SimCity's Launch Isn't Going So Well

Yah, I had no problem playing until they started "fixing" it. which probably means that amazon called them up and told them that they were over heating the server room. Or they looked at how much band width they were using and realized this was going to cost a fortune.

All things that probably could have been figured out in a beta test. But my guess is that they had a test server up, in another location, probably using different hardware, for the beta test, and no one thought about that.

Feel bad for the people who bought this day 1, but cmon people you should have know better after D3. I predicted this before the D3 launch and I thought the servers would be shit for SimCity (although not this bad). EA really fucked this up though

I hope Sim City is the second game for TnT and its just 2 hours of Vinny closing down and reopening Origin.

Wish I would've pirated it.

That's how I was on the first day. I got off work and was able to play for some 4-5 hours straight before I went to bed without a hitch. I have yet to get in the game even once today. You're very lucky.

So glad I stood by my principles and continued to ignore everything that has an always-on DRM. The core-game itself doesn't look too appealing to me either with the small maps and everything. Too much "The Sims", not enough "Sim City".

This is basically Diablo 3 all over again (or even worse), complete with the core-game being fucked up because it was designed around the always-on DRM.

Good! While I feel bad for those who purchased the game, hopefully this will give EA pause next time they choose to do some gully bullshit in the name of squeezing out a few extra bucks. I, too, used to defend them. After all, it is a publicly held company and they need to make a profit. And if they were putting out stellar games, I'd still defend them. But when marketing and microtransaction-related directive from EA hamper the overall experience, they should rightly suffer in the marketplace.

Reading all of these things is like an out of body experience. I've said it many times before already, but I'm just not having the problems everyone else seems to be having. I just get to enjoy the game, although to be fair the game itself has a fair number of bugs that I've encountered so far. I hope this gets ironed out really soon because this game is actually pretty fun. Hours melt away (and not because you are waiting in a queue, har har).

I had no idea how bad this was going to be. Funny thing is I really enjoy playing it! It's just getting to the part to play it that makes all the rage happen. =(

To be fair, I'd argue that people who honestly thought this game's launch would go smoothly were outright delusional. But past the 24 hour mark, this is getting way out of hand. They're just blatantly vindicating all of us who ragged on them for the always on DRM hour by painstaking hour.

And yeah. Disabling cheetah is the straw that broke the camel's back. I wonder how long that'll go on.

I think everyone's overstating piracy as the cause for EA's move. It's about control and money more generally. Always online means they're assured of being able to sell all users DLC and it makes it so you have to buy their DLC for content/gameplay changes. It also by design encourages multiplayer and forces you to set up an account, which leads to you heckling your friends to play and you continuing to play (and continuing to buy DLC). SimCity is entirely designed around those ideas. Finally, it cements the move from buying a game to being a person with an account and a service.

Sure, always online with server-based processing requirements knocks out piracy. But that's only a part of the reason EA's doing it, and probably a small part at this point. Always online is more part of EA's push for digital content, control, and sweet, sweet microtransactions. That's why they're willing to take so much shit about the always online requirement and they'll keep doing it. They'll make it up on the back end.

So the game doesn't work, and when it does work, it's not very good. SOLD!

The thing is, nobody can. The way Internet is set up it doesn't matter if you're connected, or their server is working - there are multiple points of failure between you, and we're currently shifting away from a somewhat reliable wired network to a less reliable but mobile wireless network, because for most utilities, the ability to be connected anywhere outweights the fact that the connection is unstable, and the basic stuff people do on the internet - checking your e-mail, browsing the web or whatever doesn't need a permanent connection. Games using always online DRM don't seem to take that into account.

Maybe I should knock on wood, but I've yet to be effected by the always on DRM at all. I played at 5pm PST on Tuesday for 5 or 6 hours. During which time I saw the "disconnected from server" error message once, but was able to keep playing and things synced perfectly when I quit later that night.

That is not to say I've been blown away by the game. My main problem with the game so far is the smaller city size, and forced multiplayer, but I can't blame design on DRM. As I said I'm sure I'm the minority so I should shut up, but I wanted to say it's not all doom and gloom.

They've disabled Cheetah Speed so they can bring it back as a microtransaction. Ditto Reticulating Splines.

I've never been so happy to have a piece of shit laptop that couldn't run SimCity.

Which is sad because a week ago I REALLY REALLY wanted this game. I know in time they will iron things out.

BOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIING

Hahaha! That's exactly what I did.

I'm sure they'll come back as if nothing ever happened when the next major game with always online DRM comes around, claiming it's silly to be against DRM like that because "who isn't connected 24/7 nowadays?".

@msavo said:

They updated the score to an 8, for what it's worth.

I'm sorry, but Patrick writes like a 5th grader. He should not be writing for this site.

Not well, that's how it is going. When I can play the game, it's great. The problem is, there are about ten different spots where you can be bumped or disconnected and have to reboot the whole game while trying to enter your own damn city, private region or public. Frustrating is an understatement.

EA isn't so much evil as they are just amazingly stupid. Always online DRM would be bad enough if they could pull it off competently, but its the fact they can't that makes it so much worse.

Honestly i can't understand why this is so hard for (seemingly) every game company. You KNOW there is going to be a huge rush on launch day, and you KNOW how many pre orders there are and can estimate how many more will buy at launch....why is this so freaking difficult?!?

And no, I'm not expecting there to be no issues whatsoever. It just gets me how bad they seem to fumble with this shit when its not like it just snuck up on them at the last minute. Come on!

Don't worry - just build parks in your neighbours cities... ahaha (if you can get in)

hopefully this translates directly into firings at EA.

I feel like it's been 20 years of this. In the mid 90s my grandpa, an avid gamer, told me EA was a bad company who used to make good games. It turns out EA feeds off bad will, I guess. It's why the keep getting bigger.

Normally there are tons of dudes saying "cry more" when there's no offline option. Yet when its finally time to face consequences like these, those people disappear into the shadows from whence they came. I'd gloat, but there's really nothing to gloat about.

All of this for DRM. I'm pretty sure they will have lost more money to refunds and bad word of mouth than to pirates.

Holy shit. This has gone viral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYLmsEBGug

This video is too perfect. (embed isn't working for some reason.)

60 dollars for a mediocre attempt at a series revival with crippling DRM.

I'm glad nowadays I only buy games a good bit after release and when they're on sale.

Once again the DRM is hurting only those who purchased. Even if someone can crack the game and emulate the servers, who would care? You shouldn't bother with DRM when your game has low appeal.

My usual torrent site only has 1 torrent for Diablo 3, nobody even cares. If someone made it playable without connecting to servers then I think that has gone largely unnoticed.

Well, Whatdyaknow, always online DRM is total, unmanageable crap. Who could have seen that coming? When even a server-savvy company like blizzard has a shitty launch due to their paranoid DRM as still receive tons of hack attempts, account theft and server outages, maybe a bumbling fuckup of an organization like EA should just veer clear of that sort of thing and just make it a gameplay incentive to play with a friend instead of goddamn necessary. Didn't really work out well for Ubisoft either. I want games to succeed and I want EA to get better, but jesus christ, it's like clown university over there.

@mrklorox said:

@dagbiker said:

Now THAT's funny.

WHAT. THE. HELL. I didn't know things this hilarious could actually happen. Thank you sir for opening my eyes.

You guys that cant play the game you paid for make me laugh. Why? Because thats what you deserve for continuing to support this terrible online single-player model by buying these games. As long as you keep paying, publishers will keep doing this. For me its simple: Online single-player = no sale. Thats how a boycott works, and you idiots with no impulse control who keeping falling for this crap deserve every bit of grief you get trying to play this game.

More likely they'll close Maxis claiming that PC games sel TOO well...

Good news everyone, they extended the Limited Edition to March 11th.

@dagbiker said:

Now THAT's funny.

What a mess. Damn EA. You really couldn't see this one coming? Did you learn nothing from Diablo 3... oh wait. You did.

http://kotaku.com/5989053/

That's ridiculous. The whole reason this mess is happening is because of the number of people trying to play vs the capabilities of their server infrastructure.

@project343: See you there El Presidente

Because they signed the EULA and couldn't join my lawsuit

I don't care. I found the actual game, itself, to be so disappointing that even though I'm not encountering the connection and corruption issues, I regret the purchase and have no interest in playing it anymore.

Saw this coming a mile away.

@abendlaender: If they didn't close Maxis after Spore, they're not going to close Maxis now.

You're forgetting a little game they're milking to death called The Sims 3. Get your $419.83 DLC bundle today!

First they came for the Dragon Age 2, and I did not speak out--

Because I don't care about Dragon Age.

Then they came for Mass Effect 3, and I did not speak out--

Because I don't care about Mass Effect.

Then they came for Dead Space 3, and I did not speak out--

Because I don't care for Dead Space.

Then they came for Sim City--and there was no one left to speak for it

The really sad thing about this is, that EA will now probably close Maxis, claiming that PC Games don't sell well enough...

I have not been able to connect a single time since buying the game. I have no idea what the game on my screen looks like as i can never get passed the "logging in" phase

Not only did I not get a refund when I called EA but the person I was talking to said he would terminate my call if i tried to ask for a supervisor.

Stay Classy EA