Simcity 5

[Klaus]

Think I might pick this up on origin tonight...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bpzouhrHCpM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Jomama]

Did you try it. I've never played a Sim but thought about trying this one. Post what server you pick.

[Klaus]

I did buy it but it didn't unlock until 2am last night so I haven't played yet. I will see what server I get on and can create a map we can both play on.

[Klaus]

Played for a bit last night. Quick review:

Bad stuff:
EA has decided that you must be connected to the internet to use this game which is pretty lame when there are only 3 US servers. Sometimes you need to wait to login.

The launch was done very poorly because EA would not allow you to pre-load the game and when it unlocked a million people tried to download it at the same time (good news is it was under a gig in size)

Gameplay:
Thankfully the game is much like the Simcity of old. You put roads in and zone areas to residential/commercial/industrial people quickly come and build. Graphics are good and street level views are pretty interesting. It looks like there isn't quite as much micromanagement as the older versions... you still need to watch your electrical and sewer grids but it seems to auto connect everything you just need to make sure you have enough power plants etc. Once you hit certain milestones like a population amount it will suggest you add a cityhall etc and that makes people happy. Pretty fun so far.

When you start you pick a region map that includes 5 or so starting areas. If you play with friends you can invite them to your region and they can build on one of the starting areas also. The starting areas are actually pretty small compared to the old SimCity and I in 30 minutes of play got to the edge. It looks like the idea is to work with other cities and sell your excess power etc. So I guess you have built in expansion areas for your cities. Overall pretty fun but I haven't played too much.

[Klaus]

NEW RELEASE - Sim City Game (PC Digital Download) $47.99 (http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/339356)
Gamefly (http://www.techbargains.com/jump.cfm?clkSubId=A0AC41A00339356C354&afsrc=1&id=6880&arg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamefly.com%2FDownload-SimCity%2F5005533%2F) has the newly released Sim City Game (PC Digital Download) for a low $47.99after 20% off Coupon Code: "GFDMAR20" (Exp Soon). No Tax.This game just released today, 3/5. Check out IGN's review in progress HERE (http://www.techbargains.com/u.cfm?clkSubId=A0AC41A01339356A339356&afsrc=1&id=339356&u=1).

[Jomama]

Yeah after reading some reviews i'm gonna wait, I'm sure the price will be sub $40 in 6 months. I doubt I'd get a easy download through origin anyway, its only ever caused me problems...

[Klaus]

Yeah I figured you would wait. It's probably a $30-40 game unless you are into simulations. Michelle liked Simcity 2004 so we are going to play together (how sweet) making it worth full price.

[Jomama]

Fucking EA.. unbelievable. Once again, launching a product as finished that has all the bugs and issues of an untested beta...

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/ea-disables-non-critical-gameplay-features-to-relieve-simcity-servers/

"Hey we didn't prepare for a proper launch, so we're going to disable features in our game that customers paid for so they will be able to actually play the game they paid for..."

[Klaus]

Noooooo stuck on LLama speed.......

I was able to play last night for 4 hours so it's not completely a fail but yeah it's pretty bad. I bet I won't be able to get connected tonight to play a single player game.

[Jomama]

Yeah the #1 reason I'm waiting is, i have no confidence once I pay for it I will actually be able to download, install and update the game successfully... Much less connect to a N.A. server.

I have more probs with Bioware's (EA) SWTOR launcher/updater and BF3 updates than all other games combined... ever..

[Klaus]

http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/simcity-mayor.jpg?w=640


Chris Kluwe ‏<s style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 187, 187);">@</s>ChrisWarcraft (https://twitter.com/ChrisWarcraft)
The town after two days of <s style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 181, 210);">@</s>EA (https://twitter.com/EA)'s uninterrupted horseshit service.pic.twitter.com/Zy7CPo9g7n (http://t.co/Zy7CPo9g7n)



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEyabNcCYAAInZw.jpg

[Klaus]

Some of the saved games I thought I had lost when I was disconnected from the server on Tuesday showed up last night.... Wasn't able to get on most of the night yesterday or this morning. EA is really taking a lot of heat over this - kinda hope they reverse course and drop the DRM (really their only way out of this).

[Jomama]

lol I actually got it last night, there was a small discount through gamestop. Surprisingly fast and problem free download & install. Started late (like 1pm cst) so servers prob werent being taxed but I pretty much had my choice of 1 of the 2 east & west coast servers.

Pretty fun, but my street layouts sucked, need to work on that.

[Klaus]

Yeah the street layout is the hardest part. Especially, when you want medium and high density housing and you need to upgrade the streets. I also found that police and fire have response time issues if you have weird streets which is quite realistic.


http://static.geekbeat.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Spark_2013-03-06_01-57-51.png

[Klaus]

I have been on US west 1 fyi

[Jomama]

Yeah I never saw you playing... I got addicted fast, and this is one of those time warp games... Easy to let 8 hours fly by and all of a sudden its 5 am... Fun though for sure.

[Klaus]

I was at the cabin this weekend but I will be on this week.

Yeah, Michelle played last week for what seemed like a couple hours and.... boom she says "it's been six hours since we started it's bed time"

I am starting to figure out good road design after 5 cities. You really need to think about how you want your city to be after several hours of play - I had one city much like the circle city above that had a really bad traffic issue that resulted in me having to demo the area and start over.

[Chadwick]

Ya know i have to wonder if it is not intentional that EA make games with flaws. I think they have a very planned out "there is no such thing as bad press". Look at all the buzz created about their game. Hell, it got people talking if nothing else. I plan to buy the game eventually here, and part of the reason is all the exposure it got keeping it in the forefront of my mind and reading reviews etc.

Obviously timing has everything to do with game and movie releases...so i know they often have to push the game out before it is finished to get peoples dollars before other companies (blizzard SC2 exp).

[Jomama]

The overtaxed server thing I kinda understand. Even with alpha and beta access, I get a company not wanting to spend $$ on a bunch of servers that may not be needed if the release isn't as big, and then expanding.. But the DRM req'd internet connection stuff with a game that is predominately single player is pretty fucking absurd.

[Chadwick]

I tried it a little bit and of course my first one was a disaster but i didnt do a whole lot of bulldozing and re-development. I just quit. So...first question...how do you delete a game/city?

[Klaus]

I am not really sure you can delete a city but I think you can delete the entire region from the start screen.

You can transfer money between your cities that are within the same region (also power/water/waste/etc) but it's somewhat glitchy at the moment and takes a bit of time to complete.

I tried to add both you and Joe last night but it couldn't find either of you. Not sure if that is due to the server issues or if I have your name wrong. Mine is Klaus9000

[Jomama]

You can abandon a city when you have negative cash flow and no money in the Treasury, it stops the game at that point and gives you 4 options, one is to abandon. Not sure otherwise.

I think the Sims friends list is based off of the Origin friends but its still buggy.

[Chadwick]

I was only an hour into it when the damn Cloverfield monster cut a nice swath of destruction through my shit...

[Chadwick]

Yeah so how do we start a multiplayer region and can we work on it at different times? Meaning we dont have to be all online together?

[Chadwick]

They need a scuttle and recycle option. Get some cash back in the bank when you demo a building, erm whole section of town... ;)

[Jomama]

Yeah so how do we start a multiplayer region and can we work on it at different times? Meaning we dont have to be all online together?

Just set up an area as a private invite only and then invite people on. I've only done it with people that are actively playing and accept the invite right away, no idea what happens if you invite someone offline. Pick one of the bigger areas so everyone will likely get more than one townsite.

I've started tracking the servers/area's that I want to keep working on, unfortunately the server selection only tells you if you have built something on the server before, not what you named it... And you have to quit the game to change servers which is completely fucking stupid. But at least they are adding servers, some are still full during peak times tho so you may want to go to one of the newer ones (3 or 4).


My Origin name is Jomama_AK but I think we all are friends from BF3.

[Chadwick]

I put in an enduro session last night. I like the game, i think it's a nice change of pace. I do find it fairly unpolished compared to a blizzard title, which should be no surprise. I also find it almost stressful in a weird way to play this game. I think i care to much about the individual (being a liberterian and all) i feel terrible when i have to build something over someones house! LOL

My city was mining and manufacturing. I had trouble keeping large factories open and eventually just could'nt keep up with expenses. Something about nowhere to ship freight but there was no demand for more retail so im not sure how to balance that out. I was shipping everything to the global market and still couldn't get freight demand up in any way to keep up with the factory outputs. So much for supply side econ LOL!

[Chadwick]

Some things that need work:

-The graphics are not totally polished. Very glitchy.
-The in game chat is too subtle they need an alert and the window should open automatically when somone sends an in-game msg.
-The speed kept changingback to slow. I kept upping it to medium but it would change back quite often...

[Klaus]

I noticed the speed change too and last night was the first time I saw that. The region chat needs a fix agreed.


Here are the latest developments from hacking:



Bullet points with recent modding discoveries:


Players have reverse engineered modding. Significant parts of the game's code is in Javascript.
The game can be played without an internet connection indefinitely after modding. Can only stay in one city.
SimCity has behavior for offline save handling. When offline, your city is saved and is uploaded to Origin the next time you go online. Offline mode seemed to be cut hastily.
Debug tools were left open, allowing 'griefing' other people's cities by setting DEBUG=1.
"Big maps" are referenced multiple times in the game's code. Possible DLC regions with big city plots? It's the only way they can increase the city size without breaking existing maps.
Internal terraforming tools were discovered, but requires a special build of the game.
Population numbers are faked / inflated - GetFudgedPopulation. chart (http://i.imgur.com/AhIm3Gu.png) - thanks fat_ugly_midget.
After modding, you can play around outside 2km2 plot, and it saves syncs to the server.
Latest patch has made package files read only, and disabled debug tools / the cheat console. (Confirm please, I do not own / will not support the game)

A reverse-engineered modding guide (http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a8bw7/how_to_mod_sim_city_2013_getting_started_basics) was posted on /r/simcity (http://www.reddit.com/r/simcity) earlier today by /u/Plornt (http://www.reddit.com/u/Plornt). Locked terraforming tools1were discovered too.
Thanks to the power of the internet, another user on reddit has being able to build highways outside the 2km2 plot, removing the fake population inflation2, and even being able to play the game without a connection to EA's servers. In the unmodded game, you will get kicked out after 20 minutes, but now it can be trivially patched to indefinitely. Server features like region play, and save/load handling are obviously not available.
Link:http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a9n5j/you_can_edit_highways_outside_of_city_boundaries/c8vbw6k
Looking at the JS code posted on GitHub (https://gist.github.com/anonymous/5133829#file-simcityui-js), it <del>certainly looks like</del> confirmed the forced disconnect is totally implemented in Javascript and is client sided. This is a really sloppy implementation of always online "DRM".
This is indicative that offline support was hastily removed late during the development cycle. Possible EA/Maxis debate/internal conflicts?
1: Only developer builds could actually make use of terraforming, but the UI is there. It may be for internal use only (to sell new regions as DLC?), or just buggy / clunky.
2: The population displayed on the user interface becomes inflated after the first 500 sims. This is intentional and not a bug, as the function name is "GetFudgedPopulation". A 'million' population city only has 100,000 real agents.
TL;DR: SimCity kicks you out after 20 minutes of being disconnected from EA servers, JavaScript mod allows you to bypass this part of the DRM.

[Jomama]

Tip: put ur sewage outflow next to a water pump and you have a perpetual water supply, it even will turn a white area blue. Add a filter to improve it tho asap.

[Klaus]

I got my free game from EA for the issues.....Didn't have much choice since I own BF3 so I picked Simcity 4 and wow have we come a long way since 2004 looks like Atari graphics.

[Jomama]

Any other decent looking games in the free list?

[Chadwick]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=EA+free+game+list

Yup, you set that one up too well.

[Klaus]

Haha

[Klaus]

Co worker and I got a chuckle with the inclusion of "plants vs zombies" and "bejeweled" that are $99 iPhone games..... Nice work EA

[Jomama]

Game websites, game news = universally blocked at work.

[Klaus]

The eligible titles are Battlefield 3 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/142/14209865.html) (Standard Edition), Bejeweled 3 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/091/091073.html), Dead Space 3 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/022/022618.html) (Standard Edition), Mass Effect 3 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/142/14235016.html) (Standard Edition), Medal of Honor Warfighter (http://pc.ign.com/objects/101/101082.html) (Standard Edition), Need For Speed Most Wanted (Standard Edition), Plants vs. Zombies (http://pc.ign.com/objects/143/14336671.html)and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition. You'll have until March 30 to claim your free game.

[Chadwick]

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=749234

LULZ