Sim City 5

[pcslookout]

There are many who can play and have played quite a bit. You guys make it sound like it's completely down and has been for 2 days now. That's simply not true.

This.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

There are many who can play and have played quite a bit. You guys make it sound like it's completely down and has been for 2 days now. That's simply not true.

It absolutely has been down, WTF are you even talking about.

 

[Stuka87]

It absolutely has been down, WTF are you even talking about.

Then how are so many people playing? Yes there are those that cannot get on, but there are lots who are.

 

[Stuka87]

i have to admit that seeing such a heavily DRM'd game fail such miserably is providing me with immense satisfaction!!

Why are so many people saying "yay for DRM failing"?

Its an ONLINE GAME!! Its not single player. You build a city, which influences the region, and participates in the global (server) economy. The whole game is run on the servers. You just run a thin client on your machine.

This is not a DRM issue. Its an online game having too few servers issue. I don't see people whining that WoW or similar games have DRM.

 

[Wyndru]

There would be like 5 posts in this thread if it were only people actually playing and enjoying it commenting.

At least the thread is getting some views now

 

[Aikouka]

Issues like this and Diablo III make me wonder how these companies determine their server demand. In a lot of cases, you can't really build your infrastructure for the initial demand as you'll just end up with underutilized servers within a week or two. This might push for implementing a hybrid permanent server + short-term cloud-based server solution. That way, you can easily pull down servers when the demand dies and it won't be as costly as attempting to reappropriate the hardware.

Although, it would certainly be much easier if EA didn't require their servers to perform the simulation processing.

Wow, I did not expect Amazon to pull it. They probably got sick of all the refund requests.

That's my guess. Apparently, EA refused to issue refund requests even after stating that they would, but Amazon was allowing it. However, Amazon will usually pull items if there's an issue with the product or the description of the product. I mostly see the latter.

 

[CPA]

EA Forums are a gold mine of information. Apparently, they have pulled the leaderboards, achievements and a couple other things to try to get the servers to perform better. This was posted as an apparent Twitter convo with one of the Maxis developers:

Brent Hillier ?@Brent_Hillier

@moskow23 I know you're doing what you can, but removing core game mechanics in an attempt to get this working has got to be embarrassing



Dan Moskowitz ?@moskow23

@Brent_Hillier No kidding.

 

[Wyndru]

Issues like this and Diablo III make me wonder how these companies determine their server demand. In a lot of cases, you can't really build your infrastructure for the initial demand as you'll just end up with underutilized servers within a week or two. This might push for implementing a hybrid permanent server + short-term cloud-based server solution. That way, you can easily pull down servers when the demand dies and it won't be as costly as attempting to reappropriate the hardware.

Although, it would certainly be much easier if EA didn't require their servers to perform the simulation processing.



That's my guess. Apparently, EA refused to issue refund requests even after stating that they would, but Amazon was allowing it. However, Amazon will usually pull items if there's an issue with the product or the description of the product. I mostly see the latter.

But in the days of server virtualization, and a company that hosts multiple games, you would think they could do some load balancing in preparation, maybe temporarily repurpose some resources to this game. I don't know, it's probably more difficult than just going into vmware and reallocating cpu and memory power, but you would think they would have something in place, especially with the numbers they got back on preorders.

I guess they should have done more (and larger) betas to test the load.

 

[KaOTiK]

I feel bad for Maxis. I remember when it was first announced that it was going to be always on and they were doing an interview with 2 of the devs, you could see they were not happy about it. They made a good game, but because of decisions made they had no part in they are in a shitty situation right now. I'm sure Origin not being able to handle it was the biggest fear coming to reality.

 

[Stuka87]

This is looking to be more of a software issue than a not-enough-servers issue.

Which explains why they did not catch it. They should have had a larger beta. The only real way to test this is with real load. I work in software QA and do a lot of performance testing. And no matter how close we think we get to production, we always get a surprise now and then.

 

[Pantoot]

Nevermind...

 

[Chaptorial]

ABC News has picked it up:

EA Scrambles to Fix SimCity Servers

Looks like they're going to be removing "Cheetah" speed in the new patch along with the leader boards and achievements. This is getting sad. And frustrating.

 

[Stuka87]

ABC News has picked it up:

EA Scrambles to Fix SimCity Servers

Looks like they're going to be removing "Cheetah" speed in the new patch along with the leader boards and achievements. This is getting sad. And frustrating.

Yeah those are already pulled currently. Cheetah speed being gone is a major downer. But being that everybody runs in cheetah 95% of the time, I can see how it would load down the servers more. Maybe they need a middle speed option, something that runs in the 30mph range perhaps.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Still getting "unable to load city at this time"

 

[Xed]

Looks like Amazon pulled the game. What a debacle.

 

[colonelciller]

This is looking to be more of a software issue than a not-enough-servers issue.

Which explains why they did not catch it. They should have had a larger beta. The only real way to test this is with real load. I work in software QA and do a load of performance testing. And no matter how close we think we get to production, we always get a surprise now and then.

This is a server issue and only a server issue for anyone and everyone who just wants to play the game alone. there is no other issue for these people.

 

[colonelciller]

I'd wager to say that if people wishing to play solo were allowed to do so completely offline, there would likely be no server issues whatsoever for the subfraction of players who wanted to play alongside others.

 

[Chaptorial]

Just got in after waiting for the 20 minute queue to countdown for NA East 2 which was listed as "Busy." Created a game in a region and so far so good. Let's see how long this lasts....

 

[pcslookout]

I been on a server for 2 hours but will not name the server for obvious reasons.

 

[colonelciller]

good luck to both of you

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Still trying to get in.

"Unable to connect to the SimCity servers."

All of the US servers give me this error.

 

[I.M.Weasel]

They should rename this thread to Cities XL hehe

 

[pcslookout]

Still trying to get in.

"Unable to connect to the SimCity servers."

All of the US servers give me this error.

I get the little popup in game that says Simcity 5 servers are disconnected or whatever but I don't get kicked out of the game and keep playing.

Then a few minutes later it says connection restored!

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Then how are so many people playing? Yes there are those that cannot get on, but there are lots who are.

I have tried numerous times. I have been unable to play consistently, period.

I have had a few hours in one city since release, but it time shifted numerous times and isn't trustable.

 

[pcslookout]

I have tried numerous times. I have been unable to play consistently, period.

I have had a few hours in one city since release, but it time shifted numerous times and isn't trustable.

I had about 10 hours so far that I played fine.