OT: EA botches Sim City Launch

[Lord_Jaroh]

MMOs paved the way to online-only games and there is NO turning back. Just accept it.

How about no?

I'm sorry, but I will not accept utter bull****. Instead of those companies earning my money, I will simply take it elsewhere, to companies that actually treat the customers as human beings rather than money pits. There are many other games out there, I don't have to play the ****ty DRM-laden, online only ****-fests.

Maybe if others weren't so spineless, or stupid, or gullible, this wouldn't be an issue.

[pulli]

MMO's are a slap to the face of any game lover...

They are the worst of worst from a design perspective.. Apart from having social features..

[marshmallow]

Gamers hate DRM and online authentication. That's why back in 2003 Steam was such a catastrophic failure.

[korialstraz]

Phase 2 is what we are seeing now: Starcraft, Diablo 3, Sim City... They are built "as MMOs" so you simply can't throw ANY of those arguments and laws at them. Even though they could have been built as offline. It's a blatant lie, but it'll pass because MMOs are acceptable.

It's quite interesting to note that people have hacked Sim City already, and made it available to play offline for longer than the ~20 min period before the servers would normally disconnect you. What happens is your city is saved locally, and then uploaded to the Origin servers afterwards. Some have noted that it looks like singleplayer was sloppily cut from the game.

[korialstraz]

MMO's are a slap to the face of any game lover...

They are the worst of worst from a design perspective.. Apart from having social features..

In your eyes maybe. I played Rift heavily when it launched, and thoroughly enjoyed it! Games in general are also a passion of mine, having played games as far back as I can remember. I personally wouldn't call it a slap in the face, unless the game is poorly made to begin with. But in that case it's not as much the fact that it's an MMO, but more about poor execution.

[pulli]

No online a game is meant to bring an abstract world to a player. So that player can 'pass' his time there instead of having the troubles from real life.

MMO's work by abusing the worst aspect of games: addiction. They simply run by feeding an "addiction", that's from any and every MMO I've seen the basic design idea. Game companies are rich enough and should be forced to take strong stances against these addictions: by removing addiction-aspects from games and at least refusal of children in games with addictive elements.

Just like alcoholics, drugs - games are the same and if you ban those you hsould ban games. Especially online games which are all about this.

[korialstraz]

No online a game is meant to bring an abstract world to a player. So that player can 'pass' his time there instead of having the troubles from real life.

And that's exactly what Rift did for me when I played it. Obviously I view this differently than you do.

MMO's work by abusing the worst aspect of games: addiction. They simply run by feeding an "addiction", that's from any and every MMO I've seen the basic design idea. Game companies are rich enough and should be forced to take strong stances against these addictions: by removing addiction-aspects from games and at least refusal of children in games with addictive elements.

You can become addicted to games, even without playing MMO's, although I agree with you that MMO's are built to make it difficult for a person to stop playing. With that said, how would you remove addicting features in an MMO? Also how would you make sure children do not play these games? They already require a monthly subscription, something most children cannot afford without help from their parents. So who are to blame here, the game rating system for setting too low of an age limit on games, or the parents that completely ignore the warnings? Imo the fault lies with parents in this regard.

Just like alcoholics, drugs - games are the same and if you ban those you hsould ban games. Especially online games which are all about this.

Alcohol in general is not a banned substance, but I see your point, even if I find it a bit extreme.

[pulli]

Children (age 14-18) are the most wealthy group of any age groups, they have the most nett money to spent on past-imes.... And just like with drugs & alcoholics: selling games with addictive aspects to these people should be a criminal offense.

Also I strictly speak about games that are build around the "you should play as much as possible" attitude. - Like violence games should get a rating for addictive substances: and based on that an age requirement can be made.. But in the end: MMO-attitude like in diablo 3 & now also sim city is EXACTLY what I am against. And I can't see how making it a positive thing to be online as much as possible is a good thing.
Yet this is the logical consequence of creating a game and advertising the "social features".

[Dacar92]

Games are not released to make people addicted to them. Games are released to make money upon the sale of them. It is up to the user how much they play. If one becomes addicted to a particular game, it is the user's fault. Not the game maker's. Self control and taking responsibility for one's own actions is what is needed here.

Back on topic, PC Gamer has joined the fray last night. Here is their review from earlier this month.

[themeros]

How about no?

I'm sorry, but I will not accept utter bull****. Instead of those companies earning my money, I will simply take it elsewhere, to companies that actually treat the customers as human beings rather than money pits. There are many other games out there, I don't have to play the ****ty DRM-laden, online only ****-fests.

Maybe if others weren't so spineless, or stupid, or gullible, this wouldn't be an issue.

I understand. The problem is that they are still making big money because people are actually accepting this model, slowly.

MMO's are a slap to the face of any game lover...

They are the worst of worst from a design perspective.. Apart from having social features..

Actually, not. The past generation was made of offline play and going to a friend's house to play video games together.
This is a new generation. Internet, facebook, instagram, twitter. Everything is social and it's not going back. It's a new lifestyle and MMOs are an integral part of this new social generation. You didn't grow into it so you're resistant.

Things change and we have to accept it otherwise we'll just grow into our grandparents. Grumpy and always complaining about how "this generation is doomed" because we can't accept change.

It's quite interesting to note that people have hacked Sim City already, and made it available to play offline for longer than the ~20 min period before the servers would normally disconnect you. What happens is your city is saved locally, and then uploaded to the Origin servers afterwards. Some have noted that it looks like singleplayer was sloppily cut from the game.

Yes! This was a slap in their face. How stupid are they? My wifi isn't great and I noticed I went offline sometimes, the game told me I was offline but I kept playing normally. It just synced the files later. It proves how they are actually trying to sell/market their games more like MMOs, but in this case they were utterly dumb to not hardcode it properly.

Gamers hate DRM and online authentication. That's why back in 2003 Steam was such a catastrophic failure.

That's because internet sucked, still does, but it's better than in it was in 2003. As the Internet evolves and fails less, online-only will become acceptable because it will be also less noticeable (for most people).

Travelling will be invalid as an argument for online-only because mobile internet will also evolve. Nowadays I have access to all my basic services anywhere I go. Email, rss reader, facebook, games. As the mobile internet becomes better, you'll be able to play online-only games on your laptop while traveling.

We're in the middle of a big cultural transition and it generates controversy, but it'll settle.