Creston wrote on Mar 15, 2013, 11:30:

Dev wrote on Mar 15, 2013, 00:23:
So, to get everything add 3 things to cart.
1)Deluxe Anno 2070
2)Complete dlc pack
3)Deep Ocean dlc.
Total should be $36.67

Bought. Without the irritating always-on crap, it looks like a great game. That video that was linked earlier constantly had me trying to click and place stuff and then grumble because I was just watching a video.

Thanks for figuring out how to get everything for the cheapest possible price, Dev!!

Creston

Creston wrote on Mar 15, 2013, 11:21:
Thanks SpectralMeat!

Creston

Verno wrote on Mar 14, 2013, 13:48:

Quboid wrote on Mar 14, 2013, 13:37:
They should have explained the city-client region-server split better, people are now accusing them of lying over things they never said, but didn't clarify.

I'm sure somewhere along the way they either miscommunicated or lied about this but I don't feel like digging through every single interview to find the text. They've certainly done that about enough other things surrounding the game so far.

Verno wrote on Mar 14, 2013, 13:48:
The regional simulation is ironically the stuff no one wanted and while the game would be even more shallow without it, I think that's what a lot of people just want ripped out. It's shallow DRM/control crap that doesn't really add anything to the game. There's no real sense of overall accomplishment or even management through it.

ASeven wrote on Mar 14, 2013, 13:26:
http://youtu.be/ROy6VE5ZsZw

That's a video of said destruction of other towns being put into practice.

Holy shit, it IS possible.

Beamer wrote on Mar 13, 2013, 11:19:
Can we ban a user for claiming Al Qaeda is a fictional creation?


Also, I mean ban from life, or at least breeding. Not just ban from this site, but I'd be ok with that.

Verno wrote on Mar 13, 2013, 10:50:

Quboid wrote on Mar 13, 2013, 10:35:
There's so many legitimate complaints about SimSeveralSmallTowns, it's odd that people are sticking to a false one.

I don't even take it for certain that it's "false", for all we know it's been mis-communicated in one of their many press events and reddit question sessions, I just don't feel like digging through old shit to find it for a forum argument that couldn't matter less. Even if I accepted what you're saying, in the end it is detrimental to the product and unnecessary which is what is important, they don't skate because they added an asterisk or something.

Verno wrote on Mar 13, 2013, 10:22:
That's a chicken and egg problem though and EA doesn't get any trust from me. Did they design the game around those multiplayer aspects or are the small city limitations a result of applying a DRM first approach which resulted in putting some things on the server? I'm leaning toward the latter and regardless of what lawyerly weaseling they will try to do about the language (we never claimed that specifically!) it doesn't make the game, it's launch or their lies about other things like refunds and potential offline functionality more palatable to me.

I think we could have a more traditional SimCity game with larger cities while still having a multiplayer component, there's really no valid reason to force people into these bizarre design choices they made for no ones benefit but their own. I don't remember anyone begging for the SimTown Connected Social Media Experience to be rammed down their throat, at the expense of the overall product and the ability to play it without EA servers.

ViRGE wrote on Mar 13, 2013, 05:44:

mag wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 21:41:

As for the server being required to play the game, he tells them SimCity does no significant game simulation on the server side:

I was pretty skeptical of that claim. It would be absolutely ridiculous for them to take on that amount of processing power themselves. Extremely expensive.

You have to differentiate between the city sim and the region sim. It's clear the city sim (the most CPU intensive part of this) is taking place on the client. However the region sim is currently taking place on the server, which is consistent with what EA has said before. This is what allows them to do the kind of drop-in/drop-out multiplayer that the game uses.

Ultimately with enough time and enough effort all of that could be moved offline, but the mere idea of a regional sim has been made a core component of the game (the endgame is effectively managing several cities). So merely running the city sim on its own is not especially useful.

Creston wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 20:37:

Quboid wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 19:27:
Have EA actually claimed the city simulation is at all server side?

Yep, they did

Creston

jdreyer wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 16:01:

Quboid wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 11:02:
I sent $2,500,000 from a big industrial city to a new city to create a utopia and it never arrived. That money's gone.

Obviously that's part of the game. Big industrial cities are rife with corruption and that's correctly modeled. Working as designed.

Tumbler wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 14:43:
Anyone have comments on playing the game?

NKD wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 13:11:

Beamer wrote on Mar 12, 2013, 13:08:

Yeah, I'm hearing anecdotal evidence extremely to the contrary, but you're right, I shouldn't base anything on that.

Clearly there's a ton of FUD going around. If that's contrary to what you're experiencing then I'm way off.

I don't have any personal experience. I imagine most of us don't since we've hopefully dodged this mess, but what I've heard is that you get dropped after a preset period of time, but up until then everything works short of regional syncing.

Anyone here who has played who can confirm?