Sim City (2013) lowest rated game on Amazon ever (1.2 outta 5, 2600 reviews)

[JayOctavarium]

I get paid on the 21st. On that day, it shall be mine again.

[Implode]

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.

[Chino]

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.

[Implode]

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.

[Chino]

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."

[ReaperKK]

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.

[Chino]

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 

[Implode]

It's awesome to see that there are a lot of RCT fans here.

[El Barto]

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.

[Chino]

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 ”

[El Barto]

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.

[Implode]

I'm sure that was going to be the case. Stupid releasing unfinished games...

[Perpetual Change]

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.

[GuineaPig]

Get SimCity IV.  Get the compilation of all the best mods.  Have a great time.

[robwebster]

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!

[El Barto]

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. 

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130318/01035222365/simcity-always-online-drm-lets-hackers-play-godzilla-with-anyones-cities.shtml

[orcus116]

It's gonna be great when EA tries to say they did not anticipate this.

[Nick]

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.

[Fiery Winds]

Haven't played a Sim City game since Sim City 2000.   

[antigoon]

Well, the CEO of EA resigned today.

[Perpetual Change]

OH shit. I gotta find the reddit thread on that.

[Super Dude]

Haven't played a Sim City game since Sim City 2000.   

SimCity 3000 was pretty good.

[Implode]

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.

[Fiery Winds]

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. 

[El Barto]

So apparently EA considers DRM to be a lost cause and a counterproductive business strategy. That's why it wasn't included in SC5.   

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130328/05304422492/ea-labels-president-drm-is-failed-strategy-simcity-didnt-have-any-drm.shtml

[orcus116]

Well technically it does. It's called Origin.

[Chino]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCL0T2pVP8

I love this dude, he's fucking hysterical.