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[KKRT00]

So again, he is confirming stuff we know for a year.

Oh and about terraforming, Maxis graphics programmer said on reddit that it uses gpgpu features and its there in-game for example for roads to make ground a little flatter, but they are still working on it to enable it for for complete terrain rework.

 

[Slayer-33]

This is just too much haha

 

[vareon]

So the modder have done a significant amount of engineering?

 

[Surfheart]

Watching the unfolding drama around this game has been more fun than playing it!

 

[funo]

This is so funny - EA/MAXIS has to react right?

You know what worries me the most about this always-on DRM crap and all those new very important findings?

We (the guys who know about the issues and follow all the wacky stories and news about broken AI and useless always-on) are only a minority! A very vocal one, but there is no need for EA or Maxis to ever "fix" this shit because the overwhelming part of their buyers simply do not care.

This is what pisses me off the most: regardless of the number of petitions there are or the number of tweets or mails or forum posts they get, the number of players that simply do not care is way too high for them to actually take care of any of this shit

 

[Quentyn]

Gearbox with Aliens: Colonial Marines?

Yea, you might have a point there. But I still have a high hope, that the next Borderlands will be good game. Everything about Sim City just screams complete incompetence to me.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Gearbox with Aliens: Colonial Marines?

Nah. Gearbox has always been a bit of a quality whiplash studio.

 

[elfinke]

I can't wait to see Arthur Gies' response. He insisted that all of this is "incorrect" and everyone who said otherwise "literally" didn't know what they're talking about.

https://twitter.com/aegies/status/310282795564015616

Man is that twitter account going to fucking explode in the coming hours!

 

[liquidtmd]

There's only one reaction: <parameter: string>

 

[Slayer-33]

So the modder have done a significant amount of engineering?

What significant amount of engineering have you contributed to society?

Spoiler

lmao

 

[jambo]

I can't wait to see Arthur Gies' response. He insisted that all of this is "incorrect" and everyone who said otherwise "literally" didn't know what they're talking about.

https://twitter.com/aegies/status/310282795564015616

I tweeted him a link to this thread.

 

[DocSeuss]

If it is cracked for offline saves and larger city sizes I will definitely buy it (and then crack it). Hopefully some clever modder can fix the sim parts of it as well and go back to SC3000/SC4 style mass simulation rather than individual sims being simulated as agents.

Don't do that.

You'd be voting 'yes, EA, do this again' with your wallet. They won't know/care that you cracked it, only that a copy was purchased.

 

[deadlast]

Can't wait for this game to be offline so I can buy it.

 

[ambientmystic]

So again, he is confirming stuff we know for a year.

We knew that the game could be played offline indefinitely for about a year now?

Keep on spinning, KKRT00, you've been doing a great job for EA and Maxis in the SimCity threads I've seen you posting in. I remember you did the same thing for the WarZ even though it was revealed to be a fucking scam in the end and turned out to be an incomplete glitchy beta.

 

[TimeEffect]

Of course now is the time EA is going to get mad at their poor job of building this game.

This is their whole philosophy exposed for what it really is.

 

[GlamFM]

You know what worries me the most about this always-on DRM crap and all those new very important findings?

We (the guys who know about the issues and follow all the wacky stories and news about broken AI and useless always-on) are only a minority! A very vocal one, but there is no need for EA or Maxis to ever "fix" this shit because the overwhelming part of their buyers simply do not care.

This is what pisses me off the most: regardless of the number of petitions there are or the number of tweets or mails or forum posts they get, the number of players that simply do not care is way too high for them to actually take care of any of this shit

I usually agree, but in this case all the crap surrounding this game has already hit mainstream media. There was an article a coupe of days ago in "Der Spiegel" - probably the biggest news magazine in Germany.

EA will react - I CAN FEEL IT!

 

[mxgt]

Sweet, maybe my money won't be wasted.

 

[Recall]

Of course now is the time EA is going to get mad at their poor job of building this game.

Remember this will be our fault as consumers and not theirs.

 

[elfinke]

EA will react - I CAN FEEL IT!

Maxis gon' get Bullfrog'd.

Spoiler

 

[Slayer-33]

Remember this will be our fault as consumers and not theirs.

Long apology letter incoming from EA, somehow saying that they made a mistake identifying the issues with the game.

You watch.

Also making the next dlc free for current owners.

 

[KKRT00]

We knew that the game could be played offline indefinitely for about a year now?

Keep on spinning, KKRT00, you've been doing a great job for EA and Maxis in the SimCity threads I've seen you posting in. I remember you did the same thing for the WarZ even though it was revealed to be a fucking scam in the end and turned out to be an incomplete glitchy beta.

Yes, we knew that city features are computed locally, they've talked about it on GDC. If You have a half of brain, You would know what is possible and what not and do not listen to PR who have no technical knowledge what so ever.
http://www.andrewwillmott.com/talks/inside-glassbox/GlassBox GDC 2012 Slides.pdf

WarZ on Steam was a scam [which i've written like 10 times ...], whole game was not and is still played and supported. It was first marketed as alpha and thats what it is/was [dont know current status].
I'm using brain when i read information, instead of "OMFG WHAT A BULLSHIT, WORSE DEVS EVAH!!! EA sux etc etc"

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Don't do that.

You'd be voting 'yes, EA, do this again' with your wallet. They won't know/care that you cracked it, only that a copy was purchased.

I'll wait for a price bomba. Not a fan of outright piracy, I have too many friends in the creative industries.

 

[TheForceWithin]

I'm so glad I went nowhere near buying this trash pos.

And I am in no way ashamed of demonstrating my feelings right now in gif form.

 

[TimeEffect]

Remember this will be our fault as consumers and not theirs.

Wonder if we'll we'll see mods or hacks to allow offline saving, mods for huge cities, and full offline play, and EA's attempts at thwarting that. Either that or EA beats them to the punch to save face.

 

[inHallways]

Don't do that.

You'd be voting 'yes, EA, do this again' with your wallet. They won't know/care that you cracked it, only that a copy was purchased.

Yeah in some ways the knowledge that modders may well "fix" this game is somewhat bittersweet. As evidenced by this thread, and common sense, many people are waiting for the game to be fixed to then jump in and purchase it. Purchasing this game, whether to play offline or as intended, is not really going to hurt EA all that much.

I mean, I am sure they will appreciate all the money they will be given in anger.

Edit: Although I am of course happy for those that have already bought the game and may now get value from it. Hence the "sweet" part in"bittersweet".

 

[Haunted]

This is so funny - EA/MAXIS has to react right?

They'll ban his Origin account for modding.

 

[LuchaShaq]

Oh man I love how people acted as if cloud computing was necessary for sim city and that it would take substantial work to make it work offline.....Modder does it within a week by himself. Glad EA's obvious PR lies are being shown. So glad I didn't buy it.

I'll wait for a price bomba. Not a fan of outright piracy, I have too many friends in the creative industries.

THEN DONT BUY IT AT ALL.

 

[DocSeuss]

I think I'm going to ease off on reading Polygon and reconsider attempting freelance work with them. The lack of professionalism which some of their staffers have handled this is starting to bother me quite a bit.

Yeah, I get circling the wagons when someone shows up and says "your product is shit." I totally get being defensive of yourself and your friends. But this... yeah. I thought things were all well and good, even after their community guy started acting like a complete dick to me. Now, I'm forced to reconsider. I don't really want to, 'cause I like their features, but if this is the way they're going to handle themselves, I can do without, I think.

I'll wait for a price bomba. Not a fan of outright piracy, I have too many friends in the creative industries.

I wasn't advocating piracy.

If you want a good city game, check out Tropico 4, which is currently on sale on Steam for $10--which is insane, considering I gladly bought the game for $20, the expansion for $15, and each DLC for $5 (and would do so again).

Everyone should buy Tropico.

 

[TheVampire]

I wonder what EA's responce will be.

 

[Paertan]

Oh nice! Now we wait for EA to respond

 

[Quentyn]

Yes, we knew that city features are computed locally, they've talked about it on GDC. If You have a half of brain, You would know what is possible and what not and do not listen to PR who have no technical knowledge what so ever.

How does that explain the quote from Lucy Bradshaw then? Is she also just PR or does she just doesn't know jackshit about what is going on in her studio?

 

[zomgbbqftw]

I wasn't advocating piracy.

If you want a good city game, check out Tropico 4, which is currently on sale on Steam for $10--which is insane, considering I gladly bought the game for $20, the expansion for $15, and each DLC for $5 (and would do so again).

Everyone should buy Tropico.

I already have Tropico, it's nice, but not what I am looking for in a simulator. It feels more like SimShantyTown tbh.

I would buy it used but there is nowhere around where I am that sells used PC games.

 

[eznark]

So a random modder is infinitely more competent than all of Maxis. Nice.

What a miserable decline for a once great studio. Stick to Sims College Life and leave actual city building games to professionals...or hire some part time tinkerers!

 

[Green Yoshi]

Then why there is 50-100 MB of traffic per hour if it's only checking whether it's still connected? That makes no sense in regard to the server issues.

 

[Septimius]

So again, he is confirming stuff we know for a year.

Oh and about terraforming, Maxis graphics programmer said on reddit that it uses gpgpu features and its there in-game for example for roads to make ground a little flatter, but they are still working on it to enable it for for complete terrain rework.

Are you hired by EA? I've seen you in all SimCity threads doing nothing but trying to dowse the fire. This game is a scandal, and you say that's OK because there was a beta.

EDIT: Still, the biggest news is that you can continue to import and people can commute to other regions during offline play. You just can't load other regions, which makes sense since they're only stored on the server. This means if it weren't stored on the server, there'd be nothing against that, either.

 

[DocSeuss]

I already have Tropico, it's nice, but not what I am looking for in a simulator. It feels more like SimShantyTown tbh.

I would buy it used but there is nowhere around where I am that sells used PC games.

Destroy the shanties.

Build glorious mansions.

Build a space program.

Then why there is 50-100 MB of traffic per hour if it's only checking whether it's still connected? That makes no sense in regard to the server issues.

Downloading the data from other towns?

 

[Slygmous]

Then why there is 50-100 MB of traffic per hour if it's only checking whether it's still connected? That makes no sense in regard to the server issues.

It's sending Maxis your funny pictures folder.

 

[tonitoni]

I can't wait to see Arthur Gies' response. He insisted that all of this is "incorrect" and everyone who said otherwise "literally" didn't know what they're talking about.

https://twitter.com/aegies/status/310282795564015616

Wow, how can someone be this stupid? Being able to play the game offline for 20mins made it obvious for anyone capable of rational thinking that the online stuff was just DRM.

 

[eznark]

So again, he is confirming stuff we know for a year.

Oh and about terraforming, Maxis graphics programmer said on reddit that it uses gpgpu features and its there in-game for example for roads to make ground a little flatter, but they are still working on it to enable it for for complete terrain rework.

Did he mention how much they were planning to charge for the terraforming add on?

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Are you hired by EA? I've seen you in all SimCity threads doing nothing but trying to dowse the fire. This game is a scandal, and you say that's OK because there was a beta.

GlassBox alt.

 

[ElectricKaibutsu]

But you still need to be online to save? I hope some clever modder can fix that.

 

[funo]

There was an article a coupe of days ago in "Der Spiegel" - probably the biggest news magazine in Germany.

EA will react - I CAN FEEL IT!

I've read the article some days ago and it only underlines exactly my point:
The only people commenting the article are the same vocal minority that already knew about those issues beforehand. The rest has already bought the game or will buy it regardless.

They already have their money, this is Diablo 3 all over again (only worse).

At this point, the game has already paid for itself and they wouldn't even have to care for it anymore if it wasn't about those 62 DLCs that are already in the pipeline. Those are the only reason they have to keep apologizing and fixing the servers.

 

[Septimius]

But you still need to be online to save? I hope some clever modder can fix that.

The only way to mod it would be to program a server that pretends to be the EA server that you connect to locally. The only limiting factors is what kind of verification processes it runs. At this point, it seems the only thing that happens online is saving.

EDIT: Why? Because if I go to one of my towns in a region, and start exporting 10 kgal of water, then go to another city and go offline, I can still import 10 kgal of water. The only downside with this would be that another player in my region, who is online, could also import the water. But all that means is that we can have online and offline regions. If a region is online, you have to be online to play it. If it is offline, your computer updates the region values for the other cities as well, and everything is dandy.

 

[ebullientprism]

This is beautiful.

Bet money they will threaten to ban people who are using this.

 

[eznark]

The only way to mod it would be to program a server that pretends to be the EA server that you connect to locally. The only limiting factors is what kind of verification processes it runs. At this point, it seems the only thing that happens online is saving.

So it's all Kabuki theater meant to mask DRM after all.

Clever.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

The only way to mod it would be to program a server that pretends to be the EA server that you connect to locally. The only limiting factors is what kind of verification processes it runs. At this point, it seems the only thing that happens online is saving.

Could it not be modded to think that it is connecting to a server when really it is just connecting to an emulated one on your own hardware. The verification stuff could also all be emulated locally to fool the game into thinking it is online.

 

[ekim]

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a8bw7/how_to_mod_sim_city_2013_getting_started_basics/

Modding guide - I will have a look at this.

 

[Zemm]

metalmurphy are you ok? Post if you're ok.

 

[Tizoc]

Lol spore. I think everyone wants to forget about that game.

What was so bad about Spore btw? I recall having an interest in it years ago.

 

[Chriller]

What really makes me sad is all the people saying they will buy the game as soon as it's playable offline, either through mods or official patches. Have you learned nothing? Scumbag companies like this won't change, stop giving them money.