Hurmoth Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 'SimCity' may get an offline mode after all SimCity may finally drop the online-only requirement that brought the game to a grinding halt for many players during its launch week. The game's developer, Maxis, originally said that SimCity had to be played online in order to offload certain strenuous work into the cloud, but doing so meant that players couldn't run the game if they didn't have an internet connection or ? as often occurred ? if the game's servers were down. Now Maxis says that it's "exploring the possibility" of adding an offline mode ? a change that players have been requesting since its launch in March. Via: The Verge | Source: SimCity Blog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan R. Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 What a bunch of idiots. Nashy 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹ Posted October 4, 2013 Subscriber¹ Share Posted October 4, 2013 this whole online mode with all the launch problems completely killed my interest in Sim City Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo1911 Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I didn't buy it for the sole reason for it being online only. But now after 6-7 months, the game with its small city size is not cool anymore. Hopefully they realize the mistake and dont implement this offensive DRM in Sims 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Method Man Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 Hopefully consumer pushback will kill off this "always-online" DRM insanity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max22 Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 It is too late. I still like the game though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buttus Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 same, skipped it because the online-only mode. My wife loves simcity, but reading about it and the problems just ruined it. and the small city size.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xWhiplash Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 "order to offload certain strenuous work into the cloud" What kind of strenuous work? Obviously not too important since now high latency is the primary factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_dandy_ Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I've yet to purchase an "online-only" game. At this rate, SimCity will be in the bargain bin by the time I get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan R. Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 "order to offload certain strenuous work into the cloud" What kind of strenuous work? Obviously not too important since now high latency is the primary factor. It's pretty much just bulls**t they were going on about. Charisma 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BetaAddict Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I refuse to buy it until they add offline, even if it means never. Simcity has always been a solitary game, just like Civ5. There's no need to force the online capabilities for the sake of DRM and social features that I don't care for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max22 Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I understand exactly what you all are saying but it didn't stop me from having well over 400 hours of fun time in Simcity 5! Though I still think it could of been a lot better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remixedcat Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 Making this even more desired.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orange Battery Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Must admit I didn't bother with this and the online problems were the reason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sszecret Veteran Posted October 5, 2013 Veteran Share Posted October 5, 2013 If they do this, I might consider it. Played SC 3000, 3000 Unlimited, SC4 and Societies. Liked all of them (SC4 more so than the others). And they must at least allow an option for a "medium" sized city. Right now, it's more like Sim Neighbourhood than Sim City. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted October 5, 2013 Author Share Posted October 5, 2013 If they do this, I might consider it. Played SC 3000, 3000 Unlimited, SC4 and Societies. Liked all of them (SC4 more so than the others). And they must at least allow an option for a "medium" sized city. Right now, it's more like Sim Neighbourhood than Sim City. Unfortunately bigger cities won't be coming. The SimCity blog link I have in the OP states: "After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn?t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities. We?ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn?t achieve it within the confines of the engine. We?ve chosen to cease work on bigger city sizes and put that effort into continuing to evolve the core game and explore an offline mode. Some of the experiments we conducted to improve performance on bigger cities will be rolled into future updates to improve overall game performance." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NightScreams Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 In other words, they didn't want to spend the money necessary to rework the engine into being able to provide larger cities. An investment that probably would have got them more money. Too bad they didn't license the Cryengine as the fan made video of "sim city on cryengine" looked amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramesees Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 In other words, they didn't want to spend the money necessary to rework the engine into being able to provide larger cities. An investment that probably would have got them more money. Too bad they didn't license the Cryengine as the fan made video of "sim city on cryengine" looked amazing. There is always the possibility they will introduce larger cities in the next Sim City as a means to have a cash grab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 In other words, they didn't want to spend the money necessary to rework the engine into being able to provide larger cities. An investment that probably would have got them more money. Too bad they didn't license the Cryengine as the fan made video of "sim city on cryengine" looked amazing. I don't know, if the performance of my system is any indication, this may be something I believe. I have a Mac mini (2.7 Core i7, 16GB of RAM, SSD & an AMD Radeon HD 6630M) and if I get a city with anymore than 50K citizens, I can never zoom out or even go to the Region view because it slows the system down so much that I can do anything. I want bigger cities too, but even as small as they are, the game is a major resource hog. Also, my game settings are turned to low on everything and the slowness is still a major issue (but only when zoomed out, not zoomed in). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaceelf Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Hopefully they realize the mistake and dont implement this offensive DRM in Sims 4. They already said they won't. "order to offload certain strenuous work into the cloud" What kind of strenuous work? Obviously not too important since now high latency is the primary factor. Having up to 16 people in a region at the same time and keeping them all in sync and processing their effects on eachother, mainly. The actual in-city processing is done locally. I'm not sure on traffic since they do commute to other cities. Probably most of it is local unless your city is lacking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webeagle12 Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Consumer win in EA world?..... pop a champagne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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