If they aren't idiots, then they can figure out a way for a person to enjoy the game when their internet inevitably crashes.
It's going to come a time when a good chunk of popular games require always-on access, and then isp's around the region will get hit but some snafu or another, leaving those people without net for a day or two. That's a lot of time for those people to discover other things to do with their time since they can't play their always-on games.
I like the idea of interactivity between players and their cities, that's a plus. But cities don't shut down when the highways get closed by massive blizzards or such. Why can't we play during those kind of instances, too?

P.S. Escapist, love the new verification, it's nice not to feel like I am on an LSD trip, but you guys best be using that additional ad revenue for keeping the servers decently running.
P.P.S. Never mind, just refreshed and the nightmare returned.

They should have made multiplayer an option, not a requirement. I find it disturbing the trend from "We have this new feature" to "You NEED this new feature" popping up in many games from EA.

Ah the 'anti-piracy' measure. Making internet-reliant multiplayer games is the best combatant to piracy. Well, to them anyway

BrownGaijin:
Putting in my second cent on this, while I'm sure that they thought that this would be a great idea (I remember the Will Wright interview when Sims 2000 came out) I am really not up for playing this game with other people, and if this is what the company is expecting of me, then they should not expect my money.

As much as I wish he had said that...

It's at about 3:38

It is a non subscription MMO. I know that isn't what a lot of people want from a Sim City game but that is what they are making. I'll admit the concept intrigues me, and it sounds like fun.

There are questions that arise though. How many cities can you have going at once? Will there be a penalty for abandoning cities? (I know that players can adopt abandoned cities which sounds pretty cool). How will cities communicate with each other? Most importantly how long will the servers run? This is the point that concerns me the most, it seems like the game will have a built in obsolescence that EA can activate as soon as they deem it time for a new SimCity.

Well, it looks like I'm finally going to be breaking my long, long streak of buying new Sim City games the week they come out. I've stuck with the series since I first picked up Sim City 2000, way way back when...

Goodnight, sweet prince. You will be missed. Or maybe not; Sim City 4 is pretty good. I might pick it up again for a month or two win the new one comes out, just for the sake of it.

Well, if they don't WANT my money, fine - other companies still do. A new sim city would have been nice, but that kind of DRM is an absolute no-go. Oh, its on origin as well ? Great - two reasons why I won't have to feel tempted.

It's OK, it's OK. We'll have Civ V expansion and X-Com Enemy Unknown... Blizzard and EA don't want me to throw money at the screen!

This is me:

My normal speed is only slightly better, today is specially slow. But still, I don't like that excuse of "People always use internet, I don't know why they complain". Well, this is why:

a) Some people have slow connection. Alright for browsing, terrible for gaming.
b) People don't have access to internet everywhere. Some people like to play games on the bus or maybe in a house in the forest. It doesn't matter, there are many places where internet is not an option.
c) It's not really a question of being able to do it, it's about being forced to do it. Most people don't like to be forced to do things, no matter how easy. This goes both for the always-on connection and the unnecessary interactivity with other players.

Origin is another issue. My first experience with the software was pretty bad. It's buggy, it lacks options that no downloading software released after 2000 should lack and its GUI is poorly designed. Maybe it works OK for some people, but definitely not the case for everyone. And that's leaving aside the way it scans your PC and consumes resources.

So well, if I want to play Sim City I'll stick to the old ones. I'm not touching this one ever.

I don't think the problem here is the need for a persistent internet connection so much as there is a lack of offline singleplayer.

It seems to be different from that of Diablo 3, where playing either by yourself or online with others requires the Internet regardless. Maxis/Will Wright have always been searching for this SimCity game where everyone's works make an impact on each other.

They're just so enthusiastic about the idea of a totally interconnected SimCity world made by the players that they forgot that some people don't actually want that for their SimCity experience.

Personally, I'm on board with the concepts they're trying to use. Their focus on an internet connection isn't so much about copyright protection as it is a closely-banded community that produces an interactive world that goes past the individual gamer's control. And I think achieving that would be such a great thing.
But that doesn't mean they have to exclude the individual who may not appreciate that.

Sooo ... After BF3 and ME3, the new SimCity is hopping straight onto the list of "EA games requiring Origin and having ridiculous mechanics inbound."

So, instead of a screwed-up server management, or the useless Ending-o-tron ... We now have Always-on-DRM in a theoretically-singleplayer-but-actually-multiplayer game?
Right ... Let me put this bluntly: Fuck off, EA.

To be clear, this isn't the same as the usual quickie call home to Origin that drives so many people to distraction; that's not really a big deal, relatively speaking, since it's exactly the same thing Steam does and nobody seems to have a problem with that.

Wrong. I can set Steam to play in offline mode. I can play Half-Life 2 without being on the internet. I can play anything except my multiplayer games with Steam in offline mode.

One is an option, the other is mandatory. Big difference.

Easton Dark:

lacktheknack:

Looks like I'm sticking to Cities XL. Hooray for options!

How is that? I see it on Steam from time to time, and I haven't played a city simulator in years... could be fun.

Cities XL was bought by Focus Home Interactive, and is now just a standard offline city-builder. Reading the reviews of their 2012 release, I'm in no rush to get rid of my SimCity 4 disks.

Glademaster:

Grey Day for Elcia:
I hate always on requirements, not because they inconvenience me (my net goes down, like... once every few days for a few seconds and games crash or freeze about that often anyway--not to mention I'm not playing 24/7) but because it's stupid. Pirates crack it. Why bother? What is the point?

Split personality much?

OT: Well I am definitely not going to buy it, so I'll stick to the other games.

You mean my post above the one you quoted? About pirates?

I wasn't saying DRM was good in that first comment. I was saying whenever it pops up, people who pirate games (and music) use it as an excuse to pirate everything. Like, Assassin's Creed had DRM, so some people said "This is why I pirate ALL Ubisoft games."

DRM opens a window and the pirates kick down the door, pretending they are part of some movement protesting against "the big guys" and fighting DRM. They just want free shit.

DRM is stupid and pointless, but I don't really care about it in the games I buy (mostly). Pirates using it as an excuse to steal anything they want while saying DRM is somehow the worst thing to ever happens is worse.

I dunno if that clears up the confusion but hopefully it didn't confuse it more, lol.

Truly regretable because I have been wanting a new SIm City for a while. So in short this is an absolute NO GO for me now for no other reason than this. Guess someone didnt want my money.

Hope cities XL 2012 can scratch that itch.

Well.

In that case, let me fetch my eyepatch and pirate hat.

Online DRM is fine so long as they make it well known that it's required. Considering the release date is still TBA and this piece is already out, that requirement is met.

Seriously, you don't get pissed off that an XBox Game can't be played on a PS3, or that you can't use the 64-bit mode of PC games on a computer that only runs XP.

DaxStrife:
If *my* game is determined by what other people are doing, then it's not really *my* game, is it?
I was actually interested in this game until I read this; when will companies learn this is not how you win over the PC gamer market?

Who said it was your game?

All they've basically said is that this game's gonna be an MMO, so not really a typical SimCity game.

irishda:
"I don't wanna be on the internet." -People on the internet

You're missing the point. People don't want a game that just kicks them out when they lose the connection like it's made by AOL.

Not a problem for me (for once).

I will at least look at this game from time to time. Also, if I am not mistaken, about everything I have seen about this game suggests that this game is more or less an MMO type game without a single player campaign. Is that accurate?

Andy Chalk:

rolfwesselius:
Where do you live?
Because i dont understand how my internet is thisgood.
While i live in a small town in holland.
I just dont get it.

I live here.

This is a fairly average day for me.

Good lord. How do you even manage to put up articles on here?

Snarky:
I didn't buy BF3 because of Origin (i didn't care about mass effect), I won't buy the new SimCity because of Origin. BF2, BF2142, Spore, CnC4 and other other games left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not just because I don't want another piece of digital distribution software on my computer, it's because I don't care for EA's games any more either. Do pirates even bother anymore? I wouldn't waste the bandwidth on their rushed shit. I haven't seen anything recently that was compelling to buy. Battlefield 3 was close, but then I just went and played the other grey/brown modern shooter.

I'm with this guy. Most of the stuff they make now a days isn't even worth a free download IMO. Since about 2006, I only buy 1 or 2 games a year and play them until I can't stand them anymore.

I have dozens of the old encylopedia sized boxes that PC games used to come in from 1994 to around 1998.

samaugsch:

irishda:
"I don't wanna be on the internet." -People on the internet

You're missing the point. People don't want a game that just kicks them out when they lose the connection like it's made by AOL.

And yet that's where games are headed. This is the future that so many gamers, even popular websites like Penny Arcade, love to push; a future where brick-and-mortar institutions are obsolete and every sort of product is handled online. It's a future where everybody's assumed to be online, and this is one of the side effects.

Don't get me wrong, I hate when games do this shit. But hey, stuff like this is becoming an inevitability because we're turning to the internet for making more and more things obsolete.

happy_turtle:
Another issue this raises is that EA will use the lower than expected sales figures of this title as rationale for producing more cookie cutter FPS games which sell. I think they're hamstringing their own developers so they can point to this as an example of what happens when they create non mainstream titles

That plus pirates, so they can go with more intrusive DRM and more feeling like its entire fan base are criminals.

Judging by the responses, I suspect EA may "make adjustments" after poorer than expected launch sales. My internet IS on all day, so it doesn't bother me.

I wonder who else thinks the phrase "although it's a possibility in the future" can easily translate to: "We don't actually plan to put it in but we will say this to quell the fans but they'll have to settle for a mod-less experience after launch because it's too difficult to code it in."

If you want to see sad, this is a pretty good day on my internet connection.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1862194943.png

So no new Simcity for me.

Sansha:

I don't see the problem with staying connected to the internet all the time. Every single person I know is only offline when their computer is turned off because with even the cheapest modern broadband, staying online all the time is easy.

true, except sometimes broadband is just an impossibility.

Sansha:
I do feel for the people with unfixable crappy connections, but like OP said, Steam does the same thing and nobody complains. Same with Blizzard and Battle.net - playing SC2 single-player requires being online all the time, then Diablo3 does the same thing and - oh noes!
And really, you can blame the pirates for stuff like this. They have nobody but themselves to blame for all this DRM rubbish.

Steam and even SC2 aren't EXACTLY like this. at least with those two you can set up a play offline option, allowing you to at least salvage some of the game to play offline. granted to constantly maintain SC2's it would be more then a hassle, but its at least THERE.

Im one of the Diablo III ragers in part because there IS no wiggle room. trying to play it single player (unless they have countermeasures for connection issues) will put you in positions where a rogue connection drop could force a black hole on however much time of dungeon crawling you've been doing. sorry about the rare sword, it's gone because your ISP or B.net took a random dive.

whats wrong with maintaining those options anyway? its Diablo 3! long awaited sequel with more then a fair number of people loving the prior 2. if they just left offline only single player in, where would be the next best reason for not liking it? the change in tone? i don't know...

ugh, back on topic before i go further off it.

Sansha:
That said, I don't even touch EA games anymore. They're a company too obsessed with their bottom line (as a businessman I somewhat empathize), but they take it way too far and end up driving away customers. I wish Will Wright was still running the show at Maxis.

Origin sucks. Stick your games on Steam and call it a day already.

This i completely agree with. they've been playing ball in such a fashion you just don't want to be anywhere near them. forcing origin on people will not help it considering the twitch anger EA already generates as is.

and for the post above me---

Andy Chalk:

samaugsch:
Good lord. How do you even manage to put up articles on here?

Some days are better than others. And on days when people say to me things like, hey, here's the link to our multi-gigabyte Witcher 2 press build, let us know what you think, I just cry.

i feel like just drinking to that pain. my worst days with connections are 1g-3g smartphone connections in the aforementioned Dead zone i may soon live in. the signal wavers so much, I wonder why i bother, but some articles must be read, and at least one ZP must be watched.

...that probably didn't help, but I feel th' pain, even if its a little bit.