That's where companies need to meet us. Anything less than being able to play the game seamlessly is a loss for us. EA and Maxis have proven that it's going to be very hard to get to that point.
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SimCity modded so it can be played offline indefinitely + editing of highways
- Thread starter nickcv
- Start date
That's where companies need to meet us. Anything less than being able to play the game seamlessly is a loss for us. EA and Maxis have proven that it's going to be very hard to get to that point.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
What was so bad about Spore?
Palette Swap
Member
I'd like to thank EA for the countless hours of entertainment they've provided for free.
It's a shame this is so early in the year that come December we'll have half forgotten this very strong contender for failure of the year.
It's a shame this is so early in the year that come December we'll have half forgotten this very strong contender for failure of the year.
CoachKevin
Member
Maybe this will also make people tune out Arthur Gies for good. He is the worst. I think the classification used earlier in the thread of, "douche bag" was spot on. Am I the only one that is still amazed he get a job at IGN then at the, "all-star" poached staff at Polygon?
Creating games that require an always on connection opens up a lot of great oppitunites, it's not something that should be ignored.
SimCity isn't the answer, obviously, but somebody will make something awesome eventually and I'll support that.
I don't even recall redeeming my pre-order code for a free disaster at launch.
Classic.Plus, he doesn't know more about SimCity's source code than anyone else outside Maxis. That didn't stop him from pretending to know more of course:
Dwight Schrute
Member
I BEG someone to call him out on twitter. I don't know the guy but I HATE this attitude.
The benefits are obviously tied with multiplayer that is easier and hassle free. I'm ready to trade being able to play offline for the ability to switch to multiplayer as easily as anything else in the game.
Blizzard obviously benefited by, theoretically, being able to control the economy and tracking everything.
The PS4 reveal gave me even more reason to be excited for an always online future.
Majukun
Member
like,what?
I don't even know, I know a couple people that bought it and it was all they played for weeks. Can't be that bad.
Timan
Developer
Arthur Gies... One of the many authors at Vox Media sites, whom have the biggest ego... believing they know everything.
He's such a know it all. Demanding if you don't work for Maxis you don't know what you're talking about, while not working for Maxis, and getting it all wrong as well. Fool. He won't admit he's wrong, he'll either ignore it or try to spin it around as some other nonsense.
A few include:
Seamless multiplayer.
Sharing statistics.
Streaming game play.
Communication.
I realize the things I've listed above probably don't get you excited, but for some people this is where they want gaming to go.
Considering Sony's terrible server structure and the fact that there are more downtimes and maintenances than on any other console, I have to ask why you're excited about that?
None of these things require always online.
cross device play, communication, social stuff, something I can't think of.
idk, I'm not a game designer.
A LOT of people.
I know a guy that practically won't buy a game unless it has online co-op in it. Whenever an amazing single player game comes out he always complains the game is lacking because it doesn't have co-op or multiplayer.
To be fair, he proved his own point.
But having co-op in a game doesn't require an always online function, most of the stuff being mentioned above doesn't.
Be sure to take a picture of yourself when you check your tweets, Gies. I want to see what a guy looks like eating a plate full of crow.
I honestly didn't know much about Polygon before this, I'd heard about the documentary but I don't pay attention to stuff that doesn't interest me. I barely read gaming websites, preferring to stick to forums and Twitter.
So after finding out what Polygon are actually supposed to be about, doesn't this whole affair just make their existence redundant? I don't see any difference between this and Doritos-gate, in fact Eurogamer came under a lot of fire and I didn't think what they did was even that bad. I still think their reviews are hit and miss but y'know, at least they try.
This...I don't get it. When sites talking about delving into the behind the scenes and game development issues fail their raison d'etre, and it doesn't have anything else to back it up, isn't it all...pointless?
So far, they didn't review the game properly (review code on a private server; how did anyone think that was akin to testing it in the wild?), they refused to stick by their review score but kept the content (
) then continued to drop it with the vague notion that if EA fixed it, the score would go back up - but still didn't ditch their review which is being pulled apart by the day.They've shown contempt for gamers and proved that really they didn't dig into the development of Sim City at all, because gamers with just a couple of days under their belts have hit these bugs. Are we supposed to believe that rougher game code during development didn't display these bugs?
Also, Gies, if you say that people who work at Maxis "literally" don't know what they're talking about, and you don't work at Maxis...well...um... how do I put this?
Have online and offline regions. Online have these features, offline ones don't. Shouldn't be hard to have an unobtrusive "always if you can" model, either, that lets you talk to your friends even if you're playing in an offline region, and if you don't have any internet, you can play in an offline region, without absolutely being required to have chat enabled.
Because I am one of those people who recognizes potential benefits and gets excited about it?
That's kind of a silly question.
Those type of people don't really care about that. Because they're always online anyway.
Palette Swap
Member
To be fair, all of these could be options in a game that has an offline mode. None calls for mandatory online.
grimshawish
Banned
He lied on gaf to promote himself and his site over Durango and actively misled people as to the sort of information he was privy to. He generally acts more on side of the industry than his readership.
Polygon has hallmarks of a site set up from within the industry to influence other journalists and readers. They were paid by MS to start up; they back Internet Explorer as part of this deal; they generally talk shit and randomly advertised a Pizza Hut/Halo 4 deal despite being a US focused site. They attack peoples point of view, including readers, deleted comments, 'decided' the WiiU would never get a system update on launch day and ran about like fucking idiots to get a review out on time when it turned out it did and their review hardly used the functionality.
Fact is Polygon are a pretty bad site and I don't see it being a long term success unless the powers that be continue to support them. Its not informative and is generally staffed weakly.
Majukun
Member
there's no need to be always connected to trading with people when you can just connect to the server ONLY when you need ,and play offline and without server problems and such for the rest of your playing session.
for the rest,it already exist,it's called online multiplayer and it's optional...if i want to play online with friends i'm ok with being connected to a server (even just for communications ad interactions),but if i want to just play the game,and i want to play it solo,i don't need a connection,and there's no "benefits" that a SH can give me that equals the ability to play the damn game if i want to.
always online drm benefits only game developers.
Spat_triate
Member
Don't count on it. Arthur Gies is a self righteous, arrogant, know nothing. My guess is that he won't acknowledge his error and continue to play the "internet nerds are crazy" card on twitter.
Charoncaori
Member
It was nothing like they said it would be.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Those type will not care either way, so why piss the other informed side?
CrankyKong
Member
I want a mod that makes the city size 400% larger, and then I'll be there.
...And?
"Those type of people", what does that even mean? I enjoy Co-op, I enjoy a lot of the features being listed but that doesn't mean you want or accept a DRM based system of needing server side authentication to even start the game.
Meaning it fell short of expectation and it was also a mediocre game.
Charoncaori
Member
And so it was the most disappointed I've ever been with a game. I stopped trusting the developers and publisher as a result.
Because the "other informed side" is becoming such a miniscule population that it won't even matter?
Majukun
Member
as i said before,it's called multiplayer,we already have in many games nowadays,and it's entirely optional.
ColonelColon
Member
There's no reason for any of this to require everyone who plays the game to have a constatn internet connection.
The seamless part does call for mandatory online.
Again, I'm not defending EA's implementation, just the idea. If you don't see the benefit that's fine and you are able to tell companies about your dissatisfaction by not buying the video games.
I'm more enraged at the idea that Maxis was able to release a broken ass game.
Yeah me too, from what I've seen this game has FAR bigger problems than the online aspect of it.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Oh get over yourself. They have made a few missteps here and there but they seem to be leagues above the typical Kotaku stuff we get here. Their feature articles are some of the best in the industry (take a look at the Levine one, or the KAOS Studios one) and their news reporting is generally solid. They do still need to nail down their reviews though.
From the sound of this mod it's a bit deceiving. You lose the ability to save, so how is this a good thing? Spend 3 hours making a city only to have to be online to save. Step in the right direction, sure, but Gaf's acting like it's a miracle of science.
archnemesis
Member
It's a collection of dumb-downed mini-games. None of which are especially complex or interesting to play. Instead of doing a simplified simulation of evolution you ended up playing Mr. Potato Head.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Like in this moment, right?
In order to play multiplayer in all of these games you have to set it up in some way. It's not a completely seamless experience.
ok, I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying that the days of every game having an offline mode may be coming to an end.
If it's handled poorly like SimCity then don't support it. If someone does something awesome I'll support it. We shouldn't rule it out entirely because EA don't know what they're doing.
"Is becoming".
The direction this industry is headed is not one the "informed" people will like.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
But not right now and not in the pace that EA would want as this shows.
Right. But as the audience grows this type of game will get produced more and more.
I'd say Polygon is the worst high-profile site out there. They are consistently bad.
Obviously EA put the horse before the cart in this specific instance, but the idea of 'Always Online' is fixable and will be a part of most games in 10 years with very little hiccups (probably).
Companies releasing broke ass games however, that's something else entirely.