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SimCity offline mode is FINALLY coming

judhudson

Member
SimCity Blog - http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-offline-is-coming

Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing. As one of the final steps, we’re putting Offline into the hands of some of our most hardcore players, the DevTesters. This group of volunteers is going to put Offline through its paces before we release it.

Bringing the game Offline means big things for our wonderful community of Modders. They can now make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game. Modding is a big part of our studio’s legacy and we’re excited to see what you guys create. Check out this thread to learn about Oppie85’s Central Train Station, which you can put into your game right now, and if you’re interested in making your own content take a look at the Modding Policy. To get you started, we will be rolling out a series of tutorials from the studio that surfaces how we’ve created some of the content that you’ve seen so far in hopes of inspiring your creativity.

I still recall them saying "SimCity Offline is NOT possible" and that the game requires too many calculations handled by the EA servers for it to not function if it were to be offline.

Ha!

But now with this announcement, perhaps I'll finally consider picking up the game now. It was my biggest gripe.
 

inky

Member
Arthur Gies redeemed!

Oh wait, what's the other word?

But now with this announcement, perhaps I'll finally consider picking up the game now. It was my biggest gripe.

Small cities that limit longevity, crap simulation, having to run multiple cities to get access to most stuff, etc. Don't bother really. It's a crappy game. The always online was just icing on the shit cake.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
But now with this announcement, perhaps I'll finally consider picking up the game now. It was my biggest gripe.

I wouldn't waste your money. The game is still fundamentally flawed. It's like an incredibly unambitious game built with tools that could have made something groundbreaking.
 

Rustafur

Banned
Impossibru is nothing?

Impossibru.jpg
 

Kinyou

Member
Surprised that it took so long. I guess almost a year after release they aren't too worried about piracy anymore
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
I wouldn't waste your money. The game is still fundamentally flawed. It's like an incredibly unambitious game built with tools that could have made something groundbreaking.

Yup, when you look at what the sim-engine CAN do, and what it actually does.... it's underwhelming.
 

Velcro Fly

Member
Most fun I had with the game was watching someone else play, create a bustling metropolis that became a souless, traffic congested city, and then seeing him destroy it with natural disasters.
 

theaface

Member
Sufficiently embarassing for EA and Maxis then? Guess the whole "it's designed from the ground up to be a connected experience, we can't change it, your tiny brain couldn't possibly understand, etc." waffle was just that.
 

Muku

Member
Not interested until cities get bigger and teraforming. I really hope they add, but doubt they will. I'd love a new SC.
 

Shinjica

Member
During a recent Twitter Q&A with the Maxis staff, many unsatisfied customers asked the developer to patch an offline mode, in order to prevent such an occurrence from happening again, which is a great idea and should have been implemented from the start. Unfortunately, adding offline is impossible, according to Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw, who had this to say during the session:

“We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we'll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts.

"The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible."

It was "impossible" in March and now it's happening.
 

Nymphae

Banned
Haha wow. I'm really glad I'm not a fan of this series, because if I was, they would have lost me with this garbage.

Also lol @ those claiming this was impossible, remember Gies's tweets about that? Who's talking out of their ass now Gies, hmm?
 
Lets hope they learn from their mistakes and apply them to a Sim City 2. The promise of this game was great, but the fact is that it's got some fundamental problems. Either that or they continue improvements and increase city sizes and AI over time.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I wonder if this, Diablo III, ME3 ending DLC and Dragon Age 2 have finally gotten the fact that you may want to listen to your fanbase occasionally out into the public air. I hope we see less SimCity nonsense in the future.
 
I hope bigger cities will come one day but I wonder if it's even possible given how unoptimized lightbox seemed to be when I played a bunch at launch. Constant drops to 40 FPS when the cities grew with a GTX670.

Really can look quite nice and charming so one can only imagine SimCity 4 style cities.
 

rakhir

Member
Did they ever fixed that fucked up agents pathfinding? I remember laughing at the water agents never visiting some parts of the cities, taxi agents riding in circles, primitive traffic agent AI that was always picking the shortest route, not the fastest (dirt road vs two lane) and always turning right on every crossroad.
 

Arksy

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

Zomba13

Member
Blizzard should do this for Diablo 3 on PC.

I might end up buying it if they did that. I tried the beta or demo or whatever and it took me ages to be able to 'log in' to play my game single player and then when I was in I seemed to be lagging (as it, trouble connecting to a server lagging). Promptly uninstalled it and played some Diablo II instead.

On topic though, nice of them to finally give people the option to play this offline. No need at all to force online.
 

inky

Member
I wonder if this, Diablo III, ME3 ending DLC and Dragon Age 2 have finally gotten the fact that you may want to listen to your fanbase occasionally out into the public air. I hope we see less SimCity nonsense in the future.

Considering they released the entirety of the D3 expansion for testing, ME3 had considerable rewrites and DLC to explain the crappy ending, and DA3 has been in development for more than 12 months, I'm guessing they are starting to catch up. Just a little.
 
I hope bigger cities will come one day but I wonder if it's even possible given how unoptimized lightbox seemed to be when I played a bunch at launch. Constant drops to 40 FPS when the cities grew with a GTX670.

Really can look quite nice and charming so one can only imagine SimCity 4 style cities.
Awhile back they said offline mode was possible and they were looking into it, but there was nothing they could do about the small city size.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I wonder if this, Diablo III, ME3 ending DLC and Dragon Age 2 have finally gotten the fact that you may want to listen to your fanbase occasionally out into the public air. I hope we see less SimCity nonsense in the future.

Bioware's problem is that they listen too much to their fanbase.
 

LCfiner

Member
Incredibly late but at least they're working on it.

Quadruple the maximum city size and maybe they'd actually have a proper Simcity?

edit: saw post above. quadruple still isn't enough, ha
 

MmmSkyscraper

Unconfirmed Member
We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing.

mj-laughing1twjid.gif
 
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