Sim City

ScumLord

Grumpypants wrote: »

There is no single player game it is an online multiplayer game so you need an online connection.

Didn't know that, it seemed like any other single player game to me.

EnterNow wrote: »

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.

I guess it depends on how the game runs. They do have the opportunity to make a very large game if you play it online because the servers handle the load. I can actually seeing this become the norm in many ways. But I think it'll have to be the consoles that make it happen, it goes against the grain of someone who's spent a load of money on a number cruncher for the home to start using public number crunchers.

I have been dead set against online stuff since Half Life 2 when it took me weeks to get the game running, then lost all ability to play the game and then got ignored by the support system.

Since using G2play I can see that downloading games is a much better way of doing things when it works and is fair.

I also don't play online stuff often. I find online play pretty shallow a lot of the time and it's hard to do casual gaming when your facing the best people on the planet.

Myrddin

Grumpypants wrote: »

Its not DRM. The game is an online multiplayer game you are building in a world with others and all the cities interact with each other.

I agree I would love a single player game as my connection is crap sometimes but this isn't DRM it is because the game is online.

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

Reekwind

Grumpypants wrote: »

There is no single player game it is an online multiplayer game so you need an online connection.

I'm sorry but that's absurd

The core gameplay of the new Sim City will be, as with the previous games, a solo city-building experience. Simple as. Hence the option to play with singleplayer regions. The whole mechanics of building a city - zoning, laying roads, etc - will be as multiplayer as the previous iterations in the series; which is to say, not at all

What the new game will be providing is the option to interact with other players' cities and a sort of co-op co-existence in multiplayer regions. This is, as I note, entirely optional. So we have the same singleplayer mechanics with the option to send trash to neighbouring player cities. This does not a multiplayer game make

It's a singleplayer game with a co-opt option that requires an internet connection for the singleplayer game. If this is a multiplayer game then the same can be said for almost every game since Doom. This is nothing more than an attempt to move singleplayer content online as a DRM measure.

gizmo wrote:

People are, however, going to need to get used to it because it's not going anywhere

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...

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

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.

gizmo wrote: »

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.

gizmo wrote: »

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.

gizmo wrote: »

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).

gizmo

EnterNow wrote: »

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

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.

Reekwind wrote: »

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...

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.

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?

nesf wrote: »

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 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.

nesf wrote: »

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.

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.

Myrddin

gizmo wrote: »

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.

That would somewhat explain it alright, & if its the case indeed, then fair enough. But, if it is indeed that some of the calculations are being done by the servers & not on the home end...does this mean the game will be effectively useless if & when they drop support for it?

Reekwind

gizmo wrote: »

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

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

The only reality here is that if customers roll over and accept this deeply unpopular DRM measure as inevitable then it will become inevitable

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?

Of course. Because such a system is inherently intrusive and unworkable for many

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

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

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

In the case of SimCity, if a bunch of their simulation systems are being calculated server side then it makes perfect sense

Why on earth would they outsource in-game calculations, needed for the singleplayer experience, to a remote system?

gizmo

Reekwind wrote: »

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

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.

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.

Reekwind wrote: »

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 guess we'll see when the new consoles are released.

Reekwind wrote: »

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

I just used them as an example of a "trusted" studio whose online infrastructure has, for the most part, been quite reliable over time.

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.

Reekwind wrote: »

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

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.

Diablo 2 itself had, for the sake of this debate, sold ~4m copies after a year on sale.

Reekwind wrote: »

Why on earth would they outsource in-game calculations, needed for the singleplayer experience, to a remote system?

Well they've said they have, whether or not it's true is what remains to be seen.

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.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

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.

Reekwind

gizmo wrote: »

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

Diablo 2 itself had, for the sake of this debate, sold ~4m copies after a year on sale

My point being that the success of Diablo III is irrelevant: that game was always going to sell in the millions, regardless of the DRM it was packaged with. The same is unfortunately likely to be the case with Sim City

The gauge of a system's acceptance is not the success of an exceptional blockbuster franchise but the commercial hurt inflicted on lesser titles that don't have such a name to trade on. There's no question that Ubisoft's profits suffered due to its always-online system, the company would not have relented otherwise. And it's those mid-tier games that people will just not buy in the same numbers if it comes with draconian DRM

As to the quality of Ubisoft's DRM, such outrages are inevitable when you introduce a completely unnecessary link. Even Diablo III, with all the resources of Blizzard behind it, does have semi-regular occasions of downtime; not a huge amount but more than would be the case if someone was not hampered by the central servers. The real test comes when you try to maintain such a system across a whole raft of games, not all of which have been designed/built by an in-house developer

And I maintain that unless some real advantages can be shown to moving to an online model (which there aren't as yet) then people won't follow. Gaikai works but who actually plays games on it?

humanji

Reekwind wrote: »

Why on earth would they outsource in-game calculations, needed for the singleplayer experience, to a remote system?

I'm not 100% sure, but I was under the impression that there isn't a single-player game in Sim City. You can choose not to interact with other players, if you want. But the world's economy and the way the people react is all relative to what is going on around the globe. So playing on your own would be a kin to playing WoW and not grouping with other players.

Again, not sure if this is true, but it's what I was lead to believe from the blurb they gave out about it.

nesf

humanji wrote: »

I'm not 100% sure, but I was under the impression that there isn't a single-player game in Sim City. You can choose not to interact with other players, if you want. But the world's economy and the way the people react is all relative to what is going on around the globe. So playing on your own would be a kin to playing WoW and not grouping with other players.

Again, not sure if this is true, but it's what I was lead to believe from the blurb they gave out about it.

Nah, some Vice President spun a tale about local processing not being enough to handle 100,000 agents being modelled.

maggy_thatcher

When this new version of Sim City was announced, it made me go and find my old SC3K CD, then install it and play away. This game, despite being 14 years old still plays fine sitting in a Win8 VM on my Mac (I know they created a Mac version, but I didn't have a Mac back then). The graphics etc may be a little dated, but the actual gameplay is as good as it ever was.

For this new game, what are the odds of this DRM server still being up and running in 14 years to verify that you are allowed to play the game? It's becoming a rental model where despite paying some extortionate price you can only play it for a short time. Some of the new features in the game (e.g. resources) do sound interesting, but unless I had some money-back guarantee that they will keep the services available for a minimum of 20 years, I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole.

quarryman

So who managed to play the beta?

andymurphy93

did anyone actually play the beta and give us some info on what you think
all this speaking of drm and ram and whatever else is confusing me :L

Shiminay

I played the beta, but I'm waiting to hear if it's been embargoed or not - have a post with my experiences written though waiting to go.

Short answer - I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the final product. Did run into some bugs, but it was a beta, so that's not exactly a big shock.

humanji

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

When this new version of Sim City was announced, it made me go and find my old SC3K CD, then install it and play away. This game, despite being 14 years old still plays fine sitting in a Win8 VM on my Mac (I know they created a Mac version, but I didn't have a Mac back then). The graphics etc may be a little dated, but the actual gameplay is as good as it ever was.

For this new game, what are the odds of this DRM server still being up and running in 14 years to verify that you are allowed to play the game? It's becoming a rental model where despite paying some extortionate price you can only play it for a short time. Some of the new features in the game (e.g. resources) do sound interesting, but unless I had some money-back guarantee that they will keep the services available for a minimum of 20 years, I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole.

You won't be able to play World of Warcraft when they take the servers offline either, and that's kind of the same thing here. It's being billed as a multiplayer game. They probably should have just called it SimCity Online and been done with it.

If it's any consolation, I can't imagine people playing this in 20 years time. It lacks that something special that the older games had. It's fun and addictive, but I don't know if it's going to have the legs of it's predecessors.

andymurphy93 wrote: »

did anyone actually play the beta and give us some info on what you think
all this speaking of drm and ram and whatever else is confusing me :L

I was in the first one and posted about it here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82938031&postcount=53

There was only really enough to give a taster, but the whole "living city" stuff can be pretty cool at times. It has it's problems, like the tiny map and the way you place zones will be quite contentious, I'd imagine. I felt it was a bit dumbed down when I played it, but the more I think of it the more I'd say it's streamlined as opposed to dumbed down. There's still plenty to consider, but how you approach the problems is a bit more fluid because of the way the AI decides to populate and run the city.

maggy_thatcher

humanji wrote: »

You won't be able to play World of Warcraft when they take the servers offline either, and that's kind of the same thing here. It's being billed as a multiplayer game. They probably should have just called it SimCity Online and been done with it.

But Warcraft is a pay-to-play game, where you pay virtually nothing, or even nothing for the game itself, and then an ongoing rental fee to actually play the game, and the game doesn't make any sense without the multiplayer service. The new Sim City requires paying full price up-front for a service that may or may not exist at some point in the future, to play a game that would be able work perfectly well in Solo mode, except for decisions made by the producer. It's not in the same category as WoW.

humanji wrote: »

If it's any consolation, I can't imagine people playing this in 20 years time. It lacks that something special that the older games had. It's fun and addictive, but I don't know if it's going to have the legs of it's predecessors.

Sounds like I should skip this one, and stick with the older versions so.

humanji

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

But Warcraft is a pay-to-play game, where you pay virtually nothing, or even nothing for the game itself, and then an ongoing rental fee to actually play the game, and the game doesn't make any sense without the multiplayer service. The new Sim City requires paying full price up-front for a service that may or may not exist at some point in the future, to play a game that would be able work perfectly well in Solo mode, except for decisions made by the producer. It's not in the same category as WoW.

My point is that it's in the same category in that it's an always online MMO. You don't get to interact with the other players as much, but the developers have claimed to want to get each players citing trading with others to create a global network.

It's all a bit sh*t, if you ask me. But they're not going to change their minds any time soon.

Sounds like I should skip this one, and stick with the older versions so.

Hopefully there'll be some sort of demo available at some point (essentially the beta) so people can decide for themselves. It's similar enough to the old ones to peek the interest, but different enough to be quite jarring. As I said in the other thread, this isn't a replacement for SC4, but something that you'd play at the same time.

Sierra Oscar

I have always been a big fan of the Sim City series, was disappointing that the series was neglected for so long after the release of SC4. Really looking forward to this 'reboot' of sorts though. I never knew that it was going into a closed beta test, would have applied if I had known!

VinLieger

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

But Warcraft is a pay-to-play game, where you pay virtually nothing, or even nothing for the game itself, and then an ongoing rental fee to actually play the game, and the game doesn't make any sense without the multiplayer service.

This makes no sense, every copy of the original wow cost the average price of a pc game at the time of release and every expansion there after has cost just below the average cost of any other pc game. Also 12 euro a month is not almost nothing its the full cost of a new game every 5 months.

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

The new Sim City requires paying full price up-front for a service that may or may not exist at some point in the future, to play a game that would be able work perfectly well in Solo mode, except for decisions made by the producer. It's not in the same category as WoW.

Yeah but so does wow i dont see how theres any difference? In wow your paying for the service to be available all the time. Wow would work perfectly well in solo mode IF the developers designed it to but they didnt. Just like this version of Simcity would work in solo mode except the developers have designed it to work as a multiplayer experience whether you agree with that decision or not.
Your saying its a bad thing that we pay full price up front for a game and then ea let us use their servers for free?

Myrddin

VinLieger wrote: »

Just like this version of Simcity would work in solo mode except the developers have designed it to work as a multiplayer experience whether you agree with that decision or not.

But you can play it in solo mode

Krusader

EnterNow wrote: »

But you can play it in solo mode

I think so too, I've never heard anyone saying it was MP only but Grumpypants

VinLieger

Crosáidí wrote: »

I think so too, I've never heard anyone saying it was MP only but Grumpypants

Its not multiplayer only but the devs have said they are focusing on multiplayer interactions way more than in any previous simcity

maggy_thatcher

VinLieger wrote: »

This makes no sense, every copy of the original wow cost the average price of a pc game at the time of release and every expansion there after has cost just below the average cost of any other pc game. Also 12 euro a month is not almost nothing its the full cost of a new game every 5 months.

Any time I've seen WoW for sale, it's been ~€29, and includes a free month to play. And I didn't say it was almost nothing to play, I said that you pay a rental fee to play.

VinLieger wrote: »

Yeah but so does wow i dont see how theres any difference? In wow your paying for the service to be available all the time. Wow would work perfectly well in solo mode IF the developers designed it to but they didnt. Just like this version of Simcity would work in solo mode except the developers have designed it to work as a multiplayer experience whether you agree with that decision or not.
Your saying its a bad thing that we pay full price up front for a game and then ea let us use their servers for free?

WoW makes no sense in solo mode - it's a game that's primary purpose is to play games with other people. SimCity has two modes of operation - a solo mode for playing by yourself, and a multi-player mode that obviously needs an internet connection. However, due to decisions made by EA, you can't actually play in Solo mode without still continually sending game data to/from their remote servers. Essentially they're advertising the game as a purchase when in fact it's a rental, with the rental fee just paid up-front (though, given EA's history, I'd imagine a ridiculous amount of in-app purchase going to be present). If/when EA decide to, they can pull the plug on the game and it becomes completely worthless. However, they obviously won't advertise in advance when they plan to shut the service down.

This decision is definitely going to stop me renting the game.

ShaneU

Anyone know if American keys would work on a Irish origin account? €45 and a $5 voucher

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-5-Credit-Download/dp/B007VTVRFA/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames-download&ie=UTF8&qid=1361238955&sr=1-2&keywords=sim+city

P.S. Always internet connection doesn't bother me. Some friends and I are going to build adjacent cities

Edit: €41.80 on Greenmangaming using discount code but that's 3 days after the U.S. release.

Sofiztikated

Not sure if I'll pick this up.

Currently have Simcity 3000, and Simcity 4, and I find that 3000 was the more enjoyable, difficult game. 4 doesn't have the random encounters (aliens/earthquakes/etc) that 3000 did. I know you can go into god mode, and turn them on, but expecting them takes the "F**KF**KF**KF**KF**KF**K" out of it.

Soby

ShaneU wrote: »

Anyone know if American keys would work on a Irish origin account? €45 and a $5 voucher

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-5-Credit-Download/dp/B007VTVRFA/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames-download&ie=UTF8&qid=1361238955&sr=1-2&keywords=sim+city

P.S. Always internet connection doesn't bother me. Some friends and I are going to build adjacent cities

Edit: €41.80 on Greenmangaming using discount code but that's 3 days after the U.S. release.

Or http://www.amazon.co.uk/SimCity-Limited-Edition-PC-DVD/dp/B007HLNLZ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361259350&sr=8-1 :P - works out to 40 euro

Reekwind

humanji wrote: »

My point is that it's in the same category in that it's an always online MMO

But it's not an MMO; that's the point. The core gameplay, unlike WOW, remains the same old city-building as it always has been. Adding in a spot of online trading does not in any way change this. We have to get away from the idea that this is a multiplayer game or an MMO; it's a singleplayer game (with a multiplayer option) that must be played online. And that's the problem

The Devs' excuses are, as you note, rubbish but we shouldn't let them change the definition of what a multiplayer game actually is

semper fi or dye

Sim City is using a glassbox engine which replicates almost every transation in the game, ie.. Each lump of coal is actually mines, processed, shipped, sold and burned. Each person wakes, drives to work, goes to the shops etc etc. This requires massive processing power. You need to be online to connect to ea servers which will do a lot of this processing for you.

In addition, even if you are playing by yourself, you are playing by yourself in a multiplayer game, there is a world market that determines prices of goods.

Im a bit peeved at the idea of having to be online aswell, cos i know how frustrating it can be when things go wrong. But in some ways i can see the reasons for it in this game. Doesnt mean im happy about it though