Maxis Insider: EA Lying About Needing Servers For Single Player SimCity

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

Throughout Simcity's massive public flameout last week, questions were raised (repeatedly) about EA's claims that an offline, single-player mode would be a massive undertaking because of the amount of calculations being done server-side. As many people pointed out, this seemed to be a choice EA had made in order to prevent piracy, rather than a necessity due to the (shoehorned-in) social aspects of the game.

Minnesota Viking's kicker, Chris Kluwe, was one of the many voices finding EA's claims dubious:

The fact that EA requires an "always on" connection is ostensibly because so many operations are taking place server side that your computer won't be able to handle it (which is a blatant falsehood, since when I was streaming the other night, the only times I DIDN'T have latency was when I was disconnected from their servers and my computer had to run all the game operations), but in reality it's to try to combat piracy.

John Walker's recent Rock Paper Shotgun piece on SimCity's "inherent brokenness" (and why gamers shouldn't let EA walk this one off) echoed this sentiment.

SimCity, of course, could be a single-player game. Ignore the utter nonsense about how some of its computations are server-side. What complete rot. As if our PCs are incapable of running the game. I'm sure some of the computations are server side! But they damned well don't need to be, as all of gaming ever has ably proven.

EA, however, continues to claim otherwise, somehow expecting PC users to believe that without its valuable servers picking up the computational slack, the game would be unplayable. (Or, more so, I guess...) Unfortunately for EA and its "talking points," a Maxis developer has stated exactly the opposite.

A SimCity developer has got in touch with RPS to tell us that at least the first of these statements is not true. He claimed that the server is not handling calculations for non-social aspects of running the game, and that engineering a single-player mode would require minimal effort.

Our source, who we have verified worked directly on the project but obviously wishes to remain anonymous, has first-hand knowledge of how the game works. He has made it absolutely clear to us that this repeated claim of server-side calculations is at odds with the reality of the project he worked on. Our source explains:

"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."

So, it's exactly as many players (and unhappy customers) believed. SimCity's always-on requirement does little more than any other always-on requirement: attempt to prevent piracy. Demanding every player always be online throughout the entirety of their single-player game is ridiculous. The Maxis insider who spoke to Rock Paper Shotgun says that not only is a single-player version SimCity possible, but that "it wouldn't take very much engineering" to make it a reality.

Players elsewhere are also discovering what Kluwe had: that the game runs, at least temporarily, without an internet connection, something that shouldn't be possible, according to EA's claims that its servers handle a "significant amount of the calculations."

Kotaku ran a series of tests today, seeing how the game could run without an internet connection, finding it was happy for around 20 minutes before it realised it wasn't syncing to the servers. Something which would surely be impossible were the servers co-running the game itself. Markus "Notch" Persson just tweeted to his million followers that he managed to play offline too, despite EA's claims.

The Maxis insider points out that the Glassbox engine running SimCity processes the actual simulation client-side, before sending out updates to EA's servers. These updates are then queued in the regional server until they can be processed, which (depending on server load) may take several minutes. This helps explain why gamers are able to run for a limited amount of time without a connection.

EA has remained adamant that a single-player SimCity is logistically impossible, but that claim is suddenly holding a lot less water. This revelation doesn't bode well for EA's leaky Claims Waterholder or any future endeavors it had planned that might have relied on its "our supercomputers do the thinking for you!" rationalization in order to force more "online-only" requirements down users' throats. This online-only requirement is no different than others before it. It may battle piracy, hacking and cheating, but makes onerous demands of its paying customers every step of the way.

Source: TechDirt

[Davo]

I think people would be overwhelmingly less miffed by it, if they were good servers.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

When (perhaps that should be "if" given their stubbornness in this situation) they come out with a single player option, I'll buy the game. Until then, no thanks EA.

[thealexweb]

What I'm concerned about is what happens when EA moves on SimCity and they turn the servers off like they have for many other games. Is that the end of you playing it? One of the reasons I won't touch this game at all., unless it was dropped down to free to play :p

[Teebor]

You can run it for longer with no connection to their servers :- http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a9n5j/you_can_edit_highways_outside_of_city_boundaries/c8vbw6k

Rock Paper shotgun article about it :-

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14/modder-runs-simcity-offline-maxis-remains-silent/

I'm sure I read that even without a connection to the server you still get interaction with the "other cities" as you can get messages about things being sold to them, suggesting that this too is complete bollox

Edit - And Another article - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-14-simcity-modded-so-it-can-be-played-offline-indefinitely

[HawkMan]

region wide calculation on pollution and such won't work without a server.

either way, it doesn't matter why they chose to have always online, they did. and that's it.

<Snipped>

Edited March 15, 2013 by Anaron

[.Neo]

either way, it doesn't matter why they chose to have always online, they did. and that's it.

I'm incredibly glad not everyone has the same posture as you towards these things. Companies would get away with everything.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

isn't this pretty much the same as this article that was posted a couple days ago? https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1141344-maxis-insider-tells-rps-simcity-servers-not-necessary/

[+Warwagon MVC]

It's DRM cloaked in sheep's clothing. Plain and simple.

[HawkMan]

I'm incredibly glad not everyone has the same posture as you towards these things. Companies would get away with everything.

I didn't say it was necessarily the right thing to do. but it's their right. they made the game, they have the right to decide how it works and plays.

[Arceles]

Games like this make me fell very sad, EA by itself makes me sad, I can't imagine how games like Need For Speed 4 where created by them...

[.Neo]

I didn't say it was necessarily the right thing to do. but it's their right. they made the game, they have the right to decide how it works and plays.

Sure, and consumers in their turn have a right to protest against these things and force companies to make changes.

Microsoft initially made the retail licenses of Office 2013 non-transferrable. Instead of saying "Hey, Office 2013 is Microsoft own product and they can just do whatever they hell they please with it." complaints were made, the media covered it causing bad publicity and the company ended up changing the agreement. If everyone was like you we'd still be stuck with a non-transferable Office 2013 retail licenses.

[MillionVoltss]

Modders have it working offline.

[JaredFrost]

Modders have it working offline.

Seems to me all they need to do is create a local proxy server that grabs/saves/loads game data, pretty simple matter

I still give is a few months before it's completely cracked.

[Klownicle]

People want to play this game offline, its not a question of IF it will happen. Its more about how long till it happens. I for one await it.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

If you feel that someone is break the rules, then please report them.

Cleaned

[majortom1981]

Seems to me all they need to do is create a local proxy server that grabs/saves/loads game data, pretty simple matter

I still give is a few months before it's completely cracked.

The cities themselves run locally on the machine. All they did was modify the code to have the game not check the servers. You would use the same mod tools as the sims 3. The package files are the same. You can edit a ton of the game. The gui of the game is in java script .

Things like itnercity cooperation ,and trading wont work without the servers.

[remixedcat]

Thing is someone are easily able to do this because they can run server emulators like how private WoW servers are. They can easily make those for this game.

[redvamp128]

No the secret way to do this is-- obvious -- for them to get out of all this lying stuff

Sell an expansion pack -

Charge people for it-- (then have it one time verify online where you register - Turn off the watchdog -

also by doing this you receive other special updates) But not too much- or people will not be willing to pay.

Crank up the Specs - Disk space - add the files needed to randomize things. (what it checks for online)

Add more characters as well as social situations.

Then allow those that have this pack other new situations that only work with registered versions.

That people have to download from their site where they registered -- thus keeping some online check by them downloading those files.

Also add other things available to them when they go online mode as well. (so create a toggle mode)

That is an easy way to get out of this for EA

Call it -- SIMS OFFLINE--

[dead.cell]

Half the time, EA makes a step in the right direction. The other half is spent taking a step back, and essentially spinning in circles. They appear to have short term memory loss or something because it seems they can't for the life of them remember what it is that many people get angry with them over...

Ubisoft had a couple run ins, but from what I can tell, they've learned from their mistakes. No clue what the heck EA is doing though...

[reap3r]

There is already a crack. Tested and working.

[spaceelf]

Ubisoft had a couple run ins, but from what I can tell, they've learned from their mistakes. No clue what the heck EA is doing though...

Really? Far Cry 3 (and I think AC3) relied on their online service for single player (even basic functionality like the menus didn't work when the servers went down) and ****ed a lot of people off at launch.

Which mistake did they learn from again?

[SierraSonic]

There is already a crack. Tested and working.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... This is just gives me more reason to tell people to not buy it.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... This is just gives me more reason to tell people to not buy it.

Actually do buy it and suggest others to do the same, at least that way Maxis dev's get somewhat of an support but as soon as you get the game, crack it. Crack the holy **** out of it so it would send a clear message to EA not to f*** around with PC gamers since we will still do what we want in the end not what they think is right to do.

Me and my friends did the same thing with MW2 and with the whole iwnet crap, really console type of servers on a PC? Yes, I like to play on a server that is hosted on a P4 and on a 1mb internet. Meh, no thanks Activision, paid my 50 bucks and rewrote every single file with aIWnet files.

[dead.cell]

Really? Far Cry 3 (and I think AC3) relied on their online service for single player (even basic functionality like the menus didn't work when the servers went down) and ****ed a lot of people off at launch.

Which mistake did they learn from again?

Never heard about it over the sound of people talking about how awesome Farcry 3 is... so there's that.