SimCity 5

cybrxkhan said:
@Piece of Mind: Another issue, though I'm not sure whether it counts as one or not, that I've heard floating around would be the removal of previous game features such as subways (only one I can think of at the moment). Though it's not an issue exclusive to SimCity or EA - a lot of games remove previous content in new versions, often before putting them back in (such as the case with religions in Civ5).
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To be fair to Firaxis, Civ 5 switched lead designers before putting religion back in. It was in design stages before the base game's release but it was Ed Beach's decision to bring it back (and likely completely different from its original inception), not an executive's.
 
CivCube said:
To be fair to Firaxis, Civ 5 switched lead designers before putting religion back in. It was in design stages before the base game's release but it was Ed Beach's decision to bring it back (and likely completely different from its original inception), not an executive's.
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Hmm. Interesting - never knew that, actually, though I'm not surprised. My point still stands, though, as it's quite possible they were considering single-player SimCity in the early versions of the game (well, actually, they probably had to because SimCity's been single player forever) but then scrapped it later, and we've all seen similar things happen with other games anyways, where early ideas or features are scrapped later on.
 
there is a German news according to which an offline mode might be possible. But be aware that EA might consider it as hacking/illegal.
 
Maniacal said:
Yeah that was posted about already, its certainly there, although saving is still only when you reconnect.
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It's been all over the gaming news sites, too. Bad, bad press for EA.

Actually, the fact that this whole SimCity thing is being reported on major news networks like CNN and Fox and BBC is bad, bad press for EA. I dunno if it's enough to sway investors, though (I doubt it, given that EA is simply too big for this sort of stuff to affect them).
 
cybrxkhan said:
It's been all over the gaming news sites, too. Bad, bad press for EA.

Actually, the fact that this whole SimCity thing is being reported on major news networks like CNN and Fox and BBC is bad, bad press for EA. I dunno if it's enough to sway investors, though (I doubt it, given that EA is simply too big for this sort of stuff to affect them).
Click to expand...

I imagine it would. For a gaming company more than just about any other type of company on the market, income is literally game release to game release. A gaming company makes nearly all of their money on the first week of a AAA release, and in particular on preorders. This is why advertising is high on the leadup to release and falls off immediately afterward (as compared to say, film which will advertise heavily for the first month or so, and then pick up again when the DVD is released). This is why DRM is profitable even if it doesn't totally stop pirates (the idea is to slow them down enough to generate high sales going into the opening week). This is why DLC is such a big deal (if you can get another high week of sales generated from a game that's fantastic). It's not just about selling a bunch of games - it's about making enough profit to justify the total expense and keep the company afloat long enough to get the next big release out. If you get stuck in a PR nightmare like this people are certainly going to be less likely to preorder for your next AAA release. People may decide this time to wait and see what the consensus is. This is terrible news for a company who is living on the week to week.
 
PieceOfMind said:
Taking Bradshaw's side for a moment, to be fair I think it probably is truthful that multiplayer would have been a much-requested feature for future iterations of SimCity. People do enjoy the interactivity playing games with other people. It often makes game experiences more unique and improves longevity. How it would work with Simcity in particular is another matter, but I'm sure there are plenty of visions out there that would work really well.
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Good multiplayer support, where you are able to work on regions with your friends, would have been awesome, but if it was built on top of a really good single player games with all the other things we wanetd.

I think that's where they messed up - they tried to build up the game around this multiplayer concept. Instead they should have built it around tried and tested game basics, and then added multiplayer support on top of that.

Their vision was very flawed and for sure heavily influenced by the whole "always online DRM" thing.
 
warpus said:
I think that's where they messed up - they tried to build up the game around this multiplayer concept....

Their vision was very flawed and for sure heavily influenced by the whole "always online DRM" thing.
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EA/Maxis completely failed. Someone wrote that this is going to be talked about for years in Business School classes as a case study. So many chances to avoid big mistakes!

They tried to release a MP update and implementation of one of the most successful simulation titles of all time.

1. They failed to deliver a playable product on launch day
2. They failed to launch a MP experience
3. The game they *did* launch has several core simulation flaws
4. The game they *did* launch is a bare shadow of the title's heritage
5. The pre-launch press was full of lies
6. The post-launch PR DC (protect resources damage control) is full of lies
7. For a game that's supposed to make use of "MMO", the producers sure don't seem to understand how dangerous it is to treat their client base as ignorant, disconnected, non-persistent sims people.

I'm sure there are other basic errors, but these seem to me to be the most salient.

You want to release a MMO? Or, at the very least, a casual Multiplayer game? Then you MUST be confident in your servers.

You want to release a simulation game? Then you MUST have a release that's been thoroughly beta'd - because the internet and gaming community are full of people who have nothing better to do than watch you eat your words.

You want to protect your share price? Then you MUST institute a no-refund poli --- My bad, they got this one right. :blush:

You want to ensure a steady stream of future income? Then you MUST release a product that is so incomplete that players are forced to pay more money in the future fo --- oh, they got this one right as well. :gripe:

In earlier posts I've said I was on the fence. At this point I'm thoroughly against purchasing this game. It lacks core functions. But then again, I won't buy Civ5 until it implements PBEM, so take my opinion for what it is.
 
$14.99 for a dock DLC. Probably a placeholder, but still.

Spoiler :
25L9AZ3.jpg


Also I'm really not impressed by their resources, its pretty basic (and actually missing out on a lot of basics, like wood, or food).
Spoiler :
simcity-resources.png
 
Maniacal said:
$14.99 for a dock DLC. Probably a placeholder, but still.
Click to expand...

Hello, Sims 3 style goodies!

At least Sims 3 had the courtesy to allow modders to actually make stuff that basically fulfills the same function as the DLC, but this was probably before EA realized they could capitalize on this thing.

Frankly at this point I dunno whether they'll make it easy for modders to create buildings at the least or if "no, sorry, go to the 'SimCity Store' and buy a Shell Gas Station for 500 simpoints! But wait, today, we have the Sphinx landmark on sale, with a price drop from 1000 simpoints to 800 simpoints!"



Maniacal said:
Also I'm really not impressed by their resources, its pretty basic (and actually missing out on a lot of basics, like wood, or food).
Click to expand...

From what I've seen of Cities XL, in terms of natural resources, they have a real simple system - fuel (aka oil), water, food, and "holidays" (i.e. potential tourist locations). Real simple. Real effective. Gets the job done.
 
The remark I particularly liked that I read from a rather disgusting interview with Lucy Bradshaw was where Lucy remarked that Maxis did do stress tests on their servers but they didn't anticipate people playing 6-7 hours at a time on launch day. Really?
 
cybrxkhan said:
@Piece of Mind: Another issue, though I'm not sure whether it counts as one or not, that I've heard floating around would be the removal of previous game features such as subways (only one I can think of at the moment). Though it's not an issue exclusive to SimCity or EA - a lot of games remove previous content in new versions, often before putting them back in (such as the case with religions in Civ5).
Click to expand...

Sort of. I have to say I'm not one to get hung up on old game features that are not kept. In this case, subways... Well, does a city of 10,000 to 20,000 really need a subway? How would a subway system look in a city that's a 2km x 2km square?

And in Civ5, the Religion they introduced in Gods and Kings is completely different to that in Civ4 (going on what I've heard, since I don't own G&K). It just happens to have the same name. I don't have a big problem with that. However if the game on its merits fails to be a more compelling experience than its predecessor, it's a failure, and for just about any game that is received exceptionally well by fans the sequel is doomed to fail to meet expectations. I think I argued that a while before Civ5 came out, talking about things like regression to mean and how it can apply to game reception of games from a series. I expected it to apply even to myself since I liked Civ4+expansions significantly more than the other games I would play.
 
What a mess... :rolleyes:
 
I dunno why they bothered with their lies about offline capability and coding and all that in the first place if they knew that at least a few of the people playing SimCity were actual programmers who knows what the heck is going on? Or maybe they just assumed we were all ignorant hicks with no idea of how the internet worked in the first place.


PieceOfMind said:
Sort of. I have to say I'm not one to get hung up on old game features that are not kept. In this case, subways... Well, does a city of 10,000 to 20,000 really need a subway? How would a subway system look in a city that's a 2km x 2km square?

And in Civ5, the Religion they introduced in Gods and Kings is completely different to that in Civ4 (going on what I've heard, since I don't own G&K). It just happens to have the same name. I don't have a big problem with that. However if the game on its merits fails to be a more compelling experience than its predecessor, it's a failure, and for just about any game that is received exceptionally well by fans the sequel is doomed to fail to meet expectations. I think I argued that a while before Civ5 came out, talking about things like regression to mean and how it can apply to game reception of games from a series. I expected it to apply even to myself since I liked Civ4+expansions significantly more than the other games I would play.
Click to expand...

True, true - I mean with religion in Civ5 it's a different ballgame, but it was the only similar example I can think of.

Leaving out subways was still a rather odd decision, in my opinion. Sure, subways aren't essential to a city like, say, roads or electricity are, but it's still very odd to leave them out given how it's been around for a long time. Perhaps a better analogy would be as if in Civ6 they removed all the victory conditions instead of world conquest - sure, it doesn't break the game, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn't make sense, even if they add it in later.
 
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