SimCity 5

[Syt]

You know, I have to say that I'm a little bit surprised that they would make their DLC into ads.  Sure, you get to double-dip on the revenue, but it's a little bit crass, even for them.

Why double-dip? That Mazda thing is free for the players.

[Neil]

You know, I have to say that I'm a little bit surprised that they would make their DLC into ads.  Sure, you get to double-dip on the revenue, but it's a little bit crass, even for them.

Why double-dip? That Mazda thing is free for the players.

Oh, I hadn't heard that.  It's still pretty good, money-wise.

[Syt]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/22/the-power-of-silence-why-the-simcity-story-went-away/

Long article. But the gist:

Silence is a powerful weapon in the industry. The mad truth is, if you ignore it, it will go away, when it comes to gaming controversies. This article is a small, fairly futile attempt to not let it, and to make sure our readers know that EA and Maxis never spoke to us, never responded to any of our questions, and never sent so much as a statement.

And they got away with it! SimCity sold over a million copies in its first couple of weeks, despite barely working. Many reviews ran before the game had been played properly, giving it huge initial scores, failing to recognise how disastrous its simulations were after the first 10 hours or so. The line about server-side calculations is still being stated as fact by a number of outlets, with some major journalists losing their minds on Twitter with anyone who dared to question it. EA and Maxis are still sticking to their utterly ridiculous claims that the game was built as an "MMO", despite that being patently untrue in every possible interpretation. And incredibly, at GDC last month, they were arguing that their game demonstrated how outdated "DRM" was – as if the always-on weren't the most destructive form of DRM imaginable!

The principle is if you keep saying the same thing over and over, people will start to accept it. And heck, that couldn't be more true. Sites unquestioningly repeating the nonsense from GDC showed it, reinforcing this latest angle that the game is an "MMO", despite it featuring literally none of the identifying features of an MMO, from the "massively" part onward. The reason for this, of course, is because we all accept that an MMO has to be online – of course it does – so if they say "MMO" then they hope that association will be made to their game, despite how comprehensively it's been shown to not need to be running online at all. Their response, perhaps even impressively, was to double-down on the online nonsense. It worked.

[Syt]

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-offline-is-coming

SIMCITY OFFLINE IS COMING!

I've wanted to say those words for quite some time, so my apologies that I didn't take the time to say Happy New Year first.

Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it's as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then... testing, testing and more testing. As one of the final steps, we're putting Offline into the hands of some of our most hardcore players, the DevTesters. This group of volunteers is going to put Offline through its paces before we release it.

In Update 10, you can still play solo in Regions on your own, or in Multiplayer with people from around the world. What's new is the Single Player Mode, which allows you to play the game Offline by yourself. And because your saved games in this mode are stored locally, you can save and load to your heart's content. Our team will be delivering a follow-up blog that will outline the full details in the near future so stay tuned.

So what does this mean for the Online game? All of the benefits of being connected will remain including access to Multiplayer, the Global Market and Leaderboards. And all of your pre-existing saved cities and regions will still be accessible should you log-in to the Online game.

Bringing the game Offline means big things for our wonderful community of Modders. They can now make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game. Modding is a big part of our studio's legacy and we're excited to see what you guys create. Check out this thread to learn about Oppie85's Central Train Station, which you can put into your game right now, and if you're interested in making your own content take a look at the Modding Policy. To get you started, we will be rolling out a series of tutorials from the studio that surfaces how we've created some of the content that you've seen so far in hopes of inspiring your creativity.

So that's it from me for the time being. Keep an eye out for more information on Offline shortly. We'll be releasing more information on how it all works. And as always, get in touch with me on Twitter @EAGamer, I'm always eager to read your feedback.

From me, and everyone at the studio, thank you again for staying with us. We look forward to getting Offline for SimCity into your hands as soon as possible.

[Grey Fox]

Nope.

[garbon]

Nope?

[Tonitrus]

He doesn't care for the map scale, I am guessing.  I agree.

[Neil]

What a funny world we live in these days, where offline mode has become a much-desired feature in a game.

[DontSayBanana]

What a funny world we live in these days, where offline mode has become a much-desired feature in a game.

Online can be great, but there's a difference between "the ability to play with other players online when you want" and "always needing to be online in a thinly veiled attempt to track every player at all playtimes."

[Kleves]

The big problem is still the scale of the cities. It's a PITA to have to run multiple cities in order to progress any city, but that's what you have to do, because the plots are too small to buildeverything you'll need.