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Sim City
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16-02-2013 12:44am#1
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Join Date:Posts: 80269
thelostboys23 wrote: »Anyone looking forward to the new Sim City on PC next monh?? Some of the videos actually look so good for it - many an hour shall be spent on it I think.
I'm looking forward to it,gonna use my GameStop voucher on it
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Time to move our way of thinking about how to play games forward a bit and get over complaints like this
I don't agree with that at all. You should be able to play your purchased game on your purchased system whether you have a internet connection or not. This always online nonsense is completely fine for a multiplayer game, thats a given. But not for single player stuff. I know you say its an 'always online multiplayer game that you can play single player', but to me thats just a name tag thats another way of saying always online drm.
What happens if your internet connection is interrupted?
What happens if the servers go down?
How long will these servers be up for? Will they ever close?
I've personally zero interest in multiplayer gaming, I get my enjoyment from single player offline games, usually story intensive stuff. I do however like simulation type games & was a big fan of Sim City back in that day. So to me, this notion of not being able to have a blast of Sim City unless my internet is working seems absurd, no matter what tag/name they put on it {multiplayer with single player mode :rolleyes:]
I also am a keen retro collector, & all I can say is thank god nothing like this nonsense existed back then, because all the stuff below would probably be useless today.
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Sales of the game continued steadily, if not increasingly, from the release date onwards. This was despite the fact that there were, as previously mentioned, massive problems with server loads and connections which only became known after launch. From launch onwards trust wasn't an issue, it was basically a clear message to publishers that despite a vocal group of dissenting gamers, the majority of people will still buy games which contain this functionality.Blizzard were trusted in Diablo III, many people who normally wouldn't touch an online-only DRM game said Blizzard might pull it off ok given their reputation and experience with MMOs.
As for Sim City, I don't think we'll see any end to the "it's DRM / it's not DRM" argument that has been going on since the dev videos were released. Personally I think it could be pretty cool given the connectivity it allows between player created cities and with the global economy. That is, of course, if EA don't suffer the same problems Blizzard did at launch which restrict us from even playing it.
As an aside, the connection to the EA servers is asynchronous so according to some dev interviews there'll only be an issue if your connection drops for more than three minutes at which point your state will be saved and you'll be booted back to the main menu.0 -
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Increasingly may have been somewhat inaccurate. 3.5m had bought the game within 24 hours (a figure which includes pre-orders of course) and that number had increased to 6.3m by the end of the week. That week, however, was when the game saw some of its worst downtime and was being hammered on nearly everyone video games orientated site, forum and publication out there. So, despite all of that negative publicity, sales still nearly doubled.The only numbers I can find are, 6+ million sales in the first week, 10 million played by two months later. I'm not seeing anything saying a steady, if not increasing, rate of sales going forward and given Blizzard do tend to talk up sales figures and big numbers where possible I'm surprised I'm not finding such numbers quickly.
As for the accuracy of said figures, it's fairly easy for them to see how many accounts there are via B.net so unless they're going to revise the figures downwards for their financials in the coming months, I'd wager the figure is pretty reliable.
People are, however, going to need to get used to it because it's not going anywhere.Anyway, my point was a lot of people gave always online DRM a chance with Diablo III and the problems in the first few weeks of the game, combined with downtimes in the following months turned a lot of people away from this kind of DRM in single player games.
I'm curious though, do you make any distinction between a game which features an always-on component that offers absolutely no gameplay benefits and one that does? Or do you recognise that said benefit is cool and all but that they should still allow the option to play offline in a singular sandbox with all other systems simulated locally.0 -
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Increasingly may have been somewhat inaccurate. 3.5m had bought the game within 24 hours (a figure which includes pre-orders of course) and that number had increased to 6.3m by the end of the week. That week, however, was when the game saw some of its worst downtime and was being hammered on nearly everyone video games orientated site, forum and publication out there. So, despite all of that negative publicity, sales still nearly doubled.
Sure, despite the bad publicity sales did extremely well in the first week and continued to grow for the next two months. I don't and didn't argue with that.As for the accuracy of said figures, it's fairly easy for them to see how many accounts there are via B.net so unless they're going to revise the figures downwards for their financials in the coming months, I'd wager the figure is pretty reliable.
I think the figures are most likely very accurate. I was talking about the lack of numbers given out since July last year. If we had continued steady sales growth we'd have heard about 15 or 20 million sales by now surely no? They'd have zero reason not to mention that to investors or the media.People are, however, going to need to get used to it because it's not going anywhere.
Some form of DRM is always going to be with us. I'm fine with that, Steam games usual policy of verification on installation works perfectly fine for me and doesn't interfere at all with my gaming. Online-only isn't the only option though as shown by Ubisoft.I'm curious though, do you make any distinction between a game which features an always-on component that offers absolutely no gameplay benefits and one that does? Or do you recognise that said benefit is cool and all but that they should still allow the option to play offline in a singular sandbox with all other systems simulated locally.
It depends on the game. It depends on how crucial other people are to the game. I mean if a game stored key data for each level of the single player campaign/story online so that you had to download and verify it in order to play this would deeply annoy me. If on the other hand there were strong multiplayer-esque elements that meshed well with or were crucial to single player experience (I struggle to think of an example) then I wouldn't mind the online components overly much.
With respect to Sim City, the multiplayer aspects sound somewhat interesting. I strongly dislike the design decision though. Even if offline sandbox city building was limited in some ways, I'd be ok with it. That there's no offline sandbox at all, and I think no mods, bothers me somewhat. I mean Sim 4 unmodded is nowhere near as fun. I'll still buy it though (read: my wife is a big Sim City fan and informed me I'd be buying it and giving over my PC to her).0 -
My guess is that it avoids having to create two separate systems, one for online and one for local play. In the case of SimCity, if a bunch of their simulation systems are being calculated server side then it makes perfect sense. It's not, however, something that would be need to be done for every game.Thats fair enough, & I accept this is quite normal for multiplayer use, but if the game has the option to play one player...why force it to use an always online system? Why not have the option to play offline? It may not be DRM, but it sure as hell has the same affect
That's the reality of it though, I'd heavily wager that at least one of the next gen consoles will feature it and unless that one fails spectacularly because of it, it's going to be here to stay.Not if we take the fatalist attitude that **** happens and there's nothing that we can do about it. In which case I suggest that you ask Ubisoft how their online-only DRM offering is working out...
As for Ubisoft, well the counter point is that their entire system/implementation was just poorly designed rather than the idea itself being something abhorrent. Take Valve for instance, if they were to bring on an always-online requirement to Steam and the system was as reliable as the rest of their services, would people be as wary?
I wasn't really referring to long term figures here though. The game has sold 10 million copies which is an astronomical number for a PC-only game like Diablo and is doubtful to go much higher. My point, which we seem to agree on anyway, is that the game continued to sell millions of copies after release despite the overwhelming negative reception to the always-online component due to the downtime experienced. Perhaps those who did looked at Blizzard and trusted them to fix it (which they seem to have) but it still sends the message to Activision that gamers are perfectly happy to accept this either way.I think the figures are most likely very accurate. I was talking about the lack of numbers given out since July last year. If we had continued steady sales growth we'd have heard about 15 or 20 million sales by now surely no? They'd have zero reason not to mention that to investors or the media.
I wouldn't regard the online elements in SimCity to be "crucial" per say (bar the supposed reliance on server-side simulations) but they have the chance to make the game far more dynamic or unpredictable which has always been one of my problems with regard to the long-term playability of the previous games. I guess we'll have to wait and see anyway, whether it's to see how these systems play out or what kind of mess EA make out of the launch.It depends on the game. It depends on how crucial other people are to the game. I mean if a game stored key data for each level of the single player campaign/story online so that you had to download and verify it in order to play this would deeply annoy me. If on the other hand there were strong multiplayer-esque elements that meshed well with or were crucial to single player experience (I struggle to think of an example) then I wouldn't mind the online components overly much. 0 -
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And I'd argue that Ubisoft failed because their system failed constantly and in numerous high profile ways. It was hacked, taken down completely during upgrades and suffered numerous outages, all of which were reported on widely by the gaming press. Diablo III, for all of its sins, only really suffered high profile failures in the first week or so after launch.No. That is, as I say, pure fatalism. Ubisoft's efforts failed because the bulk of its games stable was not big enough to survive the backlash against such draconian measures. Hence why publishers are relying on big name franchises (Diablo, Sim City) to try and batter through in the face of consumer objections
Therein lies the difference and how it will become accepted by the majority imo. If the system works, even if people don't like it in principle, it'll be accepted. You've even highlighted this yourself in a round about way, publishers are introducing it in the bigger franchises first and rather than standing up against it and possibly doing without, people are going to march out and buy it because they "need" to play it.
I guess we'll see when the new consoles are released.The only reality here is that if customers roll over and accept this deeply unpopular DRM measure as inevitable then it will become inevitable
I just used them as an example of a "trusted" studio whose online infrastructure has, for the most part, been quite reliable over time.But why would Valve ever need an always-online system? They have probably the best, from all perspectives, DRM model out there and recently played down the hype of cloud computing, restating that they see the future as being very much based on local hardware. Valve have no need to introduce draconian always-on DRM
As an aside, I have wondered about it in a different context though. For instance, if Valve announced that in order to fully support the idea of transferability with accounts and licences they'd need to implement it, would people still want the latter? But that's an issue for a different thread.
As far as I'm aware, that's an older figure which includes the sales of the first two Diablo games and their expansions, not just Diablo II itself. This lines up fairly well with the more recent figure of 24.8m sales for the series as of May last year.The context being that Diablo II sold approx 17 million copies. Blizzard could have introduced a DRM system in which the customer had to submit to regular DNA swabs and it still would have sold millions
Diablo 2 itself had, for the sake of this debate, sold ~4m copies after a year on sale.
Well they've said they have, whether or not it's true is what remains to be seen.Why on earth would they outsource in-game calculations, needed for the singleplayer experience, to a remote system?
To tie that in with what EnterNow asked above, they'd either need to update the game to add that functionality at a later date or just pull support for the game entirely. It completely depends on how they've implemented it really.0 -
I wouldn't regard the online elements in SimCity to be "crucial" per say (bar the supposed reliance on server-side simulations) but they have the chance to make the game far more dynamic or unpredictable which has always been one of my problems with regard to the long-term playability of the previous games. I guess we'll have to wait and see anyway, whether it's to see how these systems play out or what kind of mess EA make out of the launch.
I'm quite cynical about the need for server side processing. I'm going to be very interested in how much load this game puts on CPUs at release. The only justification for this that I can see is to allow old dual cores to play the game well, so it'll be interesting to see performance on machines sporting somewhat decent graphics cards and weak CPUs.
The main justification (publisher side) for it is that it makes piracy an awful lot harder. I strongly suspect that this is why it's being done rather and any benefit for the players just being a nice but not essential extra.0 -
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