Re: The "other game thread"

[Muzjhath]

The controversy is "Look, EA lied... again (Surprise right?)". That's nothing you actually need to like the game about.
It's something everyone who like's games should be outraged about. "Look, forcing tacky multiplayer on a mostly Single Player game, removing the single player, and foring it online, all to stop piracy. Then lie about the reasons. And about the designs of how hard it would be to redesign."

That's what the backlash and outrage are about.

[Lorainne/Bridlington]

Write a letter of complaint!

[Lexgrad]

So you have to play sim city online with others? Unless you hack it.

[Chase - Esou]

I'm a bit torn on always online personally. Or well, I don't like the hidden intentions behind it at all, but Battlefield 3's Battlelog is imo a really good example of how things should be done. Yes, it needs Origin and all that crap, but if you look past that, you have a very convenient system. Instead of browsing servers ingame you do it in your browser, which works much faster. Inbetween games, you can look at different stats and forums in Battlelog, and I prefer it more over some other online games.

Again, I know it's not applicable to Sim City, seeing as a huge portion of that game is singleplayer, so you should be able to play it offline, and Battlefield is 99 % multiplayer. However, I just wanna shine some light on the fact that the always-online stuff CAN be done sensibly, efficiently, and generally improve the logistics of certain games. And here in Europe (EA) we don't have to worry too much about things like Origin and all that stuff anyway.

[Thelos]

: Exdeath! No way we'll let you get away with this!
: Mwa-hahahaha... Have you any idea what I plan to get away with in the first place?

Greatest villainous comeback ever.

[Amaryl]

So you have to play sim city online with others? Unless you hack it.

No no, you could play sim-city alone, without others. You just have to be online to do so.

[Flo]

Well at least I'll get a free game out of the debacle, though given the choise..

You know the selection is pretty poor when you're debating between Bejeweled and the latest Dead Space.

[Muzjhath]

Tbh, the Bejeweled series are great games.

[Raenmar]

The controversy is "Look, EA lied... again (Surprise right?)". That's nothing you actually need to like the game about.
It's something everyone who like's games should be outraged about. "Look, forcing tacky multiplayer on a mostly Single Player game, removing the single player, and foring it online, all to stop piracy. Then lie about the reasons. And about the designs of how hard it would be to redesign."

That's what the backlash and outrage are about.

It's not so much about stopping piracy (everyone I know that planned on buying SimCity now plans on pirating it because the cracked game will be so much better) and more about preventing the sale of used games. Kills retailers, but EA don't care.

Also I heard they plan on releasing bigger lot sizes. It'll be so funny if it's paid DLC.

Boycott EA yo.

[Kittrina]

To be fair I wasn't actually against the always-onlline bit of SimCity, I was looking forwards to building cities alongside friends anyway.

Then I built next to Humphry's city.

His only exports are irradiated criminals and hobos.
My poor city

[Muzjhath]

Oh, I would enjoy playing Sim-City with friends.
I looked forward to a well "global" market.
But it seem's like it is extremly lazily constructed, filled with lies (in that no real calculations take place on the server. Just values are sent and returned fixed).
And that I can't play it ALONE when I want to do so. In places that LACK internet.

It's not a "boohoo internet on!"
It is, basicly, that if I bought it, I wouldn't have been able to play it at our summer/christmas vacation home.

Which is true for all always online games.

With an MMO or a true multiplayer game (Say Tribe's Ascend or a MOBA). I wouldn't care.
But SimCity, well. Even if you play in a region with others it's still more of a singleplayer game than anything else.
Not being able to play that on your own terms is just wrong.

[Kittrina]

Oh, I would enjoy playing Sim-City with friends.
I looked forward to a well "global" market.
But it seem's like it is extremly lazily constructed, filled with lies (in that no real calculations take place on the server. Just values are sent and returned fixed).
And that I can't play it ALONE when I want to do so. In places that LACK internet.

It's not a "boohoo internet on!"
It is, basicly, that if I bought it, I wouldn't have been able to play it at our summer/christmas vacation home.

Which is true for all always online games.

With an MMO or a true multiplayer game (Say Tribe's Ascend or a MOBA). I wouldn't care.
But SimCity, well. Even if you play in a region with others it's still more of a singleplayer game than anything else.
Not being able to play that on your own terms is just wrong.

I agree, don't get me wrong. In fact I think that's thew core problem people have: EA completely misunderstood how people play SimCity, as a rule. It's a relatively solitary game, unlike Diablo 3 where it at least made some sense in the way they implemented it.
I mean beyond resource (and criminal ) sharing, you can't exactly 'work together' building a city even if you wanted to in any meaningful sense. You can co-ordinate how you build and specialise, but that's around it.

[Seranita]

Oh im joining in this sim city I have always been a fan of the game... even if ea may have screwed it up a little.. How would I join your city (and criminal shairing) area?

[Flo]

This made me happy.

[Vaell]

First person combat, with the showing of your hands, now confirmed for Elder Scrolls Online. Step in the right direction... Also:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/19/experiment-playing-teso-like-an-elder-scrolls-game/

[Flo]

[Coppersocket]

Game of the Year award goes to...

[Kittrina]

Yeah, I've had a quick play with that, it's a shame because it seems like a game with some nice ideas destroyed in execution. Terrible graphics/textures, terrible AI, and just unworkable as a 'survival' game.

Example: zombies respawn, almost instantly, from nothing. To test this, me and Humphry downloaded a trainer that disables zombie ai so they just stand there. Say you're in a small, enclosed building, no ways in or out, you clear it of zombies. If you break LOS with their spawn point, they'll pop back in, almost instantly (about 30sec or so) on the exact same spawn point they were at originally.

It just feels like a cheap cash-grab.

[Raenmar]

Meh, of course it's a cheap cash-grab. It could have been great, but I didn't expect much else.

On the topic of cheap cash-grabs, after sharing much whining about EA with him, my mate bought SimCity. He wasn't going to buy it, then he saw they were giving away a free game and he read all their press releases. He was like holy shit they're fixing everything and I can get a free game omg.

From what I've heard all the games they're giving away are half-price, and most of them nobody wants (Dead Space 3...). They also all contain shit loads of DLC, so they'll end up making even more money than they would originally. So he bought SimCity for like £50 to get BF3 which cost like £25, but doesn't come with Premium, so he's not even getting the full experience of it.

As for their press releases about their fixes, none of it was even true. The entire game is still fundamentally shit, the patches that have fixed some of it have broken even more, and 'Cheetah mode' hasn't even been turned back on yet.

He's a clever guy, but he does some silly shit. I'm just waiting for the moment his city goes into a rollback loop or gets crippled by some massive bug (there's plenty of them) so I can laugh at him.

But I'm on a quest to become a more positive person so I'll add this: it has nice graphics.

I liked WarZ's graphics actually. Never played the game but it had a nice style from what I saw.

..But that was another cash-grab.

[Muzjhath]

Raenmar. Graphics and "style" are different.
Graphics are the pure power of how good it looks. Artstyle isn't graphics and while those might have been good.
On max graphics settings the game looked three to six years old.
About WarZ.

[Raenmar]

Yeah sorry, the end of that post was quite badly written as I was in a rush <_< The style was nice, imo. As for the graphical quality, I can't really comment. I only saw one 360p video of it.

[Seranita]

SO! who else here is playing this new sim city and is there any regions I can join in?

[Kristeas Sunbinder]

I never intended to get the new Sim City, however all the talk around it lead me to Tropico 4.

[Raelan]

Game of the Year award goes to...

That was fuckin' hilarious.

[Raenmar]

My mate took his opportunity in the SimCity uprising to get a chargeback because he found out it's cheaper on Amazon.

Meanwhile in North Korea, Pacman has just been released.

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