SimCity™

[fastitocalon]

Depending on which game they offer for free I might jump in on this, I think it was said that as long as you register by the 18th you qualify.

[Kamakazie]

It would be nice if they give out recent stuff like Dead Space 3.

[ksuohio]

I would not bet on anything of "value" being given away. It will probably be something like Crysis 2 or other game from 2008-2011.

[Timman_24]

I've been suspecting that the simulation is run server side. I thought this may be the case because of a number of reason: A) People from 3930k's to laptops have been talking about slow downs and graphical settings do not alleviate the problems B) The servers were hammered hard, which seems strange for something as simple as a login/matchmaker server and C) the ridiculously sized maps are a slap in the face to anyone that owns a semi-modern gaming rig. D) Why would disabling Cheetah speed matter if the client simply synced the save state every so often and didn't actually run sim code on the server? Well, it seems an EA spokesperson has confirmed my suspicions:

" That said, Bradshaw later tweeted "the game was designed for [multiplayer], we sim the entire region on the server, so [adding offline modes] is just not possible."

So there you have it. Simulation performance is tied not to your rig, but to their servers. Therefore, someone like me with an overclocked 2500k is stuck at the same simulation quality and scope as someone running a netbook. This is really bad news and I do not see a city size increase coming any time soon.

[flutie98]

I've been suspecting that the simulation is run server side. I thought this may be the case because of a number of reason: A) People from 3930k's to laptops have been talking about slow downs and graphical settings do not alleviate the problems B) The servers were hammered hard, which seems strange for something as simple as a login/matchmaker server and C) the ridiculously sized maps are a slap in the face to anyone that owns a semi-modern gaming rig. D) Why would disabling Cheetah speed matter if the client simply synced the save state every so often and didn't actually run sim code on the server? Well, it seems an EA spokesperson has confirmed my suspicions:



So there you have it. Simulation performance is tied not to your rig, but to their servers. Therefore, someone like me with an overclocked 2500k is stuck at the same simulation quality and scope as someone running a netbook. This is really bad news and I do not see a city size increase coming any time soon.

Good lord, who's genius idea was that? I would love to hear the justification.

[Kamakazie]

This weekend I was actually able to log on and play, so I think I got about 12 hours of game time in.

From what I can tell, some things are simulated client-side, some things are simulated server-side. Anything relating to resource trading seems to be done completely server-side, which would make sense since doing that relies on other players in your region / in the world. You are also constantly being affected by things in your region such as crime and pollution as well as the population and composition of your neighboring cities.

I took a screenshot of my region after creating some tourist spots in my city. You can see how the only tourists I'm getting are ones that actually exist from other cities in the region.



Asking for an "offline patch" for this game is asking for a different game entirely. This SimCity was clearly built from the ground-up as a multiplayer title.

[Timman_24]

That's why I'll be skipping this one, which is too bad. I like making a mega-city that is self-sustainable instead of relying on a bunch of friends to make small towns and hoping they log on to continue playing on a regular basis so my city doesn't stagnate. I simply do not see this game lasting a long time due to forcing multiplayer. It seems that the entire game should have simply been the multiplayer mode of a proper Sim City game. It won't have the legs of Sim City 4, which is still fantastic to this day.

[taggart6]

All I keep hearing is "Skip It" and so I must obey.

in other news...XCom is pure sex.

[fastitocalon]

I am getting big facebook game vibes from Sim City. Just seems like the decisions that were made are one step from "buy tokens for more electricity".

[richardginn]

That's why I'll be skipping this one, which is too bad. I like making a mega-city that is self-sustainable instead of relying on a bunch of friends to make small towns and hoping they log on to continue playing on a regular basis so my city doesn't stagnate. I simply do not see this game lasting a long time due to forcing multiplayer. It seems that the entire game should have simply been the multiplayer mode of a proper Sim City game. It won't have the legs of Sim City 4, which is still fantastic to this day.

I agree. I wanted to manage a large city by my self, not by needing help from someone else.

[Area51]

That's why I'll be skipping this one, which is too bad. I like making a mega-city that is self-sustainable instead of relying on a bunch of friends to make small towns and hoping they log on to continue playing on a regular basis so my city doesn't stagnate. I simply do not see this game lasting a long time due to forcing multiplayer. It seems that the entire game should have simply been the multiplayer mode of a proper Sim City game. It won't have the legs of Sim City 4, which is still fantastic to this day.

You can play your own private region so you don't have to rely on others. That doesn't really solve your problem entirely though, as you'll have to manage all of those cities yourself and can't make one giant city.

[Timman_24]

You can play your own private region so you don't have to rely on others. That doesn't really solve your problem entirely though, as you'll have to manage all of those cities yourself and can't make one giant city.

Its not the same. Then I'm stuck trying to min/max cities to provide specific resources like having a water city, electricity city, etc. Jeff talked about that a lot on giantbomb.com. Its too bad, because I've been playing some SimCity 4 Deluxe and making a huge city in 3D with nice graphics would have been awesome.

[taggart6]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...not-necessary/

Sounds like a single player option could be possible if EA and Maxis was truthful.

[richardginn]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...not-necessary/

Sounds like a single player option could be possible if EA and Maxis was truthful.

EA has some more explaining to doooo...

[taggart6]

This is a pretty great/funny read:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...mart-after-all

I didn't realize how rudimentary the AI and pathfinding was. I'd argue that maybe it was to reduce server load for simulation calculations but that's been debunked already.