Sim City

[no peanuts]

So...I had pre-purchased the game.
Was able to pre-load the game yesterday, and could unlock the game at 00:02 this morning.

I attempted to join "Europe West 2", which was listed as busy....and no surpise there, I could'nt get on. (attempted this to join C4rr0t in his region).
I assumed the EU servers would be overloaded and tried joining the Oceania server (no queues, no problems), worked first time round. Claimed a region and started playing for an hour or so.

Before going to bed, I tried Europe West 3", worked like a charm. Got in without Queues and claimed my first region.  The only thing that seemed a little slow was trying to claim a 2nd city within the region. But even that worked after waiting for 30secs or so.

Logged on again first thing this morning, and attempted 'Europe West 2' again. worked first time round.  I was expecting worse....something along the lines of Diablo3.
Pretty sure the servers will be FULL this weekend, with everyone wanting to log-on. So, we'll see how things go over the next couple of days.

[smilodon]

Hopefully over time EA will sort out the problems and things will get easier for Gamers. It's getting serious though when Amazon feel the need to warn potential customers that the game is having 'problems' on the purchase page. I've not heard of that before.

Important Note on SimCity Server Issues
Many customers are having issues connecting to the SimCity servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed. Please visithttps://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information.

[ArithonUK]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun had a review of Sim City - post UK launch, which initially was reasonable positive.

Subsequently, the reviewer modified his post to include this:-

Edit: Since around two o’clock, when I finished the bulk of this  feature, I’ve been unable to access the server that is storing my  cities, even though it’s listed as ‘available’.  The other European servers are ‘busy’, which means queuing to play. I  can access one American server at the moment, which would involve  starting from scratch and then either continuing with that or abandoning  it at a later date and returning to my original developments. I  remember keeping Amiga save games on floppy disks, all neatly labelled  and stored within reach. This is like the time the dog ate the disks,  except EA will probably regurgitate something in a few hours.

Blues News are running a story that EA/Maxis are promising an off-line patch for Sim City - something that for me, would be a condition of purchase. Although their phrasing reads more like a "we'll say maybe when we really mean no."

We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we'll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts.

The maybe was, shock horror, a no. EA have tweeted an update this morning that says

The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible

[Gone_Away]

Crash and burn EA.

[T-Bag]

we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible

 I simply don't believe they've written a game such that it needs that sort of power to run it. Not only would that make it expensive in terms of resources required (Ok for subscription based games, but not so much so one of purchases), but it would also be over complicating the whole game for no reason.

[smilodon]

I can't believe MP wasn't something EA forced the Maxis designers to add. The only reason EA added it was for the piracy protection and possibly to prevent any sort of community based content being developed that EA couldn't earn money from. It's been a long time since EA was a company run by people who love games.

[Penfold]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21741528

[ArithonUK]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun have written a piece entitled "SimCity Is Inherently Broken, Let’s Not Let This Go"

And would you believe, a confirmed employee of EA has criticised the company in an open letter! Read more here at Forbes.

“To the executives at EA, from one of your employees
   I am deeply embarrassed by  the troubled launch of Sim City and I hope you are too. When I walk  around our campus and look at the kind of talent we’ve collected, the  amenities we have access to and the opportunities working at such a big  company affords us, I can’t imagine how for release after release, EA  continues to make the same embarrassing, anti-consumer mistakes. We  should be better than this. You should not be failing us so badly.
   Another thing I see when I  walk around our campus are massive banners that display what are said to  be our company values. They are on posters on every floor, included in  company-wide emails and hanging above the cafeteria in bright colors.  You even print them on our coffee mugs so we see them every day. But  somehow when planning the launch of Sim City, you threw them all out the  window.
   Most important of the values you are ignoring is Think Consumers First. What  part of the Sim City DRM scheme, which has rendered the game unplayable  for hundreds of thousands of fans across the globe, demonstrates that  you are thinking about consumers before you are thinking about  yourselves? Does “first” mean something different in boardrooms than it  does to the rest of us? Does the meaning of that word change when you  get the word “executive” in front of your title?
   You can’t even pretend that  you didn’t know consumers would be angry about this. Common sense aside,  consumers complained about this during your public betas. In fact, when  one of them posted his criticisms on the forums, he was banned! You  tried to silence your critics. The same thing is happening now as users  write in to demand refunds. What part of this behavior aligns with our  company value to Be Accountable?
   What you’ve demonstrated with  this launch is that our corporate management does not believe in our  core values. They are for the unwashed masses, not for the important  people who forced this anti-consumer DRM onto the Sim City team. This  DRM scheme is not about the consumers or even about piracy. It’s about  covering your own asses. It allows you to hand-wave weak sales or bad  reviews and blame outside factors like pirates or server failures in the  event the game struggles. You are protecting your own jobs at the  expense of consumers. I think this violates the Act With Integrity value I’m looking at on my own coffee mug right now.
   On behalf of your other  employees, I’d like to ask you to fix this.  Allow the Sim City team to  patch the game to run offline. If Create Quality and Innovation is still a core value that you believe in, then this shouldn’t be a hard decision. Games that gamers can’t play because of server overload or ISP issues are NOT quality. Be Bold by giving the consumers what they want and take accountability for the mistake.
   Finally I’d like to ask you to follow the last company value on the list in the future: Learn and Grow. When  you made this mistake with Spore, the company and all your employees  suffered for it. You didn’t learn from that mistake and you are making  it again with Sim City.
   So please, learn from this  debacle. Don’t do this again. Grow into better leaders and actually  apply our company values when you make decisions. Don’t just use them as  tools to motivate your staff. With the money, talent and intellectual  property available to EA, we should be leading the industry into a  golden age of consumer-focused game publishing. Instead we’re the most  reviled game publisher in the world. That’s your fault.  Things can only  change if you actually start following the company values and apply  them to every title we launch.
   Sincerely,
   A Disappointed But Hopeful Artist at EARS”
 

[TheDvEight]

This really is laughable glad I haven't got the game sad for the ones who did.

[Blunt]

GREED
That is the reason.

[Penfold]

Whatever the reason it sucks and is wrong on every level. For that, no matter how good the game, I shall pass.

[BrotherTobious]

:withstupid::withstupid:

[Michelanio]

:withstupid: :withstupid: it did at first seem like a decent game but because of all the crap EA have done its no ty

[ArithonUK]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1944[/ATTACH]
This was on a post on HotUK Deals...

[Sharpfang]

to all you haters,trolls and whiners. This game is amazing, if youre so broke u cant afford to pay 50 euros for a game u will play for at least 500 hours, then i feel sorry for you