[GlassBox]

Heh, somehow Polygon keeps getting her story first: http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/9/4081...-lucy-bradshaw
(long article, so I can't post the whole thing of course) New news, new thread. Not that many will believe her, and no doubt less will like what she has to say.

In an email interview with Polygon this evening, Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw says the entire studio — with additional help from across Electronic Arts — "has been against this challenge 24/7, working in shifts since the moment issues were being reported by our community." Additional SimCity servers are being deployed to bear the load, but simply adding more hardware will not fix the game's current problems. "We have teams producing new servers, but we've identified that many of our issues were related to how [SimCity's] GlassBox [engine] managed the vast amount of simulation data through its database," Bradshaw explained. "We've addressed that and we've seen an 80% decrease in connectivity or responsiveness issues. "Still, 80% is not good enough and so we are continuing to aggressively address this area." Bradshaw said Maxis expects to see "great stability in the game" this weekend. Added server capacity, along with software improvements, is resulting in positive progress, she said. ... Participation in SimCity's beta, Bradshaw said, along with other "demand metrics," helped determine how many servers Maxis estimated it needed at launch. But the release of SimCity this week brought with it unexpected demand and unforeseen technical challenges. Maxis' estimates were too conservative, it turns out. "What we underestimated was a huge surge in pre-orders within the last week and the power of the great word-of-mouth created by the media and our community," Bradshaw said. It wasn't just the number of players either, Bradshaw explained, as SimCity's servers performed differently once the game was released to the "wild ecosystem of live operations." "We test and work out the capacity load of each server in load testing and through our beta events," she continued. "We have seen play behavior and load in areas that have stressed our game server [databases] in ways that we did not experience in Beta or Load Test. Upon release, Maxis discovered that player capacity per server wound up being lower than anticipated in a live environment, Bradshaw said. The developer has applied fixes and optimizations, both on the client and server side, to address that. ... What Maxis can't do, despite fan requests, Bradshaw said, is simply strip out the always-online architecture of the game. "An online interconnected world has been part of our design philosophy since day one," she said. "It's the game that we've been wanting to create since SimCity 4 as we've wanted to explore the dynamics between cities as they exist within regions. Real cities don't exist in bubbles; they specialize and trade resources, workers and more. "With the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud. It wouldn't be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team." ... "Lastly, crisis brings out the best in Maxis. Everyone here put their hearts and souls into this game — it was an incredibly proud achievement to deliver the game we'd always wanted to build. To see it have these problems, and incite the community reaction that is has, has been heartbreaking for every single one of us. I'm incredibly proud of my team because they care so much about the people that play their games. "Our team is working around the clock because they love SimCity and they want everyone to be able to play the game we intended them to experience." Asked what she'd say to SimCity fans who can't play the game they purchased, Bradshaw pleaded to them, "Stick with us." "Some of you have been fans of Maxis and SimCity for more than 20 years, through good times and challenging times like now. We love what we do and once this is behind us we hope that you'll see a great game created by passionate people."

[kenta]

"Real cities don't exist in bubbles"?

Good call. They exist in 2km squares

[Mrbob]

Guess that internal memo of working with the media to run damage control rang true.

Protect the 9.5.

[ClovingWestbrook]

I'll stick by you Maxis. I'll pick up the game during a future Origin Free Game error or when it's $5.

[Nokterian]

Keep spinning around lucy..keep spinning.

[shira]

Keep spinning around lucy..keep spinning.

Is she the fall girl?
http://www.resumemaker.com/ResumeMaker/home.jsp

[toddhunter]

Would love to know their current planned date to turn all the servers off.

[Htown]

"Real cities don't exist in bubbles"? Good call. They exist in 2km squares

Nice.

Honestly, with the PR they've had on this game since day one, it seems like somebody over there is more concerned with making Sim City a message game than anything else. Remember the announcement of Sim City with all their weird philosophy and environmentalist talk, and bringing people up who didn't have anything to do with games?

[MormaPope]

If you thought Tomb Raider had terrible PR, SimCity takes the cake and buries it.

[speedpop]

If only the game had been offline....

[Treythalomew]

They didn't expect preorders to increase in the last week even though that was when the tv ads started?

[Escape Goat]

Glass box engine

GlassBox Member (Today, 01:59 AM)

Lucy Bradshaw is that you?

[sono]

This response doesnt inspire me with confidence.

[Htown]

Glass box engine Lucy Bradshaw is that you?

WUH OH

[massoluk]

"It can't go offline, we offloaded shits to our servers."
"We decided to offload shits to our servers, and now they overload the servers to crash."

[Acorn]

They didn't expect preorders to increase in the last week even though that was when the tv ads started?

And its generally when big digital games always see pre order surges. This isn't EA's first rodeo, they should and do know better.

[speedpop]

WUH OH

Have we found the new holy grail?

[Drencrom]

WUH OH

Damage control ahoy

[Bboy AJ]

WUH OH [IMG]http://i.minus.com/i8VLwKx37S8e.PNG[/MG]

I don't think this picture is conclusive.

[DocSeuss]

The idea that cities work with each other and stuff is, I suppose, an interesting one, but they could have gone about this in so many different ways (like, y'know, a multiplayer mode).

[maniac-kun]

Sup EA damage controle bot?

[Palette Swap]

WUH OH

Haha.

[BorkBork]

Nice. Honestly, with the PR they've had on this game since day one, it seems like somebody over there is more concerned with making Sim City a message game than anything else. Remember the announcement of Sim City with all their weird philosophy and environmentalist talk, and bringing people up who didn't have anything to do with games?

What weird philosophy and environmentalist talks? I haven rapid attention to the game's development, but I may be interested in this.

[industrian]

WUH OH

The plot thickens...

[Seik]

The plot thickens...

Detective GAF: Activated.

[DiscoJer]

Glassbox is also the name of the "engine" SimCity runs on, so I would guess he's just a big fan.

[AkIRA_22]

[Valnen]

The plot thickens...

If the implication here is that he's an EA employee, this is hardly proof of anything.

[BobLoblaw]

If the implication here is that he's an EA employee, this is hardly proof of anything.

This is GAF. Since when do we need proof?

[Valnen]

This is GAF. Since when do we need proof?

If you're going to make accusations against people it's a good thing to have.

[jamesinclair]

Join Date: 04-03-2012

The official announcement took place on March 6, 2012

Takes about a month to get GAF account approved.....



Poster has also started threads about Oakland and BART...



Maxis is based right by Oakland. (Emeryville).

[Paches-EJ-]

Join Date: 04-03-2012 The official announcement took place on March 6, 2012 Takes about a month to get GAF account approved..... Poster has also started threads about Oakland and BART... Maxis is based right by Oakland. (Emeryville).

Oh shit...

[Kazerei]

I love DetectiveGAF, even if it's just a crazy witch hunt :lol

[BobLoblaw]

If you're going to make accusations against people it's a good thing to have.

Username: Glassbox
SimCity engine name: Glassbox
Multiple threads touting how EA is handling "overblown" issues.

That's enough to know that even if it's not an EA employee, it's someone running damage control. Any reasons why a normal poster would post multiple threads in such a short time-frame defending what is clearly the worse launch in history? I can't think of any.

[Professor Beef]

[trudderham]

WUH OH

[Valnen]

Join Date: 04-03-2012 The official announcement took place on March 6, 2012 Takes about a month to get GAF account approved..... Poster has also started threads about Oakland and BART... Maxis is based right by Oakland. (Emeryville).

I live in California too. Guess I'm a Maxis employee!

[valeo]

[dc89]

:lol I love detective GAF.

[Pandemic]

WUH OH

Hahahahaha, nice one.

[TheForceWithin]

[AppleMIX]

Well this is going to be a great thread.

[alba]

:lol I love detective GAF.

I was about to say that, time to get some popcorn. We're in for some good stuff.

[el retorno]

Weirdly worded question that sounds like its from someone at least that worked on the game,

Can you provide a tiny bit more detail? What features are you enjoying the most?

[Festwill]

Well, GlassBox, come on out, talk to us.

[BobLoblaw]

Weirdly worded question that sounds like its from someone at least that worked on the game,

Welp. I'm satisfied. Where's my pitchfork...

[fanboi]

GlassBox, tell us your <parameter: string> of the story.

[Valnen]

Weirdly worded question that sounds like its from someone at least that worked on the game,

Even I admit that's pretty damning. At least there's no rule against people from game studios posting here. For some reason some people don't like that, though.

[Mister Saturn]

Even I admit that's pretty damning. At least there's no rule against people from game studios posting here. For some reason some people don't like that, though.

Full disclosure is expected in these sorts of situations.

[el retorno]

They posted in the unemployed thread though.