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

[Quicklet]

What is most unsettling for me at this point is even with taking into account everything that is going wrong with this game - always online, shitty servers, game bugs, removed features, horrid reviews, etc - is that EA is going to be selling even more copies of the game from now till the 18th. I would feel better if they just said only those affected at launch get the free game, but extending it to the 18th is basically bribing everyone else who was holding back in protest, in an attempt to cause people to lose spine and cave in. Companies who just buy away their problems are the most vile and it really is sickening - I can't imagine what their executive meetings are like. They will not be getting any of my money, and if that means I don't get to play this game, then that's ok, I will support other companies who care about their customers.

I'm worried that EA will only look at the bottom line (enhanced by their no-refund policy for digital downloads through Origin) and conclude that their approach was a resounding success, and what that means for future titles from EA and other AAA publishers.

At this point, I imagine the people who want to play the game will play it, and those who don't won't, but it's going to take a minimum 6-12 months to see if EA genuinely is going to support the playerbase going forward or if this is all just a PR manuever to gloss everything over long enough to placate the masses.

For example, 6 months from now when the number of concurrent users will almost assuredly be lower than it is now, will EA start closing down some of their servers to save on expenses? What happens if you have an active region on one of those servers that gets closed down? Will they migrate it to other servers or simply tell you to start all over again?

Things like that concern me almost as much as the launch issues, but most people who want to play probably aren't even thinking that far out. Which is fine. But it's implicitly giving EA a pass to continue treating customers this way, and that's the part that I think a lot of people don't want to see happen.

[Lucavi]

You know its nothing but PR from EA, because they've never shown anything but PR to anyone, and they've never given anyone any inclination to believe that they're now or have ever been about anything BUT PR.

Give it a few months; the log-ins will dwindle a bit and EA will cut it right back down to 5-6 total servers, even after they release some DLC expansion pack.

Its EA. Always assume they'll do whatever will maximize profits; rest of the world be damned.

[Shadowhusky]

Be extremely wary of sites selling russian download keys. Shady as fuck.

That's what I said but my friend said it works and shit. So I'm inclined to believe them.

[Jaybar]

You're in jest, of course, but EA has released 4 patches thus far.

Didn't think removing content counted.

[Correction]

That's what I said but my friend said it works and shit. So I'm inclined to believe them.

They all will work, until the scammers behind it all do a chargeback on the initial purchase of the key and it gets removed from your friend's games list.

[kuronosan]

I'm just a Sim City player in a Sim City thread, trying to talk about Sim City but there's a lot of rage here. What are you doing here? To bitch about always online and DRM? The only rage cocks here are the ones that haven't bought the game and continue to bitch about it without having a damn clue. Did you read about Sim City on Kotaku then come here to add fuel to the fire? Get that shit out of here. If you bought the game- feel free to bitch, your 50 bucks earned you that right as a paying customer.

In this topic, only people who paid for the game can complain about bad business practice and unethical treatment of customers.

To be honest, when you can come back here and read this, I never read the Kotaku article. I did, however, follow this game from inception to completion and do have quite the right to complain about how it all ended up.

I don't have to have played the game (which I already know is astronomically good) to know that the way that EA is treating customers is bad.

Notice I'm not complaining about the game itself - I'm complaining about how EA has been treating this entire situation. Since I do play BF3, I do have access to Origin which gives me access to member forums. I did also get access to SimCity beta and thus I do have experience with the game.

[Prothescar]

They all will work, until the scammers behind it all do a chargeback on the initial purchase of the key and it gets removed from your friend's games list.

This. The devs of Natural Selection 2 just deactivated a couple thousand game keys that were bought on one of those resaler sites using stolen credit cards and charged back. The people who bought the keys were not able to be reimbursed and they had to rebuy the game through a legit source. Playing with those kinds of sites is risky business.

[djzombie]

You're in jest, of course, but EA has released 4 patches thus far.

only patches to remove "noncritical" features like cheetah mode (lol who needs to go fast n e ways)

what are we at now patch -1.04?

[Dngnhack]

Really enjoying the game thus far... it is annoying getting disconnected when switching regions sometimes so it locks up in the loading screen. So using 1 region for pollution erm power/water/trash/sewage/industry and the other for majority of wealthier residential and commercial is working extremely well. Started with the only industrial city and put in mines oil etc etc so it was making steady cash got a few poor people and fire/amb/police then volunteered them to my new city. Then built the new city with only commercial and residential. Now that city is my cash cow and mayor building has the better stuff region unlocked so going to upgrade my pollution town aka Rack City. Think after thats done i'll start on a tourist trap. Had to start over on the 5 city map as i didn't realize the one with 16 weren't all connected together. Starting new towns is pretty simple when you have unlimited funds from the other cities. Kinda tempted to throw Vu into the tourist city (casino's etc).

[Xno Kappa]

Game looks really fun from some of the streams I've been checking out. I've never played a Sim City game before, is the learning curve pretty difficult? Should I avoid this particular one so as to not encourage EA's always online fuckery?

[Dngnhack]

To be honest this one is kinda easy compared to others to me since you don't have to run pipes/power lines etc. Pretty easy to stay profitable.

[Shiyo]

Just get sim city 4, it's a much better game.

[dejet]

my net likes to crap out on me every hour or so for a second. I do not think I could deal with dcing from a single player game >.> shit would get me so mad lol.

[Waraji]

Just get sim city 4, it's a much better game.

This pretty much. There's even a mod to play online with others.

[Insanecyclone]

[Timwakefield]

http://www.cddiski.ru/pc/games/manag...mcity-2013.htm

CD key for 38$ USD. You can call EA and have them change it to English or download an English patch. Friend bought it this way and had EA change it so I guess it's legit.

I find great humor in the fact that their name is "CD Diski" I'm not sure why.

[Insanecyclone]

[Azull]

Well for anyone taking a "wait and see" approach the game itself is fun and very well done. The walls added by EA are still being fixed.

Early, when your town is smaller, it is pretty simple. With size, however, comes challenge. I have yet to get a city over 250k pop that wasnt surviving by virtue of trade. Traffic gets to be a challenge at that point also leading to slow responce times for medical, police, and fire.

My circuit city was doing great until i got greedy. I was making tons of money, up to 2 mil at one point, but with the destruction of some zones to add tv factorys my economy has crumbled. I may have to play one of my other cities which are themselves sitting on a razors edge and gift some money to fix the problem.

[Datonare]

I'm still on the fence. The game looks like a lot of fun and I know the game reviewed well, but are they still having a lot of server issues still? Just wondering if I should pick it up now, or perhaps wait a little while longer.

[avelle]

I'm still on the fence. The game looks like a lot of fun and I know the game reviewed well, but are they still having a lot of server issues still? Just wondering if I should pick it up now, or perhaps wait a little while longer.

Gf and I were able to play all weekend without an issue at all, seems like most issues are fixed.