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

[Cream Soda]

Like falloutboy already mentioned, the main problem is the incredible simplistic sims AI. More details:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneo...737060#U737060

Thank god we have the EA server farms to do all the required calculations for this sophisticated system.

//edit: wow @ the Reddit thread. Can put the game into a semi dev mode, which is enough to build highways outside of your city borders and they save. There's also a teramodding tool.

Any developer response on this?

[The Blackrose]

Man, this saga keeps getting better and better.

Over on NeoGAF, a poster by the name of GlassBox was constantly posting new threads regarding SimCity and other EA/Maxis business. Account had also made some questionable replies in places like the SimCity OT. People's shill alarms went off. First the users went to provide post history. Then one of the mods went to take a look at the account and found a @maxis.com email address (posts regarding this were deleted but archived on Reddit). The owner was not amused.

Outing thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521502
Reddit thread with full details: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme...for_attempting
Related thread showing "gaming journalism" site Polygon in cahoots with EA/Maxis: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=49531581

[Ohemgee]

[kuronosan]

EA doesn't have much time to right this before Maxis begins to lose loyalty significantly. I've already resolved to not buy Battlefield 4. I don't want a new game that forces DLC every month. I want one good game that supports mods, innovation, and customers. Activision screwing people over for COD MW2 is the main reason I don't buy the series or Activision anymore.

[Necronus]

The only thing that makes this whole debacle mildly less annoying is that I have confidence that given a few years, the community will probably save this game with an offline version that works 1000x better. And with people like the SC4 NAM team out there, I have faith they'll fix this game if EA/Maxis doesn't.

[Lucavi]

I don't often cite Fox News for anything serious, but this is a terribly well-written article, and I'm glad that such a well-written piece is located on a site that gets good traffic. Check it out:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/...are-escalates/

Edit: I am also skipping BF4. I have no interest in further supporting a company like EA, who clearly has everyone else's interests placed before that of the customer. I understand that businesses are about profit, but there's still plenty of room to have a satisfied customer and turn a profit. I will also be boycotting the Madden series until it makes a return to PC, which is never, so there goes my football gaming hobby.

[Arkanna]

I don't usually fall in with the "I'll never buy..." crowd, but, I'm all in for never buying BF4. My ass has been chapped since they announced it, and with this SimCity debacle getting worse and worse, I'm done giving EA money. I feel bad for Maxis, sort of ... and I'll feel bad for DICE next year.

[Insanecyclone]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have NOT enabled syncing of data for this. All cities you see in this video remain UNHARMED - nothing got synced to server. I would not condone any action which could actually harm another player's city without permission!

So, this was done by editing the SimCity packages, tweaking some code, and getting the game to think that, when I visited a random person's city in a random region, I WASN'T in observer mode, and force enabling of edit mode so that I had full access to the city as if it was my own. There is still no city syncing at this most basic level, so you can wreak havoc on a friend's city, quit out, log back in, and it's back the way it was - great fun! I am worried about people that go deeper into the code and start spoofing the owner ID's of cities and start doing this maliciously though. Hopefully there are server side safeties on this... hmmm.

[Lucavi]

Any developer response on this?

They're working on a few tweaks to streetcar AI, but we've heard no other details.

They've also rolled out some maintenance on servers today, presumably to convert the exploitable files to a read only format, to discourage future "prospectors" and further cover up their bullshit.

[Necronus]

Hey look, its the offline save folder the game already uses.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9365533.page

This is how the 20 minute timer works, it just saves the city locally and then uploads and deletes all trace of it when it reconnects. Oh silly EA/Maxis.

(Not that anyone who understands computers didn't already realize this type of thing had to be somewhere)

[kuronosan]

This is just like Infinity Ward all over again where their PR tries to cover up obvious lies until they have made enough money to not care. Meanwhile, the developer tanks... the game series is ruined, and yet another publisher doesn't care because they sold record copies of a game while not reporting the proportion of customers dissatisfied with the final product. It would be like Ford saying their latest model sold 10,000,000 units and then neglect to mention how many were recalled for manufacturing defects.

[Waraji]

Business is buisness. It's up to the consumers to put an end to it by active campaigning against such companies. Not buying their games is one way. But honestly, which do you think is stronger: The appeal of a brand new shiny game, or the feeble will power of the average consumer? It all boils down to how willing people are at not taking shit anymore vs disregarding what someone did in the past just cause they brought them chocolates.

Fuck Chocolates. You are a bad person, and you should feel bad.

[Shiyo]

This selling infinite copies via pre-order/day1 sales and the game ending up tanking and being complete shit needs to stop. It keeps happening to SOO many games now, kind of crazy really, especially with how EASY it is to find info on games DAY1 of the game being out. Those preorder bonuses really make people spend money for no reason.

It's all a scam, I hope laws start coming into place where you can't pull this shit and get away with it, or companies start being sued.

[Ohemgee]

Yeah, Fuck UbiSoft too

[Lucavi]

Business is buisness. It's up to the consumers to put an end to it by active campaigning against such companies. Not buying their games is one way. But honestly, which do you think is stronger: The appeal of a brand new shiny game, or the feeble will power of the average consumer? It all boils down to how willing people are at not taking shit anymore vs disregarding what someone did in the past just cause they brought them chocolates.

Fuck Chocolates. You are a bad person, and you should feel bad.

Again, this is difficult when a company chooses not to release a product for 10 years. Its one thing for some CoD or Halo fanboy to get the jitters, or even some Madden junkie to resist, but its not like Sim City shows up 3 times a year like some Assasins Creed title.

I knew, going in, that this was going to have some trainwreck elements to it, but I made the conscious decision in the end to satisfy my decade-long thirst for some Sim City. I still don't regret the purchase, and I certainly don't regret all the negative press EA is getting. If this kills Maxis, so be it. Its their fault for working for an owner greedy enough to sell his soul to the devil for another summer home or yacht.

Ultimately the blame lies with EA, then trickles down to Maxis, and ultimately, onto each and every one of us. I understand that, and I accept that. I choose to draw my line in the sand from this point on, because there's no IP, moving forward, that EA has that I just absolutely have to have.

[Headspace]

Maybe it's because I suck at this game and therefore can't make a city successful enough to exploit the faults of Glassbox and I don't have much time to play, but I still really like the game.

[Waraji]

Maybe it's because I suck at this game and therefore can't make a city successful enough to exploit the faults of Glassbox and I don't have much time to play, but I still really like the game.

I'm sure its fun for the moment you start a city. But there is a point, at least for the long term players, where the player needs the game to be very efficient in order for their city development to be enjoyable. I'm talking about a city/region you are working for for weeks to months on. The game as it is now is incapable of holding onto those players because it does not cater to that complexity requirement. The coding is very crude, almost child like, in the way the processes are handled. This ultimately shuns the "hardcore" players from ever really creating those amazing cities they once did in SC3000/4.

I'm sure someone else with a deeper understanding of the SimCity experience would be able to explain, far more detailed, why this one can't meet the demand like its predecessors did. Not yet at least.

[Lucavi]

Waraji is correct. Many "types" of cities fail because of the shitty AI design for individual sims and vehicles, but at its core; at the base foundation stages of the game, everything works well enough to where you become completely immersed in the product. The problem with that is that, due to the scripted design, and the need to design multiple cities instead of making a gigantic one and working to keep it self-sustaining, you wind up repeating the same steps ad-nauseum, and that can grow tiring. Remember, this game has only been out for little more than a week; people are going to get sick of it sooner than later when they realize that you repeat the same thing again and again through the early-mid game, and by late-game, the crippling flaws with the game render your experiences frustrating at best and futile at worst.

Bigger flaws, such as the removal of actual governance and budget in favor of manufacturing-based economies make the already broken game extremely boring, should you choose one of the few "routes" that actually functions as designed (sort of): electronics. Its annoying as all hell to see people making 2-3 million a day selling TVs, while running their town into -45k+ hourly budget deficits. It takes away from being a mayor, and introduces some sort of twisted Government-owned business mentality. Strange for a sim city game, and incredibly boring.

[Deader2818]

I can't think of too many games that were really hyped up before release then suck badly when they released in the past few years.

I mean, I guess you could say stuff like Resident Evil 6, DmC and maybe Aliens.

Its all subjective though so I guess its really tough to say for sure either way.

[kuronosan]

I think it would be more accurate to say that this game just made it easier for people to snipe out PR BS.