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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Perpetual Change on March 08, 2013, 09:19:02 AM
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https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-41018ted-Edition2-SimCity/dp/B007VTVRFA
Holy crap.
EA just keep doing stuff like this. When are they gonna learn that forcing people to be on their servers to play a single player game is freakin' annoying?
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About a year ago I swore I would never buy or support another EA product... shit like this is exactly why I've stuck to it.
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I'm pretty much against any type of software/game/anything that has mandatory cloud anything. It should be a feature, but at the end of the day I should always be able to have software on hand to handle things locally.
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I should be able to play something I paid for despite whether or not an internet connection is available. Not to mention, if everything is server based, the day will come where your game no longer exists.
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And as far as anything with over 1000 reviews that has to be the lowest average of any product I would think.
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I will never touch an EA product again.
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I'm pretty much against any type of software/game/anything that has mandatory cloud anything. It should be a feature, but at the end of the day I should always be able to have software on hand to handle things locally.
I should be able to play something I paid for despite whether or not an internet connection is available. Not to mention, if everything is server based, the day will come where your game no longer exists.
Unfortunately, DRM has ruled that out.
You don't "own" your games; that would imply you have the right to burn, copy, or sell them. You pay for a license to play them.
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Last I saw, Amazon had discontinued it. I guess that's why this is Ed 2.
We're seeing this more and more. Hell, Steam isn't much better, with it's constant need to update everything. I've got a few games I purchased on Steam (which for content delivery is still aces) that I only play cracked versions of. I gave up on L4D2 6 months ago when it wanted to repair the data files, yet again. Easier to DL an offline version and be done with it once and for all. And that's exactly what will happen with SimCity 5. In a week, there'll be a cracked offline version. Everybody will steal it to get a game that actually works, and then EA will blame piracy for the craptacular sales.
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Steam at least does the sales. And, you can always start steam in offline mode (when you do have a connection) and not have to worry about it.
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I'm pretty much against any type of software/game/anything that has mandatory cloud anything. It should be a feature, but at the end of the day I should always be able to have software on hand to handle things locally.
I should be able to play something I paid for despite whether or not an internet connection is available. Not to mention, if everything is server based, the day will come where your game no longer exists.
Unfortunately, DRM has ruled that out.
You don't "own" your games; that would imply you have the right to burn, copy, or sell them. You pay for a license to play them.
And unfortunately, that's why EA is losing customers left and right. I won't even buy a PS3 EA title just out of principle.
What they need to do is include a secure ID unit with each purchase which you need to activate like once a week instead of every time you want to play.
(https://keithelder.net/blog/images/keithelder_net/blog/WindowsLiveWriter/SettingupRSASecureIDonWindowsMobile_A318/image_1.png)
I game on my laptop and am often times in places without a connection.
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What they need to do is include a secure ID unit with each purchase which you need to activate like once a week instead of every time you want to play.
No. What they need to do is accept that piracy will always happen to a set degree, and that DRM does nothing but punish the people who pay for the game. Release the freaking game without any and let people play the damn thing.
BTW, this is only partially about deterring piracy. It's equally about eliminating the used game market, which is actually more infuriating to me.
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BTW, this is only partially about deterring piracy. It's equally about eliminating the used game market, which is actually more infuriating to me.
Yeah, that really rubs me the wrong way too.
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BTW, this is only partially about deterring piracy. It's equally about eliminating the used game market, which is actually more infuriating to me.
Yeah, that really rubs me the wrong way too.
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Chino, you're fucking up bro.
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I hear there's also problems with the map size. Who wants to place bets on how long it'll take before they release the DLC for larger maps you have to pay more money for?
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The rage over developers/publishers trying to cut down on used games seems like the silliest of the gaming controversies, and gamers get pissed over some pretty ridiculous shit. The argument is usually something like "Games are too expensive as they are (outside of Steam sales and indie games), if you cut out used games then I'll just stop buying as many games, so fuck you guys!" as if the publishers/developers ever saw a cent from a used game purchase anyway. "You better stop this or I'll keep not giving you any money" is about as empty a threat as you can get.
As for the Sim City fiasco, what else is new. We've known for ages the game was going to require connecting to their servers. It was obvious those servers were going to shit themselves. Everyone knows what EA does. People still bought it then cried about it afterwards. Sim City having the lowest product rating won't matter at all because most people just don't give a shit enough to actually change their buying/gaming habits, they'll just rage about it for a bit on the internet and expect that to be enough to get EA to decide they'll stop doing things that make them fuck tons of money.
None of the complaining will change anything, the game is still going to sell like wtf which is all that matters. EA knew going in that this this sort of thing would cause a shitstorm. Big publishers/developers don't want to just release single games that you pay for once and are done with, they'd rather provide a perpetual "service" that brings in revenue regularly. If doing so means they have to suffer through a bunch of empty threats and QQ then they'll gladly accept that trade-off.
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I downloaded "Real Racing 3" on my phone the other day. Well, it's a free download, and the game is insanely good. The way they make the money off it is essentially by making it impossible to get anywhere competitive without buying upgrades to your cars with real money. I read an article where someone calculated how much money you would have to spend in order to finish the game (i.e. own all cars in the game). $500. Nice.
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The Sims 3 is $30, add in all of the DLC and you get another $420. That Train Simulator series has like $2,000+ in DLC on top of the $60 for the game itself.
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EA is killing all my favourite franchises with simplified gameplay, DLCs, and fucking DRM.
But whatever. The new Sim City looks laughably inferior to Sim City 4 and its massive amount of community content.
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I'm glad I left the video game market ca. 1999. The only thing I have currently hooked up to my TV is SNES, for which some games were purchased at Funco Land :lol
Also:
Yeah, that really rubs me the wrong way too.
(https://www.vul.bc.ca/v3/team/pictures/col%20angus.jpg)
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Hopefully online nerd protest is met by a sharp decline in sales.
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Hahaha....this is too funny at the irony. It's a Sim game about building your own city, and since today is all about connecting with others online. Them making it a mandatory thing isn't really a problem at all. It's actually smart marketing, because they know people will still blindly buy.
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And as far as anything with over 1000 reviews that has to be the lowest average of any product I would think.
Now 1.2 out of 2500+ reviews
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The world's full of people who'll blindly buy anything with SIM in the title, and they're going to buy this regardless of how annoying it is. However, there's also a market segment that buys good stuff, or things that might interest them. When you pull some shit like this, you're safe in getting the first group's money, but that's about all you'll get. This could easily cost them 10-15%, and I suspect that if you're an EA shareholder, that's pretty damned important; at least it should be. I imagine that in the video game industry, expanding your market is absolutely crucial.
Furthermore, by pulling something like this, you're opening the door nice and wide for somebody else to come along and grab that market share. At this point, I don't think anybody's going to be able to do something SIM related better than Maxis; they kind of wrote the book on it. But if Maxis/EA take their customers for granted, a new franchise won't necessarily have to be as good to make up for SIM's shortcomings.
In the end, EA will sell this as a success story. The 10-15% market share they didn't get they'll write off to piracy. However, over the long haul, it might well be problematic for them. Other companies are doing just fine despite piracy, and EA continues to rest on safe, established franchises under the faulty assumption that the same people will always be there. Bad move. EA's a publicly traded company, remember. Disappointing sales numbers for a flagship title is the sort of thing that can really assrape a company to death.
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The Sims 3 is $30, add in all of the DLC and you get another $420. That Train Simulator series has like $2,000+ in DLC on top of the $60 for the game itself.
That makes more sense to me. You buy some DLC and it keeps it more exclusive for you as people would pick and choose what they want. That's assuming the $2000 worth of content is focused on customization. I don't see overall $$ on DLC as important, what's more important is the $$ expected from an individual game. For instance, if they offer 100 avatars at $1, that $100 total is misleading, they're offering a choice of 100 options at $1. Anyone who has to be a DLC completionist, well, that's their own stupid problem. The only ones that bother me are story elements or other pieces that are essential to the base game.
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I kind of hate myself for this, but I desperately want to buy it anyway. I've been waiting for a worthy follow-up to Sim City 4 for years. Sim City Societies was not cutting it.
This game looks awesome and sounds like it could be cool, but I don't want to buy it and then have it not work. But, in a moment of weakness, I may still give in.
Maybe I'll be able to hang on long enough for them to fix most of the server issues, because the fact that I can't save games to my hard drive isn't a big deal for me.
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(https://i.imgur.com/Vx6SaRT.jpg)
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Derp. Please don't quote my old post, I feel retarded for not actually having read the damn thing.
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:lol
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:rollin
Is the game really that bad or is this all an outlash at DRM?
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Less the DRM / forced multiplayer specifically and more the fact that the servers have been shitting the bed for the past few days and people can't play. It's going to blow over like a week from now (assuming they get their act together) and everyone will forget about how much they hate EA once the next installment from a big franchise gets announced (I guess we're going to hear more on Dragon Age 3 soon?).
I've heard a few people saying the game itself is pretty good, but I've seen some other things that make me go wtf. Something that doesn't get mentioned much is that the game auto syncs/saves your city, meaning you can't just save your game, release some disaster to watch it all blow up, then load your game again. Any mistake you make you're stuck with.
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BTW, this is only partially about deterring piracy. It's equally about eliminating the used game market, which is actually more infuriating to me.
Yeah, that really rubs me the wrong way too.
Pow!
I don't much care for a lot of video gamers' hissy fits, and review-bombing tends just to paint gamers as immature children, (and it's an accurate if not flattering self portrait,) but EA's behaviour, in this case, has punished the consumer in the name of corporate dick-swinging. I still think it's churlish, but it's drawn my attention to what, I think, is an important issue. I loved SimCity as a kid, I was completely enthralled by it, but my interest dropped in seconds after reading this thread.
I would also point out, though, that a lot of developers have put a lot of time into making a game that will, for many of them, have been a labour of love, and I think this kind of shit probably does more to put well-meaning developers out of jobs than it does to wound EA. Obsidian, in the last couple of years, had to make lay-offs for the sake of a single review point on MetaCritic. Nonetheless, I recognise that this isn't half as petty a crusade as a lot of them I've seen lately. I question the method, and fear that it's not harming the right people, but agree that a point needs to be very firmly made, and regrettably can't think of any better ways to make it.
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:rollin
Is the game really that bad or is this all an outlash at DRM?
From what I've read, the game is actually very good. It's just that a lot of people haven't been able to play it.
Also, it's losing some points for being muliplayer only. Part of the current clusterfuck is that they used it's multiplayer component as a selling point for the always-on internet connection, even though plenty of people just want single player gaming, and then to try and get the servers to not shit all over the people who bought the silly thing, they've had to disable a whole lot of the multiplayer functionality. :lol
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I would also point out, though, that a lot of developers have put a lot of time into making a game that will, for many of them, have been a labour of love, and I think this kind of shit probably does more to put well-meaning developers out of jobs than it does to wound EA.
If EA fired a bunch of people from Maxis and those people decided to start a Kickstarter for some kind of Sim City clone that doesn't require connecting through official servers they'd get their funding on, like, day 1.
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I would also point out, though, that a lot of developers have put a lot of time into making a game that will, for many of them, have been a labour of love, and I think this kind of shit probably does more to put well-meaning developers out of jobs than it does to wound EA.
If EA fired a bunch of people from Maxis and those people decided to start a Kickstarter for some kind of Sim City clone that doesn't require connecting through official servers they'd get their funding on, like, day 1.
Probably, but that's not a particularly realistic scenario. It's not like EA would obliterate Maxis, firing all the staff in one fell swoop, and a new company called Naxis would rise immediately from the ashes - more likely, it'd be a cocktail of scattered gameplay designers, graphic artists, etc. Never a full complement. Just a selection of the least crucial people, who they won't be able to afford if they don't make their targets, which are measured on both profit and acclaim, and behaviour like this threatens to eat into both.
Plus, they've just spent X number of years making a new SimCity game. They've said what they wanted to say, and got fired for it! I agree that DRM's shit, but imagine being the person whose career stops in its track for a game they did a pretty damned good job on. EA's behaviour isn't fair, but while the gamers' reaction makes its point, and makes it strongly, I'm not convinced this is laser-targetted at the people they're trying to harm. It's a hamfisted response to a rather more delicate problem.
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:rollin
Is the game really that bad or is this all an outlash at DRM?
From what I've read, the game is actually very good. It's just that a lot of people haven't been able to play it.
Also, it's losing some points for being muliplayer only. Part of the current clusterfuck is that they used it's multiplayer component as a selling point for the always-on internet connection, even though plenty of people just want single player gaming, and then to try and get the servers to not shit all over the people who bought the silly thing, they've had to disable a whole lot of the multiplayer functionality. :lol
Thanks, I haven't played Sim City in a looong time, I guess I don't understand how it works in multiplayer so id be pretty annoyed too.
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It's not a multiplayer game at all. Never has been, never will be.
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I was just saying the other say, 10 years later, and they still can't make a Sim City game quite as well as SC4. The days of the awesome simulator/tycoon games are gone. Game creators aren't willing to make a game with the same mindset now. Sim City and Spore are just a couple examples.
As a huge fan of SC4, I know most the community wasn't expecting too much from the game. Many will reside to play SC4 for 10 more years if they have to.
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lol fuck EA.
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Not surprised by all of this. One of the many reasons I haven't bought an EA title in years.
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https://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble
I find this answer a little to vague, i mean sure..it's hard to pre-test a million players logg in at the same time but their answer is almost like: Don't worry consumers, the game is really good and we have proof of that! It may very well be but that was not really the question or problem, i have faith in the developers and i feel for them but...yea...it's you EA, that's where the problem is.
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.
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I want them to explain exactly how this game is "built for online play".
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I'm curious whether handing out over a million free games is more of a loss than just shipping without online only DRM to begin with.
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Hmm, StarCraft II is similar in terms of not being able to play without an internet connection. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't even play single-player Campaign mode without an internet connection.
Of course, SC2 is obviously a multiplayer game, and it's for this reason that Blizzard goes above and beyond in keeping the fanbase happy with system updates, prompt notifications of downtime and other issues in advance, being open to player feedback, etc. At least that's always been my experience with them.
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Hmm, StarCraft II is similar in terms of not being able to play without an internet connection. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't even play single-player Campaign mode without an internet connection.
Of course, SC2 is obviously a multiplayer game, and it's for this reason that Blizzard goes above and beyond in keeping the fanbase happy with system updates, prompt notifications of downtime and other issues in advance, being open to player feedback, etc. At least that's always been my experience with them.
Yes, but that Blizzard did it with SC2 and D3 isn't that bad IMO. I've never ever had server problems in those two games, and as long as you have a decent internet connection, you can play without any problems. Nowadays, almost everyone has a great internet connection (at least here in Holland), so I don't really mind it too much. It's a bit of a bugger for LAN parties and such though.
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someone said Spore...fuck Spore.
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That was me. Agreed. EA/Maxis ruined that game too.
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I'm curious whether handing out over a million free games is more of a loss than just shipping without online only DRM to begin with.
If the people continue playing, the DLC sold makes up for it.
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I wonder if the DLC in this case is really superfluous extra crap or critical game features already installed from the initial download but you need to pay to unlock even though you bought the whole game in the first place.
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I wouldn't be opposed to on disk unlockable content like that if they lowered the box price to compensate. Sort of like halfway to a free to play system. And even then, the content should be worth buying without being a required purchase.
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I disagree. If you pay money and receive the entire disc, you should be able to access all of it. Imagine buying the luxury version of a car so you get a new CD/MP3 player, AC, heated seats, all that jazz but then in order to actually make those things work you need to shell out more money. It's like the price you used to pay to have everyone now is he price you pay just to have the opportunity to pay to use all of the other features. It's a disgraceful business tactic.
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When talking about physical features like that, sure, but the digital realm is very different. I downloaded a game on my phone that features microtransactions. There are abilities to purchase that are built into the game, but you have to pay to use. But the game itself was free. And I haven't spent a dime on those features, but they're there if you want to use them. Seems like a good balance.
Especially when looking at the pipeline to create new content, just because the content is on the disk, doesn't mean that it's part of the original content. It's a license to play, not ownership of everything on the disk. Not all instances are like that though, Mass Effect 3 DLC for one. That mission and story arc are considered by most to be integral to the overall story of the series, and to set that aside as extra content to be paid for doesn't seem like a good use of that system.
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When I pay full price for a disc worth of material, I expect that I have paid for the entire disc worth of material and should be able to access everything, either right away or through normal gameplay. Expecting the customer to pay more to access the rest is fucking the customer and bad business, end of story.
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Just because something is on the disk doesn't mean that it was part of the original game experience. Near the end of game development, there are usually many teams that no longer have a workload. Rather than break the flow, they start working on (already planned) DLC. Sometimes they get it done before release and can package it on the disk.
Again, I'm not defending all instances of Day 1 DLC as it's still a relatively new system that needs to be balanced. I just disagree that the customer is entitled to every bit on the disk/download.
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i love the internet
(https://i.imgur.com/F5iP2Xq.png)
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But if it's already completed then why can't it be part of the original game? It seems like you're cheating the customer big time. Plus the more and more this kind of things becomes acceptable the more cretins like this crawl out of the woodwork:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZR6-u8OIJTE
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On disk DLC is one of those arguments that I don't see much point in getting involved in. Whether it's on the disk or not seems pretty irrelevant to me and it tends to be pretty irrelevant to how people feel about DLC in general. If the DLC released 2 months after the game came out rather than on release day then people would still go on about how it was probably just held back from release so they could sell it later.
If the Sega Genesis Sonic games came out today and had a day one DLC pack that contained the abandoned levels that have since been found in the files people would scream about how it should have been included in the base game, when the alternative is that those levels never got finished at all because they weren't worth the cost of finishing.
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I downloaded "Real Racing 3" on my phone the other day. Well, it's a free download, and the game is insanely good. The way they make the money off it is essentially by making it impossible to get anywhere competitive without buying upgrades to your cars with real money. I read an article where someone calculated how much money you would have to spend in order to finish the game (i.e. own all cars in the game). $500. Nice.
And the problem with the mobile games is clearly the same total work hours are not the same as big, up front cost games. So the depth often does not go beyond games from the 80's, which is basically when big games could be done with small teams.
Spending ridiculous amounts of $ to do anything is absurd, thus why my mobile gaming is very limited.
It is a shame the micro transactions are now making their way into big developer games that require up front cost. I don't mind paying a little more up front, or a small charge for stuff. But up to 2k of DLC? :-/ *shrug*
Now I know why I stay away from modern games mostly.
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I really like Planetside 2's model. You can "p2w", in the sense that you can get more efficient weapons, but all the stock weapons are just fine. And, with the exception of camo and cosmetics, you can obtain everything else f2p. Also, you can only unlock weapons with $, to get scopes and other upgrades to weapons, you need certs (which is what you get for just playing), you can't buy those.
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I do love the SimCity games of old, and will be interested in trying this out one day, it's just a matter of eventually getting unbiased reviews to decide if it's worth it.
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Definitely let us know what you think about it! And include what SC games you've played in the past with your thoughts. I've been comparing data.
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I do love the SimCity games of old, and will be interested in trying this out one day, it's just a matter of eventually getting unbiased reviews to decide if it's worth it.
Even the biased reviews speak pretty favorably of it, from what I've seen. I don't think anybody's saying it's not a very good game (when it's playable). What I haven't seen is anybody explaining what makes it an improvement over 4, which works just fine. The question people need to ask is whether or not it's enough of an improvement to put up with all the bullshit involved.
Me personally, I'll probably wait 9 months until it's $20 on Steam (so as not to reward EA for their dickery), and then download a cracked version to actually play so I don't have to deal with the bullshit.
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I'd rather see a new Roller Coaster Tycoon.
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I'd rather see a new Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Oh my god yes
What was the most recent one? 3? I grew up on 1 and a few years ago played 2 to death. 3 would never run on my comp
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I still play RCT and RCT2 to this day. They are among my favorite games of all time. I don't think them making a new one would be good though. They'd most likely screw it up. I mean, heck. They already did when the expansion packs to 2 came out, and 3 just continued down the wrong direction.
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I do love the SimCity games of old, and will be interested in trying this out one day, it's just a matter of eventually getting unbiased reviews to decide if it's worth it.
Even the biased reviews speak pretty favorably of it, from what I've seen. I don't think anybody's saying it's not a very good game (when it's playable). What I haven't seen is anybody explaining what makes it an improvement over 4, which works just fine. The question people need to ask is whether or not it's enough of an improvement to put up with all the bullshit involved.
As stupid as it sound the removal of water pipes is a very huge feature to me.
I still play RCT and RCT2 to this day. They are among my favorite games of all time. I don't think them making a new one would be good though. They'd most likely screw it up. I mean, heck. They already did when the expansion packs to 2 came out, and 3 just continued down the wrong direction.
Maybe I'll send you the file of the park I made from Arid Heights. Has 7 or 8 different themed areas and I was in the fucking zone when I made it.
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We should share creations! I've debated making an RCT thread before. I don't play as intensely as I used to, but I've made some awesome things over the years, and I'm sure other people have too!
I do love the SimCity games of old, and will be interested in trying this out one day, it's just a matter of eventually getting unbiased reviews to decide if it's worth it.
Even the biased reviews speak pretty favorably of it, from what I've seen. I don't think anybody's saying it's not a very good game (when it's playable). What I haven't seen is anybody explaining what makes it an improvement over 4, which works just fine. The question people need to ask is whether or not it's enough of an improvement to put up with all the bullshit involved.
As stupid as it sound the removal of water pipes is a very huge feature to me.
Right. The only thing the game actually does better is the graphics. It really does look amazing. Other than that, the game has been stripped down in functionality so much, it's awful. You can't make highways or water pipes. There is no terriforming at all. Zoning is unnecessarily difficult and often leaves large open spaces in your "city" which is bad enough when they barely give you any room to work with in the first place. You can't control which cities are connected to what. Glassbox was a good idea on paper, but it's been implemented awfully. They had to restrict city size and connectivity because of it. And the path-finding of sims, buses, and garbage trucks are laughable. (https://youtu.be/zcEaHT9mt-Y video for reference) It looks as though cars just look for the shortest distance to take rather than taking into account traffic and road capacity. It was a problem in SC4 that they never fixed. The community has come up with mods to fix it, but EA/Maxis apparently doesn't care enough. And it's even worse than that; someone was running some experiments:
Its actually MUCH worse than them just taking the shortest route, they also have no memory of where the live or where they work so they all are trying to take the most direct route to the closest available house (or job ect) Once that fills they all take the most direct route to the next available un occupied house. I confirmed this by building 2 residential areas, one a bit close to my industry and one a bit further. Every day all the cars would go to the first and when it all filled the would U turn and go toward the second. This is why all the buses follow each other, they are all trying to get to the same place.
(https://community.simtropolis.com/topic/54642-videos-show-path-finding-inherently-broken/?p=1342166)
Very realistic... :\
I mean, sure. It looks good graphics wise, but look how much less you can really create not only on the large scale, but the small scale as well.
(https://i.imgur.com/MfHxuxm.jpg)
(https://i1076.photobucket.com/albums/w454/kidkaboom10000/Spark_2013-03-06_17-04-45_zps96ee095a.png)
vs
(https://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1098/simcity4201303081536594.jpg)
(https://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/wwetom1/7BOA1_zps47d46da4.png)
(https://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/wwetom1/7BOA2_zpsb2dbdfda.png)
(https://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/wwetom1/7BOA3_zpsea0fd080.png)
(https://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9944/0585011413.jpg)
(https://imageshack.us/a/img715/2875/jhfgrh.png)
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I'd rather see a new Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Oh my god yes
What was the most recent one? 3? I grew up on 1 and a few years ago played 2 to death. 3 would never run on my comp
The third installment was complete shit and I like to pretend it didn't happen. I played the first two for thousands of hours as a kid.
I've been debating the second one and all its expansions off Amazon for $10 digital download, but I'm not sure if it will work on my Windows 7 machine.
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I think I played 2 on my windows 7... I don't remember if It was this laptop or my vista laptop. I'm debating on whether or not I want to dig out my copy of 2 or just spend the $10 for it again on Amazon...
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I think I played 2 on my windows 7... I don't remember if It was this laptop or my vista laptop. I'm debating on whether or not I want to dig out my copy of 2 or just spend the $10 for it again on Amazon...
$10 for the game and all expansions is a freaking steal.
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I get paid on the 21st. On that day, it shall be mine again.
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It'll work on Windows 7. Even the first game works on Windows 7. The only thing that gets dicey is if you're trying to use Son of Beast or 8Cars trainers along with it.
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It'll work on Windows 7. Even the first game works on Windows 7. The only thing that gets dicey is if you're trying to use Son of Beast or 8Cars trainers along with it.
I don't know what those are lol. I've read a lot of reviews on Amazon about people not being able to play it :/ It's only ten bucks, but I don't like just tossing money away.
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They are just side programs that can hack certain settings in the game. Don't worry about them. I play RCT2 on Windows 7, and Jay has said he has too. It shouldn't be a problem.
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They are just side programs that can hack certain settings in the game. Don't worry about them. I play RCT2 on Windows 7, and Jay has said he has too. It shouldn't be a problem.
Cool. I'm going to give it a shot then.
Also: Surprise: SimCity Doesn’t Have to be Online After All
https://www.qj.net/pc-gaming/news/surprise-simcity-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-to-be-online-after-all.html
"EA and Maxis have claimed that SimCity’s “Glassbox” engine actually does most of its computations server-side, which is why you absolutely must be online to play. Unfortunately for this talking point, users from around the web have simply been unplugging their internet to see whether or not this turns out to be true. Reports are rolling in of players enjoying SimCity offline for minutes or even hours, with no negative consequences.
Oh, and then there’s this: An anonymous source from Maxis (one who actually worked on SimCity) contacted Rock, Paper, Shotgun and essentially denied all of the talking points that have been thrown our way since SimCity’s reveal:
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”
Maxis and EA were supposedly going to respond to that post, but haven’t yet got around to it. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, and in case you’re curious—here’s what the anonymous dev had to say about making SimCity into an offline game:
“It wouldn’t take very much engineering to give you a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff.”
Awesome."
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I'd rather see a new Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Oh my god yes
What was the most recent one? 3? I grew up on 1 and a few years ago played 2 to death. 3 would never run on my comp
The third installment was complete shit and I like to pretend it didn't happen. I played the first two for thousands of hours as a kid.
I've been debating the second one and all its expansions off Amazon for $10 digital download, but I'm not sure if it will work on my Windows 7 machine.
It'll work, I'm a huge RCT fan, I have it on my office computer (which runs on win 7) for when I need a mental break from work.
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I'd rather see a new Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Oh my god yes
What was the most recent one? 3? I grew up on 1 and a few years ago played 2 to death. 3 would never run on my comp
The third installment was complete shit and I like to pretend it didn't happen. I played the first two for thousands of hours as a kid.
I've been debating the second one and all its expansions off Amazon for $10 digital download, but I'm not sure if it will work on my Windows 7 machine.
It'll work, I'm a huge RCT fan, I have it on my office computer (which runs on win 7) for when I need a mental break from work.
Downloading now :biggrin:
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It's awesome to see that there are a lot of RCT fans here. :metal
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Also: Surprise: SimCity Doesn’t Have to be Online After All
https://www.qj.net/pc-gaming/news/surprise-simcity-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-to-be-online-after-all.html
"EA and Maxis have claimed that SimCity’s “Glassbox” engine actually does most of its computations server-side, which is why you absolutely must be online to play. Unfortunately for this talking point, users from around the web have simply been unplugging their internet to see whether or not this turns out to be true. Reports are rolling in of players enjoying SimCity offline for minutes or even hours, with no negative consequences.
Oh, and then there’s this: An anonymous source from Maxis (one who actually worked on SimCity) contacted Rock, Paper, Shotgun and essentially denied all of the talking points that have been thrown our way since SimCity’s reveal:
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”
Maxis and EA were supposedly going to respond to that post, but haven’t yet got around to it. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, and in case you’re curious—here’s what the anonymous dev had to say about making SimCity into an offline game:
“It wouldn’t take very much engineering to give you a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff.”
Awesome."
Yeah, I saw that yesterday. They would have been better off forcing some of the computations to be server side. That was the only thing that was going to make it difficult to crack. If everybody actually does have 100% of the game, then it shouldn't be too hard to work out an offline version.
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Also: Surprise: SimCity Doesn’t Have to be Online After All
https://www.qj.net/pc-gaming/news/surprise-simcity-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-to-be-online-after-all.html
"EA and Maxis have claimed that SimCity’s “Glassbox” engine actually does most of its computations server-side, which is why you absolutely must be online to play. Unfortunately for this talking point, users from around the web have simply been unplugging their internet to see whether or not this turns out to be true. Reports are rolling in of players enjoying SimCity offline for minutes or even hours, with no negative consequences.
Oh, and then there’s this: An anonymous source from Maxis (one who actually worked on SimCity) contacted Rock, Paper, Shotgun and essentially denied all of the talking points that have been thrown our way since SimCity’s reveal:
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”
Maxis and EA were supposedly going to respond to that post, but haven’t yet got around to it. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, and in case you’re curious—here’s what the anonymous dev had to say about making SimCity into an offline game:
“It wouldn’t take very much engineering to give you a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff.”
Awesome."
Yeah, I saw that yesterday. They would have been better off forcing some of the computations to be server side. That was the only thing that was going to make it difficult to crack. If everybody actually does have 100% of the game, then it shouldn't be too hard to work out an offline version.
A little more digging has been done by some guy on Reddit.
Most recently, though, attention has focused on the “always-on” part of the game. EA claimed that the decision to move SimCity online wasn’t due to piracy or the need for restrictive DRM, but because of how complicated the Glassbox simulation is. According to EA, most of the calculations for running your city occur server-side since your puny gaming computer can’t handle it.
Of course, it didn’t take long for someone to simply try turning off their internet to see if SimCity still worked. And, how about this: It totally does. Then an anonymous source who worked on the game emailed RPS and let them know the “always on because of complexity” thing is complete bullshit (still waiting on a response from EA on that one, by the way).
That’s everything that has happened so far. Here’s the latest: One clever Reddit user has sorted out how to open the game’s debug mode, which apparently allows for unlimited offline play. It also unlocks a bunch of tools that players wish they had in-game, such as the ability to terraform land and edit roads:
“So with a little bit of package editing within SimCity, and a little playing about in the code, it's possible to enable debug mode. I linked the activation to the "Help Center" button in the main menu for ease. Most debug features are disabled without having an actual developer's build (they have terraforming tools etc. available in the full developer build!), but a few things do still work - including editing the main highways.
Not only that - but you can edit the highways ANYWHERE - even outside of your city boundary... and even if you quit the game and log back in later, it's all saved safely on the server.
This shows that highway editing will be easily possible, AND that editing outside of the artificially small city boundaries should be very viable too.
Other things I have modded out with a quick change: Unlimited time to remain disconnected (won't get booted at 20 minutes, can now be disconnected "forever"). Population count now shows REAL figure, not the "artificially inflated" figure. My large cities have a population of about 15k now, not 100k :P”
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So I guess this is equal parts dick and incompetence. Not only did they alienate a whole bunch of users, they did it for nothing. They had to know that people would unlock developer mode, like they do every other game ever invented. If that's all that's needed to disable the phone home component, I suspect the cat's out of the bag now.
I'd be willing to bet the terraforming component was to be included in a DLC.
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I'm sure that was going to be the case. Stupid releasing unfinished games...
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I almost bought into the hype of getting this game.
Then I realized that I haven't played ANY Sim City games, and that I could probably just buy an older, more complete version.
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Get SimCity IV. Get the compilation of all the best mods. Have a great time.
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I still play RCT and RCT2 to this day. They are among my favorite games of all time. I don't think them making a new one would be good though. They'd most likely screw it up. I mean, heck. They already did when the expansion packs to 2 came out, and 3 just continued down the wrong direction.
I'm broadly pretty positive about changes and quite like the march of progress, but as early as RCT2, I found I really missed the gradual progression from level to level - the way you unlocked new parks by winning at old ones. I don't know if I might've just had some special Game of the Year type copy, (it had a lot of Six Flags content on it, so... probably!) but all the levels were unlocked straight out of the box. Which is fine, and I'm sure a lot of people liked it, but it kind of removed any impetus to complete the objectives. Became less of a game, and more of a big sandbox. I used to love the accomplishment of hitting the objectives and then having a brand new park to explore. It was half the reason I played. Definitely sank more hours into the original than I ever did into either of the sequels. Money, too - got all the expansion packs.
ETA: Just found this discussion's been moved into another thread. Whoops - over we go!
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So it looks like people have learned how to hack SimCity's cloud storage to rain mayhem down upon other people's cities. You'd have to be blind to not have seen this one coming. Normally I'm pretty opposed to the senseless destruction of other people's stuff, but in this case, I'm not too troubled by it at all. :lol
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130318/01035222365/simcity-always-online-drm-lets-hackers-play-godzilla-with-anyones-cities.shtml
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It's gonna be great when EA tries to say they did not anticipate this.
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As much as I love EA, I hope they get absolutely raped for this. Trying to pull the DRM shit is bad enough for its own sake, but then completely fucking things up and lying about everything is just horrible.
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Haven't played a Sim City game since Sim City 2000. :corn
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Well, the CEO of EA resigned today.
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OH shit. I gotta find the reddit thread on that.
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Haven't played a Sim City game since Sim City 2000. :corn
SimCity 3000 was pretty good.
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And Sim City 4 was even better than that. Ah, the good ol days. When games actually moved forward and got better.
And about EA. Wow. I wonder what's next.
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I had played it on an old 486 growing up, and was one of the last RTS-like games I really got into, with combat or otherwise. I've tried others, such as Company of Heroes and Starcraft (frustrated me halfway through), but I've always preferred other genres. That said, bad press regarding EA is always entertaining to me. :D
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So apparently EA considers DRM to be a lost cause and a counterproductive business strategy. That's why it wasn't included in SC5. :lol
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130328/05304422492/ea-labels-president-drm-is-failed-strategy-simcity-didnt-have-any-drm.shtml
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Well technically it does. It's called Origin.
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:rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCL0T2pVP8
I love this dude, he's fucking hysterical.