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I'd just like to say that I'm very proud and humbled to have my "SimCity recap" quoted in both the OP and the second post this time around. If it helps prevent only a single innocent person from squandering their hard-earned money, it'll have been worth it. 
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May 1, 2013 21:43
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Yodzilla posted:Simcity is second the most entertaining game you never have to play. Less than EVE Online but more than Aliens: Colonial Marines. Exactly, there have been absolute tons of enjoyment gleaned out of the previous thread, and I never spent one dime on it.  In all seriousness, the game to me stopped having even the potential for being fun when it was revealed that a lot of the problems people were having were not just results of sloppy code, but actual game design decisions and steps taken to make the game seem deeper than it actually was. Once I heard about how the game fudged the population numbers (so that the game will complain about unemployed Sims that don't even exist), I knew then that any fun to be gained from it was going to be fleeting at best.
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May 1, 2013 22:01
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Air Julio posted:This isn't true. The overall population numbers are fudged, but the real numbers are in the "details" section of the population window. Only time the game will complain about jobless problems are when the real numbers say so. I haven't played the game so I didn't know about the "details" section. I was just going off of what I've read around here and various other forums/sites (more than a few people were confused as to why the game kept reporting their city had unemployment, even though their "population"--at least, before taking the fudged population numbers into account--should have been more than adequate to fill the jobs). Along with that, how many people are going to intuitively know to use the "details" section vs. the "default" population numbers? And why didn't EA/Maxis just make sure the two numbers actually matched up? E: Drogadon posted:Does anyone know if Amazon are taking the loss for this? If not I will request a refund too. I believe they are making EA cover the costs, which I would guess is why EA apparently started banning/rescinding a bunch of game key codes that originated from Amazon (even ones that hadn't been attached somehow to a refund request) in an apparent fit of pique. Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 00:01 on May 2, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 23:59
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AnoMouse posted:Thanks for the replies. I overreacted there, I saw the quote and from what I had read in the thread, assumed he was referring to core features as opposed to some unnecessarily complex system. Yeah, my apologies, I should have included a link to the relevant article where the dev said that (and thanks to Broken Loose for filling in the gaps). I pretty much just forgot about it after typing up that wall of text.  Mister Adequate posted:If it helps, I wasn't eager to get it anyway, but your recap has sealed the deal. Unless massive changes are made or I get the thing for zero pennies I won't be getting a hold of it.  I would say a better use of that money would definitely be to donate it to your favorite charity, or by supporting another game developer or some of your favorite artists/musicians/writers. Or even just use it to put food on the table and gas in your car. Anything is better than supporting EA's shoddy business practices by buying this game.
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May 2, 2013 00:17
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Undead Unicorn posted:The op quote mentions this game was a failure right? Was it one financially at all or just from a creative standpoint? Seriously EA white knighting is a getting annoying to me online. It was definitely a failure from a creative standpoint (E: except maybe for the graphics/graphical design of the game, which are both very much YMMV sorts of things). Financially, we don't know yet for sure (and probably won't for a while). EA was already having problems prior to this (hence their CEO resigning and their laying off a bunch of people recently), so while I don't think this game would necessarily have been a huge blow to their finances like SW:TOR's flopping was, it definitely came at a time when they really needed a highly visible success. Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 00:27 on May 2, 2013 |
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May 2, 2013 00:24
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Air Julio posted:As far as why? Man, who knows. That's pretty much the only answer we can supply to many of the "why did EA/Maxis do/not do whatever" questions, sadly. 
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May 2, 2013 00:40
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Magnitogorsk. posted:The game is actually well designed in my opinion. Pretty much all the problems are related to the technical implementation of the design. A lot of people have a hard time making the distinction between those two things though. quote:simcity.GetFudgedPopulation = function (a) { quote:kNoRepeatNetworkAlertSeconds : 15, Fudging population numbers and an "always online" mode that can be disabled by commenting out two lines of code: truly, hallmarks of a well-designed game.
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May 2, 2013 19:39
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The "disable two lines of code for offline mode" is, to me, a pretty good example of just how poorly this game was both designed and implemented. The game was pretty clearly designed from the ground up around the "need" for an "always online" mode. EA wanted it for various reasons (DRM, cash shop, and so on). Every subsequent decision about the game's design had to flow from that original decision to have an online mode. So I think that in many ways, the game's design is likely the root of many (if not all) of the various problems that were subsequently discovered (once they got past the initial (launch day servers fiasco", that is). Could all of those problems have been avoided if the game was offline-only, or if the online mode was optional? I would say "no"; it's likely that there were always going to be various things that would have cropped up regardless of whether the game was online or not. But I do think that the "always online" requirement forced the developers to make certain design choices that they might not normally have made if they didn't have to keep a (completely unnecessary) online mode in mind. To be sure, the technical implementation side of things also comes in for its' fair share of criticism. The fact that such a "crucial" feature like "always online" was poorly implemented by just writing a script that says "ping the servers and turn the game off if it doesn't respond after 20 minutes" is pretty indicative that a lot of the people who were coding stuff didn't really know what they were supposed to be doing (or just didn't give a poo poo). Now, whether that's down to the design team not communicating what they wanted properly, or the coding team not understanding what they were being asked to do, is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
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May 2, 2013 20:45
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I still feel that a lot of the game's flaws were very likely rooted in its' design, but on the same token I am neither a game designer or coder, so I won't continue to belabor that point and will defer to those who have more experience with those fields. At the end of the day, regardless whether it was poor design or poor technical implementation or a combination of both, I think we can all agree that the game wasn't what people were led to expect it to be; and that a lot of paying customers (and potential paying customers) were left bitterly disappointed, as a previously highly-anticipated and highly-respected IP was ruthlessly exploited for every ounce of gamer goodwill before being abandoned and left for dead. 
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May 2, 2013 21:22
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DeclaredYuppie posted:Please tell me that's a photoshop. 
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May 3, 2013 01:13
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ToastyPotato posted:According to the financial docs linked in the previous thread, they are currently not a particularly profitable company, and have not been for quite some time. So them killing the Sims and anything with Sim in it would be a huge blow for the company, because they literally need any bit of profit that they can get. Just to add to this, let's all keep in mind that CEOs of hugely successful and profitable companies don't step down just because one project flopped unexpectedly. EA has been in trouble for a while now, and while the failure of SimCity is not going to be the one thing that puts them down THQ-style, it certainly couldn't have come at a worse time for EA, which is a company that desperately needs to wash the stench of failure off itself and really didn't expect (or want, or need) SC to be such a high-profile failure. Riccitiello's departure (golden parachute aside) is a pretty good indicator that things are definitely not going well in EA-land.
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May 5, 2013 20:09
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Croccers posted:Food agents in the Sims getting lost and getting stuck in their feet. Poop agents piling up in their hands? Instead of a bunch of firetrucks all showing up to a single fire, all the firemen in town will show up and run around in circles around your Sim's burning house, until it finally collapses into a pile of smoking rubble and dead Sims. At which point the firemen will cheerfully warn your now-dead Sims not to report any more "fake" fires, send them a bill, and will probably even flirt with the ghosts of one or two of them.
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May 5, 2013 20:55
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Croccers posted:I think we're missing the best bug. Your sim will go off to work and when they return they'll be replaced with a random Townie until the next work day. This will be labeled a "feature" by EA, which they will claim gives the game a whole new challenge, as every day your Sim will develop new careers and relationships by virtue of always going to random houses and jobs.
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May 5, 2013 21:06
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Peven Stan posted:At this point it seems like the only way to shore up waning interest in this turd is to go on a fire sale. I'm going to hold out until its $5, personally. I was going to say "EA will shut the servers down before they ever do that", but upon further reflection I could easily see them selling it for $5 on a weekend...then once the sale is finished, they announce they are shutting the SC servers down at the end of the month.
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May 6, 2013 05:00
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Magmarashi posted:I hope they have to yardsale the whole Sims/Sim City set, writing it off as dead IP, and then some good company picks it up and runs rear end-on-fire with it straight into a smash hit revival that gets all the money. It'd be great if they were both acquired some day by a company that really works at integrating the two concepts. Imaging building a city in a proper version of SC, then buying the Sims, loading up your previously created city, and placing your Sim (or Sims) in a small neighborhood-like section of it to go about their lives. 
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May 6, 2013 10:34
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Croccers posted:They've tried something similar in the past and it was.... ok. I guess it could work but what would be the point really? I do remember being all geeked to drive around in Streets of SimCity, but I also remember feeling pretty underwhelmed at the actual experience, too. So maybe the concept I had in mind isn't all that it's cracked up to be. :-/
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May 6, 2013 11:32
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I stopped by my local Walmart the other day, and not only was the game still on sale (though I wasn't really surprised by that), but they still had a big display up for it, and it was still at the full retail price of $60 (I was a bit surprised at this, after having heard many stores had slashed the price in half). I can only hope not that too many people are still getting suckered in by the display and the "Winner of 26 Awards!  " stuff.
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May 6, 2013 17:46
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If there's one positive thing we can take away from all of this, it's that you should buy games from Amazon whenever possible. Their customer service really went above and beyond in trying to keep people happy, and they basically told EA to go gently caress themselves if they didn't like it.
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May 6, 2013 19:47
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Lord Lambeth posted:I would've thought it would have been shut down by now if it wasn't somehow profitable. Clearly they've managed to wring some money out of it. Either that or it was deemed Too Big to Fail within EA, and they made the move to F2P in the hopes of using a cash shop to recoup some more of the $200-300 million they spent on development and marketing, which I honestly think is probably the more likely option. After all, they still have Warhammer Online going, and I don't think they've made any serious money off that game since it was released. They're hoping that people don't bother to research WAR or TOR or SC, and just blindly spend money on it; or else that existing players are stubborn/hopeful enough to spend money on it in the hopes that it gets better.
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May 7, 2013 03:38
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OLIVIAS WILDE RIDER posted:They also spent $250 million dollars making a WoW-from-2005 clone on an unfinished engine, to be fair to them. And just like SimCity, it quickly became evident that they half-assed the game and expected to make a mint based solely on the IP's name value!
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May 7, 2013 03:57
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euphronius posted:It wasn't half assed they just didn't quite get it right with the fun aspect I think. To be fair, shoving a big check at the third-party game engine's devs--while ignoring their cries of "it's not ready for prime time yet"--does take some work and dedication.
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May 7, 2013 04:22
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OLIVIAS WILDE RIDER posted:Remember: Either that's a paid EA shill, or else that person has the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome I've seen in years.
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May 9, 2013 04:59
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Clark Nova posted:So has anybody floated the That particular theory has been floated quite a bit around here, and it's not really all that  when you consider the "beta testing" period consisted of some short, time-limited betas that were really only done to spike interest in the game and not much more. They didn't even stress-test the servers, so I have no doubts that they hoped to steal away with a big sack of non-refundable video game money like a thief in the night, before people realized the gameplay was as shallow as a puddle. I would imagine Amazon and other outlets deciding to value customer retention over keeping EA happy put a bit of a kibosh on that.
Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 16:39 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 16:35
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elf help book posted:They would rather you keep playing this forever so they can sell you DLC. The Sims 3 has 9 expansion packs, 2 more announced, 8 "Stuff" packs, 1 more of those announced, and an entire online store of items you can buy, including chests with random items like F2P mmos and TF2. This is also true and something I forgot to mention in my previous post. It really does seem that EA/Maxis probably figured they could get away with releasing a very shallow game that also would prompt tons of DLC sales, to gamers who either would be desperate to get the game working, or who would just gloss over its' flaws because it's a nice-looking game. Basically it's pretty clear that EA just thinks gamers are morons with poor impulse control, and has viewed gamers in that way for quite some time now.
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May 9, 2013 16:53
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:I'll fully admit I was expecting a shallow, but still somewhat playable game that would be enhanced by DLC. I figured we would have a solid core from which the game could be built upon, and that over time I would've purchased DLC to add more content over time. Something like an enhanced traffic pack would've been golden for me. The problem with that is the core game has to be pretty bulletproof. It has to be playable by both people who never intend to spend dime one on DLC, and by completists who get everything as soon as it comes out. SC is far from bulletproof because it's pretty obvious they expected it to be DLC-centric from the word go. E: It's the same problem facing a lot of MMOs, which is why a lot of people are saying the F2P model (and variants of it, like SC's "buy once, play forever") is going to be hitting a wall before too long. Also, maybe it's just me, but properly-working traffic is pretty much a core concept in a city sim game and shouldn't be "enhanced" by DLC. If they want to offer prettier or more advanced forms of handling traffic (like, say, a fancy maglev train or something like that), that's fine, but basic street-level traffic should be working from the get-go. In my opinion anyways. Reason posted:I really hope those awesome modders do something to unleash SimCity, some of the stuff that let you build in regions looked promising and if they could open up an entire region and offline mode I'd probably play the game. I think even the modders have given up on this game. Why bother to spend time tweaking a game that still relies on Origin to start up, and that can potentially be shut down by a simple "see what files have changed" check? Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 17:08 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 17:06
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Burning Mustache posted:It also has been working out pretty well for them so far, so there has to be some truth to that Canine Blues Arooo posted:The overwhelming success of the preorder system seem to indicate that they are right. Yeah, that's the saddest part of all. EA was just operating on what was already a well-proven strategy.
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May 9, 2013 18:14
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Buried alive posted:I dunno, maybe I'm just a slight masochist and want to personally experience all of the crap that apparently goes on (no left turns unless there's an intersection, but four-way intersections tend to cause traffic jams, so...). Basically it seems like the game is handicapped, but I want to see if I can build a successful city anyway. This is mostly coming from the fact that, having not experienced it directly myself I think I can come up with something workable. This would not be the first time that I was proven totally wrong, but if it requires Origin it's never going to happen. Oh well. I can sympathize because I like watching terrible movies purely for the value that's gotten out of laughing at them/shouting at the TV in bewilderment. But yeah, the only way you can play is by using Origin. Hell, the only way you can install the game is through Origin, I think even the boxed DVD just has a skeleton install and an Origin key code. So I can't even advise you to wait until it hits the $5 or $2 bin (like I do with terrible movies), because you'd still need Origin even then. :-/
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May 13, 2013 22:09
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Humans Among Us posted:But you can make a city and come back at night to find it's now a ghost city !! I know it's not what you meant, but I now suddenly want a game where instead of crime or garbage, you have the ghosts of recently deceased Sims piling up. And instead of a police station or a garbage dump, you have to plop down a building that sends the Grim Reaper out to get them.
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May 13, 2013 22:40
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Buried alive posted:There sounds like some potential in this. Sort of a cross between black & white and SimCity where your earthly city just becomes a resource to fill up your hell/heaven city. There was a game like that in the mid-1990s called Afterlife, LucasArts produced it and it was basically just as you described (create the infrastructure to send people to heaven or hell). It's one of those games that really should get a modern makeover (one that's done well, mind you, not like the current SimCity ).
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May 13, 2013 22:47
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Buried alive posted:So, in summary..the game is a buggy mess and you wind up with non-consistent cities that succeed when they should be failing? How do you make money in a pure residential, 0% tax city? Could you make a city that's all industry and have that succeed at all? If you can't ever fail that just..takes all the fun out of it. I think someone in the previous thread said that SC's game design should have been whittled down even further to just "click a button, get a graphic happen, hooray! ", because that's the level of complexity EA was apparently seeking.
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May 14, 2013 03:53
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FreelanceSocialist posted:I just started pretending that the game is actually SimRussia: Vodka Boogaloo and suddenly all the bugs and mind-boggling and inexplicable happenings are much more entertaining. Car spin in circle all day? Russia! Firetruck fly through air? Not worry! Is Russia! Tree make air pollution? Have vodka, friend! Tree always air pollute in Russia! "Is not nuclear plant meltdown, comrade! Is merely Chernobyl Disaster Simulator!" 
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May 15, 2013 19:41
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TheAbortionator posted:I read the thread during the launch week and the general consensus was the game was good when it worked, so I figured I would wait until the servers got fixed to try it. I didn't check the SA threads 2 weeks ago when I ordered it but I read a bunch of reviews on Meta Critic, and most of them were favorable. Not to pick on you, but did you just read the thread during the one week, figured everything was cool, and never bothered to check back in for like a whole month or something? poo poo, people were discovering weird bugs and counter-intuitive quirks by the end of the second week (when they could get in, anyways). By sheer coincidence, the old thread was closed and the new thread was opened precisely two weeks ago. Did you see the new thread title and just assume it was an ironic joke? In all seriousness, though: if you can, I would strongly urge you to seek a refund from Amazon. Out of all the parties involved in this whole mess, they at least managed to come out looking like champs (due to their sterling customer service in regards to telling EA that they were giving refunds and if EA didn't like it, they could go piss up a rope). Although, at this point even Amazon may figure caveat emptor and tell you you're out of luck. But, it's worth a shot.
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May 16, 2013 05:19
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Again, see if you can maybe get a refund from Amazon, they have been pretty good about issuing them (though I'm not quite so sure if they will this far out after release, but it's worth a try). If not, then just chalk it up to experience I guess, and just file it away for the next time a heavily-hyped game comes out sometime down the road.
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May 16, 2013 06:53
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WHAT A GOOD DOG posted:I think that's pretty cool. An open-air information center with text in most languages, pictographs, etc. I could see some Fallout cult using the area as a shrine of sorts or something. That seems pretty cool. When SC2013 eventually implements subways, a nuclear power plant meltdown will give rise to a cult of telepathic mutants that inhabit random areas of the subways, searching for a nuclear bomb to worship.
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May 17, 2013 19:31
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Ssthalar posted:
By who? Consumer protections are pretty much non-existent here in the USA these days, and there probably weren't enough people who bought that game to make trying to file a class-action suit worthwhile. Even if there were, EA would either just shove truckloads of money at lawyers to fight anyone who tried to bring legal action against them, or they'd just try to ride it out long enough to be able to say that the company is now bankrupt (after handing out a few more golden parachutes to departing execs, of course). The deck is pretty thoroughly stacked these days.
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Jul 1, 2013 00:04
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