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[Yagharek]

Are there any city sim games by other publishers that have a similar take on the concept like the old, non broken SIM city games?

 

[dark_chris]

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"?

To EA and the others, the customers don't know what they want so we give them and force them to like what we put out there. They shove it down our throats and say "TAKE IT AND LIKE IT"

Im glad I didn't buy this game. Im very disappointed this happened to such a great series.

 

[BosSin]

SimCity |OT| "In many ways we built a <parameter:string>"

 

[Slair]

We recognize that there are fans &#8211; people who love the original SimCity &#8211; who want that. But we're also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality.

I don't understand how it's possible to go down this line of reasoning without coming to the conclusion that if you had the ability to please 10 out of 10 people instead of 6 out 10 that would translate to more sales.

 

[Deadbeat]

Why are they even doing damage control? When BF4 is announced this will all blow over.

Meanwhile gearbox is partying it up for the distraction.

 

[massoluk]

We have fucking resource sharing in Sim City 4, Lucy. We didn't need the internet to connect city in a region. In fact people do just that, making interconnected specialised cities and they did it single player.

 

[Htown]

Whatever she wants him to say

yeah, give it a sec, she just finished an interview. give her time to get back to her trunk so she can get her hand back up Gies's ass and Jeff Dunham this shit

Arthur the Paid(Off) Journalist

 

[Rebel Leader]

yeah, give it a sec, she just finished an interview. give her time to get back to her trunk so she can get her hand back up his ass and Jeff Dunham this shit

jeff dunham? I prefer that he's one of her six paths of pain

 

[S0N0S]

Yet another reason why I'm looking forward to WCIA 2013! http://consumerist.com/2013/02/28/c...ominations-for-worst-company-in-america-2013/

 

[EmCeeGramr]

I hope those thousands of people each paid 400 bucks for the game otherwise Lucy and all the rest of her Maxis-EA cronnies are getting shitcanned.

What a cluster. Map size alone is enough to make me call a complete foul on the entire experience. SimCity's endgame is always the perfect balancing act required of a player to manage a millions strong population city without is rocking off the cliff of crime and fires and godzillas and shit. I can't imagine ever getting my money's worth out of building what would constitute a fucking hotel + gas station in Simcity4 and calling it my "city".

What a joke. Feels like whoever designed this failure is a hopelessly out of touch older game designer who went into their first design meeting and said "So ... facebook right? Kids love the facebook and the myspaces and stuff? so lets make SimCity like a big facebookspaces thing! These idiots will Eat. It. Up!"

Then they all did basaebal bat sized rails off their crushed ivory meeting table started blowing each other.

Hey, you can create million+ size populations in SimCity 2013! Just stick a bunch of high-density residential in a grid, throw in some basic services, and lower the fuck out of taxes!

(all the Sims are happy, the criminals can't create serious crime since there's no commercial or industrial, city is profitable, nobody has a job, tax money is coming from thin air, there's no other cities in the region)

 

[TeaFan]

"I hate to disturb you while you play simcity". No no go ahead Lucy, you're not disturbing me its been uninstalled since Monday. Let me listen to more of your bullshit

 

[dreamghost]

This seems like it would only really be a huge advantage if you went to a different job each morning and back to a different home each night.

Is that how they think people live or something?

oh i like you

 

[undu]

I like the only tag of the blog post,

TAGS: corporate

They aren't even trying to hide it's corporate

Spoiler

bullshit.

 

[Rentahamster]

That first line is unintentionally hilarious

 

[Shrennin]

Man, that damage control is tasty. Developers restricting ways to play a game because they claim to think that players won't enjoy that (even though it does not hinder the game in any way to make that choice available) is always a bad thing. The online DRM was just a pure business decision plain and simple and EA is going to have to deal with the backlash.

 

[dreamghost]

Why do i feel like the original target platform for this was facebook?

 

[Rentahamster]

I miss Will Wright (despite Spore being disappointing).

Will Wright approves of this simcity, at least he said as much during the livestream interview.

 

[Yagharek]

Why do i feel like the original target platform for this was facebook?

At this stage I think even zynga could have done a better job

 

[Shrennin]

Will Wright approves of this simcity, at least he said as much during the livestream interview.

I'm not up to date on this, but is Will Wright still with EA? Or is he retired?

 

[Philia]

I'm not up to date on this, but is Will Wright still with EA? Or is he retired?

He retired. I forget which 9 months... before the announcement or the launch.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

Dig a deeper hole you fucking idiot. Please dig it deeper. It's delicious.

 

[Rentahamster]

I'm not up to date on this, but is Will Wright still with EA? Or is he retired?

He left a long time ago to do his own thing. (Stupid Fun Club)

 

[Dueck]

Blah, blah, blah... We're greedy and tried to beat our methods into you.

This is really all I hear. The fact remains, they could make the game online without requiring a constant connection. Give the player 2 options. They didn't, so now they look like assholes.

 

[Shrennin]

He retired. I forget which 9 months... before the announcement or the launch.

He left a long time ago to do his own thing. (Stupid Fun Club)

Oh. If he was still with EA then I could see why he would approve of SimCity, but since he's not then :/

Of course, he may not approve of the always online thing, but rather the game design. I've heard SimCity is a pretty well designed game.

 

[Bornstellar]

 

[Littlegator]

Hey, you can create million+ size populations in SimCity 2013! Just stick a bunch of high-density residential in a grid, throw in some basic services, and lower the fuck out of taxes!



(all the Sims are happy, the criminals can't create serious crime since there's no commercial or industrial, city is profitable, nobody has a job, tax money is coming from thin air, there's no other cities in the region)

Except those numbers are fluffed and you're probably looking at 250k tops.

 

[Philia]

Except those numbers are fluffed and you're probably looking at 250k tops.

About right. And my god, I love your avatar, which movie is that. (Sorry for being off topic.)

 

[Boss Man]

It's extremely insulting to have these publishers insist that this always-online DRM is definitely not DRM. It just goes to show how little respect they have for us, and how incredibly stupid they think their consumers are.

 

[StuBurns]

Will Wright approves of this simcity, at least he said as much during the livestream interview.

I'd love to hear Rod Humble's real opinion of it, I can't imagine the game would be as it is if he was still reigning over there.

 

[Jake Tower]

I will.

Fuck off

Preach it.

 

[Jasper Avenue]

Shut up Lucy Bradshaw.

 

[Oppo]

I somehow think she is hearing from a lot more people saying "I want to fill the entire region with one city" than whatever the other thing is she's spouting.

You can tell from the way this letter is structured that she essentially had the engineers try to finesse a couple of talking points that wouldn't be all that easy to disassemble. It's the 4th through 7th paragraph. She wrote the rest.

 

[Htown]

I totally believe that they care more about their "vision" than the players.

Remember this strange announcement stream for the game?

EA Game Changers: Power to Change the World Together

They think they're doing the planet a service by making the game this way. They're trying to shove a lesson about interdependence down your throat, at the expense of the consumer, in order to make their point.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Except those numbers are fluffed and you're probably looking at 250k tops.

More like exactly 121,289 actual citizens.

 

[Mr. F]

Will Wright approves of this simcity, at least he said as much during the livestream interview.

I just took that as a good will gesture to reassure people more than anything. He co-founded Maxis after all, not very hard to believe he'd give them his blessing no matter what.

 

[Revven]

Absolutely amazing.

Keep digging that grave, EA! Making for some great entertainment to boot.

 

[dancmc]

I do know one thing. I certainly don't want to play it online.

 

[Portman]

She's right, I'm being disturbed playing a S game but it isn't Sim City. Blizzard knows how to launch something correctly, perhaps EA/Maxis should take notes?

 

[unbias]

I'll be shocked if any site writes an article about how out of touch they are, with this response.

 

[kirblar]

Why do i feel like the original target platform for this was facebook?

It definitely feels like they're trying to capture the "SimCity Social" crowd.

 

[Freezasaurus]

So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision.

Obviously, their "vision" was to annoy the shit out of people.

 

[unbias]

Well what do you expect, when all the media outlets, outside of an incredible few, recognize this as harmful to consumer rights? Almost all the websites are saying "it isnt DRM/always online that is the problem"... Ya, because these problems would be to the same degree without it.

 

[Kade]

Origin says I've played for 6 hours despite not launching it since Anime Town was deleted from their high tech cloud server. Anime Town was just a set of roads I shaped like an anime face and I spent 5 minutes on it before being disconnected. I actually do want to play offline, Lucy.

 

[Jintor]

Disgusting.

 

[-tetsuo-]

I actually can't play it online right now either. Game is getting stuck on the loading screen.

 

[Smash88]

What the fuck have I just stumbled into.

This is some of the most pretentious, disgusting, and sad set of words I have ever seen.

What was once one of my favourite developers has turned into another bottom tier garbage dev.

I remember playing Simcity 2000 from floppy disks, and to see this come about... I am so disappointed in Maxis (whether EA had heavy influence or not). This is just so sad to see. What a shame, instead of listening to the customer, they are blowing smoke up our asses and digging themselves a deeper hole.

Maxis has become a joke - not to mention EA.

 

[B-Dex]

And like I said in the other thread. Extra hilarious due to 80% of those features not functioning or being disabled right now. Complete joke.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I wonder how much it would've cost to make an offline mode.

 

[antitrop]

Worthy of ire.

 

[evangd007]

I have one word to describe any developer who deigns to tell me what I want out of a game: arrogance.

She's right, I'm being disturbed playing a S game but it isn't Sim City. Blizzard knows how to launch something correctly, perhaps EA/Maxis should take notes?

EA already had a much more successful launch with ToR, ultimate quality of the game notwithstanding.