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[KKRT00]

I parse that as "its the same except one works reasonably well and the other doesn't".

So, it's not the same?

Really? It lacks severs IF's from 1000 lines code, wow what a difference.

No agents in SC4, thus no wavefront, and per-source routing info is necessary. SC2013 would look much like SC4 if there was per-agent routing info.

You have wavefront and its D* so it can change cost dynamically, so You dont per agent routing. SC 4 does predictions per day of road capacity, so its not really as precise.
Also Simcity 5 agents can react to random events [firetracks, police cars, more tourists] in real-time, when SC4 cant do that.

 

[mavs]

Really? It lacks severs IF's from 1000 lines code, wow what a difference.



You have wavefront and its D* so it can change cost dynamically, so You dont per agent routing. SC 4 does predictions per day of road capacity, so its not really as precise.
Also Simcity 5 agents can react to random events [firetracks, police cars, more tourists] in real-time, when SC4 cant do that.

The lack of per-agent routing is the cause of the 'herd' traffic, which is much less precise than SC4's result. It's also less aesthetically pleasing than SC4. SC4 simply has less going on period.

 

[Rebel Leader]

All these SimCity threads have been so entertaining.

I want MORE, and I know I shouldn't...

 

[Dali]

Really? It lacks severs IF's from 1000 lines code, wow what a difference.



You have wavefront and its D* so it can change cost dynamically, so You dont per agent routing. SC 4 does predictions per day of road capacity, so its not really as precise.
Also Simcity 5 agents can react to random events [firetracks, police cars, more tourists] in real-time, when SC4 cant do that.

It could lack one semicolon and you'd still be wrong saying they are the same as the end result would be vastly different.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Kotaku - SimCity Boss Says They ‘Rejected’ Any Offline Mode, Clarifies Server Use

So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn't fit with our vision. We did not focus on the "single city in isolation" that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – 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. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.

You can do both.

 

[Neuromancer]

Kotaku - SimCity Boss Says They ‘Rejected’ Any Offline Mode, Clarifies Server Use



You can do both.

Almost all of our players play with connected cities. But some chose to play alone – running the cities themselves. But whether they play solo or multiplayer, they are drawn to the connected city experience. And Always-Connected provides a platform for future social features that will play out over regions and servers.

She's insane.

 

[Htown]

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

I knew it.

I said in some thread somewhere that this felt like a weird "message" game from them.

 

[Mrbob]

Lucy the Liar now moving the goal posts. Come clean.

 

[Won]

You can do both.

That's not how "visions" work!

 

[PaulLFC]

Kotaku - SimCity Boss Says They ‘Rejected’ Any Offline Mode, Clarifies Server Use



You can do both.

So basically, they don't really care what seemingly the majority of fans of the series want from a sequel. Awesome. I wonder how much SimCity 6 will sell after this, should there be one.

 

[rohlfinator]

At best, you only need about 100 or so unique Sims for players to have specific information on. What 100 Sims those are in a city would be determined by the game. I can't imagine that much being impossible to code, let alone actually construct to make their vision of following Sims a reality.

In that case, how do you stop people from viewing the non-persistent Sims that aren't in that group of 100?

The lack of per-agent routing is the cause of the 'herd' traffic, which is much less precise than SC4's result. It's also less aesthetically pleasing than SC4. SC4 simply has less going on period.

I think the routing is per-agent, it's just that it's only calculated when the agent "spawns" and it doesn't take traffic speed into account. And the destinations seem to be chosen somewhat arbitrarily.

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to change those things, but it would be more costly performance-wise.

 

[Nibiru]

"But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality."

This is such an unbelievable bold faced lie.

 

[Harlock]

Lucy Bradshaw must be the twin sister of Arthur Gies.

 

[Bedlam]

Kotaku - SimCity Boss Says They ‘Rejected’ Any Offline Mode, Clarifies Server Use

Gotta love the spin.

She sounds so way out of touch with statements such as "thousands of people ... are loving the Always-Connected functionality."

Yeah, they would totally hate the game if online was an optional thing.

You can do both.

That's the point really. Sim City 4 simulated the multiple-city-interconnectivity just fine - and offline. Great Works are basically not much different, just a few numbers getting exchanged between cities.

 

[Kill Your Masters]

I knew it.

I said in some thread somewhere that this felt like a weird "message" game from them.

Vision, most abused word in the gaming industry.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

"But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality."

This is such an unbelievable bold faced lie.

I'm not trying to be funny, but how is it a lie? A few hundred thousand copies have probably been sold so far and I bet that a high portion of those buyers don't care about the always online requirement.

I'm not defending the always online requirement but not every gamer actually cares about DRM, hence why games do sometimes come with it.

 

[FStop7]

I want to hear Will Wright's take on the whole thing. Not just the always online stuff, but the AI and city size stuff, too.

 

[Htown]

Vision, most abused word in the gaming industry.

I keep saying

Go back to their announcement

where they brought up like 3 non-gaming people to talk about environmentalism and charity and interdependence and all that stuff

 

[eznark]

Man Maxis is a cesspool. Even EA doesn't deserve such a trash tier developer.

No wonder Will Wright bailed.

 

[Neuromancer]

I'm not trying to be funny, but how is it a lie? A few hundred thousand copies have probably been sold so far and I bet that a high portion of those buyers don't care about the always online requirement.

I'm not defending the always online requirement but not every gamer actually cares about DRM, hence why games do sometimes come with it.

Holy shit are you serious? After last week's debacle of almost no one being able to play?

 

[Deaf Spacker]

Holy shit are you serious? After last week's debacle of almost no one being able to play?

Yes, not every gamer is well informed like me or you.

 

[Lint21]

I'm not trying to be funny, but how is it a lie? A few hundred thousand copies have probably been sold so far and I bet that a high portion of those buyers don't care about the always online requirement.

I'm not defending the always online requirement but not every gamer actually cares about DRM, hence why games do sometimes come with it.

I'm not seeing thousands of people giving positive feedback to them about the game. Twitter, the official EA forums, and forums such as Neogaf seem to be overwhelmingly negative about it.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

We did not focus on the "single city in isolation" that we have delivered in past SimCities.

• We keep the simulation state of the region up to date for all players. Even when playing solo, this keeps the interactions between cities up to date in a shared view of the world.
• Players who want to reach the peak of each specialization can count on surrounding cities to provide services or resources, even workers. As other players build, your city can draw on their resources.
• Our Great Works rely on contributions from multiple cities in a region. Connected services keep each player's contributions updated and the progression on Great Works moving ahead.

Literally 10 years ago.

 

[Bedlam]

Yes, not every gamer is well informed like me or you.

I'm sure they cared when they couldn't play the game they just bought or when their city got erased.

 

[Neuromancer]

Yes, not every gamer is well informed like me or you.

It's not a matter of being informed. In this case it was a matter of being able to play the game at all.

 

[eznark]

Yes, not every gamer is well informed like me or you.

Pretty sure even the most casual of gamer can figure out something is fucked when they can't even play the game.

 

[Alchemy]

All this fucking effort by EA and Maxis to dress up their DRM and DLC selling tactics, its pretty disgusting. I can't wait for EA to finally exhaust all their good will and finally die off. So slimey.

 

[grimshawish]

I'm not trying to be funny, but how is it a lie? A few hundred thousand copies have probably been sold so far and I bet that a high portion of those buyers don't care about the always online requirement.

I'm not defending the always online requirement but not every gamer actually cares about DRM, hence why games do sometimes come with it.

Casual gamers care more when it affects them than the we on here. We know 'why' but to them its bullshit.

 

[deviljho]

Yes, not every gamer is well informed like me or you.

Amazon has a 1.5 star rating from 2,045 reviews for standard edition. It has 1.5 stars for 3,318. SimCity is a PC game, and its consumers are generally "more informed" than your average COD consumer. I don't think any other recent video game release comes anywhere close with respect to the number of Amazon reviews regardless of if the review came from a purchaser or not.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

I'm not seeing thousands of people giving positive feedback to them about the game. Twitter, the official EA forums, and forums such as Neogaf seem to be overwhelmingly negative about it.

Neither am I but it's not impossible.

People are more vocal if they have something negative to say, bearing in mind if a few hundred thousand copies have been sold, a few thousand angry consumers isn't really going to bother the EA and Maxis accountants.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

Casual gamers care more when it affects them than the we on here. We know 'why' but to them its bullshit.

Amazon has a 1.5 star rating from 2,045 reviews for standard edition. It has 1.5 stars for 3,318. SimCity is a PC game, and its consumers are generally "more informed" than your average COD consumer.

Fair enough, you both have good points.

 

[PedroLumpy]

I'm not trying to be funny, but how is it a lie? A few hundred thousand copies have probably been sold so far and I bet that a high portion of those buyers don't care about the always online requirement.

I'm not defending the always online requirement but not every gamer actually cares about DRM, hence why games do sometimes come with it.

Theoretically could be true, but the wording implies she's heard from more people happy with the game than angry about the game.

I doubt that's true.

 

[Zombie James]

Saving state and passing around gifts isn't what I would call "offloading significant calculations." It's just... saving state.

 

[Lint21]

From http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-update-straight-answers-from-lucy, where they try to justify the always-online thing with "straight talk"

• We keep the simulation state of the region up to date for all players. Even when playing solo, this keeps the interactions between cities up to date in a shared view of the world.
• Players who want to reach the peak of each specialization can count on surrounding cities to provide services or resources, even workers. As other players build, your city can draw on their resources.
• Our Great Works rely on contributions from multiple cities in a region. Connected services keep each player’s contributions updated and the progression on Great Works moving ahead.
• All of our social world features - world challenges, world events, world leaderboards and world achievements - use our servers to update the status of all cities.
• Our servers handle gifts between players.
• We’ve created a dynamic supply and demand model for trading by keeping a Global Market updated with changing demands on key resources.
• We update each city’s visual representation as well. If you visit another player’s city, you’ll see the most up to date visual status.
• We even check to make sure that all the cities saved are legit, so that the region play, leaderboards, challenges and achievements rewards and status have integrity.

She also lists cloud saves and "fitting the vision" as reasons for always-online.

To me, pretty much everything on that list is related to multiplayer. The things that aren't, are related to regions. If the region was simulated on your local machine, the reasons for being always-online go away. Leaderboards, cloud saves, city verification, etc. can all be accomplished with an occasional call to the server, like in most other games.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

this is goddamned beautiful

 

[qwerty2k]

Isn't she just describing 'multiplayer', i agree you may need a server if you want to play multiplayer...isn't the point that people don't always want to play multiplayer and being forced to is an inconvenience? Especially when the forced multiplayer has had an adverse effect on the game overall.

 

[Neuromancer]

Neither am I but it's not impossible.

People are more vocal if they have something negative to say, bearing in mind if a few hundred thousand copies have been sold, a few thousand angry consumers isn't really going to bother the EA and Maxis accountants.

Oh I agree, but that's because EA is a shit publisher and Maxis is quickly becoming a shit developer.

 

[Zemm]

haha that list is a joke.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

Kotaku - SimCity Boss Says They ‘Rejected’ Any Offline Mode, Clarifies Server Use

Wow. Just wow. The amount of pure arrogance and bullshit that's just dripping off of every word in that EA blog post is astounding.

I just don't understand how having the ability to have a local single city offline mode or local saves would somehow cripple their precious "vision"? Bradshaw and Maxis and EA seem perfectly fine in wrangling in people based on the SimCity name yet by Bradshaw's own admission they were never intending on delivering a traditional SimCity experience, even when they were fully capable of doing so.

Almost all of our players play with connected cities. But some chose to play alone – running the cities themselves. But whether they play solo or multiplayer, they are drawn to the connected city experience. And Always-Connected provides a platform for future social features that will play out over regions and servers.

Well no shit Sherlock, you're forced to play with connected cities. You're basically offering anyone who wants to play solo to force them into playing a multi player game by themselves. Never mind that I still don't really grasp how any of those Always-Connected features actually require you to be Always-Connected.

In many ways, we built an MMO.

Oh please. Again, I fail to see how any of the Always Online stuff needs to be utilizing the DRM they're using. Its not an MMO, beyond the fact that like many an MMO, they managed to have shit the bed during their launch.

So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision. We did not focus on the “single city in isolation” that we have delivered in past SimCities.

Then call your damn game something besides SimCity. Its not SimCity, its SimTown or SimRegion or SimCounty.

We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – who want that.

"But fuck you cause we're not making that option available because it would conflict with our precious artistic integrity and "vision." Although we're perfectly happy taking your money."

But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.

Ah yes, that Always Connected technology has really made this "SimCity" a true masterpiece.


Its fitting that the blog entry is tagged "corporate" cause that's all Bradshaw is spewing: a bunch of corporate BS.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

I've just literally downloaded an update for Sim City.

 

[Rebel Leader]

http://i.imgur.com/nQbV5uJ.png[/IM G]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5V7hZnK.jpg[/IM G]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/64soIgE.jpg[/I MG]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/e5pz88s.png[/IM G]

this is goddamned beautiful[/QUOTE]

WoW Is a mmo for fucks sake. SImcity is not

 

[Septimius]

I just want to point out that I have yet to play in a region, as the "join game" functionality is broken beyond repair. There are no slots in any of the regions, and no filters. I want to play online, but I can't.

 

[Lint21]

GameInformer ain't havin' it:

It's difficult to disprove Bradshaw's claims about the wondrous benefits of having to always be connected to Maxis' servers in order to play SimCity, but my personal experience with the game leads me to cast a critical eye at the gameplay-relevant claims about regional simulation. Since SimCity's multiplayer is asynchronous, Sims and service vehicles aren't actually traveling from one player's city to another – they're being generated locally in the active city as workers/shoppers/students/services coming in through the highway connection if the region has another city that can provide the demanded commodity. Setting aside the gameplay desirability of such a system, I find it hard to believe that the design wouldn't work in a traditional offline or optional-multiplayer experience.
...
It's been a while coming, but look for the full Game Informer SimCity review later this afternoon

I'll go out on a limb and guess it won't be a very positive review.

 

[Jomjom]

I don't get it, has EA never heard of asynchronous multiplayer? I thought that was all the craze now? I don't get why I cant play offline, then connect when I want to trade with people or have it upload all my info one time when I log.

Or I guess it is technically asynchronous but I still always need to be online which defeats the purpose of asynchronous? WHAT?!?

 

[QuicheFontaine]

There was more!! Yay!!

"You can pop from work to home, play the game anywhere..."

Who the fuck plays SimCity at work? Except playtesters of course. Oh. Right...

WAH WAAAAH

 

[mavs]

I think the routing is per-agent, it's just that it's only calculated when the agent "spawns" and it doesn't take traffic speed into account. And the destinations seem to be chosen somewhat arbitrarily.

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to change those things, but it would be more costly performance-wise.

It's not per-agent, they said so specifically. It seems that at each intersection the game assigns a preferred choice of direction for all agents of a certain type, and any agent that happens to arrive at that intersection will choose the preferred choice. The choices are then updated on a schedule. That might explain why I see MaxisMan driving up and down an empty stretch of road connecting two parts of my city 30 times before he decides to actually do something.

 

[dragonelite]

I just want to point out that I have yet to play in a region, as the "join game" functionality is broken beyond repair. There are no slots in any of the regions, and no filters. I want to play online, but I can't.

Same here and the empty ones were last used in 17th jan 1970 or something like that.
I had to run by 6 of them before one loaded.

 

[stufte]

There was more!! Yay!!

"You can pop from work to home, play the game anywhere..."

Who the fuck plays SimCity at work? Except playtesters of course. Oh. Right...

WAH WAAAAH

I play it at work, not DURING work, but I do.

 

[Septimius]

Same here and the empty ones were last used in 17th jan 1970 or something like that.
I had to run by 6 of them before one loaded.

I just tried a different server. There is no place to play. I'm gonna make my own region. If you want to join me, just say, and I'll invite you. (Goes for anyone)

EDIT: NA West 4

 

[Jomjom]

I dunno man the server handling gifts between players sounds like the server needs to do some pretty complex computations. This would make it an engineering marvel to make SimCity offline. Maybe she wasn't lying!