Modifié par EntropicAngel, 15 mars 2013 - 01:47 .
Sim City Cloud is actually smoke(&mirrors)
Débuté par
LTD
, mars 13 2013 12:51
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#27
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 02:00
OdanUrr
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Skelter192 wrote...
Well this is embarrassing.
If this isn't proof that the online feature in games exists simply to combat piracy, I don't know what is.
Modifié par OdanUrr, 16 mars 2013 - 02:00 .
#28
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 03:19
TheJediSaint
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OdanUrr wrote...
Skelter192 wrote...
Well this is embarrassing.
If this isn't proof that the online feature in games exists simply to combat piracy, I don't know what is.
The irony is that these kind of anti-piracy measures tend to encourage piracy rather than stop it. Pirated copies of a game are not going to be saddled with the issues caused by DRM, and therefore are superior to the legal copies.
(PS. Not an endorsment of piracy, I'm simply making a point.)
Modifié par TheJediSaint, 16 mars 2013 - 03:19 .
#29
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 03:33
Splinter Cell 108
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I don't know where I read it but they say that offline mod isn't part of their "vision". That art excuse is getting old, they supposedly set out to create an MMO or something, sounds like a bull**** excuse to me.
#30
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 04:13
Roflbox
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John Walker is the best.
"Anyone who has been following the SimCity debacle probably knows about John Walkers fight for consumers, and the damaging policy of the always online drm, starting with this article:
SimCity Is Inherently Broken, Let’s Not Let This Go
FTA:
EA reports that SimCity is slowly getting into a state where it’s playable. Many of the launch issues are getting sorted, and soon it may well be in such a place that it becomes functional. So we should forgive and forget, right? Wrong.
Claiming SimCity fixed, by removing the server queues, random crashes, lost cities, server drops, and the artificial restrictions placed on the game just to make it run, is like claiming a broken leg fixed because you’ve mended the crutches. The game, by its very design, is hideously broken, and like Diablo III before it, it has only served to scream a complete disregard for sense and a massive disregard for customers. So what we mustn’t do now is say, “Well, teething problems.”
These aren’t teething problems. These are continuous deep-running flaws designed to cripple the game for you as a player, simply to serve some nebulous notion of protecting the game against piracy.
From there he started digging into the BS PR comments of the community managers, over at EA's forums and the "media defense force", that came out talking about how the problem wasn't the always online DRM, but that it just wasn't done good enough.
A few days after this, Walker got ahold of a source that indicated to him that the actual things the servers are doing, for the game, is less then 1% of the total computation of the sims, with this article:
http://www.rockpaper....not-necessary/
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”
After posting this article, our great hero Aruthur Giess did his best to dismiss his source, to help defend the narrative of EA, which resulted in a bit of a twitter battle. If you want to see what transpired from the arguement you can click here, also if you want to follow him on twitter: John Walker's Twitter.
So his last article he just posted has just been amazing:
SimCity Boss’s “Straight Answers” Seem Pretty Wiggly
With some pretty great information and quotes.
My personal favorite's, FTA:
Repeated emails to EA have resulted in no response since, and the whole situation has become more muddy with each day. It’s since been revealed that population numbers are nonsense, even down to leaked Javascript code featuring “simcity.GetFudgedPopulation” as a function. We’ve learned that city size limits are arbitrary, pathfinding is rudimentary at best, and Eurogamer’s absolutely superb review lists many more bugs, broken features, disappearing pretend-money and never-arriving resources.
So it’s all the more odd to see Maxis head Lucy Bradshaw acting as if none of this is happening, and instead just carefully rewording her mantra of how SimCity is only supposed to be played online, but this time leaving out the bit about server-side computations for local play.
Bradshaw’s post, which appears to be some sort of attempt at damage limitation – without actually ever addressing the issues raised – re-emphasises the point that they wanted it to be always online because of how they designed the game. She then lists the functions those server sums supply. And they’re what we already knew – they let the social game be social. This list that is basically just “the game has co-operative multiplayer” eight times seems to be an attempt to reveal just how grand this aspect is, how intrinsic it is to… something. It doesn’t manage this. What we’re learning from the many players posting videos, and the reviewers who actually played the game properly before smothering it with rosettes, is that those regional functions don’t work very well either.
So it looks like we at least have one games media website that is clearly on our side, but I just thought since the article has pretty much the whole ordeal in it, it deserved its own topic. "
Taken from Neogaf.
"Anyone who has been following the SimCity debacle probably knows about John Walkers fight for consumers, and the damaging policy of the always online drm, starting with this article:
SimCity Is Inherently Broken, Let’s Not Let This Go
FTA:
EA reports that SimCity is slowly getting into a state where it’s playable. Many of the launch issues are getting sorted, and soon it may well be in such a place that it becomes functional. So we should forgive and forget, right? Wrong.
Claiming SimCity fixed, by removing the server queues, random crashes, lost cities, server drops, and the artificial restrictions placed on the game just to make it run, is like claiming a broken leg fixed because you’ve mended the crutches. The game, by its very design, is hideously broken, and like Diablo III before it, it has only served to scream a complete disregard for sense and a massive disregard for customers. So what we mustn’t do now is say, “Well, teething problems.”
These aren’t teething problems. These are continuous deep-running flaws designed to cripple the game for you as a player, simply to serve some nebulous notion of protecting the game against piracy.
From there he started digging into the BS PR comments of the community managers, over at EA's forums and the "media defense force", that came out talking about how the problem wasn't the always online DRM, but that it just wasn't done good enough.
A few days after this, Walker got ahold of a source that indicated to him that the actual things the servers are doing, for the game, is less then 1% of the total computation of the sims, with this article:
http://www.rockpaper....not-necessary/
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”
After posting this article, our great hero Aruthur Giess did his best to dismiss his source, to help defend the narrative of EA, which resulted in a bit of a twitter battle. If you want to see what transpired from the arguement you can click here, also if you want to follow him on twitter: John Walker's Twitter.
So his last article he just posted has just been amazing:
SimCity Boss’s “Straight Answers” Seem Pretty Wiggly
With some pretty great information and quotes.
My personal favorite's, FTA:
Repeated emails to EA have resulted in no response since, and the whole situation has become more muddy with each day. It’s since been revealed that population numbers are nonsense, even down to leaked Javascript code featuring “simcity.GetFudgedPopulation” as a function. We’ve learned that city size limits are arbitrary, pathfinding is rudimentary at best, and Eurogamer’s absolutely superb review lists many more bugs, broken features, disappearing pretend-money and never-arriving resources.
So it’s all the more odd to see Maxis head Lucy Bradshaw acting as if none of this is happening, and instead just carefully rewording her mantra of how SimCity is only supposed to be played online, but this time leaving out the bit about server-side computations for local play.
Bradshaw’s post, which appears to be some sort of attempt at damage limitation – without actually ever addressing the issues raised – re-emphasises the point that they wanted it to be always online because of how they designed the game. She then lists the functions those server sums supply. And they’re what we already knew – they let the social game be social. This list that is basically just “the game has co-operative multiplayer” eight times seems to be an attempt to reveal just how grand this aspect is, how intrinsic it is to… something. It doesn’t manage this. What we’re learning from the many players posting videos, and the reviewers who actually played the game properly before smothering it with rosettes, is that those regional functions don’t work very well either.
So it looks like we at least have one games media website that is clearly on our side, but I just thought since the article has pretty much the whole ordeal in it, it deserved its own topic. "
Taken from Neogaf.
#32
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 08:14
KingJason13
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www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/16/simcity-modder-tells-us-offline-regional-play-easily-done/#more-146044
EA blundering their way to Popcorn munching deliciousness.
EA blundering their way to Popcorn munching deliciousness.
#33
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 08:49
KingJason13
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#34
Posté 16 mars 2013 - 10:06
MingWolf
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OdanUrr wrote...
Skelter192 wrote...
Well this is embarrassing.
If this isn't proof that the online feature in games exists simply to combat piracy, I don't know what is.
I'm not sure if it's as simple as to combat piracy. About a week ago, there was an article circulating around of a supposed (somewhat unverified, but likely) EA employee puting out the perspective that it's more about 'hand-wav[ing] weak sales or bad reviews and blame outside factors like pirates or server failures in the event the game struggles.'
While this may be more opinion than fact, it does kind of makes sense given the circumstances (where the game has been tweaked for offline play, which contradicts EA's stance on this not happening). Always fun reading.
Source
Modifié par MingWolf, 16 mars 2013 - 10:07 .
#36
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 02:10
Get Magna Carter
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It seems EA want to force connectivity into all their games
And are quite happy if they lose sales as a result
And are quite happy if they lose sales as a result
#37
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 02:37
bmwcrazy
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I'm just glad I didn't waste my money on this.
It's such a shame because I really loved Simcity 3000 and 4.
It's such a shame because I really loved Simcity 3000 and 4.
#39
Guest_Jayne126_*
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 05:39
Guest_Jayne126_*
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SimCity code includes 20 minute force shutdown timer for offline play.
This is hilarious. Never had so much fun with a game I didn't buy~
This is hilarious. Never had so much fun with a game I didn't buy~
#41
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:02
OdanUrr
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#42
Guest_Puddi III_*
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:03
Guest_Puddi III_*
Guest_Puddi III_*
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Guess I'm glad I was never a sim fan. I had one with rollercoasters... I couldn't figure out how to make a rollercoaster.
#43
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:07
OdanUrr
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Filament wrote...
Guess I'm glad I was never a sim fan. I had one with rollercoasters... I couldn't figure out how to make a rollercoaster.
I still have RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 somewhere.
#44
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:08
Naughty Bear
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OdanUrr wrote...
‘SimCity’ Hack Lets Users Destroy Neighbors; EA Hiding Customer Service Numbers Online
Oh man, griefing heaven that sounds like.
#45
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:22
LTD
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See a gaming site that lacks Sim City 5 news on front page? empty your glass
Gaming site with even carefully optimistic, positive news article about SC5 that doesn't imply EA might be the Antichrist? Empty the bottle
Gaming site with even carefully optimistic, positive news article about SC5 that doesn't imply EA might be the Antichrist? Empty the bottle
#46
Guest_Puddi III_*
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 07:38
Guest_Puddi III_*
Guest_Puddi III_*
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I think the one I had was Sim Theme Park. Back then I had a lot less, well, "patience" playing games than I do now, lol. Granted I was at least 11 so not exactly a toddler, but I guess I never really learned patience until around my second attempt at learning to play NWN.OdanUrr wrote...
Filament wrote...
Guess I'm glad I was never a sim fan. I had one with rollercoasters... I couldn't figure out how to make a rollercoaster.
I still have RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 somewhere.
#47
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 08:05
TheBlackBaron
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One figures that it's only a matter of time before pirating the game and downloading an offline singleplayer mod becomes common.
#48
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 08:09
Kaiser Arian XVII
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Or simply downloading Anti-DRM crack.TheBlackBaron wrote...
One figures that it's only a matter of time before pirating the game and downloading an offline singleplayer mod becomes common.
BTW, My Sim City 4: Rush hour is quite fun and looks better than Sim City 2013, 5 or whatever.
#49
Guest_Erik Lehnsherr_*
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 10:09
Guest_Erik Lehnsherr_*
Guest_Erik Lehnsherr_*
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Makes Aliens: Colonial Marines look like a masterpiece by comparison.
#50
Posté 17 mars 2013 - 10:37
slimgrin
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I'll bet even Ubisoft is laughing at this train wreck.
Modifié par slimgrin, 17 mars 2013 - 10:37 .
