been posted yet? <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0FsrzqJNQF8?list=UU2e0bNZ6CzT-Xvr070VaGsw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
EA didn't make the game though, blame Maxis for this mess. It's their fault for making a broken game whose simulation system does not work properly. EA just does what they were supposed to do, promote the game. This is like if Game Of Thrones had a horrible ending and people blamed HBO instead of the people who actually made the show. The Always online stuff is annoying...but to get past it and play a broken game is just terrible.
I'm so glad I decided to wait for the initial reviews of this game. Will Wright is probably convulsing in a corner somewhere. Watching this release has almost gotten me to the point of never buying a pre-release (which I rarely do, but have). This is just sad.
Read the article I posted where they interview Richard Garriott. EA pushes stuff out before it's ready. Your Game of Thrones analogy would only be accurate if HBO forced the producers to push it out before it was finished to meet deadlines. Is EA to blame completely in this case? Probably not, but to say they're "just the promoters" is being naïve.
Dr of Dunk already pointed out some errors in this logic, but I'd also like to mention that Maxis IS EA. They're just a studio/dev team under EA. This isn't just a publishing/disibrution deal where the developer is completely independent (like Crysis, HL2, Fuse, etc.). Publishers usually have a LOT of say in video game development, including when the game is shipped. Generally, if a game is buggy on release, I'd probably put some (if not all) of the blame on the publishers (publishers usually are in charge of QA, etc.). And that's even in cases where the developers aren't actually owned by the publisher. I can't say for sure, but I think the guys making the game probably didn't like putting the game out in this state, not to mention the various "design" choices. EA is 100% to blame for this IMO (specifically, the "business" parts of EA).
i went to gamestop to buy this game and the cashier actually convinced me to not buy it. not a good sign. sucks though, i was actually looking forward to playing this.
What proof is there that EA pushed this out before it was ready though? EA never pushed Maxis on Spore, they let Maxis work on that game forever and ever... Maxis has tons of clout with EA (thanks to developing one of the best selling videogames of all time in Sims) and the last simcity game that was released was 10 years ago. Just to say "Yeah this is all EA's fault." is just blindly assuming something. EA has deadlines to meet just like every other company though and according to rumors first started to pop up this Simcity has been in development for years. All these decisions...glassbox engine...something that Maxis couldn't handle because it's mostly a fraud AND something that apparently can't even handle larger city tiles at the time...that started and ends with Maxis.
don't play too many video games and and never played the Sims but thought it was cool. Was about to buy it when one of my friends told me amazon actually banned it because it was so bad?
*Looks at the game.* I think that's all you need to see. On top of that, they pushed it out without even having enough servers ready. I think part of this is due to Will Wright. He's not with EA/Maxis anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if other Maxix leads left as well. I've not really paid attention to who is there, but it wouldn't surprise me if Maxis has a lot less clout these days than they did before. EA certainly had deadlines/shareholders to think about, and I'm sure that played a large influence in releasing this product in this state (maybe the whole reason actually). This is still on them though. I actually think there probably is some merit to the possibility this was a Facebook game though. Can't really blame Maxis if EA told them to make a Facebook game, then told them to take what they could and turn it into an always-online game (to test their online-DRM theory). All the problems in SimCity just scream "rushed" and "ruined by publisher" to me. A developer (with no outside influences) doesn't make a game that requires an online connection, even though all the processing is done locally.
It's not even about the game being buggy, it's about the engine in itself being broken as pointed out many times all over the net. The Sims 3, now that is a buggy game. Elder Scrolls...buggy games. Most major games are buggy at release nowadays because yeah, teams have deadlines to meet and not every thing can be fixed on time and plus games are a lot more complex than what they were back then obviously. Also, The Garriott interview mentioned sports games and their yearly releases... Well then why are some sports games better than others.? MLB The Show, NBA 2k, Fifa and NHL(EA)...these games are set at the same deadlines and yet are well received every year. It's simply because the developers didn't wreck it with a broken system and they are well designed games. I guess the real question is... Would Simcity really be all the different if it were released under another publisher? We know if it were under Ubisoft or Activision this would have been much of the same because the game...the design of the game too many is broken. Also, yes HBO does push Game of Thrones to be out before a certain time. You'd think they would let a season be in development for 2-3 years? If something is so ambitious that it takes years to make then perhaps that project should be saved for another day.
I'm sure as long as Maxis is making Sims 3 then they will remain to have a lot of clout with their overlords. The problem is that other than the Sims 3 Maxis has been average at best if not just a bad developer...and the team that works on Sims 3 is very different than the Original Maxis team. You're right that a lot of them have left, I know this Ocean Quigley guy worked on Sims 4 (and sims societies...) but the other executive designer did not. So perhaps they are rushed more but I'm not giving Maxis the benefit of the doubt because really...I can't think of a great game they have made since Will have left. Spore was a alright game. The Sims 3 is a great game. It will be interesting to see if EA wants to make The Sims series into a always online thing because they will ruin their cash cow doing that. With all that said, I'm just not ready to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe if it were a team like Bioware who had developed some good games and the qaulity of those games continues to go down... But with Maxis? I don't know, I see a flawed glassbox system at work here and most of the other Simcity fans are ripping this game apart. It's too bad there aren't any mods and will never be if they keep this game online to fix the system and salvage the game.
History of it happening. I remember the Dragon Age team was rushed and they ended up putting out one of the most underwhelming sequels I've ever played.
The stuff that is "broken" to me either sounds like it was rushed (i.e., couldn't figure out a way to do ___, so faked it/simplified things to meet release) or something that was likely requested by EA (always online). We might have to get into specifics, but don't think these were problems caused solely by poor execution. FWIW, I'd say Skyrim PS3 is almost as bad as SimCity here. Bethesda released a game that flat out wouldn't work on PS3 (they either needed to rewrite most/all of their systems, or not release on PS3...but I guess $$$ was more important). I'm surprised it didn't get more publicity actually (maybe if EA was in charge). IIRC, Bethesda moved up the release date on Fallout New Vegas, and surprise, it was pretty buggy (and Obsidian missed their bonus by 1 Metacritic point). I don't play all the games, but 2K has huge issues IMO. It is well received, but I don't really know why. It is the best NBA game I guess, but that doesn't say much. As I suggested earlier, it is kind of hard to say for sure without knowing how the game was developed (i.e., did it start as a Facebook game?). Also depends on the publisher. As I said, I'm fairly certain a lot of the things that are wrong with SimCity are due to publisher decisions (e.g., always online). If another publisher didn't meddle so much, I could see the game being better. If only that were true... Publishers don't care who makes the game. Call of Duty is the biggest IP out there, and makes Activison a TON of money. But that game is basically farmed out to whatever studio happens to be free, and the original creators were basically kicked out (well they wanted out, but partly because they were treated poorly). EA just needs to put down a few million dollars, find a few experienced developers, and they can release something called SimCity that will sell a lot of copies. And they know that. Maxis doesn't have any clout. Will Wright had enough power himself to maybe influence things (EA wouldn't want to see "Will Wright is pissed, leaves EA" articles), but I don't think anyone else at Maxis has nearly the same amount of power. Kind of alluded to this earlier, but with Will gone, Maxis does what EA wants. So kind of hard to say whether Maxis or EA is to blame for this. BioWare is actually a good example of the negative influence EA seems to have over these guys (RedRedemption sort of pointed this out). There are almost countless examples of a studio putting out great games, being bought out by EA, then suddenly their games start to get worse and worse (that seems to fit both Maxis and BioWare, among others). I'm not as negative on EA as others, but they clearly have problems managing their development studios. I don't think SimCity is an exception here given EA's history.
"Login is closed at this time. Please check back soon." LOL WUT? Edit: It was just North America West 4 with this issues. West 2 worked fine...
I feel like though that Maxis should take a large share of the blame here. This glassbox system seems to be what causes most of the problems. Why can't we have bigger cities? Glassbox. Why can't Commerical interact with Industry? <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/hubelebad">hubelebad</a> R needs C for shopping. I needs C as an output. The game stalled too much when we made C need I, too.</p>— Ocean Quigley (@oceanquigley) <a href="https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/312364631723241472">March 15, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Why create a system that has to simulate the lives of every sim? Is that really what Simcity players want? Maybe Sims players care about that kind of stuff but this is a city building game and if you have to say cut down the size of a city to give players that then you are likely going in the wrong direction. I just can't see EA meddling to the point where they are creating the system. Quigley was there for the past two major Simcity titles and Sims Societies I believe. I'm not abstaining blame for EA, it's just people seem to blame EA for every single thing and the other major Publishers are guilty of the same thing of trying to force DRM on it's customers, enforcing release dates, and pushing out sequel after sequel (Another Assassins Creed? really?) I also know what happened to Call Of Duty and how it's made, but I don't think EA works like that. They'll keep a team on a series like how they pretty much split off Maxis one to go off and work on the Sims and the other for the other Maxis stuff. Or how they get a team to work on Madden for a few years. I also think if they wanted to just sell Sim City then they could have basically made improved graphics for it and just expanded on what Sim City 4 and all of it's precursors did instead of trying to glassbox it. But this is a different team than have worked on the past Sim-cities. I blame time for that more than EA and so far without Will Wright...this Quigley guy does not have a solid track record as a lead designer. Maybe he'll make some great games if he moves on from EA. Any ways, I just hope EA/Maxis can fix this thing so I can get some worth out of it. I know one thing is certain, this is the last game I am pre-ordering. After games like D3, DA2, and numerous disappointments it's time to stop giving these guys guaranteed money and wait to see what the word is on these things before making that plunge
Nope, not now at least. Maybe they will make the maps bigger and fix some issues with the glassbox thingy.
Some of these still sound like limitations possibly/probably enforced by EA (as a publisher). The game is supposed to run on old dual core CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and 7-8 year old GPUs. Perhaps this is why the simulation code runs only on a single thread (I'm assuming that's true), and why they don't seem to offload some of these tasks to the GPU. Again, I can't think of a reason why a developer would go out of their way to make a game like this, but it would make sense if they were given certain requirements by their publisher. Seems to me that they wanted to be ambitious with their engine, and while it would probably work on mid-range (and up) PCs, they had to scale back things to get it working on these lower-end machines. If these limitations were there at the start, then shame on Maxis, but I also would be surprised if EA enforced them late in development, causing them to "simplify" much of the simulation (or, on the flip side, maybe it was simplified to begin with but then EA decided to turn this into a $60 retail game). This normally wouldn't be something to bother speculating about, but EA has a bad history with this, and it is already clear that EA wanted to use SimCity to push certain things (always-online being the obvious example). On a side note, I admit Maxis shares blame too since they developed this game. But without knowing what conditions they were given, it is hard to say who deserves more blame. At the end of the day however, EA decides what to put out and what to cancel/spend more time on. They decided SimCity was good enough to release to gamers, who'd spend $60+ for it. Just like Bethesda who decided to release a broken game on PS3. FWIW, I blame each and over publisher for doing things like this. EA, Activision, and Ubisoft in particular do not get a lot of love from me. You're right, Activision is MUCH worse at this than EA. Though I think EA does it on a smaller scale (changing out parts of teams...and they certainly don't seem great and keeping legendary people like Will Wright, BioWare doctors, etc.), and they certainly tried to mimic annual CoD games by alternating Battlefield and Medal of Honor every year (doing essentially what Activision does, but keeping the names different...initially anyway). Though I don't think they've been happy with the performance of MoH, so we'll see how they handle BF. Agreed. I think you might be able to trust some publishers (especially when combined with some developers), but in general, pre-ordering games is a risky move these days.
No free game download in my in box yet. Honestly, I was waiting to see what game I could get for free before confirming that I wanted to return the game with Amazon. I haven't played it nearly as much as I thought I would, mostly because of the bugs and failed log ins.
