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SimCity modded so it can be played offline indefinitely + editing of highways

S

Sethos

Banned
mjuknynfhapjwq.png
 
D

Dali

Member
marrec said:
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.
Click to expand...

I think having it an option is fine. "Mandatory online" as a phrase and a design philosophy for genres that haven't required it in the past is for the birds though. No one likes things that are mandatory. If as soon as the game starts, it showed a prompt, and gave you the choice similar to when you'd start a game with no memory card on your PS2 and were told you won't be able to save, you'll lose your data, and a memory card is recommended then that would be fine, but "mandatory" is for MMO's and its easy for me to ignore those. You slap that on a SP game that you are trying to shoehorn into a multiplayer experience just to make me more reliant on your servers then I get a little pissed.
 
Majukun

Majukun

Member
marrec said:
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.
Click to expand...

1)why seamless is a problem now?you can't wait for the 4 seconds your game needs to connect to a server?is that so important to justify not being able to play the game without an internet connection?

2)we already have those,they called these leaderboards,many games have it,and they don't need to be always connected,just a 1.5-seconds-long wait to access the server to retrieve the data.

3)you mean send data to the server that elaborates said data and gives it back to the game?well,it's not even a thing right know,it's a promise,but if that can actually be done properly is yet to be demonstrated..and anyay,in the PC world is not like there's lack of calculation power..sims city just use 1 core and not even completely...

4)again,is called multiplayer,if i want to play with other people,i'll play with an internet connection,if i want to play solo,i don't need it.
 
V

Valnen

Member
marrec said:
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.
Click to expand...

Eh, with the slow ass speed fiber is spreading at in NA I'd give it a little longer than 10 years, but yeah.

I long for the day fiber is at least as widespread as cable.
 
V

vagabondarts

Member
I hope people remember this whole sordid affair the next time EA's marketing machine turns on and they remember what a disaster this company is.

What game is good enough for none of this crap to matter to you?
For me, no game EA can ever make will ever be that good.

SimCity 4 is looking pretty good to me.

Also, is Polygon bannable yet?
 
P

Palette Swap

Member
marrec said:
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.
Click to expand...
Oh, I can see the value in these.
My point was more that these are all additional features that shouldn't really prevent a more barebones version of the game from running offline. I see the either/or proposition of always online as completely artificial. You can have online benefits and not be forced to be always online.

That's really my beef with the whole thing. It's pretty disingenuous to show this as a user-driven innovation when it's really just a ham fisted attempt at controlling one's market.
 
G

grimshawish

Banned
Deadly Cyclone said:
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.
Click to expand...

Eurogamer and Kotaku probably do better reviews for my money but these are just opinions and it comes down to the writer/questioner. Their reviews are down right dreadful. From the format to the actual content, I've never read a Polygon review that has actually informed me over something.

Point remains. They do have the hallmarks of a company set up by people who want to influence the flow of information.
 
M

marrec

Banned
Dali said:
I think having it an option is fine. "Mandatory online" as a phrase and a design philosophy for genres that haven't required it in the past is for the birds though. No one likes things that are mandatory. As soon as the game starts showing a prompt and giving you the choice similar to when you'd start a game with no memory card on your PS2 and being told you won't be able to save, you'll lose your data, and a memory card recommended would be fine. but "mandatory" is for MMO's and its easy for me to ignore those. You slap that on a SP game that you are trying to shoehorn into a multiplayer experience just to make me more reliant on your servers then I get a little pissed.
Click to expand...

I agree with the bolded entirely. Don't shoehorn in an implementation that is not necessary. As much as I'm excited for the future of online gaming, I do play single player experiences. Do I see a benefit for something like 'Armored Princess' to have always online connections? Yes. Do I think they should do it with the next release? Probably not.

I'm just a bit confused that people are still jumping on the always online hate bandwagon when there are more grievous issues that should be addressed currently then 'I have to be connected to play.'
 
P

padlock

Member
ruttyboy said:
It's not about piracy though, it's about advertising. It's about shoving their DLC down your throat whenever you play, it's about ensuring that anyone who is playing is capable of buying and downloading the DLC.
Click to expand...

Absolutely right. That and also preventing mods, so that if you want certain functionality, you're forced to buy their overpriced DLC and micro transactions.
 
F

Felix Lighter

Member
Thank god for the modding community. Hopefully, when it's all said and done maybe this purchase won't be a complete disappointment. At least the incredible backlash will maybe prevent EA from killing these types of mods.
 
M

marrec

Banned
Majukun said:
1)why seamless is a problem now?you can't wait for the 4 seconds your game needs to connect to a server?is that so important to justify not being able to play the game without an internet connection?

2)we already have those,they called these leaderboards,many games have it,and they don't need to be always connected,just a 1.5-seconds-long wait to access the server to retrieve the data.

3)you mean send data to the server that elaborates said data and gives it back to the game?well,it's not even a thing right know,it's a promise,but if that can actually be done properly is yet to be demonstrated..and anyay,in the PC world is not like there's lack of calculation power..sims city just use 1 core and not even completely...

4)again,is called multiplayer,if i want to play with other people,i'll play with an internet connection,if i want to play solo,i don't need it.
Click to expand...

Nope, I'd rather not wait. That's what I mean by 'seamless'.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
marrec said:
The seamless part does call for mandatory online.
Click to expand...

marrec said:
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.
Click to expand...

What's that "seamless part" you keep talking about? It wouldn't, for example, affect anyone playing Diablo 3 online in its current form if Blizzard offered an optional offline mode for people who decide they don't want all that ladder/auction house/community stuff.
 
Majukun

Majukun

Member
D4Danger said:
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.
Click to expand...

only if we allow it to be the case.
we have reach the absurd situation where we,the customers,the one that SHOULD be served,that should be in command of the whole thing,are afraid of the industry.
it should be the opposite..it should be the industry to be afraid of us,it should be the industry that need to treat us well,or otherwise there will be repercussions.

WE have the power,WE have the money,WE can "vote" with our money what WE want and what WE don't.
 
A

Aaron

Member
Felix Lighter said:
Thank god for the modding community. Hopefully, when it's all said and done maybe this purchase won't be a complete disappointment. At least the incredible backlash will maybe prevent EA from killing these types of mods.
Click to expand...
You mean the same EA that made this game, lying about it the whole while? The one that wants to put microtransactions into all games? That EA?
 
G

glaurung

Member
*sighs

All this bile on the interwebs.

Online or offline - makes little difference. The game is a massive letdown for anyone. I want to build a megapolis, not little fisher villages or backwater settlements.

Since the game does not let me do even that, all else is just nitpicking.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
New interview on CVG, just look at those hardball questions and comments:

One suspects that, by the time you read this, the majority connection problems will have been remedied.


Do you agree that players should not be refunded a game specifically if it doesn't connect online straight away?

To what extent did initial demand outweigh server capacity, do you think?

It is fair to expect that some people at Maxis who have sacrificed so much to make SimCity an acclaimed game could be disgruntled or disillusioned by the whole episode.
Click to expand...

On online functionality of the game:
BRADSHAW: I'm happy to say that we've addressed the accessibility issues we had at launch. We deployed new, higher performing servers and upgraded our original set so that everyone playing the game benefits from these enhancements; 40x server response times, 92% fewer crashes, better server navigation etc.

We've also addressed some issues that affected gameplay performance and we're happy to say that players are connecting and playing by the hundreds of thousands daily. We'll continue to make improvements both in the performance of our service and in game features as this game is very much a living and evolving experience that we will support.
Click to expand...
 
Q

Quentyn

Member
Deadly Cyclone said:
At what? Because their feature stories are amazing, and they do solid news reporting. Reviews need some tweaking, but they're new.
Click to expand...

The features are great I agree, but please take a look at the news they posted regarding Sim City. The offline story was the first one, that did not had a serious EA/Maxis spin to it. All of that, only because they had a premature review. That is a serious issue imo.

noklvu0.png
 
D

Dali

Member
marrec said:
I agree with the bolded entirely. Don't shoehorn in an implementation that is not necessary. As much as I'm excited for the future of online gaming, I do play single player experiences. Do I see a benefit for something like 'Armored Princess' to have always online connections? Yes. Do I think they should do it with the next release? Probably not.

I'm just a bit confused that people are still jumping on the always online hate bandwagon when there are more grievous issues that should be addressed currently then 'I have to be connected to play.'
Click to expand...

Well that's what people see when you say things like you look forward to an always online future. Always online means every game requires you to always be connected. Meaning the developer is shoehorning multiplayer and social elements into SP games. At least I hope they, at the very least, put that up as a smoke screen. Hell, they may not even try to disguise it and just say it's DRM deal with it. You want to play Solitaire then you gotta be online just like everyone else, bub.
 
S

Savitar

Member
This whole Simcity thing keeps getting worse and worse....or is that better? Either way you got to figure it's generating a whole mess of bad PR for them and it's been what...a week? Every other day it feels like there is a new development which begs the question what is going to happen tomorrow? And the day after?
 
T

troushers

Member
The anonymous performance artist that we know as the character "Arthur Gies" is doing an amazing job. Really top drawer stuff, I can't stop laughing.
 
C

ColonelColon

Member
Majukun said:
only if we allow it to be the case.
we have reach the absurd situation where we,the customers,the one that SHOULD be served,that should be in command of the whole thing,are afraid of the industry.
it should be the opposite..it should be the industry to be afraid of us,it should be the industry that need to treat us well,or otherwise there will be repercussions.

WE have the power,WE have the money,WE can "vote" with our money what WE want and what WE don't.
Click to expand...

Also, I have to wonder about the intentions of people who advocate so relentlessly for always-online games and say that required-connection games as a standard practice is inevitable, the future of video games, etc.
 
M

marrec

Banned
Bedlam said:
What's that "seamless part" you keep talking about? It wouldn't, for example, affect anyone playing Diablo 3 online in its current form if Blizzard offered an optional offline mode for people who decide they don't want all that ladder/auction house/community stuff.
Click to expand...

It would have to be a toggle right? You couldn't switch from offline to online because that would hurt any theoretical 'economy' that was generated by the game. So now you're shutting out a certain percentage of potential users from a user generated and driven part of the game.
 
U

Usobuko

Banned
Will this discovery becomes as big as the Capcom DLC fiasco where even mainstream youtuber/sites talk about it, raising awareness etc. ?
 
C

ColonelColon

Member
marrec said:
It would have to be a toggle right? You couldn't switch from offline to online because that would hurt any theoretical 'economy' that was generated by the game. So now you're shutting out a certain percentage of potential users from a user generated and driven part of the game.
Click to expand...

You're not shutting out anyone. These people are choosing not to be a part of it. Why do you want consumers to have fewer options?
 
D

Darklord

Banned
Quentyn said:
The features are great I agree, but please take a look at the news they posted regarding Sim City. The offline story was the first one, that did not had a serious EA/Maxis spin to it. All of that, only because they had a premature review. That is a serious issue imo.
Click to expand...

Lucy from Maxis was caught(acting as a fan) saying in a thread "I wonder how Polygon get's all the interviews first, heh". Sounds suspicious as fuck.
 
F

Felix Lighter

Member
Aaron said:
You mean the same EA that made this game, lying about it the whole while? The one that wants to put microtransactions into all games? That EA?
Click to expand...

Well, it's a long shot but I don't think they could have imagined the clusterfuck that this game has become. Killing mods like this will just add to that but you're right.
 
M

marrec

Banned
Dali said:
Well that's what people see when you say things like you look forward to an always online future. Always online means every game requires you to always be connected. Meaning the developer is shoehorning multiplayer and social elements into SP games. At least I hope they, at the very least, put that up as a smoke screen. Hell, they may not even try to disguise it and just say say its DRM deal with it. You want to play Solitaire then you gotta be online just like everyone else, bub.
Click to expand...

I like those mutliplayer and social elements though, even in my SP games. To me that's just another feature. Of course I realize that some people would rather not have those features.

Majukun said:
well we have different priorities..i prefer to be able to play the game
Click to expand...

I'll trade a few hours of spotty connectivity on launch day for years of hassle free gameplay.
 
D

DragonSworne

Banned
This will remind EA and other publishers why they didn't like making PC games in the first place, too easy to hack.

I wonder how soon EA will release another PC game.
BF4 console exclusive
 
H

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
Deadly Cyclone said:
Yes, calling people names and attacking them will get things done.
Click to expand...

You're right that the name calling is immature and wrong.

But your continued attempt to jump into every Polygon-related thread to defend them is puzzling.

Do you know those guys personally or something?

edit: never mind, it's just standard game journalist wagon circling. disregard.
 
M

marrec

Banned
ColonelColon said:
You're not shutting out anyone. These people are choosing not to be a part of it. Why do you want consumers to have fewer options?
Click to expand...

If as a consumer you can't flip a switch from offline to online then you are giving them fewer options as well. In my perfect future of online gaming then you can't flip that switch because the features of Always Online cannot mesh with an offline population.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
marrec said:
It would have to be a toggle right? You couldn't switch from offline to online because that would hurt any theoretical 'economy' that was generated by the game. So now you're shutting out a certain percentage of potential users from a user generated and driven part of the game.
Click to expand...
If you want your seamless online game, just choose "online" when starting your character. If there's an optional online mode, it's my decision if I want to "shut out" myself. What's wrong with that?
 
Majukun

Majukun

Member
marrec said:
I'll trade a few hours of spotty connectivity on launch day for years of hassle free gameplay.
Click to expand...

and i'll trade not buying always online games if this will allows me in the future too to be able to play a game even without being in proximity of a router or a wi-fi hotspot

as i said,different priorities,probably different nations with different wi-fi internet coverage too.

plus,i would prefer to be able to play a game day one ,and not wait for days that the servers overload end.
 
D

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Quentyn said:
The features are great I agree, but please take a look at the news they posted regarding Sim City. The offline story was the first one, that did not had a serious EA/Maxis spin to it. All of that, only because they had a premature review. That is a serious issue imo.

noklvu0.png
Click to expand...

To be fair a lot of news outlets stories for the past week look like that, because they're reporting what EA PR is putting out. Server fixes, etc. I can see your point though.
=
 
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