The SimCity Thread of Offline Play

[SuperLink]

This gen transition has been so massively fascinating. I find this slightly distressing but mostly extremely entertaining, as someone who hates EA and their practises more with each passing day part of me genuinely wants them to crash and burn

 

But my conscience doesn't want all those decent people who work there (who probably don't condone this stuff out of choice) to lose their jobs :c

[Badnik Mechanic]

Oh my fucking god! look what the official Metacritic twitter page just posted!

 

 

"Sim City 4 [...] Always offline!"

[SenEDDtor Missile]

EA: It's the customers fault people can't connect online.

 

 

Did anyone else think we'd see such a disaster of a game so soon after Aliens: Colonial Marines?

 

Didn't Bioware say something along this line when stuff started going horribly wrong in Star Wars: The Old Republic, or am I remembering something different?

[Patticus]

Did anyone else think we'd see such a disaster of a game so soon after Aliens: Colonial Marines?

I'd hardly say the game is at fault when it's the entire means of accessing it that's causing so much bother.

[Badnik Mechanic]

And then I went to metacritic....

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

2400 user score ratings?! 2,000+ negative? Holy crap! That's even worse than DmC!

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ming Ming Shana

[Gabz Girl]

Holy crap...this game has become a bigger disaster than Aliens CM! And EA won't give refunds? Glad I didn't shell out more than 40 quid on this.

 

I find it pretty funny though that Metacritic recommended SimCity 4 on their Twitter.

[EmmBee]

 

I have a surplus of these for occasions like this.

[Thrippa]

I am so glad I stuck my guns and didn't get this game.  I was appalled by the always online, which would prevent a lot of people in my locale from being able to get it (if they wanted it) and could well cause me trouble, since my internet tend to drop at odd times.  Then I watched some of the videos and decided I'd try it, since it didn't drop too often usually, and I could at least save the game if I got forced out.  Then, of course, came the big reveal that you couldn't save the game to your computer, so if the connection drops - there goes everything you've accomplished.  At that point I decided I was boycotting the game; I was expecting trouble, but nothing like this.   I do feel for the people who have paid out a lot of money and can't get the thing to work at all, and EA's turning it into more of a fiasco all the time, it sounds like - threatening bans of people who insist on refunds?!  Which means any previous Origin games that have will be rendered unplayable as well as SimCity?  Great way to regain fan trust and loyalty.  Of course, my loyalty was really to Maxis anyway, EA has been getting nastier and greedier all the time.

[PSI Wind]

And speak of the devil. As soon as I ask if they can be sued, those pop-up.

[Jacky]

EA's giving everyone who bought SimCity a free game.

 

Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.

The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.

So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.

So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.

Something Special for Your Trouble

The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.

And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.

I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.

SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there – we’ll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.

 

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Probably some crap/6 year old game nobody wants. No way it will be a huge title like Mass Effect 3 or Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

EA's giving everyone who bought SimCity a free game.

 

Now with a $59.99 payment in order to even access the game, and an additional $300 to access any of the old DLC.

Edited March 9, 2013 by 743-E.D. Missile

[Komodin]

 

... Wow. Well, this is quite embarrassing.

[Patticus]

That does look quite bad, until you look deeper, and find that SimCity UK appears to be just a community fan page ran by some guy:

https://www.facebook.com/SimCityUK?ref=stream

[Emmett L. Brown]

People should be allowed refunds for a product that doesn't work as advertised, especially when the game has been like this for days now.

Indeed they should. And the funny thing is that in Norway it's against the law to not allow a full refund of a malfunctioning product. Sadly only the store outlets are likely to suffer the effects of that one.

[Dr. Homem]

EA suspends SimCity's marketing campaigns, asks affiliates to 'stop actively promoting' game

 

I never thought any game launch would be worse than Diablo 3. Guess they proved me wrong. It's not the first time a game has server problems, but it's the first time it's so bad they have to cut the marketing. It's hilarious when you think that they did it just to combat piracy, but are going to lose more real legit sales then they ever would have from pirates.

 

I hope this helps the rest of the industry understand how this always-online in single player games is bullshit.

[Stritix]

EA hires hundreds of chinese spammers to post positively about SimCity's always online requirement.

 

I have no words for this...

Edited March 9, 2013 by Stritix

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

EA hires hundreds of chinese spammers to post positively about SimCity's always online requirement.

 

 

That has been mentioned before. It's fake, in fact most/all articles in that site are fake.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ming Ming Shana

[Badnik Mechanic]

I.... I didn't know where else to post this... it's not Sim City related... but it is EA related, well had I been more in a Black Phantom mode it would have been SimCity 5 related.

 

If you've just seem my status update, you know where this is going.

 

I was in Hull city centre today and there was an EA games booth there, they were letting people play on Need for Speed, Dead Space 3, Crysis 3 and Medal of Honor for free, then if you left 'feedback' you could even get a free keyring WOO!

 

Curious, I went inside. I went on Dead Space 3 for a while and played the intro (up until you fall down the mountain), wasn't that impressed with it, so decided to leave.

 

As I'm headding out, a dude dressed in EA clothing from head to toe comes over and says 'Do you use twitter?' I said 'Yeah?' He then says, 'Well you can use one of these computers to post on twitter what you thought, we'll give you a free keyring if you do.'

 

Now... look at what he said...

 

"Do you use twitter" and "Use one of these computers to post on twitter"

 

He did NOT say "Log in on twitter and post what you thought" he said "use one of those computers to post on twitter"

 

I go to the units and discover the webpage is already loaded up on twitter, and I see a bunch of tweets about the hub. So I thought it was some kind of public thing they'd set up... so I started to type and then noticed a 'You have new tweets' and it was quite a large number. I then click show tweets and was puzzled at how not related to the hub/games it were, they were on about SimCity 5 and other EA games not at this hub... then I noticed... It wasn't a public account... It was an official EA account!

 

The guy had obviously been using it before and had left himself logged in! And now here I was, with permission to use the computers... Oh my goodness.

 

I had full access to the account. It was like someone had parked a car in front of you and handed you the keys before then saying 'use it.' It was crazy, I could have done tons of damage if I wanted. My mind was racing with stuff like 'Post SimCity 5 stinks' 'Servers? We have plenty of those, they're serving meatballs in the canteen' or 'So how bout those DRM's I eat them with M&M's.'

 

If I were really really naughty, I could have done some serious damage for them today... but I decided to be nice.

 

I logged out of the account and just as I was logging in I thought 'Wait a moment... I'm just about to log into someone elses computer with my own details... and theres no 'this is a public computer' option... Fuck this!' Told the guy my concerns and was basically told 'oh.. sorry mate'

 

I didn't get my free keyring... =(

 

If you were in my position today... would you have been evil?

[Patticus]

You just had to go and be responsible and polite, didn't you? I'm deeply ashamed of you. We could've had ourselves a nice little self-made PR disaster.

 

[Blue Blood]

Better you than me! I would have loved the chance to create a little PR disaster for EA. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

You just had to go and be responsible and polite, didn't you? I'm deeply ashamed of you. We could've had ourselves a nice little self-made PR disaster.

 

 

 

Better you than me! I would have loved the chance to create a little PR disaster for EA. 

 

You guys have no idea how close I came to actually posting something along the lines of "Dead Space 3 was about as scary as children go abouga aboua bouga and waving their arms and the voice SFX kept breaking". I didn't realise at first it was an official accout, and from what he said I thought that the tweets were going to some kind of EA marketing dept and not actually directly to twitter. It was only when I noticed the tweets about SimCity 5 and other games that I realised 'oh my god! It's an official account left logged on!'

 

I was thinking 'if I were to post something, how legal is this!? I've not accessed the account via hacking or under false pretenses, the bloke left the keys in and more or less told me to 'use it.' But ultimately just decided not to do anything since I 'knew' I wasn't supposed to be on it... but my goodness it was so tempting to play dumb and tweet away =p

 

... ... ... Do I get a forum baydge for doing this? =p

[Patticus]

I would rather you had posted something more along the lines of, "Future Cop N.Y.P.D., anyone?" or "Theme Hospital sure would be great on the 3DS, eh?" something. Get people hyped up about a non-existent (but thoroughly awesome sounding) game, thereby forcing EA to do our bidding and make it.

[Your Vest Friend]

You guys forget that EA have two things that Hogfather doesn't; a team of lawyers and lots and lots of money. They'd just find out who did it and take him to court for all he's worth.