Sim City 5 leaked footage

[MasterChef]

VIEW CONTENT:

I read through about 100 of the negative reviews from users on metacritic. I'd say a good 50% of them were from people who made zero comments about the actual game and just screamed about the Always-On DRM. My guess is most of these people haven't even played the game and are just being dicks. About 40% of these were people that bitched about Always-On DRM and then commented on the gameplay, meaning that they actually did probably spend some time with the game. Of those, about 20% said they would love the game if not for the DRM. The last 10% had actual gripes about the game that made them give it a bad review.

All said, metacritic user reviews are the internet. To be taken with a grain of salt.

Honestly, I don't get the fuss over the online requirements. Perhaps it stems from the fact that if I am playing games I generally have an internet connection. Perhaps I don't have an issue as SimCity actually USES the internet connection even if you are playing solo. Even many solo games now have social features that require an internet connection. Maybe I'm strange that I don't find this weird. Maybe I'm strange because it doesn't bother me. The always online requirement for SimCity isn't just DRM. Getting most of the general public to understand that seems to be impossible though.

It may sound like I am astroturfing for the game, but I'm not. I haven't actually given it much time as I haven't yet been in the mood for a "thinky" game. The could think the game is utter crap when I play it, we'll just have to wait and see

.

This is basically my thoughts on a lot of this as well. Always on DRM, while not a great thing, the idea of it doesn't really bother me that much. If I'm at my computer, I am online. That being said, there should be an offline mode included in this stuff. Where the stuff becomes a problem is when it doesn't work and keeps me from playing a game that I payed $60 for. This happened to me yesterday, for multiple hours I could not get on to play, and it was frustrating. We all have a right to complain about it, but it doesn't change the fact that the game itself is fun.

Review bombs can be a way to make a point, but sometimes they are done any time some gamers get their lady undergarments in a bunch. Or some people do it just because everyone else is doing it. It becomes hard to differentiate a real problem from people just complaining about a non issue. So, I have a hard time taking any of them seriously. It still annoys me that Mass Effect 3 gets so much crap for having a terrible ending. The ending was bad, but the rest of the game was great. I know I've heard that compared to Lost before, but it ends up being the same for me. That show had a super terribad ending, but it doesn't mean I didn't have a great time watching the show.

Alizee does have a point about review scores though. But, while I'm sure reviewers do get pressure from publishers/developers, they do get a lot of flack from fans as well. If they were to rate a game low, they get accused of nerd baiting and will face the wrath of the game's fan base. In general, if I ready or watch a review I just listen to what they say, and watch what the game looks like. I'm fairly easy to please, but I can generally look at that stuff and tell whether or not I will like a game.

[MasterChef]

They are making it hard to even try and defend this game though.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9341807.page

* Fix for crash caused most commonly occurring on servers experiencing lag. This crash would happen most often when claiming a new city when playing in a region.
* Fix for server select dialog not appearing on start-up if the server the player was last on is not available.
* Disabled Cheetah speed. Cheetah speed is is now the same as llama speed.
* Crash fix for finding closest points.
* Crash fixes in transport and pedestrian code.
* A fix cities having processing problems associated with helicopters.

[Greebo]

http://www.reddit.com/user/lucasLazer

Reddit posts by one of the developers (an artist).

There's little worse feelings than watching your baby land with a heavy splat.
I suspect the mood in Maxis is depression, combined with extremely feverish work to get things fixed.

[frostdillicus]

I wonder if them disabling cheetah is a temporary fix to help with server stability. I would be surprised if they left it out permanently. Surprised, but not shocked. If they do leave it out I'm sure they will fly the bullshit flag of "Game Balance"* that is often used to defend terribly bad decisions.

*Note: Not saying it's ALWAYS a bullshit reason, but game balance seems to be the go to bullshit reason when they need a bull poop reason.

[Greebo]

They did remove cheetah to try and help server stability.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comment ... rs/c8rkc0t

[ShiftyDevil]

I'm glad I avoided this.

Here's the issue with always on DRM, not everyone is always on line, for example, my cousin who is currently deployed. He's playing SimCity 4 in his down time since 5 isn't an option. Or for me personally, I used Diablo 2 as my travel game for years, it's annoying that it wasn't possible for D3.

Add in the fact that unless you put significant assets server side you aren't stopping piracy anyway. There are already torrents of SimCity 5 up, I don't know if they work, nor do I condone stealing software, but the point remains, DRM, the vast majority of the time is punitive to paying customers and has zero impact on the actual thieves.

As has been said elsewhere, you can't spell Always On DRM without Always On, something EA has not lived up to. Something else EA has not lived up to, keeping their servers up once a game starts to age. I can still play SimCity 4 9 years later, will that be true for 5? EA certainly has done nothing to earn that trust. So really, what does the always on requirement do for the consumer?

(Completely ignoring the large, important features removed from previous Sim games, no more teraforming, tiny maps, where's the public transportation, being reliant on other players, needing to play with friends online to save yourself from trolls in your region, your save being tied to a specific server which is even worse in the current server environment etc, etc)

[ShiftyDevil]

Reviews for everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Polygon lowering the review score after it being posted (Which won't reflect on Metacritic, because their policies on review score changes are absurd) is kind of questionable to begin with.

I have no issue with always-on DRM.....until it fails and/or causes issues to play it. That seems to be the case here.

Nonsense.

Many review outlets played on "private" servers pre release when there was no server load.

Saying they shouldn't lower their score is like saying restaurant critics shouldn't judge a restaurant factoring in front of the house staff, and solely on the kitchen.

EA turned this from a game, to a game service, the service should be a major part of the review. When online only games provide poor service they get beat up by the game journalists, EA chose this path.

[Greebo]

Managed to get some decent play time in this evening.

I've filled my 2km sq area but my layout is horrible (like, seriously seriously bad!). But I have learned much, so whenever I get around to claiming another area I'll be in better shape I think.
For now I'm going to let the cash build up a bit and start redoing the city into something less....messy.

[Boss Llama]

I'm actually a bit surprised, but Amazon suspended sale of the game last night due to its problems: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21712910

They put it back up a few hours later, but the listing now has a clearly featured warning that the game is having problems.

EA's spin on things... "The game is so good, people are spending more time connected than we expected, so the servers are full."

[BigBiker05]

In doing so came across this which looks very interesting:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/158 ... -of-your-d

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

tl;dr, A lot of people are thinking it's a scam. Don't invest money until the kickstarter gets investigated.

[Guardian]

Personally I think always on DRM is only one of the game's issues. The fact that limit a city's size discourages me from buying it more then the DRM. I never was into simcity that much but wasn't the whole concept about building a supercity of your dreams instead of the business district of your dreams?

[Greebo]

Personally I think always on DRM is only one of the game's issues. The fact that limit a city's size discourages me from buying it more then the DRM. I never was into simcity that much but wasn't the whole concept about building a supercity of your dreams instead of the business district of your dreams?

Yeah it's definitely worth re-iterating that in many important respects this is entirely unlike any of the previous sim cities.

The 2km x 2km area is extremely limiting in terms of what you can do, but it does add a challenging element in terms of having to plan out what you want to do with your city in advance (specialization, road/transport options etc).
In some ways I think that's why I am enjoying the game - it's engaging me in a way that previous city sims did not (in the run up to release I bought Cities XL to see how that was, and it's good in terms of city simulation but didn't keep my interest as much).

It's certainly not going to be for everyone though.

[Boss Llama]

The thing with specialization is that it isn't true to life. Very few cities are truly specialized in the way the game seems to suggest. The only ones I can think of off-hand are gambling cities, and one or two places that built up around a given industry, rather than the other way around - Washington, DC for example. It seems like an ex post facto justification for a bad limitation (the city size) rather than the other way around.

For example, Washington, DC is more than 60 square km even in its post-retrocession form, and it spreads out in to the surrounding states in every direction. A distance of 2km is equivalent to the National Mall - some people here walk that far to go to lunch. Even at the ludicrous population density of NYC, 4 square km would only hold a bit over 40,000 people. At the less deranged but still highly urbanized densities of Chicago or L.A., it'd only be between 10,000 and 20,000. Looking at densities of similarly-sized communities in the US, we're talking a population of 2,000-4,000, depending how urbanized the surrounding area is.

Sorry, I don't know why I'm bothering to post all this - as you've said, it isn't for everybody, and it isn't like other SimCity games. I think I'm just venting about the design decisions.

[BigBiker05]

Apparently the population is a bit whack in the game. Population is phantomed but not linear.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comment ... ion_sizes/

[NerevarineKing]

I'm glad I avoided this.

Here's the issue with always on DRM, not everyone is always on line, for example, my cousin who is currently deployed. He's playing SimCity 4 in his down time since 5 isn't an option. Or for me personally, I used Diablo 2 as my travel game for years, it's annoying that it wasn't possible for D3.

Add in the fact that unless you put significant assets server side you aren't stopping piracy anyway. There are already torrents of SimCity 5 up, I don't know if they work, nor do I condone stealing software, but the point remains, DRM, the vast majority of the time is punitive to paying customers and has zero impact on the actual thieves.

As has been said elsewhere, you can't spell Always On DRM without Always On, something EA has not lived up to. Something else EA has not lived up to, keeping their servers up once a game starts to age. I can still play SimCity 4 9 years later, will that be true for 5? EA certainly has done nothing to earn that trust. So really, what does the always on requirement do for the consumer?

(Completely ignoring the large, important features removed from previous Sim games, no more teraforming, tiny maps, where's the public transportation, being reliant on other players, needing to play with friends online to save yourself from trolls in your region, your save being tied to a specific server which is even worse in the current server environment etc, etc)

This