Sim City 5 (2013) - Sim<parameter: string>

[Kisamoo]

Can't play ATM cause servers are down or something l0l. Pyongyang recently just had a lizard attack and meteor shower, I must tend to thee.

edit: works after a few trys << NM FALSE POSITIVE FKING GAME AHHHH

btw who wants to found BG Valley and get some wonder building goin? Finally getting the hang of making a city! I recently tanked Pyongyang after I bought one of those high class casinos and for some fucking reason it began costing me like 60k a day while my other casinos were hella profitable, lol.

[Necronus]

Except we really want the game, because we have played its original incarnations and there is nothing else like it on the market (or at least as good). If the hoops were genuinely as bad as we think they are, we wouldn't put up with it. But we do, because the product is worth it. When it no longer becomes worth it, people will automatically stop supporting it.

Want a good example? When was the last time you bought a sports game? It's been almost a decade for me because the gameplay is so terribad for me that it's not worth the hassle to play something I used to genuinely like. The crap wasn't worth it any more, and so I stopped supporting it.

Exactly! If you think it's worth it then that's fine. But then presumably you can't expect online single player DRM to go away. The people I have issues with are the people who say its the worst thing ever and who still buy the game. Its not a have your cake and eat it too situation... you have to pick one ... make a stand or feed your addiction. Right now I'm battling hard (and mentally losing) to make a stand. Anyone claiming its extortion, or a monopoly, or just "something we have to live with" is just plain wrong.

And just for fun, my last sports game were probably all SNES era. (And Tecmo Throwback on PS3)

[Ohemgee]

MLB The Show is pretty amazing. And NBA 2k13 (but I downloaded that, so I guess "purchase" doesn't count)

Why can't I play with a really good AI? This is beyond dumb

[Trichocyst]

I really, really, want this game, but I just can't see putting $60 down for a game that feels like it's licensed to me rather than bought by me. I've bought a few MLB games over the years trying to recapture the magic of MVP 2005. It hasn't happened yet.

[Arkanna]

Exactly! If you think it's worth it then that's fine. But then presumably you can't expect online single player DRM to go away. The people I have issues with are the people who say its the worst thing ever and who still buy the game. Its not a have your cake and eat it too situation... you have to pick one ... make a stand or feed your addiction. Right now I'm battling hard (and mentally losing) to make a stand. Anyone claiming its extortion, or a monopoly, or just "something we have to live with" is just plain wrong.

And just for fun, my last sports game were probably all SNES era. (And Tecmo Throwback on PS3)

I beg to differ.

We DO just have to live with it, because "we" don't speak as a collective. We don't have the bargaining power to change a thing. I may be dead-set against online DRM, but it doesn't matter whether I buy the game or not. Enough OTHER people will buy it that my little stand doesn't mean a goddamn thing. It's just like voting in a president of the United States ... everyone says, "VOTE! Every vote counts!" but like hell it does.

Yes, if every other person out there thought exactly alike, then boycotting any game with online DRM as a huge group would work. But that's not the reality of the situation; nobody gives a shit what you or I do, they're gonna buy the game if they want to play it, and thus online DRM will perpetuate. That's why we can't do a damn thing about it.

[Lucavi]

If people truly wanted this to stop, those servers would have been a ghost town as everyone would have made the smart decision and not bought it.

In other words, as much as I'd like to rip EA a new asshole, its not their fault ... its the gaming community ... every one of us ... whether we bought D3 (totally wish I hadn't) or Anno 2070 or SimCity .. or everything online DRM related.

I mean ... didn't EA announce last week that their permanant model going forward is that every game will now be online with microtransactions? We let this happen.

You, as a mega-corp, completely purchase a smaller company known for making quality products, knowing that the people love those products, and you sit on the IPs for nearly a decade before releasing a new product, with your toxic hands all over it, and you know people are going to buy it.

I waited 10 years for a new Sim City, Necro. This isn't some yearly franchise like CoD. This isn't some Assasin's creed that comes out every third Sunday. Ten years I, and a lot of others, have waited for a new Sim City. You think I'm going to not buy it?

-We- didn't let shit happen. -I- never paid for a microtransaction in a game that has a base price tag, and never will. The only games -I- will support that has microtransactions are those that are either free (dota2), low cost initially (TF2), or are less expensive than their competitors (GW2 compared to paid sub MMOs). You can try that self-defeating bullshit if you want, but I didn't cause EA to wind up becoming a gigantic fucktard that uses every last method to squeeze any dollar they can out of any consumer they can.

I don't want to hear your hipster bullshit. You can "fight the power" however you want. I "fight the power" by rarely buying anything that has EA's hands on it, but I do so knowing that I cannot and will not change EA; I simply spend that $60 elsewhere. I pirate where and when I can, especially when it comes to EA, and unlike other games that I've pirated in the past, I do -not- make the eventual purchase when it comes to EA. The last thing I actively purchased from them after pirating were a few command and conquer games, but years later, when they came out for steam and cost all of $5 bucks a piece.

Save your torch-and-pitchfork speal for someone who cares. No single person on this forum can "stop" EA from raping the average gamer. You don't just "boycott" a franchise that's been on the back-seat for a solid decade, with 0 quality competitors on the market.

Edit: Oh, and by the way, servers are down. Playing a 2-city region alone, by myself, and if I stay logged in, I have to know that nothing will be saved from that point on. Should I log off or switch cities, I cannot log back in.

This is the future of EA.

[Quicklet]

Two points.

First, despite the fact that "servers are busy", I don't think there's any way to gauge the immediate (or long-term) success of the game. D3 sold a ridiculous amount, and sure it made Blizzard plenty of money, but the test will be how the expansion / console numbers do and if so many people were put off by the bad launch and initial design that it hurts the subsequent products. Same with Simcity. It will probably do well financially, but will future DLC purchases hold up or will people lose interest in the game? (Sidenote: it's also possible their server infrastructure is just terrible or they decided not to invest much money into it. This is EA after all.)

Second, there's some irony in that even if people were to get fed up with poor game design and always-on DRM, poor sales would only get a response from the publisher of "Oh, well I guess people aren't interested in buying sim games anymore."

[Arkanna]

Second, there's some irony in that even if people were to get fed up with poor game design and always-on DRM, poor sales would only get a response from the publisher of "Oh, well I guess people aren't interested in buying sim games anymore."

This, very much this. Even if SimCity tanked hard due strictly to the online DRM, that's exactly what would be said.

[Hank]

Anyone claiming its extortion, or a monopoly, or just "something we have to live with" is just plain wrong

You lump the first two with the third option like they're not mutually exclusive. Addressing the reality of a situation doesn't mean I have to like it.

Simcity 5 the only SimCity 5, and it is sold by one company. That's a monopoly on a product, guy. I don't want other city sim games, I want that one. I can't get it elsewhere. Obviously I was exaggerating with calling it extortion, but the principle is the same. If I want SimCity, I must follow EA's regulations.

Of course I could choose not to buy it, but that's missing my point entirely. I could choose not to buy Pepsi if Acme has it as expensive. Or I could go to one of a dozen stores in my area and find it cheaper. And once I have my cola, Pepsi sure as shit can't dictate how I consume it.

[Necronus]

-We- didn't let shit happen. -I- never paid for a microtransaction in a game that has a base price tag, and never will. The only games -I- will support that has microtransactions are those that are either free (dota2), low cost initially (TF2), or are less expensive than their competitors (GW2 compared to paid sub MMOs). You can try that self-defeating bullshit if you want, but I didn't cause EA to wind up becoming a gigantic fucktard that uses every last method to squeeze any dollar they can out of any consumer they can.

I don't want to hear your hipster bullshit. You can "fight the power" however you want. I "fight the power" by rarely buying anything that has EA's hands on it, but I do so knowing that I cannot and will not change EA; I simply spend that $60 elsewhere. I pirate where and when I can, especially when it comes to EA, and unlike other games that I've pirated in the past, I do -not- make the eventual purchase when it comes to EA. The last thing I actively purchased from them after pirating were a few command and conquer games, but years later, when they came out for steam and cost all of $5 bucks a piece.

Don't misread me, that's why I put the disclaimer that I know I'm part of the problem. I know that me not buying this game does dick to stop the problem, considering the number of people who do ... or the number of people who drop hundreds of dollars into microtransactions of EA games like Sims 3. But that doesn't invalidate what I'm saying. Until the gaming community stops their habits, EA has zero reason to change, and zero reason not to add online DRM and microtransactions to single and multiplayer games alike. Hell, that's why I finally caved on D3 when it came out ... I finally said to myself "well, its not like me not buying this will do anything". But if I do that, and you do that, and every single gamer does that, then we all bought the game and validated every one of EA/Ubisoft/etc decisions. That's ALL I'm saying.

Oh, and Quicklet ... my original point was directed at SimCity, but yeah, you're right, mass failure of SimCity not selling would just kill off the franchise. The ENTIRE gaming community has to change ... simultaneously ... and that's what makes us all give up. Unless everyone playing every genre stops buying every game with invasive DRM, then yeah we're fucked. It's the Sparticus problem ... and well, no one EVER wants to be the first guy to step forward and say "I'm Sparticus" only to realize no one else did. If just that happened, EA would just put a bullet in SimCity's head and move on.

[Necronus]

You lump the first two with the third option like they're not mutually exclusive. Addressing the reality of a situation doesn't mean I have to like it.

Simcity 5 the only SimCity 5, and it is sold by one company. That's a monopoly on a product, guy. I don't want other city sim games, I want that one. I can't get it elsewhere. Obviously I was exaggerating with calling it extortion, but the principle is the same. If I want SimCity, I must follow EA's regulations.

Of course I could choose not to buy it, but that's missing my point entirely. I could choose not to buy Pepsi if Acme has it as expensive. Or I could go to one of a dozen stores in my area and find it cheaper. And once I have my cola, Pepsi sure as shit can't dictate how I consume it.

Um, but right now you can buy it on Origin or Amazon, can you not? Amazon is free to charge more or less for SimCity if they wish. The actual mechanics or operations of a product is not a monopoly. If you don't like whats inside a Pepsi can it doesn't matter if you got it at Acme or somewhere else.

(FYI, going from video game to drink makes these comparisons really hard, but I'll roll with it ... just ignore how utterly ridiculous they are ... I'm bored at work so this may be fun).

If tomorrow, Pepsi started shipping all cans/bottles inside a metal box which were activated at a register (a la Gift Cards) and which could only be opened with your personal Pepsi Authenticator after registering your activated metal box online when you got home, that would be pretty close to DRM for soda (or in this case conventional theft prevention). Would that mean that Pepsi was extorting you or that they had a monopoly? No. You'd have four choices:

1: Buy the Pepsi (SimCity) and "live with it" ... but not because they "forced you to" but because you chose option 1 over the other options
2: Buy Coke (CitiesXL, etc.) even though you don't like it nearly as much, but you really want Cola.
3: Buy something else like Gatorade or Sprite (another genre) because you don't like the other Colas and you refuse to deal with Pepsi's bullshit
4: Don't buy anything, hello tap water (don't buy any game)

Wow, that actually made a decent amount of sense ignoring the ridiculousness of the scenario.

The fact that all 4 choices may totally suck doesn't mean you have to choose #1.

[Null]

Other then the annoying greed on E.A side the game is pretty fun. This is mostly how I felt from playing the beta at least. Dunno why but after waiting 10 years for a new SimCity I got on for five minutes, spent to much money on roads and went meh and logged off.

[Arkanna]

Just got on for the first time and I can't seem to progress through the tutorial.....?? Anyone else have this issue? lol

[Ohemgee]

Anyone experiencing frequent crashing when building zones? I'm updating my drivers now (I'm not far behind on updates, but still). It was running smoothly earlier.

[Kisamoo]

Servers or the game are completely shitting the bed. I can't delete games from my list, I crash often when trying to build cities and I lose all progress with no hint of the city even existing. The only problem I had yesterday was chat not working but whatever they did completely broke everything. If only they had a Beta to test these things... oh wait EA isn't beyond charging 49.99 to beta test games these days it seems.

Everyone remember the days when games were simple? They just worked and had no extra add ons? lol Is that too much to ask these days.

[Ohemgee]

Glad I'm not the only one then...

[JigglyJam]

Well I wanted to play a little but I can't create or join any cities/regions. Not even on the Europe servers. So this is kinda bullshit.

[Cichy]

I wanted this game really badly but decided to pick up and finish Tomb Raider first. I'm so glad I did that now.

[Scythiroth]

Blehhh, my city was almost up to 200k population, and a meteor strike decided to hit my nuclear power plant. >.> Yay high radiation levels everywhere.

[Uzor]

Well I wanted to play a little but I can't create or join any cities/regions. Not even on the Europe servers. So this is kinda bullshit.

That's because it's not released in Europe yet. Comes out tomorrow.