Considering that the "agent" stuff was completely broken well beyond launch even at the small city size, I really would love to know how small the cities actually have to be in order to make that work. I assume at some point they had a prototype where it totally worked great. I'm guess it was like two city blocks.
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SimCity offline mode is FINALLY coming
- Thread starter judhudson
- Start date
Considering that the "agent" stuff was completely broken well beyond launch even at the small city size, I really would love to know how small the cities actually have to be in order to make that work. I assume at some point they had a prototype where it totally worked great. I'm guess it was like two city blocks.
So, as opposed to fixing the scale problem they just released the game with the problem front and center for people to skewer them with? Seems like it could have been avoided with more time in the oven.
BishopLamont
Banned
you literally don't know anything...ha
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
I thought the simulations were broken (looping traffic, people going to random jobs and houses, etc...)?
It was buggy, but the base game was solid, plus Rush Hour helped a lot in making the game better. Simcity 2013 has a long way to go before it'll even be as good as base Simcity 4.
Its not about what I *believe*. Its about what's actually said. And no, he doesn't say that.Just to be clear, do you believe he's saying in this tweet that an offline mode is not possible?
You're assuming Maxis saw the city sizes (or lack thereof) as a problem, with the interconnectivity of multiple 'cities' in a region and whatnot being the focus they wanted to push.
Both EA and Ubi have pulled a lot of shit over the years, can't really say the same for Valve, so its understandable why people wouldn't want to support them.
It can handle big cities, it just requires a lot of CPU power, because of their agents system.
Actually, i think that mods could fix that, at least to some degree, but making for example bigger tiles. Even 3x times bigger tile, would make this game so much better.
TheSpoiler
Member
You misread. It's not that offline wasn't done by Maxis for whatever reason, but that it couldn't be done. There's a heavy distinction between the two. The former means an unknown reason, the latter means a shitty excuse.
EA and Maxis even said it was due to technical limitations, thus, the "impossibility" of it being offline. Gies then defends that, saying the infamous "if you don't work there you don't know what you are talking about."
He's talking about the tech side - and within a week of this whole debacle, modders/hackers/cool dudes had it running without the stupid DRM requirement.
SteveWinwood
Member
Unless you're Arthur Gies, you don't know what he meant, and literally don't know what you're talking about.
Maps size was always the biggest issue with me and everyone else I know that played it.
Subliminal
Member
That's true, I had the benefit of playing the game after the first 6 updates, which apparently improved that sort of stuff a lot (although there were some bugs with the cities of tomorrow buildings). But I think their problems were more algorithm centered earlier on, whereas the problem of bigger tiles is a scale problem.
Well, the fix for the scale problem is region play, I guess there's a problem with having loading screens but for me a region has been a reasonable substitute for larger cities. I think just considering the smaller city tile is a kind of shallow assessment of the game, especially when you compare it to SC4. which had huge tiles that essentially didn't interact with each other, or do much at any deep level.
Tell us, what's your interpretation of what he said?
What he said was pretty clear from this and other comments by him.
You're fighting the wrong fight here. No need to white-knight that guy.
ElRenoRaven
Member
Wait wait wait. Hold up Maxis are liars. Sim City an simply not be done offline. Why lie to people. This is obviously an early april fools joke. /sarcasm
I just find it funny. there were actually morons who believed that offline wasn't possible even with people having posted proof it could be. Will be interesting as hell to see their spin now.
I just find it funny. there were actually morons who believed that offline wasn't possible even with people having posted proof it could be. Will be interesting as hell to see their spin now.
I think the official response was that they COULD do bigger city sizes, but the engine was so complex that some people wouldn't be able to run a big city size on their PCs. So instead of offering it as an option for some and adding a warning for others, they gave it to nobody.
This is of course assuming the official reasoning is true and not that they were as you said, just incompetent.
I guess they also didn't consider the servers taking a weeklong nosedive and the backlash that would arise from that on top of the existing backlash against always-online DRM. Lots of missteps.
Laieon
Member
Is it bad that I actually really like that they do that? I think treating reviews as a living document and updating them based on the latest version of the game is actually a really, really good idea.
Dandy Lyin
Member
The online-only stuff was really only an issue for me at launch. The tiny cities and the bizarre simulation stuff are what made me stop playing the game.
Well they couldn't even do the small city sizes so that reasoning is utter bullshit, which is consistent with all of Maxis' PR surrounding this game.
BruiserBear
Banned
Arthur was buying every bit of PR Maxis/EA was putting in his ear. All the bullshit about "this game is only possible because it's running it's simulation through our servers", etc.
So qualifying his statement with the word "maxis" does not change the idea he was putting out there. "If you think this game can be patched to be offline, you're wrong".
"In theory" does mean nothing.
In theory developers could produce the realest looking game ever but hardware is not sufficient for that. Only this theoretical product is not being sold to people, as opposed to Sim City.
I know you're one of the few (about two) ardent Sim City defenders on this board but you have to deal with reality: the agent system was a complete failure. It doesn't produce better results than the previous, simpler systems (the opposite is the case actually, it introduced a wealth of new logic problems) and it forced the game to be scaled down immensely.
TheSpoiler
Member
It gives them an excuse to change shit when they mess up. I guess this would be better if Polygon was a standard for excellent journalism, but they don't reach that bar very often.
SteveWinwood
Member
If you had the manpower and integrity to do it a majority of the time instead of just "big" games, not to mention you actually rated it what it deserved initially (so it actually affected the metascore) instead of cowardly rating it on "promise" or "pre release conditions" I wouldn't mind it.
Polygon is the last place I would trust to actually pull it off in any fashion though.
I am in the same boat, I like the changing review scores. Most people on GAF seem to think they change the scores poorly, but in concept I love it.
Yeah..
Have plenty of stories about the missteps surrounding that launch but sadly none I can share publically.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
Should've been offline from the start. Fucking ridiculous that people who spent as much as $60 for this pile weren't even able to play the game smoothly for weeks because of this unnecessary bullshit.
FranXico
Member
AtomicShroom
Member
Hahahah! God I love Jim! <3
This said, I hope no one ends up buying the game no matter how much they patch it. I don't think anyone here should be rewarding the lying sacks of shit that Maxis are. It would like saying "Oh, you repeatedly lied to me? You continued to lie even after people proved you were liars? You acted like all-around scumbags used shady tactics like astroturfing to try and turn that around? Wait, what's that? An offline patch!? All forgiven. Here, have my money!" I'm sorry but some of you people forgive way too easily.
Subliminal
Member
Well, I'm not disputing that there were problems when the game launched (when that video is from), they have fixed a lot since then though.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
I know that gamers can't trust reviews as is, but if you're going to institutionalize their untrustworthy-ness, then why even bother in the first place?
Uh, except Maxis next game has already been confirmed to have a offline mode.
I'm not a defender, i'm just not a hater and have objective view on this situation.
Their new engine is a progress, not regress, not matter how many times it will be spin around that it isnt. It allows for much higher precision of simulation and even though they failed in Sim City 2013, its good that it exists.
And i'm not talking about theoretical hardware, they could easily expand cities 4-5 times on something like i5 CPUs.
Subliminal
Member
I don't see how editing things makes them untrustworthy, Especially as a buyer who gets a game maybe 6-10 months later, you want to know if the game has been improved/deprecated since the base product launched. I don't see what relevance reviews have then otherwise?
In anticipation of this new offline modus, I actually went ahead and purchased SimCity.
...but I made a huge mistake.
I elected to purchase the SimCity Plus package, since it combines both the core game and the recently released future cities add-on. The trouble is - the future stuff is not optional. Once you have it, it is mandatory in the game. And that sucks fucking nard! The future stuff looks awful, it breaks most of the game rules and shortly becomes pretty much necessary to keep the numbers in check.
Why is there no way to disable it and play the game without it? FU EA.
...but I made a huge mistake.
I elected to purchase the SimCity Plus package, since it combines both the core game and the recently released future cities add-on. The trouble is - the future stuff is not optional. Once you have it, it is mandatory in the game. And that sucks fucking nard! The future stuff looks awful, it breaks most of the game rules and shortly becomes pretty much necessary to keep the numbers in check.
Why is there no way to disable it and play the game without it? FU EA.
Wow. I don't need to read into anything there. I'm going by what is *actually said*, not any interpretative reading into what was said. That's all. And I've moved beyond that now anyways if you guys would have read all my posts.
No doubt with more context, I can see why his comment was ridiculous. I was just commenting on that that tweet alone, which seemed fine to me. Was not aware that other people had apparently modded the game to prove otherwise or that he was saying anything else prior to or afterwards. Just going by that comment alone, once again.
If it's within 24 hours you can get a complete refund via Origin, then re-purchase the base game I guess.
As people have already pointed out: "offline mode" is likely to become one of this generations most important and sought after features.
BolognaSoup
Member
Just in case people somehow think this news makes the game worth playing.
Not only this but within that yellow square the area you could actually build on is even smaller due to the micro-towns within the region.
I seriously doubt that. I could see people being more vocal about it on the internet but I don't think it's as important as people want it to be. There are more than enough people with stable internet to achieve sales targets for pretty much any game you could think of.
Subliminal
Member
The way you disable it is by not building it. At no point does the game force you to build any CoT stuff.
I seriously didn't think it could be any worse than that picture, but my god. lol
Okay, last attempt. He said that people who claimed this game could easily be played offline have no clue what they're talking about. People then pointed out to him, that the game is only using cloud saves and some minor multi-player stuff and that it doesn't make any "complex server-side calculations" whatsoever. He replied with "incorrect." That is what was actually said.
Gies was wrong on every account, from the start. He was the one who didn't know what he was talking about. The people who said that this game was artifiially forced to only work online were right. Period.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
The early/pre launch reviews for SimCity were very high. I bought the game. I was conned. The review scores changed within days.
How was that process in any way trustworthy? Reviewers told me whole heartedly to buy the game and then, what, changed their mind after it was found out that they lied?
6 - 10 months after SimCity's launch everyone knew it was an awful game and wasn't worth buying.
Polygon changing it's review score did nothing for the consumer and was only done to save themselves from embarrassment.
What part of DO NOT BUY THIS GAME is so hard to understand?
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
dbl