Sim City 5

[MrSquished]

I give up for today. I am able to finally join a city after a couple of hours each time, but there is never anyone else actually playing. usually the cities don't have anything going on at all on the 2 times i've actually connected. the info on the region screen is bs, says someone's claimed another city just then, or its been played 30 minutes ago, then i got on and they have not been on it for a day and nothing is going on in their city. probably because of connection issues. this is bs.

 

[colonelciller]

So some people want the government to come in and take action over a game? A game that they bought? Where is the personal responsibility in that? Should government come in and take action if some food tastes bad or if some hardware is faulty?

Translation: peoples money can be taken in trade for goods and if the goods are a video game corporations can get away with delivering a non-functioning product.

hmm... that makes perfect sense :whiste:
millions of dollars in goods can be sold all around the country and the world and those goods can be fundamentally non-functional and there should be no penalties if the goods are video games.

Sounds like it's time for to get into the video game business... easy money

 

[colonelciller]

You might be better off just not buying it next time. Why on earth would our government, mixed economy, would want to make a law more draconian than the actual DRM itself...

perhaps because laws that protect individual consumers from the abuses of mega-corporations are not draconian

 

[nickbits]

Fwiw, I have been able to play all day today with minimal issues.

 

[MichaelBarg]

Still not working for me. I see lots of servers 'available' but the launcher never manages to authenticate with any of them. I read on reddit that the servers are run on Amazon EC2. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/com...bout_the_simcity_server_status_i_made/c8rsfkv Assuming that's correct it seems ominous to me; that would surely mean a coding problem instead hardware capacity problem. Maybe a while before it gets fixed.

Meanwhile this story has metastasized. If you check google news, there are now over 380 articles about this. Including serious opinion leaders like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (and the LA Times, USA today, NBC News, Fox News, Reuters... and that's just big names on the first page). I have to think this is EA's worst week PR wise ever. With a little luck the rest of the industry is reflecting on this carefully right now.

 

[colonelciller]

I don't know if this has been linked yet as I just got back from a mini vacation. After a quick scan through the thread I didn't see it so here it is.

A letter from an EA employee to executives at EA was just found on reddit. It was confirmed to be legit in the thread it originally came from.



I guess I might as well provide the link. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/19xb2m/a_letter_from_an_ea_employee_to_executives/

wow. clueless leaders, smart lower level employees... great letter.

 

[Phynaz]

Meanwhile this story has metastasized. If you check google news, there are now over 380 articles about this. Including serious opinion leaders like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (and the LA Times, USA today, NBC News, Fox News, Reuters... and that's just big names on the first page). I have to think this is EA's worst week PR wise ever. With a little luck the rest of the industry is reflecting on this carefully right now.

People have short memories though. A month after the issue is solved it will have faded from the public memory, and long term - over the lifetime of the product - the whole debacle will probably have had a minimal impact on sales. Company execs know this.

 

[Anteaus]

Still not working for me. I see lots of servers 'available' but the launcher never manages to authenticate with any of them. I read on reddit that the servers are run on Amazon EC2. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/com...bout_the_simcity_server_status_i_made/c8rsfkv Assuming that's correct it seems ominous to me; that would surely mean a coding problem instead hardware capacity problem. Maybe a while before it gets fixed.

Try deleting the files in your /SimCityUserData directory. EA had posted that in the last day or two for people who either had problems updating the game or had trouble with authentication. Worked for me. I haven't had any problems logging in or playing this evening.

The game will repopulate those files. They are basically config and temp files.

 

[wanderer27]

wow. clueless leaders, smart lower level employees... great letter.

Folks, this is Corporate America we're talking about.

My Company has pretty much the same "Values" BS as this supposed letter refers too, but in reality, it's all BS.

Hire people that really don't care and crap on anyone that actually cares for the Customer and wants them to have the best experience possible (because that's going to be our life Blood).

I'm speaking from years of experience in the Corporate environment, and my experience has taught me to go around these people to get things done, otherwise and in spite of it, you'll take the blame.

In short, even if this letter is authentic, not one damn thing is going to happen because of it . . . it's totally irrelevant to their way of thinking.

It's money or failure as far as the Executives are concerned, and even though this launch has been a total Cluster, they're (Executives) going to say that this game was such a huge success that they couldn't even keep up with the demand for it.

If you think this is a delusional view/statement, you haven't been around long enough . . .

Sorry to break the bad news to you, but this is how the world now works . . . .



.

 

[Regs]

Translation: peoples money can be taken in trade for goods and if the goods are a video game corporations can get away with delivering a non-functioning product.

hmm... that makes perfect sense :whiste:
millions of dollars in goods can be sold all around the country and the world and those goods can be fundamentally non-functional and there should be no penalties if the goods are video games.

Sounds like it's time for to get into the video game business... easy money

There are shades of grey, I would agree, but it all comes down to what a reasonable person would expect. I may argue, and will, that you knew exactly what you were getting when you bought it. The always online,and always required online connection and server connectivity, which the information that was easily learned before purchase, was a deal breaker for me which is why I did not buy it. The nature of technology is that it sometimes works, and it sometimes doesn't, and most times it cannot be foreseen or controlled. To believe someone from EA ever promised you that it will be a reliable service would be like a car sales men telling you the car would run "forever", and is completely unrealistic. It is pure sales puff and is never seen as a warranty.

What you are arguing is that the average consumer is nothing more than a pile of meat with eyes that has to lick every colorful package to see what the insides may hold. It is a software program, and they have had issues since the dawn of its time. I'm not trying to defend EA, though I am defending consumer awareness. You should of been aware that this game was going to be problematic and the best remedy you could of hope for is that EA works on the problem after they take your money as they always done before. They are not a monopoly selling a necessity, but are luxury items that usually necessitate improving the product to sell them . In all honesty, no government entity is going to give a crap.

All i see if a bunch of people on the little violin bandwagon - as their 60 dollar purchase owes them the right to prove something people all ready knew before they purchased it. And remember, I'm not defending EA, but I'm more upset with the people rewarding them of a fault product with their money.

And if you are 10 years old, I just wasted my time.

 

[Regs]

How the hell is that a 'draconian' law? That would be a great law. If you try to do a charge back on Sim City, EA will ban your ENTIRE origin account, meaning you lose ALL your games.

Well yes. Not all sales are refundable. Do you ever get to refund a game from Steam? Wait, no you can't, cause they are not refundable. How about EB games? Oh wait, no, non-refundable.

So you try to dispute a credit charge for a non refundable game, which you knew when you bought it, would piss off any merchant wouldn't it? If you're not honoring your part of the bargain by not paying for a nonrefundable item, they have every right to tell you to go f yourself because I wouldn't want your business either. I find it hard to believe they will remove you from playing every game that you bought, but if that is the case, I would gladly agree with you that is bullshit. Though it sounds to me that they will forbid you to use to that credit card for any future purchase, which makes sense.

If you want to make a law that changes the fact that software should be refundable if it doesn't work as intended on day one, then be my guest. I don't think it would be a good idea though. Software prices will rise, and then go out of business. Then you end up with more monopolies on luxury items that will pick and chose what software they want to risk taking to market.

By you rules, technology always runs flawless, and every game developer should go out of business because consumers can refund it day 1, after copying the game and cracking it for their own usage. Hell, Adobe is crazy enough to offer 30 day free trials of Photoshop, and I can only imagine the piracy rate on it. But they don't care because their target is small to mid-size businesses that can't take the risk of illegal software. I know it sounds like a raw deal to the consumer, but again, a consumer should know better by now. Do publishers take advantage that the law favors them with nonrefundable sales and implausibility of warranty? You bet. Which is why I hate EA even more.

 

[lupi]

At least Ubi is happy about this release.

 

[Slew Foot]

EA doesnt care. They know you are a bunch of idiots thatll slobber on their jock and over your money regardless of what shit they put out.

 

[M0RPH]

There is already a cracked version that can play offline. If I want to play this game, I'll download that. I have no qualms about stealing from EA, they brought it upon themselves with the bullsh*t online requirement.

 

[waterjug]

There is already a cracked version that can play offline. If I want to play this game, I'll download that. I have no qualms about stealing from EA, they brought it upon themselves with the bullsh*t online requirement.

was heading to some sites to see what was available myself. Will never pay EA a dime

 

[AmdEmAll]

Finally was able to connect and play the game a bit.. Not really happy with it. What happen to the freedom to build wherever you want? Am I missing something? They put you in this small area of the region.. and it appears there are parts of the region that you just never can build on.. wtf? What caused me to quit the game for the night was the fact that I built the low traffic cheap roads all over first cause they are cheapest (still expensive).. I go to upgrade them to high traffic and you have to delete the old ones which for some reason deletes everything along them including firestations, police stations etc. So I guess the key is to build the super expensive roads first so you don't have that happen?

Also whats up with the blank area's that you can't put any zones in and I also don't like the fact that there are already highways and rail lines on the region.. We want to do all the building!

 

[dlock13]

Finally was able to connect and play the game a bit.. Not really happy with it. What happen to the freedom to build wherever you want? Am I missing something? They put you in this small area of the region.. and it appears there are parts of the region that you just never can build on.. wtf? What caused me to quit the game for the night was the fact that I built the low traffic cheap roads all over first cause they are cheapest (still expensive).. I go to upgrade them to high traffic and you have to delete the old ones which for some reason deletes everything along them including firestations, police stations etc. So I guess the key is to build the super expensive roads first so you don't have that happen?

Also whats up with the blank area's that you can't put any zones in and I also don't like the fact that there are already highways and rail lines on the region.. We want to do all the building!

You are supposed to be able to upgrade all the way to high density with the roads. The avenues are wider which is more than likely why you can't upgrade from high density to that as it would move everything when you upgrade them.

 

[nickbits]

Finally was able to connect and play the game a bit.. Not really happy with it. What happen to the freedom to build wherever you want? Am I missing something? They put you in this small area of the region.. and it appears there are parts of the region that you just never can build on.. wtf? What caused me to quit the game for the night was the fact that I built the low traffic cheap roads all over first cause they are cheapest (still expensive).. I go to upgrade them to high traffic and you have to delete the old ones which for some reason deletes everything along them including firestations, police stations etc. So I guess the key is to build the super expensive roads first so you don't have that happen?

Also whats up with the blank area's that you can't put any zones in and I also don't like the fact that there are already highways and rail lines on the region.. We want to do all the building!

There is an upgrade road tool. But you can't upgrade to an avenue from a road since they are wider.

 

[Sulaco]

In other news, Sim City 4 runs and looks great in Windows 7.

 

[nageov3t]

In other news, Sim City 4 runs and looks great in Windows 7.

pain in the ass with multiple monitors, though.

 

[ViviTheMage]

How do you move existing buildings? Like a Trade center?

 

[AmdEmAll]

There is an upgrade road tool. But you can't upgrade to an avenue from a road since they are wider.

Didnt see that.. thanks

 

[Ancalagon44]

That is so terrible to blame a consumer for something like this.


While EA is a company known for their privacy-abusive DRM, that is totally different from a non-functional product.

It's one thing to bitch that DRM slows down the computer, or I shouldn't have to install origin/steam, or whatever, but in this case the game simply does not work.


Non functional is totally different from knowing that it is 'inconvenient'.

I agree that laws regarding refunds and product performance need to be improved for the digital age, but I still have no sympathy for those who bought the game.

And I do blame them for this mess - had no one bought the last DRM laden mess, none of this would have happened. Its because consumers are so unable to resist the latest shiny game that companies know it is still worthwhile to do this.

The next big game, whether it be by Activision or EA, will have the same problem, I guarantee it. Why? Both know that this launch fisco has not harmed sales, and will not harm sales of future games, because consumers are just too stupid. They will still make money, and thats what matters. A little bit of bad press does nothing to decrease sales of this title or future titles.

 

[Anonemous]

Wow free EA game for the SimCity debacle!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...pain-ea-gifting-free-game-to-simcity-players/

and that dude is on Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...stizes-company-over-simcity-in-public-letter/

 

[paperfist]

Wow free EA game for the SimCity debacle!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...pain-ea-gifting-free-game-to-simcity-players/

and that dude is on Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...stizes-company-over-simcity-in-public-letter/

"So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta. OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it.”

With all the money EA has and all the games they've launched with MMO type problems it's really, really stupid of them to continue to launch any game with limited resources and hope for the best.