SimCity is back, gaming is dead, RIP gaming.

[Abelian75]

Mother fucker, Kluwe is going to be the reason why I finally actually give a shit about twitter. Wtf, divisional rival and all...damn him.

As a Bears fan, I feel your pain.  But I love the dude.

[Phildo]

What do you expect from a school that got it's start bilking people with dreams of getting into the music business. The music business is even worse than game programming in terms of people who are willing to work for free doing your job for your boss.

Hah, ask me which program I went through!  I could do a whole thread on that place.

[MisterNoisy]

So I'm at a friend's place and we've both been trying to log in.  I got to play about five minutes before I got kicked.  I tried to log in after about four hours later and got greeted with this:

[Miasma]

Your city transcended into the ethereal, excellent, you should be on top of the leader boards.  If they were working.

[Segoris]

So I'm at a friend's place and we've both been trying to log in.  I got to play about five minutes before I got kicked.  I tried to log in after about four hours later and got greeted with this:

Is this a SimCity or an EA business model simulator?

As a Bears fan, I feel your pain.  But I love the dude.

:internet hi five.jpg:
Yeah, he's one of those divisional rivals which is tough to hate, good thing he's only a punter!

[Phred]

What do you expect from a school that got it's start bilking people with dreams of getting into the music business. The music business is even worse than game programming in terms of people who are willing to work for free doing your job for your boss.

Hah, ask me which program I went through!  I could do a whole thread on that place.

Ya we talked about that one day in Eve.

[rk47]

MN Vikings Punter goes on Twitter tirade RE:SimFail

http://kotaku.com/5989350/nfl-punter-kicks-the-crap-out-of-ea-and-simcity

 

Will this rescue EA from bad PR?

[tgr]

Whose EA executive cock is he sucking?

[luckton]

GameSpot review: 5.0 (Mediocre)

   What, did CBS not get any EA cash drops?

[eldaec]

Apologies if this is somewhere else in the thread, I can't find it:

What is this game actually using the internet connection for? As far as I can tell it isn't using the servers for actually running the sim, or is it?

[tgr]

Presumably just passing money/resources between cities, apparently the actual simulation etc is clientside.

[koro]

Apologies if this is somewhere else in the thread, I can't find it:

What is this game actually using the internet connection for? As far as I can tell it isn't using the servers for actually running the sim, or is it?

I mentioned it a page or two ago. If peoples' observations are correct, EA's servers are used for two things (three, if you count login services): cloud storage of saves and the handling of city-to-city interactions within a region.

Anything that is happening within your city - the individual Sims' routines, the power grid, the water and sewer lines, all that - is 100% being handled by your client on your PC. However, anything you do that affects another city - sending money, having citizens commute to a job, or even pollution spillover - is done on the server end. This is why shipments of resources, or money transfers, or commuting citizens will leave your city and properly deduct the correct amount from your stockpiles, but then the other city will never see the stuff, everything vanishing at the border.

For "single-player" there's no real good reason why your PC can't handle the inter-region stuff since you can only ever have one city active at any time, and for the actual multiplayer the load could probably have been split among the active players, like people seeding a torrent to each other.

It's all ham-fisted anti-piracy.

[Korachia]

So I'm at a friend's place and we've both been trying to log in.  I got to play about five minutes before I got kicked.  I tried to log in after about four hours later and got greeted with this:

I like the peacefulness and symmetry you got going there. Nice.

[Simond]

But of course, we're wrong again..

EA bribing review sites to hype up the latest release in an ongoing, once-beloved, series which is actually terrible and franchise-destroying?
But that never happens.

All we need now is for the usual suspects to start claiming that the players don't appreciate the art involved and should shut up and appreciate being shat upon. Well, the usual suspect that haven't been fired yet and their sites folded.

[luckton]

That 91 Metacritic score now stands at 79.  Depending on IGN and some of the other 'actual' reviewers, that may go down further.

[tgr]

Let's hope Maxis didn't sign an agreement with payouts being dependent on metacritic scores of >90%

[luckton]

Metacritic is still also using Polygon's original 95 score.  So, yeah, numbers are fun.

[Fabricated]

Stolen from SA; someone confirm:

simcity status: you can place parks in a city youre spectating which can also be used to remove buildings

Because ahahahahah

Also

[Khaldun]

If that gets confirmed, then this has just entered an immortal rank of fuck-ups going way beyond the always-online DRM shit.

[tgr]

You know, at this point I'm actively hoping that is the case.

[Yegolev]

So far, this is the Game Industry Event of 2013.

[Special J]

Found a good review...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FsrzqJNQF8

[Simond]

Also

Quick, someone make a SimCity version of this:

[Special J]

What's wrong IGN? Surely your fawning review has already been written...

[Paelos]

I find it funny that they've waited until NOW to worry about looking like cocksucking devwhores.

It's not like IGN is some bastion of credibility. Do you think that over there they still see themselves as journalists? I'd like to think they do, and that glowing review is sitting on an idealist editor's desk. And he's staring at it as his self-constructed contrived world of objective reporting falls around his ears.

[Malakili]

I find it funny that they've waited until NOW to worry about looking like cocksucking devwhores.

It's not like IGN is some bastion of credibility. Do you think that over there they still see themselves as journalists? I'd like to think they do, and that glowing review is sitting on an idealist editor's desk. And he's staring at it as his self-constructed contrived world of objective reporting falls around his ears.

Did they ever see themselves as journalists?

[MisterNoisy]

So my buddy got some play time in last night, presumably after most everyone else had given up.  All progress (about 3-4 hours' worth) lost upon reload.

[jakonovski]

OMG, I just got to play for an hour or so. Almost filled the map already.

[Hutch]

So my buddy got some play time in last night, presumably after most everyone else had given up.  All progress (about 3-4 hours' worth) lost upon reload.

Did e'er a poet pose
In so brief a tyme
Such comedy in his prose
Yet tragedy in his rhyme

[sickrubik]

Not really sure what the hate on Polygon is about. I kind of feel the same about IGN, but I don't visit that site for non-review issues. From what I've seen/heard from a lot of the staffs, they're solid.

[Sparky]

Not really sure what the hate on Polygon is about. I kind of feel the same about IGN, but I don't visit that site for non-review issues. From what I've seen/heard from a lot of the staffs, they're solid.

Their SimCity review was a PR puff piece that contained no useful criticism.  I understand someone might play a game and love it unconditionally but if you're writing what purports to be buying guide for your readers you owe it to them to cover well worn issues and point out stuff other people might have a big problem with.  Then once they'd done their bit selling the game they backpedal in the face of interwebs fury for more page views or maybe critics remorse.

They might be wonderful people and perhaps most of their content is great but they certainly didn't cover themselves in glory with this instance.  But we're talking about the site so I guess they win anyway argh.

[sickrubik]

Their SimCity review was a PR puff piece that contained no useful criticism.  I understand someone might play a game and love it unconditionally but if you're writing what purports to be buying guide for your readers you owe it to them to cover well worn issues and point out stuff other people might have a big problem with.  Then once they'd done their bit selling the game they backpedal in the face of interwebs fury for more page views or maybe critics remorse.

They might be wonderful people and perhaps most of their content is great but they certainly didn't cover themselves in glory with this instance.  But we're talking about the site so I guess they win anyway argh.

So, two questions, because I'm honestly curious. So, let's try to have this conversation without devolving into "BECAUSE 10" or "LAWL DEVWHORE".

What did they not put in the review initially that we wish they did? The server issues? -- Keep in mind, when they reviewed it, they HAD a stable server to play on before launch. They do mention the Always On stuff and what it means, if that's also an issue.

Secondly, would you not want them to revise their review as a warning to consumers?

From everything I've seen/heard (listening to a fair amount of podcasts) from these reviewers, I would never assume that they are DevWhores, especially sites like Polygon. The editors have been plenty critical in light of this situation and others. That's why I ask. The game seems plenty liked apart from the server issues, which ARE important and the sites I've seen have been covering it critically.

[Job601]

I don't plan to play this game and I certainly don't want to defend EA, but launch server issues are practically always ironed out within a few weeks -- should they really be a major component of a review score for a game that people are going to be playing for a long time?  The likely closing of the servers within ten years seems like a much bigger deal.

[trias_e]

Games have always been hammered for buggy release states.  This is even worse, because usually those bugs didn't make the game totally unplayable.  Bugs were usually ironed out by patches after release as well, but that didn't save such awesome games as say Vampire: Bloodlines from being shit on by reviewers.  It's true that most of the connectivity problems will be fixed, but reviewers can't lie about their experience:  If the game doesn't work in the window of time the game is supposed to be review in, it doesn't work and doesn't deserve a passing grade.

Also consider that the problem here is worse than say, Diablo 3's error 37, because it actually effects gameplay and saves once you are in the game as well.  It's not simply a matter of 'can't connect to server', it's also that when you connect to the server the game isn't functional, your save is likely to get lost, and your city is liable to griefed by others abusing bugs.  Combining this with the fact that Sim City's raison d'etre doesn't depend on online play whatsoever makes the issues even more criticizable.

[tgr]

Online DRM has been a fact of gaming for 5 years now, you would've thought some of the bigger review sites would oh I dunno catch on to this and oh I dunno preemptively warn people that this might very well be an issue.

Oh wait, that would imply not getting a preview copy and/or bribe money.