Because I damn sure can.

Make no mistake, I like this game. I don't care about the small city size, the mutliplayer focus that so many people are lamenting, and in theory I don't even mind the always online crap. If it worked.

It's not like it should have been difficult for them to plan ahead for. They push pre-orders, they know there is a huge interest in the game. It should not have been that far fetched to prepare enough servers to meet demands.

I'm not the type to complain. I'm patient, I'm not an "entitled" type of person by nature, and I can weather a bit of a hiccup. But this isn't a hiccup. This is borderline theft. They want me to wait in a queue and maybe, MAYBE get a slot to play in 20 minutes from now. But it damn sure didn't take them but a few seconds to hit my bank account for the pre-order fee.

EDIT: Since tone is a difficult thing to convey in text, I guess I need to clarify. I'm not really suggesting we organize something like a lawsuit. It was hyperbole as a means to vent frustration, not a true "rally cry". Sorry if anyone thought I was seriously suggesting it (as some posts below would suggest).

The launch situation has been frustrating for many of us, probably most of us. But of course it will get ironed out and things will settle down. For the sake of not wanting to anger anyone, if a mod would be so kind, we can probably lock this post before I start getting hate mail. Thanks. And again, sorry if anyone thought I honestly meant "Lets get to suing!"

I'm in the same boat. Anyone know why it would hurt to use one of the European servers (I'm in US)?

Someone explain the situation exactly?

I'm trying this but it won't allow me to create any cities, though I was able to access the main menu and options menu! (small victories, people!)

Lawsuits won't work.

The only thing that works is if consumers speak with their wallets and stop shoveling money into the pockets of companies that insist on pushing these shady business models.

Can you say "frivolous lawsuit"? Because I'm sure the judges can.

@big_jon: GAME DONT WORK

They're offering refunds.

I'm looking as hard as I can but I'm not seeing any cases here. Yeah, shit happened but it's the release day of an always online game. This always happens. People always overreact and lose their minds and then shout "IM GONNA SUE 'EM" and nothing comes of it because there's no case.

I completely agree with the 'speak with your wallet' motto, but I liked the beta and didn't realize EA would be so unprepared (unintentionally?).

It's day one. You're being just a tad dramatic don't you think? Fucking shit.

And would. And then laugh.

@mariachimacabre: @video_game_king: @excast:

Just for the record, this is more meant as hyperbole to deal with frustration than a genuine attempt to organize a lawsuit movement.

It's just frustrating. I know we're all in the same boat. And we're all annoyed.

It shouldn't be this difficult. If they wanted to sell this kind of game, it seems like they could prepare a bit better is my point.

Good, because you probably signed away that right in the EULA.

In a couple days the game will work perfectly fine and everyone will get over it

Same thing happened for the MVM update for TF2

I'm sure the judge will love to hear your damages, "but judge, I had to wait in a twenty minute queue!"

@ginjaassassin: And I hear you. You would hope that a franchise with as much history and such a dedicated fan base would be treated right. But at the end of the day, we need to stop acting like these mega corporations have our best interests at heart.

They did the same thing with Diablo 3 and look at where that game ended up. An afterthought on most GOTY lists that people quickly grew tired of. But they got the money and that is all that mattered. Fuck the customer experience.

What it comes down to is this. Make them EARN your dollar. There is never really any reason to pre order a game or get it day one. Let others pay to be beta testers of unfinished products. Give your money to companies that show you respect and deliver a product that doesn't insult your intelligence or feel like robbery.

You know I have played a fair few multiplayer games that don't work for the first few days, before you make the claim that this is different because it's single player, some of these games were often bough souly for the multiplayer.

You know if you want to get angry about something get angry about the steady decline in EA's last few games, clearly due to EA pushing them out too fast, and pushing their shitty agendas on the developers.

I get that it is frustrating, but if it bothers you that much contact EA directly, or return the game.

Lawsuits for things like this are fucking retarded, it is people trying to cashout on bullshit.

Hey, if people don't push back and say this is unacceptable then it will only get worse. No need to be apathetic and chalk it up to "release day woes." We pay money, they provide a service, if the service doesn't work then money needs to be returned.

It shouldn't be but this isn't an issue exclusive to EA's games. Every game that requires a constant connection has had these issues. And any attempt to sue them would be met with the reality that multi-billion dollar companies tend to have legal teams of gargantuan size.

in those twenty minutes I COULDVE CURED CANCER

They did. They prepared for the long run, where investing in a shitload of servers for the first week or so won't make any sense.

Have hugely popular online-centric games ever worked on day 1? I mean, ever? Half Life 2? Guild Wars? StarCraft II? Diablo III? Any other MMO? Why do people honestly expect them to work? Why do we still consistently scream that its mistreatment of the fan-base when we should really understand that this is part of getting a game that is insanely popular and relies on server fortitude.

Wait a few days if it bugs you that much, you've already waited 10 years. Its not like you're the only person in the world who has the problem, after all.

Waiting in line for 20 minutes to play a game?

LOLWUT? EA. Bringing customer support service to your game ... today.

It's more like "Wait in line for 20 minutes to view a network error and then be booted back into the 20 minute line"

You guys should have expected this shit to happen with this kind of DRM. Lesson learned. Don't support persistent online single player games.

@hwy_61 said:

I daresay they deserved it after buying it, knowing it required you to be online to play SP.

@zzombie13: We'll see how it is in a week. Launches are tougher than people think.

I mean, just look at Giant Bomb's recent launch. They planned ahead, and it was still a horrible mess. It got stable within a day or two, but it's still not fully back up to what it should be. This stuff takes time. If SimCity can be stable in the next few days and stay solid by next week, I'd say it's almost a successful launch of such a big online game.

(And a class action lawsuit at this point is out of the question. They bought their tickets; they knew what they were getting into. I say, let em crash.)

To this I say...

Just take the refund, it was always going to happen on a MMO like this, too bad it plays like a single player game with facebook game mechanics.

You know what would of made this game legitimately awesome only, instead of just have a square to build the city in the region you and your friends could just build anywhere it the region, multiplayer real time city building. So you can see what your friends are building live.

I can, but not without falling into uncontrollable giggles over the idea of it.

Everyone that is complaining please uninstall your game and get a refund or whatever. I will then move up in the queue. Thank you.

I can't.

Only that your cities are tied to the server which may or may not cause issues down the line.

The entire internet is one massive persion being a tad dramatic at all times.

no

I appreciate your more serious posts. Also, I'm just about completely sure that you are absolutely right about this. In a few weeks, maybe a few months from now, the game will see a large drop off in concurrent players so the servers will be able to handle the load. If EA had shelled out to have enough capacity to serve everyone simultaneously on launch they would end up with a bunch of idle servers just a short time down the line. That is a cost that, as a business, makes absolutely no sense to incur. I'm not condoning it (I'm waiting in the queues too) but I certainly understand the thinking behind it.

In all seriousness if an actual class action lawsuit came out of this I would personally think everyone who was involved in it are the worst people on the planet and that karma would lay the mother-fucking hammer down on them at any moment.

People should get some perspective and learn how servers work before creating an uproar every time a widely-anticipated game with online features is busted at launch. If it's still like this a week or two from now, then you can start bitching.

Hell, you can even look at the relaunch of this very fucking website. 500:actual site ratio >2:1 for the first 2-4 days.

I can say "lol," is that close enough?

Online games get hammered for the first week or two. You can avoid this in future by not buying online-only games until after the rush (or never).

Everyone who bought this game is part of the problem. You said yes to always online DRM when you bought it.

You all made your horrible always online beds, now sleep in them! :D

The most frustrating thing is that it's online.

I don't wanna play online.

I play games to get away from idiots, I deal with them at work all day long.

heh. Yes, it's a reference to Airplane. :)

If I had to guess, the European serves don't exist, considering this game isn't out in Europe yet.

I can't believe you guys are talking about class action lawsuits for a game that has been out less than 48 hours, and isn't even out in most of the world.

Fucking paaaathetic.

Somebody needs to install a filter that changes "class action lawsuit" to "most annoying phrase in the English vocabulary".

Ok, ok, let me try: Class Action Lawnsuit. Oh wait, I fucked. Man, it's not that easy, huh. Here I go again: Class Action Lawsuit. Yeah, I think I got it. Class Action Lawsuit. Yeah!

On the one hand, I totally sympathize. It's super frustrating when this happens and EA made a series of really bad decisions that have exacerbated this situation.

On the other hand, people are acting like god damned infants. Just whining and screaming because the game isn't accessible immediately. If this is still going on in 48 hours then maybe this level of outrage is deserved. Just calm the fuck down. Play something else for a few days.