SimCity

[Skud]

1) There is no expansion option yet not even by paying. According to the Game designer, the limit was set to make the game function equally in different types of PC's. A Low end pc could not simulate a City more than 2km size, coz of the animations and amount of processing needed.
If there is an option to select the size of city before the game (based on the users pc) still some cities would be bigger and more self-sufficient than others, causing balance issues.
However you can create mutiple cities in a Region.
2) EA F***** up with the servers, they say that they didnt expect so much traffic which is non-sense considering the fact that Simcity the biggest games played by wider demographic. This happened with their games previously (Sims tapped-out etc) but they were still lazy.
3) DLCs are good, especially for hardcore fans, I know many people who play Simcity only (mostly due to the attention this genre got due to This game and Farmville). They would have nothing to play after an year if no DLC was released.



The publisher funds the games and not the Developer(Also Maxis is a subsidary of EA, like many of the studios), they pay everything from pre-production to distribution. If you dont like DLCs you dont have to purchase them. EA is the tag under which they sell the games, people from EA Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (or DICE), BIOWARE, MAXIS or The Sims Studio are part of EA and they work for EA.
Also please tell me which other major franchise is selling DLC for less the $15 and by DLC I mean poper stuff not skins and sh**

Agree with this. EA's DLCs are mostly old-school expansions, rather than some idiotic stuffs. Here's my take on DLCs: you have a favorite genre or game, you will spend as much as you can. For others, you can just stick with the base game.

I am not a fan of DRM, let alone always online, but there's little we can do.

 

[Bhargav Simha]

The reason why I am supporting EA is, I see nowadays they are being shown a Villans in the industry. It first started from the competetors, then the journalists started jumping the bandwagon for interesting articles, then Fan boys of competing games and finally most the so called gamers who only thin kwhat they want now.
So much for the profits gained by EA by their evil marketing stratergy and milking of franchises, EA has been running in loss for 5 years before the last financial year and the profits this year are not even 1% of the loosess in the past years.
Still they are making games and even though every game may not be wonerfull, but most of them are. I am afraid that if people join in this and cause their games to sell less or use it as an excuse to piracy, then most of the studios will be closed and all your favourite games series will cease to exist.
Rmember Medal of Honour, the studio was closed and the series terminated coz of the poor sales over the past 2 games. Even though the games were not good, they werent **** either as pictured by the media who wanted sensationalism. And making a game like that costs more than making abig budget hollywood movie.
If any other Publisher had the NFS series then it sould have been shut down many years back due to poor sales.
Be glad that there is a company that is willing to make so many different types of games even when they are at loss. When you compare it to other Publishers, check out how many games they make and how they sell them.
Before complaining about the poor market practices, remember how many of the EA games you pirated especially : Roadrash, NFS, Fifa, EA cricket ( no one I know bought the game but almost every one played it) etc
P.S: And yes I still hate their day 1 dlc, because everything made before the release of a game should be present in the game puchased at box price

Agree with this. EA's DLCs are mostly old-school expansions, rather than some idiotic stuffs. Here's my take on DLCs: you have a favorite genre or game, you will spend as much as you can. For others, you can just stick with the base game.

I am not a fan of DRM, let alone always online, but there's little we can do.

+1 Exactly...

EA Hires Hundreds of Chinese Spammers to Post Positively About SimCity’s Always Online Requirement | Play4Real

*www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/vid...s-on-SimCity-after-unplayable-complaints.html

*www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/can-you-get-a-refund-for-simcity

*www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21712910

This is sensationalism.. even I can created an article in some website and since there is a mention of "EA" in the headlines, it will get more hits and spread the rumors Have you heard of the "Paparazzi".
Then the rest of the sites would spread the article, before it is found out to be true or false.
The other day there was a rumor spread by Videogamer, which is supposed to be respectable site in gaming, that Dead space franchise has been terminated due to poor sales and there wont be dead space 4. However they apologized after it was found the rumor was false. It happens all the time. More so with big companies.
Would you have cared if the article was about "Paradox" or some other publisher.

 

[SunnyGamingHD2]

EA insisted that even for single player, being always online will be a strict requirement, but it became a total failure. And still, they are not considering the removal of this requirement. The game is extremely expensive compared to its counterparts and that's why they insist on "always online", which is the polite of saying "awful DRM".

Thanks to EA's greediness, this method of DRM worked flawlessly, nobody is able to play the game at the moment.

EA charged such a high price and collected a high amount of pre-orders, but they did not care to spend some of that revenue to set up enough servers for all players.

 

[rakesh_ic]

Someone wrote here that he cancelled his preorder because the game provided only 2 kms stretch for the city.. does it mean too less a place to play for a month atleast??

or is it just some copy paste from someones comment in FK about the game without totally understanding the 2kms ingame space that we are atalking about.

No offence, but i saw all your points mentioned by someone in the comments section of FK for simcity. So I assume those were just a reiteration of someones observation rather than yours own.

 

[Skud]

Here's something from Cliff Bleszinski, design director, Gears of War series:-

The video game industry is just that. An industry. Which means that it exists in a capitalistic world. You know, a free market. A place where you’re welcome to spend your money on whatever you please… or to refrain from spending that money.

…

I’ve seen a lot of comments online about microtransactions. They’re a dirty word lately, it seems. Gamers are upset that publishers/developers are “nickel and diming them.” They’re raging at “big and evil corporations who are clueless and trying to steal their money.”

I’m going to come right out and say it. I’m tired of EA being seen as “the bad guy.” I think it’s bull**** that EA has the “scumbag EA” memes on Reddit and that Good Guy Valve can Do No Wrong.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan of Gabe and co most everything they do. (Remember, I bought that custom portal turret that took over the internet a while back and I have friends over there.) However, it blows my mind that somehow gamers don’t seem to get that Valve is a business, just like any other, and when Valve charges 100$ for an engagement ring in Team Fortress 2 it’s somehow “cool” yet when EA wants to sell something similar it’s seen as “evil.” Yes, guys, I hate to break it to you, as awesome as Valve is they’re also a company that seeks to make as much money as possible.

They’re just way better at their image control.

Source A

Source B

 

[bippukt]

1) There is no expansion option yet not even by paying. According to the Game designer, the limit was set to make the game function equally in different types of PC's. A Low end pc could not simulate a City more than 2km size, coz of the animations and amount of processing needed.
If there is an option to select the size of city before the game (based on the users pc) still some cities would be bigger and more self-sufficient than others, causing balance issues.
However you can create mutiple cities in a Region.
2) EA F***** up with the servers, they say that they didnt expect so much traffic which is non-sense considering the fact that Simcity the biggest games played by wider demographic. This happened with their games previously (Sims tapped-out etc) but they were still lazy.
3) DLCs are good, especially for hardcore fans, I know many people who play Simcity only (mostly due to the attention this genre got due to This game and Farmville). They would have nothing to play after an year if no DLC was released.



The publisher funds the games and not the Developer(Also Maxis is a subsidary of EA, like many of the studios), they pay everything from pre-production to distribution. If you dont like DLCs you dont have to purchase them. EA is the tag under which they sell the games, people from EA Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (or DICE), BIOWARE, MAXIS or The Sims Studio are part of EA and they work for EA.
Also please tell me which other major franchise is selling DLC for less the $15 and by DLC I mean poper stuff not skins and sh**

Have you played any Paradox Interactive games? They use no DRM - even their CKII which requires Steam to install and update is DRM free. Their gameplay DLCs are usually $5-$10 and they substantially alter the gameplay usually. Or you can consider Stardock - their game Elemental: War of Magic had a lot of problems, so when they made an expansion which completely changed the game, they gave free copies of it to the early adopters of the game. I recieved one, along with an apology email from Stardock.

EA isn't as bad as some people say, but it is among the worst. Tell me, why should I have to put up with always online and all that stuff for what is essentially a single player game. Maxis will learn to their misfortune that trying to turn a single player game like Simcity into a multiplayer one is a case of wasted resources. The fans of the series simply don't prefer it. I hope they haven't killed the series with their bad decisions. Forced socialization is unlikely to work, even it were working perfectly. I will buy this game when its price goes down to about 500, and I have a guaranteed connection.

Also, the problem with DLC in India is that whily you buy the game at Indian price, but the DLCs are priced for the developed countries. If having to pay 500-750 for a DLC when the game itself costs around 1000 vexes me, it is only natural.

 

[theserpent]

OMG that was epic EA hired spammers

 

[arijitsinha]

Someone wrote here that he cancelled his preorder because the game provided only 2 kms stretch for the city.. does it mean too less a place to play for a month atleast??

or is it just some copy paste from someones comment in FK about the game without totally understanding the 2kms ingame space that we are atalking about.

No offence, but i saw all your points mentioned by someone in the comments section of FK for simcity. So I assume those were just a reiteration of someones observation rather than yours own.

Apart from the 2 sqkm city, which point you saw similar to FK comments? And everything we comment or discuss based on comments made by reviewers or users. We are not testing the games. But for god shake dont tell I copied from FK. First time I saw someone who is checking FK reviews/comments.

FYI I read these issues on may be metacritic or review in progrees by IGN. forgot the exact source. Upon reading , i decided not to go. That is my personal choice. And I am not a EA hater, Many EA games are in my origin account. but was a hardcore fan of Simcity. And went mad seeing how this game is been paralyzed.
Afterall this is solely my opinion.

 

[theserpent]

Well to all,usually reviews pop up 1 day, or the day the game releases, Did you see any review fron major gaming websites like IGN,Gamespot etc? I guess no most of them are really pissed.
I agree the game is amazing minus the DRM

I hope none of them come here xD

 

[bippukt]

Well to all,usually reviews pop up 1 day, or the day the game releases, Did you see any review fron major gaming websites like IGN,Gamespot etc? I guess no most of them are really pissed.
I agree the game is amazing minus the DRM

I hope none of them come here xD

Gamespot gave it 5/10 as it is broken.

SimCity Review - GameSpot.com

EDIT: IGN review is in progress, but they do not recommend buying this game until its problems are fixed.

 

[arijitsinha]

Yeah.. I also agree.. the game is awesome..

 

[Skud]

Have you played any Paradox Interactive games? They use no DRM - even their CKII which requires Steam to install and update is DRM free. Their gameplay DLCs are usually $5-$10 and they substantially alter the gameplay usually. Or you can consider Stardock - their game Elemental: War of Magic had a lot of problems, so when they made an expansion which completely changed the game, they gave free copies of it to the early adopters of the game. I recieved one, along with an apology email from Stardock.

EA isn't as bad as some people say, but it is among the worst. Tell me, why should I have to put up with always online and all that stuff for what is essentially a single player game. Maxis will learn to their misfortune that trying to turn a single player game like Simcity into a multiplayer one is a case of wasted resources. The fans of the series simply don't prefer it. I hope they haven't killed the series with their bad decisions. Forced socialization is unlikely to work, even it were working perfectly. I will buy this game when its price goes down to about 500, and I have a guaranteed connection.

Also, the problem with DLC in India is that whily you buy the game at Indian price, but the DLCs are priced for the developed countries. If having to pay 500-750 for a DLC when the game itself costs around 1000 vexes me, it is only natural.

Anything that's on Steam is not DRM free, for DRM free games you have to purchase it from elsewhere. My CKII is purchased from Gamersgate and DRM Free. Stardock, Paradox and CD Projekt Red are a few exceptions, even Valve is no saint. And that always online/forced socialization crap should hold true for Blizzard too. Why people see no evil in Diablo III or SC2? What about Valve who started all these nonsense with Steam and HL2?

Lastly no one publishes games keeping India in mind. Don't like DLCs? Just be happy with the base game. We are actually blessed to have the base game for such low prices, Bioshock Infinite is less than $20 here compared to $40+ price tag elsewhere.

 

[theserpent]

^^But in steam you can play the game in offline MODE

 

[Skud]

Yeah, that's one benefit of Steam over Origin. But that's all about it. BTW, you can play offline in UPlay too.

 

[bippukt]

Anything that's on Steam is not DRM free, for DRM free games you have to purchase it from elsewhere. My CKII is purchased from Gamersgate and DRM Free. Stardock, Paradox and CD Projekt Red are a few exceptions, even Valve is no saint. And that always online/forced socialization crap should hold true for Blizzard too. Why people see no evil in Diablo III or SC2? What about Valve who started all these nonsense with Steam and HL2?

Lastly no one publishes games keeping India in mind. Don't like DLCs? Just be happy with the base game. We are actually blessed to have the base game for such low prices, Bioshock Infinite is less than $20 here compared to $40+ price tag elsewhere.

I have CKII in my Steam library. I can launch the game anytime, even if Steam is not running and even if it is my brother's Steam account is logged in instead of mine. It is DRM Free, once you have installed and updated it

I understand your point about DLCs, but even so, I do not like it one bit. A company like EA certainly can make DLCs cheaper in India via Origin, it just chooses not to. The lower price is the reason why I can buy games, otherwise I would have had to join the 99% of Indian gamers who are too poor/kanjoos to buy games.

EDIT: BTW, Origin's offline mode works fine. In fact, it works better than Steam.

 

[Skud]

I have CKII in my Steam library. I can launch the game anytime, even if Steam is not running and even if it is my brother's Steam account is logged in instead of mine. It is DRM Free, once you have installed and updated it

I understand your point about DLCs, but even so, I do not like it one bit. A company like EA certainly can make DLCs cheaper in India via Origin, it just chooses not to. The lower price is the reason why I can buy games, otherwise I would have had to join the 99% of Indian gamers who are too poor/kanjoos to buy games.

EDIT: BTW, Origin's offline mode works fine. In fact, it works better than Steam.

Thanks for the information. Wasn't aware of that.

 

[Bhargav Simha]

Have you played any Paradox Interactive games? They use no DRM - even their CKII which requires Steam to install and update is DRM free. Their gameplay DLCs are usually $5-$10 and they substantially alter the gameplay usually. Or you can consider Stardock - their game Elemental: War of Magic had a lot of problems, so when they made an expansion which completely changed the game, they gave free copies of it to the early adopters of the game. I recieved one, along with an apology email from Stardock.

EA isn't as bad as some people say, but it is among the worst. Tell me, why should I have to put up with always online and all that stuff for what is essentially a single player game. Maxis will learn to their misfortune that trying to turn a single player game like Simcity into a multiplayer one is a case of wasted resources. The fans of the series simply don't prefer it. I hope they haven't killed the series with their bad decisions. Forced socialization is unlikely to work, even it were working perfectly. I will buy this game when its price goes down to about 500, and I have a guaranteed connection.

Also, the problem with DLC in India is that whily you buy the game at Indian price, but the DLCs are priced for the developed countries. If having to pay 500-750 for a DLC when the game itself costs around 1000 vexes me, it is only natural.

You are comparing CK II to EA games like sim city and BF3 ?!!... the game has some of the shitty graphics and though game play is good its not much different from previous Crusader game. Do you have any idea how much production of a AAA games costs.. even a DLC like end game cost almost a full game produced by paradox.
I have played enough paradox interactive games that I can assure you that their game quality is **** and worst in the whole industry... it is a well known fact that they do not put enough effort or money on QA. Magika and king arthur 2 were ****, some bugs made them almost unplayable. I even remember their cheif or some one apologizing for the bugs in their games.
Even though there are bugs in all games they are not as game breaking as the one in Magika or Gettysurg (boy you need to see the reviews of the game, search in you tube)...
I am not saying EA is great.. It sucks to see in every forum they keep talking about it as if its the o nly company thats taking the game industry down.

YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT PRODUCING GAMES LIKE BF3, SIMCITY AND RECENT NFS COST A LOT OF MONEY... HOW DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO OFFER IT AT SAME PRICE AS A LOW PRODUCTION VALUE GAMES OF PARADOX..... DO YOU EXPECT A IPHONE 5 TO BE THE SAME COST AS A MICROMAX CANVAS HD

 

[rakesh_ic]

Apart from the 2 sqkm city, which point you saw similar to FK comments? And everything we comment or discuss based on comments made by reviewers or users. We are not testing the games. But for god shake dont tell I copied from FK. First time I saw someone who is checking FK reviews/comments.

FYI I read these issues on may be metacritic or review in progrees by IGN. forgot the exact source. Upon reading , i decided not to go. That is my personal choice. And I am not a EA hater, Many EA games are in my origin account. but was a hardcore fan of Simcity. And went mad seeing how this game is been paralyzed.
Afterall this is solely my opinion.

Sorry.. i dint mean any offence here. My intention was to understand the intensity of 2x2Km space for the game. Is it so small to play simcity at all?? Being a noob on simcity, I wanted to know if it is still value for money on this game, leaivng alone DRM and DLC's

 

[Bhargav Simha]

I agree with you regarding always online....I hate it too. I hate a lot of other things that EA does like day 1 dlc in Mass effect 3 etc. I am also furious how they F***** up the new simcity, they were clearly reckless regarding the issues...
I was only talking about hating EA every time, when a game gets ****ed up its EA. When a game is good its coz of bioware, DICE, fire monkey etc.... even if they are studios owned by EA. Even in the reviews I see this difference.
The funny thing is even when EA has produced so many great game series, they never get credit for them and they are not defended like people defend valve, blizzard etc.
As SKUDS post mentioned it seems even with all their resources they dont have a good PR.

Actually I have seen IGN and TB playthrough's and the space seems enough, however the issues are very bad. Some times the city progression is lost due to connection/sever issues

 

[Skud]

You are comparing CK II to EA games like sim city and BF3 ?!!... the game has some of the shitty graphics and though game play is good its not much different from previous Crusader game. Do you have any idea how much production of a AAA games costs.. even a DLC like end game cost almost a full game produced by paradox.
I have played enough paradox interactive games that I can assure you that their game quality is **** and worst in the whole industry... it is a well known fact that they do not put enough effort or money on QA. Magika and king arthur 2 were ****, some bugs made them almost unplayable. I even remember their cheif or some one apologizing for the bugs in their games.
Even though there are bugs in all games they are not as game breaking as the one in Magika or Gettysurg (boy you need to see the reviews of the game, search in you tube)...
I am not saying EA is great.. It sucks to see in every forum they keep talking about it as if its the o nly company thats taking the game industry down.

YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT PRODUCING GAMES LIKE BF3, SIMCITY AND RECENT NFS COST A LOT OF MONEY... HOW DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO OFFER IT AT SAME PRICE AS A LOW PRODUCTION VALUE GAMES OF PARADOX..... DO YOU EXPECT A IPHONE 5 TO BE THE SAME COST AS A MICROMAX CANVAS HD

You have completely missed the essence of CK II. It's not about graphics at all. Also these days almost every games come with lots of bugs, zero day patches have somewhat become the norm. And I just don't want to get started with NFS once again.

Origin & UPlay are good to break the monopoly of Steam. For me, that's a bigger threat.