SimCity (DRM, server issues, etc.)

[Julius Seeker]

Attempting to play SimCity. The servers are having troubles due to heavy traffic. I did play the game during the beta stages, and it's fairly brilliant, easily the best SimCity to date.

Other than that, I have been totally addicted to Fire Emblem Awakening for the last month, and am currently playing Lunatic Mode. This one is my favourite 3DS game to date, and my favourite Fire Emblem. It takes all of the best things from the series, puts them into one game, and then adds a bunch of new best things.

* Multi-generation system is back from Fire Emblem 4.
* You can move around the map at will like some of the later Fire Emblems.
* You have an unlimited supply of units including the Awakening characters, other player's avatars you can hire, and dozens of classic characters - new to the series
* Casual mode option, no perma death - new to the series
* HUUUGE world with tons of locations - probably about 3X the size of any previous Fire Emblem game. 27 locations where the main story takes place, 23 additional locations for side-quests where you typically go to unlock new features and content, each with side stories. So 50 locations... Then there are the DLC chapters getting released from time to time, they take place on classic or new maps, 25 DLC Chapters across 23 maps (in Japan) for a total of 73 locations with the opportunity for others.

[Shrinweck]

I've been playing SimCity, as well, and been enjoying it while it was playable. I talked myself out of buying it on release day by spending five minutes on Twitter and then some jerk posted a guy streaming a nine hour gameplay session and basically I fell in love with the game at first sight and was downloading it five minutes later. EA is supposedly giving us a free game for our trouble but I don't know what the specifics are..

[Flip]

I dont want free games, i want an offline mode. So stupid for EA to do the 'always connected' for a game like Sim City..

[Julius Seeker]

I don't think you'd want SimCity to be offline, that would eliminate many of the elements that make the game as fresh feeling as it is. From my experience with the game, this exactly the step they should have taken with the series. The technical issues they encountered were unfortunate, but shit happens.

[Zeus]

I dont want free games, i want an offline mode. So stupid for EA to do the 'always connected' for a game like Sim City..

Required constant connection for single-player portions of games should be against the law punishable by a $1M fine and up to 5 years in jail for the CEO, CTO, and COO

[Shrinweck]

That's the idea - there are no single-player portions of the game. Your city is in a region of two to fifteen other cities and you either open up the region to friends/the public and the fun is in specialization and complementing each other... the problem is very little of that is working and some of it has been straight up taken out of the game so the servers are playable.

I'd already be bored if it wasn't for the multiplayer component. The only way the small space you get for a city works is if you can jump to another city and help yourself along, or if someone comes along and gives you what you need.

[Zeus]

The online part of SimCity should be optional, not required. That's EA trying to justify their bullshit

[SineSwiper]

I don't think you'd want SimCity to be offline, that would eliminate many of the elements that make the game as fresh feeling as it is. From my experience with the game, this exactly the step they should have taken with the series. The technical issues they encountered were unfortunate, but shit happens.

Shit like this doesn't just "happen". It's created. Blame DRM, EA, and horrible server planning.

[Shrinweck]

Well SimCity got boring for me basically the same night I posted positively on here about it... I was willing to excuse some fuck ups that could be fixed along the way and keep playing an essentially broken product that was fun but it's really just broken to the point of not even being worth it... The traffic is just the beginning. Sims apparently don't even go to their assigned homes or jobs. They enter the first home and job that's according to their skill and wealth levels. Cars don't U-Turn except at intersections... Emergency vehicles are beyond stupid and get stuck in loops. Some of these bugs remind me of what happened to me in my intro level programming class in college, except you would expect more from people who actually get paid. I can look past shitty DRM as long as it doesn't fuck up my computer, but an unfinished game... Looking forward to what will probably be a lackluster free game from EA and eventually a product that's worth playing again.

On a more positive EA note, I bought the last ME3 DLC that came out last week and it's ridiculously good. It's mostly inside jokes (at least 80% of the dialog is at least funny enough to put a smile on your face) and the main story is basically engineered to be silly to bring an excuse to get everyone together. It provides a kind of closure (even though you can play it in the middle of the story) that wasn't at all included with the core game. This is a much more fitting last bit of content for the Normandy crew then that bullshit slideshow they put together in the Extended Cut. This is the kind of thing DLC should be - something that was created in hindsight and is actually pleasurable to play, rather than tacking on three more hours of the same thing you've been doing.

[Eric]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... ne_forced/

Modder removes always online lol, so they lied to us.

[Don]

I think the 'always online' model should be more like Steam like you should have a connection online the whole time to the Internet but you don't necessarily have to be tied to a server. Just authenticate to some server at the beginning of a session to let them know you're there and that should deal with all the lightweight piracy concerns. Ideally there should be some benefit for having a connection. I have my Steam connection always on because it's more convenient that way even though I could technically run everything offline from Steam. And if there are guys who are going to never go online to pirate your game you're not going to stop them anyway.

[Julius Seeker]

I don't think you'd want SimCity to be offline, that would eliminate many of the elements that make the game as fresh feeling as it is. From my experience with the game, this exactly the step they should have taken with the series. The technical issues they encountered were unfortunate, but shit happens.

Shit like this doesn't just "happen". It's created. Blame DRM, EA, and horrible server planning.

I wouldn't blame DRM, because that would be incorrect. It is server capacity, and the issue was essentially fixed by opening new servers. These sorts of server type issues happened with World of Warcraft as well.

Eric - you can essentially play World of Warcraft offline too, it doesn't mean that's going to be a complete gameplay experience. Like World of Warcraft, SimCity is built for multiple players who interact with one and other and work together.

[Don]

A lot of people play MMORPG like a single player game anyway.

The server capacity issue is pretty much a cop out. It's like you have X preorders but you think for some reason those guys that preordered the game somehow wouldn't be playing the game the moment the game launched because clearly a lot of people preorder the game and then never play it? There's pretty well known statistics on what kind of launch capacity you'd need and this isn't even a MMORPG so it's not like you have to worry about having too many servers and not having enough population on each support, though we should be well beyond the point where each server is limited to some fixed capacity. It should be easy to have say 5 whatever major servers and just increase/decrease server capacity as needed. In the worst case you bought twice the firepower your game needs for the opening rush but you can just throw the hardware in a closet somewhere for the next game. The cost of machines is cheap and while people usually are only crying about unable to play the game, there's really no reason to risk the fact that people might actually stop playing your game for real just so you saved on some cheap machines especially given you can just save all the extra capacity you bought but never needed after the first 3 days for the next game.

I can understand getting bottlenecked on something like the login server because normally the model for a MMORPG would be something like 1/40th of your player base are attempting to login at any given time (1/5 of available users are on during prime time, and prime time should last about 8 hours). Of course at launch it's more like 100% of your player base are attempting to login, but in this case you should be stalled at the login. Whoever that got through whether by luck or just a queue should still have a perfectly playable experience once they get in. People especially in the MMORPG community are used to the queue to login but it's understood that once you got in, even if the it took 3 days to get in you're supposed to have a relatively smooth time playing and that's not a very high standard to meet.

[Julius Seeker]

Shrin, I encountered pathing issues too when using low density roads between high populated locations while playing the Beta, but haven't had any issues since I make all roads high density streetcar avenues. Still, this is a bug that I hope they fix in the next patch, I figured they would have fixed it before GM, I don't think traffic jams get THAT severe in towns with 50,000 people =P

[Eric]

Eric - you can essentially play World of Warcraft offline too, it doesn't mean that's going to be a complete gameplay experience. Like World of Warcraft, SimCity is built for multiple players who interact with one and other and work together.

Have you actually played the game? There's nothing in it or about that actually REQUIRES other people, you can actually take control of a bunch of cities all by your lonely and Maxis definitely could have come up with some cheap AI for sister cities, or are you just playing Devil's Advocate again?

[Shrinweck]

Shrin, I encountered pathing issues too when using low density roads between high populated locations while playing the Beta, but haven't had any issues since I make all roads high density streetcar avenues. Still, this is a bug that I hope they fix in the next patch, I figured they would have fixed it before GM, I don't think traffic jams get THAT severe in towns with 50,000 people =P

A whole 50k? :P

This is more of a reference to the 200-300k range. And I hear the arcology basically breaks the game if you have a high population already.

[Julius Seeker]

Eric - you can essentially play World of Warcraft offline too, it doesn't mean that's going to be a complete gameplay experience. Like World of Warcraft, SimCity is built for multiple players who interact with one and other and work together.

Have you actually played the game? There's nothing in it or about that actually REQUIRES other people, you can actually take control of a bunch of cities all by your lonely and Maxis definitely could have come up with some cheap AI for sister cities, or are you just playing Devil's Advocate again?

I've played it fairly extensively now, have you? What I am saying is that Blizzard could have come up with a bunch of AI characters to populate World of Warcraft in place of player characters as well, and you could do all your "raids" with them instead - why didn't they just do that? In SimCity, technically you can work on projects alone, but it would take one of the new fun aspects of the franchise and make it either really really frustrating or really really pointless. There is a SimCity game you CAN play that's offline, SimCity 4. You can also get SimCity 4 in a bundle with the expansion and SimCity Societies as well.



Shrin, I hope not, we're working on an Arcology right now =P
Although, I wouldn't mind phasing out more of my residential areas.

[Eric]

Blizzard could have come up with a bunch of AI characters to populate World of Warcraft as well, and you could do all your "raids" with them instead.

Now you're just being obtuse.

I couldn't get the coordination of a raid of 10/25/40 players with a bunch of AI characters, you don't need to coordinate anything with anyone in Sim City, people just happen to be there, they don't need to be. It's nice to have the OPTION, but it shouldn't have been the CORE, and by all accounts from what I've read and seen with the mod that takes it offline it doesn't have to be. Blizzard has actually tried adding a few NPC quests that give you dps/tank/healer, but they're pretty awful and I couldn't imagine WoW functioning without the core social element with like-minded players that makes it fun. I couldn't care less about other people in Sim City, I just want to build my city, they're background noise at best to me.

[Julius Seeker]

Technically, using a high level FF12 style gambit command system, you could co-ordinate a raid of any number of AI controlled characters. I am not trying to argue that World of Warcraft should be offline, but rather that it could very simply be made into an offline game with AI characters. I was drawing an analogy to your "I just want to play this game single player" argument that you made, and I used World of Warcraft.

SimCity is designed with multiplayer town co-operation, resource specialization, and co-operative projects on lands outside of your city in mind. Like World of Warcraft, it could be redesigned and recoded to be an offline game, but it really shouldn't be as that would take away from the core of what makes this game interesting. This is how they're both designed to be played. You shouldn't listen to what a bunch of half-witted albino chuckleheads on Reddit think =P

Likely they're biased or just haven't played the game and are just following the bandwagon.

If you're looking for a single player experience where you just build a city, SimCity 4 is available; it is designed specifically without a multiplayer experience in mind.

[Don]

I'm sure 39 other AI entities can easily coordinate with one player though that kind of defeats the point of the raid which is to play with a whole bunch of other players. If you want to be realistic they can even yell at you after you stand in fire and wiped the raid.

[Eric]

Technically, using a high level FF12 style gambit command system, you could co-ordinate a raid of any number of AI controlled characters. I am not trying to argue that World of Warcraft should be offline, but rather that it could very simply be made into an offline game with AI characters. I was drawing an analogy to your "I just want to play this game single player" argument that you made, and I used World of Warcraft.

SimCity is designed with multiplayer town co-operation, resource specialization, and co-operative projects on lands outside of your city in mind. Like World of Warcraft, it could be redesigned and recoded to be an offline game, but it really shouldn't be as that would take away from the core of what makes this game interesting. This is how they're both designed to be played. You shouldn't listen to what a bunch of half-witted albino chuckleheads on Reddit think =P

Likely they're biased or just haven't played the game and are just following the bandwagon.

If you're looking for a single player experience where you just build a city, SimCity 4 is available; it is designed specifically without a multiplayer experience in mind.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Sim City has traditionally been an offline experience where you build your city and you have fun in managing it. It's fine and dandy that they made an online mode, but did they HAVE to make it online only? No, there's a big difference between me playing side by side with somebody in a more interactive game like a FPS, or an MMO, and playing together to beat the boss or shot the other guy, and me trading artificial resources with somebody I'll never see. Hell you play Civilization, I know you know what a game's AI can be capable of for this type of game. And you're gonna sit here with a straight face and tell me that it's not possible to simulate any of those features with an AI? Really?

I think Sim City being online is a cool idea, I think it not having an offline option is bullshit, and even if you disagree with the Reddit crowd what they were proving is that the game functions, features and all offline, meaning you DON'T need to be online 24-7 which was EA's entire argument.

Also I think it's worth pointing out that Blizzard said the same crap about Diablo 3 at launch, and how it wasn't DRM, and how the game couldn't function offline because you need the auction house and other such smooth talk, and yet low and behold when the console version comes out you have an pure offline experience that doesn't require the internet.

I understand your POV Seek, the company that made the game told you that it needs to function this way, you enjoy the features and the game and you don't like that people are bitching about it due to it's rocky launch. That doesn't mean the people disagreeing with your are wrong, it just means they share a different viewpoint.

[Eric]

I'm sure 39 other AI entities can easily coordinate with one player though that kind of defeats the point of the raid which is to play with a whole bunch of other players. If you want to be realistic they can even yell at you after you stand in fire and wiped the raid.

I do like that Blizzard's AI controlled NPCs do sometimes mock the players with their dialog with stuff like that. :p

[Don]

Honestly the whole 'always online' thing is just because always online makes dealing with piracy considerably easier. Even for MMORPG if you look at the group finder stuff the average dialogue goes like "Hi" "Thx". Even in PvP it's usually like "(location of interest 1) inc" "this team sux" "LOL" and so on. If you've a good ranking system the game can simply match you up with some bots of the same level of power (would be a combination of skill/gear factors) and the only hard part would be to come up with convincing dialogues. Honestly the only reason you'd be easily be able to tell your allies/enemies are bots would be that they're probably not going to be obnoxious to jump around like crazy monkeys even though it is surely quite easy for the computer to pull that off given they can clearly turn on a dime better than any human can.

The AH for Diablo 3 could be implemented in exactly the same model as Diablo 2. You'd have to go to Blizzard server for authentic AH, whatever that means, and if you want to play offline and dupe 3 gazillion gold that's your own choice but you'd never be able to take that gold to the 'legit' environment.

[Eric]

Problem with D2 is that you can dupe your 3 million gold offline and bring it into a legit environment lol

[Don]

There's no connection between the ladder servers and the open server. The problem was that it's easy to dupe on the ladder servers too.

[kali o.]

Seeker is parroting EA bullshit -- which is pretty funny to me.

One year ago, SimCity was only supposed to online for a DRM check, the rest was offline. Pretending the game was designed with online functions being core to the "gameplay" or that these online aspects are super fun (or hell, working properly) is something only EA could claim was truth...and something only Seeker could regurgitate with a straight face.

[Shrinweck]

Details about our free game come in today.. wonder what the limitations are going to be.

Edit: Ugh I don't want any of these

Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
Bejeweled 3
Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
MOHW (Standard Edition)
NFS Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
Plants vs. Zombies
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition

[Eric]

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition lmao

[Don]

I've seen enough propaganda about how offline gaming is dead coming out from the industry that I wouldn't say it's completely out of the question some execs actually believe that.

[Flip]

So, Bioshock 3 is coming out soon and it will have no multiplayer. Which is actually pretty great.. but if it requires an online connection i'm going to flip my shit.

[Eric]

It won't Flip

[SineSwiper]

I've seen enough propaganda about how offline gaming is dead coming out from the industry that I wouldn't say it's completely out of the question some execs actually believe that.

That's fine. Indie games can eat their lunch. And EA can burn like the Hindenburg. All the while shaking their head and asking "Where did we go wrong?"

[Don]

I think the old Diablo 2 model works well. I played mostly online on the BNet server just because everyone else was there, but occasionally I also played offline. You want to offer some sort of benefit, like in the case of D2 it's mostly just a matter of legitmancy but that was enough to keep people connecting to the BNet servers. Of course the ladder occasionally had some events or items that are otherwise unobtainable elsewhere but it's not like it's a huge deal because people who play offline can hack anything they need. I know it's all about DRM and piracy, but honestly I can't imagine a guy say, "Man this game is moving online only so I got no choice but to buy it now because pirating is too hard". 99% of the time people find a way to pirate it anyway and the other 1% they would just play something else.

[SineSwiper]

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_ ... lo-resigns

[Don]

I notice the article mentions SWTOR failed finanically which is a popular thing to say. Let's say the game sold 2 million boxes @ $60, and 1 million man-year was subbed total at $100 a year (way too low for a man-year of sub) that's $220 million. I remember hearing like $250 million for the budget so you'd be down $30 million not counting any auxiliary income like cash shop or that the sub income is probably way lower than it actually is, and paying $30 million to break into a high stakes industry is not even that bad. But I noticed there's this trend with MMORPG where apparently they'll assume the game will make $1 billion an year like WoW so they way overspent on who-knows-what and they when your game only brings in $100 million an year it somehow leads to a devastating financial blow, probably because you already purchased the private islands out there and have to pay for them now. I remember WoW says their annual cost is below $50 million per year and that's the biggest MMORPG on the planet, so you'd think anybody making at least $50 million an year has enough to turn a profit, but apparently this isn't the actual case.

I'm really mystified on what money is spent on development these days. At least with Square Enix you know the money went into cutting edge graphics (look at the list of graphics guys). For MMORPG, I've no idea why you'd need such an insane budget. A game world that's 10 times bigger does not require 10 times the budget since there's obviously a lot of copy & paste going on. I guess you'd have to model all the enviroments but since MMORPG are never THE cutting edge in graphics you'd think they wouldn't have to spend as much there compared to state of the art.

[Eric]

EA's CEO stepping down, only matters if the culture @ EA changes as well, ie they stop trying to fuck gamers to improve their bottom line, and realize by doing so they'll help their bottom line anyway.

[Zeus]

EA's CEO stepping down, only matters if the culture @ EA changes as well, ie they stop trying to fuck gamers to improve their bottom line, and realize by doing so they'll help their bottom line anyway.

Dream on my Chocolate Brotha. DLC and microtransactions are only gonna get worse with the next gen hardware that'll have more built-in support for such things

[SineSwiper]

EA's CEO stepping down, only matters if the culture @ EA changes as well, ie they stop trying to fuck gamers to improve their bottom line, and realize by doing so they'll help their bottom line anyway.

Dream on my Chocolate Brotha. DLC and microtransactions are only gonna get worse with the next gen hardware that'll have more built-in support for such things

You still aren't taking the indie factor into account. People are realizing that they can have almost as much fun with an indie title as they can with a triple A title, at a 1/6th of the cost.

[Shrinweck]

I'm excited to see what and how well the comparably small time developers do when their Kickstarter funded games get released - namely Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, Torment, and Dead State. I haven't seen any numbers on FTL but those guys were so small time that it must have been great. Actually, the FTL developers have said they are wary of Kickstarter because after so much success the added layer of scrutiny would be too stressful to work under. There's clearly a line drawn between the actual development groups (inXile, Obsidian, DoubleBear, Double Fine) and the teams that are just a few people... But they're in completely different ballparks at the moment. EA can throw hundreds of millions away and basically keep on trucking, while these small companies are excited to get their hands on a $3-5 million budget. Profits tend to be proportional, as well.

This first wave of potential indie games that were crowdfunded start coming out in the next 1-2 years and then we'll probably see a move from big developers trying to buy up the talent or the studios themselves... I imagine we'll end up with the exact same situation we're in now, with more of a focus on microtransactions and DLC. We're definitely being shown that there are a lot of developers out there that are doing things out of love for the medium.. but there's probably even more that would rather work for a big company and make enough to support their families. You just can't beat big business with small business these days - at best you're looking at comparable scraps at a table. Luckily that's enough sometimes.

Star Citizen is also something to look out for since it's a great example of starting small and getting crazy amounts of funding with a Kickstarter that got them 2.1 million and their campaign since netting over six million. This is the example come to life of a game that had investors willing to match/put in millions after enough interest was shown and it'll be a prime example of an indie company turning a small budget into a large one. I would say out of all the crowdfunded games I've supported (ten), that Star Citizen has the potential to knock it out of the park and make tens of millions. Even these Kickstarter-funded games only have tens of thousands of supporters when they've overshot their funding request by over a million dollars. That's a lot of gamers left over to potentially buy their games at what could potentially be pure profit at a certain point, not going to any publisher.

EA is a good example of how not to run a gaming company, though... So is Ubisoft but they manage to make tons of money. I wonder what the difference is. Seriously. I've looked around for what it could be and I don't know.

Edit: Also I went with Sim City 4 for my free game because: lol

[Eric]

EA's CEO stepping down, only matters if the culture @ EA changes as well, ie they stop trying to fuck gamers to improve their bottom line, and realize by doing so they'll help their bottom line anyway.

Dream on my Chocolate Brotha. DLC and microtransactions are only gonna get worse with the next gen hardware that'll have more built-in support for such things

You still aren't taking the indie factor into account. People are realizing that they can have almost as much fun with an indie title as they can with a triple A title, at a 1/6th of the cost.

I feel like the "thriving Indie market" is a myth personally.

[Eric]

EA is a good example of how not to run a gaming company, though... So is Ubisoft but they manage to make tons of money. I wonder what the difference is. Seriously. I've looked around for what it could be and I don't know.

Really? Aside from Ubisoft's treatment of the PC crowd what scumbaggery is Ubisoft wrapped up in.

[Shrinweck]

WELL THEY'VE ANGERED THE PC MASTER RACE WHAT MORE NEED THERE BE, PEASANT? :P

Also, yeah, the successful indie people problem number in the few dozen at best... Hopefully Kickstarter brings that up to a few hundred, but, yeah, the successful indie developer is definitely an endangered species.

[Eric]

WELL THEY'VE ANGERED THE PC MASTER RACE WHAT MORE NEED THERE BE, PEASANT?

*cowers*

[Don]

I don't really think the Indie market is thriving, it's more like I can get the same lousy game for $20 instead of $60 from a name brand company so I might as well buy 3 of them at $20 and I got 3 chances one of them might actually be good, and the odds do work in your favor.

[Julius Seeker]

EA's CEO stepping down, only matters if the culture @ EA changes as well, ie they stop trying to fuck gamers to improve their bottom line, and realize by doing so they'll help their bottom line anyway.

If Peter Moore takes charge, you'll have a guy who ran Sega of America, Xbox, and EA all in one person =P

I think that JR was a great CEO, but the industry has been running into some fairly hard times recently along with many other industries, and EA struggled a lot along with many other companies in the changing financial climate. THQ is gone from the face of the earth. The fact that the bulk of videogame media critics are a bunch of amateurs isn't helping the image of the industry overall; and they're getting increasingly bad, rather than better. Jon Stewart's treatment of CNN Crossfire is what the videogame media needs as a whole. Maybe then other media sources will again start taking the industry seriously.

JR's run saw a number of good stab at the same sorts of forces that caused the music industry to collapse.

[SineSwiper]

I don't really think the Indie market is thriving, it's more like I can get the same lousy game for $20 instead of $60 from a name brand company so I might as well buy 3 of them at $20 and I got 3 chances one of them might actually be good, and the odds do work in your favor.

Where are you getting your indie games from? I would average it to be more like $10. (Some are $5, and some are $15.)

[Don]

I don't really think the Indie market is thriving, it's more like I can get the same lousy game for $20 instead of $60 from a name brand company so I might as well buy 3 of them at $20 and I got 3 chances one of them might actually be good, and the odds do work in your favor.

Where are you getting your indie games from? I would average it to be more like $10. (Some are $5, and some are $15.)

I usually don't buy the ones on the lower end of the spectrum unless it's something I have some vague idea about or it's a genre that's otherwise hard to get. I tend to stick with games that at least look like some effort was put into it, like say Dungeon Defenders and Torchlight 2, both started at $20 though of course you can get it for cheaper if you waited.

I tend to avoid buying game that looks like it came out of a RPG Maker equivalent so this precludes most of the games under $10. Yes graphics don't make the game but for $20 you can have something that looks like Torchlight 2, so why not?