolorblue]

I was looking forward to Sim City 5, however always online means that I will NEVER EVER BUY IT

F*** That S***