A State of SimCity address is up on the official website of EA Maxis urban-planning series. The update, penned by Patrick Buechner, General Manager of the Maxis Emeryville studio, discusses all the work that has gone into the game since launch to better meet customer expectations, and how they will continue refining the game going forward. It covers a lot of topics, but the most notable takeaway is the admission they are rethinking the always-online requirement that is the source of so much unhappiness, though they are not promising it will go away. Here's word:

Right now we have a team specifically focused on exploring the possibility of an offline mode. I can’t make any promises on when we will have more information, but we know this is something that many of our players have been asking for. While the server connectivity issues are behind us, we would like to give our players the ability to play even if they choose not to connect. An offline mode would have the additional benefit of providing room to the modding community to experiment without interfering or breaking the multiplayer experience.