Maxis: SimCity woes are 'almost behind us,' but still not ready to give the 'all-clear'

We all know where this heading, and that is EA has a horrible reputation on removing their game servers after a short period. I use to purchase their golf games, and the straw that broke the camels back was when just after 3 months they pulled their online game servers.

See, the way I see it all, EA is about milking the public for everything it's worth, and they will keep their servers running until they figure that very few people are left playing the game, and as always they will drop their servers because they cost a small fortune to keep running, and not to mention the amount of staff to keep working out the bugs,m and trouble shooting the system.

Expect EA to drop these servers just like any other gaming server they have put up. So expect that to happen... Once they do, people will all be up in arms about it, and all they have to do to shut everyone up is to offer up a new game for free like they are doing now, and that keeps the little lemmings out there happy as pigs in shit until they decide on what else they can come up to milk you some more...

DRM can be blamed but in this day and age most of the US gamers are not pirates.  We buy what we enjoy.  Some pirate to test the waters before spending if there is no demo.  I been gaming over 20 years and the few games I did crack I learned it was not worth  it.  I found issues with stability and took the chance for viruses and other crap being able to be put on my machine.

Always on drm seems to never work well for the consumer.  Diablo 3 was a mess.  MMO's have issues with server trouble and people paying and not being able to play.  Sim City is a game that should have a cd check or just an online check to authenticate it but keep it simple so people can play it on laptops  on the move.

I simply did not buy it nor will I.  Goes back to when Starforce was a drm of choice....if you do not agree...do not give them your dollars.

Online-only is just asking for disaster at some point. EA has botched every major multiplayer game launch in recent memory. They never seem to supply enough servers to meet demand.

I really like this game... as long as I can get on a server, get back to my private region and play it as if the rest of the world doesn't exist.  The minute I have to think about or remember that other players are out there, it intrudes on my enjoyment. Yes I paid for it, and I'm getting my money's worth.  Sure, I won't be able to play it in 10 years.  There are so very few games I ever do that with, and I'll live with it.  But even though I'll defend the game and my purchase, the insistence that it MUST be online is simply asinine.  It plays fine, nay _better_ if you ask me, when I ignore all of its social features.  I couldn't even find a region with an empty city to even try to play it "as intended."  And if I did, since there is no save /load, its totally possible to paint your city into a corner and just abandon it.  And that screws the other people in your region more than you'd think.   Overall its a neat idea, but it is blatantly obvious that it should have been optional.

You got me, I'm a paid shill for EA.  I'm the guy they send to the GS office to muscle around Kevin and Carolyn when they give bad reviews and I deliver the bribe money for when they do good reviews.  You're all so clever.

We are the reason we can't have nice things.  I don't blame game developers for putting DRM stuff in game when they spent the last two decades losing money hand over fist to unscrupulous pirates who get off stealing anything and everything that anyone puts out.  Look at your dusty old box of pirated xbox games and you'll have the answer to why we all have to put up with DRM.

Sorry kids, if consumers could be trusted and weren't rampant thieves then all this DRM wouldn't be necessary.  

You say "offline multiplayer" and I hear "I want to steal this game".

Grow up and pay the developers you cheap entitled crybabies, DRM is a reaction to your complete lack of scruples.

Picked it up Friday and have put in over 30 hours with only one minor issue (A server reboot at like 4am Saturday morning) otherwise everything is working as I imagine it is supposed to be working.  

The game is lots of fun.

A funny thing about the online part is that you cant really play that well with others... 

I mean a mate started up a 16 city game for us to mess about in, its on server x however server x has a 20 min before it will even try logging in, but server y is open now. Now you may say ah well move the group to server y if its not too developed yet BUT in an hours time server y becomes too busy and server x is now up. We cant all work on a region because the chances are very slim all of us could actually get on the same server, and even if we did its pure random luck if we could ever managed to get back if we leave the game for a spell.

It happens in single player too, I have cities in 3 servers as they keep becoming too busy so there is no continuing here, you are at the mercy of the servers which place you get to play in... want to carry on developing that casino joint on server z, fuck you only server y is up, or you could wait 20 - 50 min and maybe we will let you in.

 The game itself is quiet fun and I have had a number of hours of enjoyment out of it, its just a pity the online and DRM issues plague honest customers while EA ignores the core issue ... too busy counting its ill gotten gains again.

Potential customers told Maxis and EA way before release that they do not want, nor care for a permanent online requirement for this title, then again in Maxis' AMA on Reddit, then again in previews and now again in the reviews.

The score this game received post release is the result, so this bad reception shouldn't be of any surprise to them.

They had more than enough time to rethink their approach and change development to result in a product which their customers would actually be glad to put money down for, but chose to ignore all that feedback.

Until it is playable offline with the same feature set as the current online only version and doesn't require EA's Origin, I'll continue to not buy this and do my best to warn and inform all potential customers about what they're getting themselves into.

It shouldn't be that hard to code in the offline save / load routines and simulate the region offline (just a little bit of manipulation of "global market" and resource sharing numbers that any CPU can easily handle) and allow parameterisation of that for custom region settings.

Make it playable offline, remove Origin exclusivity and requirement, allow private servers and we'll talk - do none of that and you'll keep being disappointed about the game's reception and bad sales figures.
All this marketing toon from Maxis is doing is trying to do damage control and talk nonsense (before release, in interviews and now post release).

The game itself is actually not that bad, despite all the limitations which are improvable / fixable, it's for the most part primarily "only" about the online requirement and EA's Origin exclusivity and requirement why customers chose to not buy this.

Origin's connection to SimCity is still a MESS. Friends are playing the game in my Origin list but I join the game and it shows NOBODY PLAYING. The chat is broken, too. What the hell.

One more thing, posting EA/Maxis propaganda about the game being fixed when most of your userbase is complaining about the game being broken is ridiculous.

I suggest GAMESPOT reframe from posting 'opinions' from EA upper management about the game being fixed until they INDEPEDANTLY VERIFY that it is actually god damn true, because it isnt. Sure it kinda works, as in, you dont get denied IN to the server 90% of the time, its about 10% now, is that actually good though? about what about the 1000 other issues now that we are inside the game and it crashing all the time.

The fact you posted this tripe makes me want to switch to another gaming review website. Might use IGN for a month.