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SimCity offline mode is FINALLY coming

spookyfish

Member
But Arther Geez, that bastion of awesome journalistic integrity, told me Sim City offline was

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Wiktor

Member
What a fucking mess of a game. It just sucks that there's nothing on the horizon regarding a competent city building game.

Huh? There's a lot of those incoming. 2014 looks to be incredible year for the genre. Just nobody is trying the realistic SimCity-like route.
 
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.

I wasn't particularly talking about simcity, because I agree with you that reviews around the game were very hyped (Although, it's important to consider the fact that a lot of the problems were caused by a sketchy launch and bad servers early on, reviewers wouldn't have known about that). But in general, I think editing reviews should be encouraged because not everyone spends their time in gaming forums, or maybe just didn't pay attention to the game when it launched?

What part of DO NOT BUY THIS GAME is so hard to understand?

Why are you getting so angry about other people buying a game you don't like?
 

Marjorine

Member
Are they going to fix the limited city size and bad simulations? No, then I'm not interested.


Agreed.

After the initial cluster of the launch the always online was much less annoying than the fact that after a few hours my city would be full and I'd have to start making dumb decisions I should not have to make. I'd rather them keep the always on and make the game somewhat fun to play. Every city ends up pretty much the same with the limited sizes.

It's a garbage game. Just trash. And I got it for like $10 with a coupon and a sale. They should have paid me $10. I am by no means a harsh game critic. I can find some fun in most games. But Sim City is a an embarrassment and a complete waste of time.
 
But in general, I think editing reviews should be encouraged because not everyone spends their time in gaming forums, or maybe just didn't pay attention to the game when it launched?

Reviews are already edited for factual issues. Publications can release editorials and updates.

But it seems like some people think that publications in service to companies should be allowed to give a product glowing praise prior to release and then pretend like they didn't once people find out a product is awful.






Why are you getting so angry about other people buying a game you don't like?


What is it with gaming nerds thinking everyone is angry? I'll never understand it.
 

frogg609

Member
Did someone send Gies a link to this article? Just so he can call EA and tell them they don't know what they are talking about?
 
Take it easy buddy.

I once bought Brink because I thought it was going to be a good game. Are you going to look me up and stab me in the penis for that maybe?

Brink and SimCity are two different situations. No one gave Brink a glowing review and in spite of Brink's problems, it worked at a core level, it just had some iffy design and balance issues that ultimately screwed up the community.

SimCity is the penultimate broken game. It's like trying to play Solitaire but missing one of the Ace cards.
 
Reviews are already edited for factual issues. Publications can release editorials and updates.

But it seems like some people think that publications in service to companies should be allowed to give a product glowing praise prior to release and then pretend like they didn't once people find out a product is awful.

That's a legitimate concern, I think abusing the trust of the consumer is something that should be called out on whenever a publication does it. However, there's actually a lot of value in reviewing games 6-12 months down the line.

What is it with gaming nerds thinking everyone is angry? I'll never understand it.

You did type in bold, and all caps. I've been on the internet a long time. that's internet code for being angry.
 

GSG Flash

Nobody ruins my family vacation but me...and maybe the boy!
Its not about what I *believe*. Its about what's actually said. And no, he doesn't say that.

Well he's implying, in his tweet, that he does "literally" know what he's talking about, which, as we can see today, is not true, therefore he really had no leg to stand on in calling people out for something he literally didn't know what he was talking about.
 

atomsk

Party Pooper
Someone quoted the tweet and linked to it in the comments a couple of minutes ago when I posted it up, it's since been deleted.

I just realized that thanks to this I've been visiting Polygon, and it makes me feel dirty. Gies still wins.

Now this sounds like a job for the internet.
 

BigDes

Member
Brink and SimCity are two different situations. No one gave Brink a glowing review and in spite of Brink's problems, it worked at a core level, it just had some iffy design and balance issues that ultimately screwed up the community.

SimCity is the penultimate broken game. It's like trying to play Solitaire but missing one of the Ace cards.

Grammar Nazi incoming, apologies in advance

penultimate means second last
 

Dali

Member
"Modding is a big part of our studios legacy..."

Then why did you release a game with drm that made modding not feasible in the first place? It's a little disingenuous to act like it's so important to you now.
 

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
Isn't Maxis wholly owned by EA? I'm not sure I care at this point where the distinctions are. EA basically ruined my once favorite franchise.



Yes, even now, I might pick it up if it were on Steam.

Speaking generally, even with fully owned studios publishers doesn't enforce game design onto the studio teams. Ideas get pitched, approved and budgetted. It's probably the longest running urban myths in the gaming industry.
Whether or not those ideas that get funded are good or not that's another story altogether.
 
That's a legitimate concern, I think abusing the trust of the consumer is something that should be called out on whenever a publication does it. However, there's actually a lot of value in reviewing games 6-12 months down the line.

Sure, review a game 6 - 12 months down the line. Just don't mess with the original statement.



You did type in bold, and all caps. I've been on the internet a long time. that's internet code for being angry.

Bold and All Caps because people should know that they shouldn't buy SimCity. I post that in every SimCity game thread because people still buy it, thinking it's worth a novelty play through or want to see if it's truly awful. It's not, and it is. I "quoted" that when replying to glaurung.


Speaking generally, even with fully owned studios publishers doesn't enforce game design onto the studio teams.


Yes. Yes they do. All the time and in many industries. Publishers/Producers get involved to the detriment of the product all the time.
 

Nymphae

Banned
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.

It's great that they do that actually, it's just getting it anywhere near correct initially that seems to be a problem for some of their staff.

What good is a day 1 review when you're telling me a busted piece of shit is a 9? Then weeks, maybe months later, you change your score to reflect what it should have been from moment 1? I mean, good for them, I guess?
 
It's a shame so many people, even here, are taking a dump on this game. I for one enjoy it thoroughly, even more than I did SimCity 4. (in 4, the fact that cars disappeared at every intersection disappointed me, and this fact was highlighted in the U Drive It mode. Furthermore, I never found laying pipes and electrical wiring to be anywhere near enjoyable or necessary. Furthermore, the reduced city size matters not to me, because the pipe-laying tedium put me off of the very idea of making anything larger than a town in that game, and the sight of a city where you can actually see the rhythm, pace, and direction of traffic is impressive even at the current limit.)
 
It's a shame so many people, even here, are taking a dump on this game. I for one enjoy it thoroughly, even more than I did SimCity 4 (in 4, the fact that cars disappeared at every intersection disappointed me, and this fact was highlighted in the U Drive It mode. Furthermore, I never found laying pipes and electrical wiring to be anywhere near enjoyable or necessary).

By thoroughly do you mean the one or two hours before the game's pathfinding and AI break and literally stop you from making any progress?
 
Bold and All Caps because people should know that they shouldn't buy SimCity. I post that in every SimCity game thread because people still buy it, thinking it's worth a novelty play through or want to see if it's truly awful. It's not, and it is. I "quoted" that when replying to glaurung.

I don't know man, maybe you should either care less about what others do with their money, or just reformat it so you don't sound like an angry nutjob.
 
By thoroughly do you mean the one or two hours before the game's pathfinding and AI break and literally stop you from making any progress?

I take it you haven't given the game a shot in the past, oh, say, 8 or 9 months? Judging by the 319 hours I've put into the game now, I would say that I can last a whole lot longer than the 1-2 hours you mentioned.
 
why do you care so much about his formatting

Because it's kinda rude to shout at people for doing things that you don't like. especially when it doesn't harm you in anyway and when you type something in bold and all caps, that's pretty much the same. I don't see why it's defensible, or even promoted on a forum like gaf for people to be so rude and repugnant to people simply for liking something they don't like.

I take it you haven't given the game a shot in the past, oh, say, 8 or 9 months? Judging by the 319 hours I've put into the game now, I would say that I can last a whole lot longer than the 1-2 hours you mentioned.

Impossible, no one is allowed to like Simcity. It's NOT ALLOWED. YOU PIECE OF SHIT HOW DARE YOU ENJOY A VIDEO GAME AND POST ABOUT IT ON A VIDEO GAME FORUM.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Let me know when it's on Steam.

Speaking of EA and Steam, here's an interesting statistic:

Excluding EA Partners titles, the two games EA yanked (Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2), and franchise bundles (e.g. factoring in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, but not Mass Effect "Complete"), EA games were featured deals 92 times last year compared to 52 in 2012. I think the penny may finally drop this year.

The optimistic assumption: EA has become acutely aware of how much money it's leaving on the table by ignoring Steam and, as above, the penny will finally drop this year.
The cynical assumption: EA is increasing awareness of its franchises on Steam in hope of these people moving to Origin for the sequels.
The pessimistic assumption: EA was just giving Steam users ample opportunities to obtain its remaining catalogue before those games are also pulled.
 
Because it's kinda rude to shout at people for doing things that you don't like. especially when it doesn't harm you in anyway and when you type something in bold and all caps, that's pretty much the same. I don't see why it's defensible, or even promoted on a forum like gaf for people to be so rude and repugnant to people simply for liking something they don't like.

i dont think its rude

hes trying to help people
 

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
It's a shame so many people, even here, are taking a dump on this game. I for one enjoy it thoroughly, even more than I did SimCity 4. (in 4, the fact that cars disappeared at every intersection disappointed me, and this fact was highlighted in the U Drive It mode. Furthermore, I never found laying pipes and electrical wiring to be anywhere near enjoyable or necessary. Furthermore, the reduced city size matters not to me, because the pipe-laying tedium put me off of the very idea of making anything larger than a town in that game, and the sight of a city where you can actually see the rhythm, pace, and direction of traffic is impressive even at the current limit.)

I think plenty people actually enjoyed the game for what it was/is. But even more so played it and saw what the game was lacking, or where it went in directions they didn't agree with.
That in addition to the usual stigma of people not posting feedback when they like things the vocal majority of a community does not.

I think I put in somewhere around 100 hours into the game myself, it was a good time waster for a while. I was able to enjoy it without having it 'replacing' or sullying what was Simcity 4 in my mind.

If they get big cities into the sequel, I'll probably be lined up to buy that one too.
 
That's a legitimate concern, I think abusing the trust of the consumer is something that should be called out on whenever a publication does it. However, there's actually a lot of value in reviewing games 6-12 months down the line.

I guess if a publication has the man power to revise older reviews (I doubt most do), But judging by how sales fizzle out on most games once the release window passes, I can't imagine there's really enough reader interest for it to be worthwhile.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
It's a shame so many people, even here, are taking a dump on this game. I for one enjoy it thoroughly, even more than I did SimCity 4. (in 4, the fact that cars disappeared at every intersection disappointed me, and this fact was highlighted in the U Drive It mode. Furthermore, I never found laying pipes and electrical wiring to be anywhere near enjoyable or necessary. Furthermore, the reduced city size matters not to me, because the pipe-laying tedium put me off of the very idea of making anything larger than a town in that game, and the sight of a city where you can actually see the rhythm, pace, and direction of traffic is impressive even at the current limit.)

I'm surprised how many people hated pipe laying. I didn't find it a big deal at all. What was the problem with that exactly?
 
Guys, Gies did not review SimCity. A lot of people assume that he did because he's Polygon's review editor, but he did not review it.


...That's why a week into the controversy, Gies was insisting that nobody was actually criticizing SimCity for gameplay design flaws, it was all just a bunch of anti-online bullies.
 
To be fair, he's right. He's not saying that it cant be patched in, just that nobody outside of people working on the game would know whether its possible or not.

no he isn't , a modder made the game work permanently offline within days and since the game worked offline for 20 mins at launch it was obvious that the 'server side computations' were a load of horseshit and lies
 

Koomaster

Member
The way you disable it is by not building it. At no point does the game force you to build any CoT stuff.
Yeah I don't know what he's talking about there, the game never forces you to build anything except the basic resources your city needs (roads/power/water/zoning/ect.) After I got the CoT expansion I built a regular city just fine without any of the new content.

Actually come to think of it the only thing the game really forces you to build is a road to connect your city to the region and you need roads to plop things on. I think there is the starter quest to hook your city up with power but I think you can purchase all your services from the region, you don't need to build them.
 
I think plenty people actually enjoyed the game for what it was/is. But even more so played it and saw what the game was lacking, or where it went in directions they didn't agree with.
That in addition to the usual stigma of people not posting feedback when they like things the vocal majority of a community does not.

I think I put in somewhere around 100 hours into the game myself, it was a good time waster for a while. I was able to enjoy it without having it 'replacing' or sullying what was Simcity 4 in my mind.

If they get big cities into the sequel, I'll probably be lined up to buy that one too.

I believe they mentioned that their internal attempts at larger cities made the city fail to even load on some of the computers they intend to be able to run the game. But who knows; since offline mode will, if the discussion they had on the forum a while back is any indication, allow mods, perhaps they'll give the idea another go if they find a user who finds a way to do it without sacrificing the detail put into the simulation thus far.

If nothing else, in the above scenario, the user who finds out how to do it can share it with the rest of the internet.
 
I don't know man, maybe you should either care less about what others do with their money, or just reformat it so you don't sound like an angry nutjob.

Again with the persecution complex.

NOT ALLOWED. YOU PIECE OF SHIT HOW DARE YOU ENJOY A VIDEO GAME AND POST ABOUT IT ON A VIDEO GAME FORUM.

I didn't say anything like this, but honestly, I'm not surprise guys like you read into things that aren't really there and strawman. Really, if you want to talk about rudeness....
 
Yeah I don't know what he's talking about there, the game never forces you to build anything except the basic resources your city needs (roads/power/water/zoning/ect.) After I got the CoT expansion I built a regular city just fine without any of the new content.

Actually come to think of it the only thing the game really forces you to build is a road to connect your city to the region and you need roads to plop things on. I think there is the starter quest to hook your city up with power but I think you can purchase all your services from the region, you don't need to build them.

Yeah, once you get CoT it does try to carrot and stick you into futurising buildings. (There's a quest that usually comes at the start to get an academy or omega co, but you can just say no)
 
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