While SimCity's somewhat disastrous launch is now behind them, and a proper offline mode that took almost a year-long escapade to implement now in the game, it seems Maxis' city simulator is looking for some new mayors to govern the virtual townships.

Announced today, those opening up their EA Origin clients will find that SimCity is now offering a free trial to get your hands dirty with city planning. There are a few strings attached to the free trial, which include limiting single-player mode to the Cape Trinity and Reflection Atoll regions, and only provides two save slots. It is also exclusive to Windows users - sorry Mac users - and can only be played once per Origin account per computer; If there are multiple Origin users, only one will be able to grab the freebie.

Sadly, that isn't the worst of the strings attached, with the free trial only lasting a laughable four hours, starting from when you launch the game. Once its over, that is it, though saves will apparently cross-over if you do decide to buy the game. Let us just hope that trial users don't run into any issues while launching, eating away at the four hour trial.

If the guidelines haven't scared you off, you can find the free trial over here, with full details on the offer here.

It has been a long time coming since its quite controversial launch, but EA and Maxis' SimCity reboot finally has an official offline mode.

"We've listened to our players and today we are delivering against their most direct feedback with the release of the new Single-Player Mode,” Maxis' Patrick Buechner said. Additional "gains in optimization to the GlassBox Engine" has apparently made this all possible, with player computers now able to perform the required calculations away from the game's servers.

The original online mode has now been given the new name of "Multiplayer Mode," offerring leaderboards, achievements, dynamic pricing of resources, and cloud saves--features not available in the offline mode. However, Single-Player will let players control when and how their progress is saved. A new tutorial video can be found below giving a detailed look at the new feature.

Those who may have been eagerly awaiting news as to when EA and Maxis' sim city builder would finally be available in offline mode will be glad to hear that update 10, the patch that will include the ability to play offline, is currently in "final testing”. “Almost there Mayors,” the Twitter post said yesterday.

Originally launching as a completely online-only title, SimCity had some very large launch issues that left many fans quite soured of the series. Ranging from the inability to actually play the game through to progress being lost and some features not even being implemented, the online-only launch was definitely a disaster. Luckily, EA and Maxis have decided to remedy that with the ability to play the game completely offline.

Our game routes pieces of data from one city to another as data flows through the regions. All of that code exists on the server, and now we’ve brought all of that down into the client. The client processes the region box, which is what all of the cities pushes their data into. We’ve brought that down into the client as well.

And now, all of the regional simulation needs to be done locally. The algorithms governing trading between cities needed to be retuned in order to make the behavior between cities more responsive for this type of play. This in itself required major optimizations in order to run the simulation locally. We have an obligation to make the game fun and functional on all specs of machines. We wouldn’t want someone who was enjoying the Multiplayer game to find the Single Player game crippled due to poor optimization.

Currently there is no ETA on when the patch will be out, but with the recent Twitter comment it is definitely getting closer.

Following the recent news that the the much maligned mandatory Internet connection requirement would be removed from SimCity in the next major patch update, EA Maxis Lead Engineer has posted to the game's offical blog to explain that the process of unshackling everything from the original multiplayer-only vision wasn't as simple as some might thing -- in fact is has supposedly taken them over six months.

The original creative vision for SimCity was to make a game where every action had an effect on other cities in your region. As such, we engineered the game to meet this vision, setting up the player’s PC (client) to communicate all of its information to the servers. That means that our entire architecture was written to support this, from the way that the simulation works to the way that you communicate across a region of cities. So yes, while someone was able to remove the “time check” shortly after launch, they were unable to perform key actions like communicating with other cities that they had created locally, or with the rest of their region(s), or even saving the current state of their cities.

My team did, however, see a path forward towards Offline, one that would maintain the integrity of the simulation. Lucy once said that Offline wouldn’t be possible “without a significant amount of engineering work”, and she’s right. By the time we’re finished we will have spent over 6 ½ months working to write and rewrite core parts of the game to get this to work. Even things that seem trivial, like the way that cities are saved and loaded, had to be completely reworked in order to make this feature function correctly.

The blog goes into some more specifics before reiterating that the process is now in alpha and the final stages of testing and due to be released as part of Update 10. Still no release date target yet, however.

Almost a year on from its troubled launch, EA Maxis has revealed that a forthcoming update for SimCity will enable players to run the game offline, with an official blog post explaining that "all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection".

In Update 10, you can still play solo in Regions on your own, or in Multiplayer with people from around the world. What’s new is the Single Player Mode, which allows you to play the game Offline by yourself. And because your saved games in this mode are stored locally, you can save and load to your heart’s content. Our team will be delivering a follow-up blog that will outline the full details in the near future so stay tuned.

So what does this mean for the Online game? All of the benefits of being connected will remain including access to Multiplayer, the Global Market and Leaderboards. And all of your pre-existing saved cities and regions will still be accessible should you log-in to the Online game.

The online requirement's removal naturally opens the game up for much deeper modability, an aspect that EA Maxis is actively encouraging:

Bringing the game Offline means big things for our wonderful community of Modders. They can now make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game. Modding is a big part of our studio’s legacy and we’re excited to see what you guys create. Check out this thread to learn about Oppie85’s Central Train Station, which you can put into your game right now, and if you’re interested in making your own content take a look at the Modding Policy. To get you started, we will be rolling out a series of tutorials from the studio that surfaces how we’ve created some of the content that you’ve seen so far in hopes of inspiring your creativity.

Update 10 is reportedly in "the late phases of wrapping up it's development", with the studio wanting to deliver it "as soon as possible", but stopping short of offering an actual release date. All will be how it should have been last March.

Tell us what you think. Had you been holding out, and will play it now, or is it too late?

SimCity developer Maxis has revealed a new launch trailer for their second expansion to the sim-city building theme park, titled Cities of Tomorrow. Adding a number of various future-themed buildings to your catalogue, the new expansion is hoping that you have a Delorean to time-travel back to the future. Great Scott!

What kind of Mayor will you be in the Cities of Tomorrow? Will the city you build bask in the glow of a lush, urban utopia? Or will profits surge from the Simoleons generated by powerful corporate metropolises? As cities build to the skies and transform, can a balance be struck with both? It's up to you to decide in SimCity Cities of Tomorrow Expansion Pack.

One of the key buildings being added in the new expansion is the Academy, a thinktank of sort that will harbor a team of scientists ready to create the future including scientists nuclear fusion reactors to an advanced sewage treatment plant so your city can safely guzzle down that once-polluted water filled with three-eyed fish.

Of course it wouldn't be an expansion to SimCity without some disasters to help level that city you've put oh so many precious hours into. To help keep you on your toes, the new Cities of Tomorrow expansion will be adding in the giant robot attacking your city disaster. This giant robot will wreak havoc on your city in the only way a robot could, by stomping everything in its path.

Check out the launch trailer below which shows off the two new forms of city expanding, either going with the tree-hugging Academy for a greener future or the money-hungry OmegaCo set out to spoil your environment for quicker gains. You can find more information on the expansion at the official website.

SimCity developer Maxis has shown off a detailed look at its second expansion for the sim-city building theme park, Cities of Tomorrow. Adding a number of various future-themed buildings to your catalogue, the new expansion is definitely looking to the future for all its ideas.

One of the key buildings being added in the new expansion is the Academy, a thinktank of sort that will harbor a team of scientists ready to create the future including scientists nuclear fusion reactors to an advanced sewage treatment plant so your city can safely guzzle down that once-polluted water filled with three-eyed fish.

It isn't just buildings that the expansion will be adding, with an all new disaster to keep you on your toes: a giant robot attack on your city. This giant robot will wreak havoc on your city in the only way a robot could, by stomping everything in its path.

All this and more can be found in the new developer walkthrough video, which you can check out below. Cities of Tomorrow is due to launch for PC and Mac via Origin on 12th November. Those looking out for hope of a offline mode may be in, with Maxis looking to implement a SimCity offline mode sometime soon (thanks EuroGamer).

While the initial launch of Maxis' sim-city building theme park SimCity wasn't the greatest in history of launches, EA and Maxis have today revealed the second expansion pack for SimCity.

Titled 'Cities of the Future', the new expansion will offer players the chance to take their current city landscapes and transform them into future cities of tomorrow.

But what will cities look like 50 years from now? Better yet – how will they be constructed? Do you want to build a beautiful, clean technology-driven city that relies on the knowledge of the all-knowing Academy? Or maybe a city consumed by the gluttony and consumerism of the OmegaCo? Or maybe a little of both? How you decide to transform your tomorrow is all up to you.

Maxis has yet to reveal the full details on what the expansion entails, but the developer has teased coverage on everything from multi-level MegaTowers that will allow you build into the sky to additional sources of power and all-new forms of transportation. Check it out in action below.

While the initial launch of Maxis' sim-city building theme park SimCity wasn't the greatest in history of launches, the developer has revealed that a Mac version of the title will be going live on August 30th.

SimCity will be available for Mac exclusively as a digital release on August 30, 2013. SimCity is cross-platform compatible, so all players, whether on Mac or PC, will be able to play SimCity together in the online connected world and will be able to jump back and forth into their cities regardless of the platform.

For those who purchased either a digital or boxed copy of SimCity on Windows, EA revealed that you'll gain an automatic copy of the Mac version for free via Origin. Purchased in-game sets will also carry over to the Mac version without further purchase, including the recently released Amusement Park expansion pack.

A new update has graced the path of Maxis' sim-city building theme park SimCity, offering up a number of changes including a new tool that will "create bridges, overpasses, and tunnels when you draw your roads."

According to the official forum post, when "building your road, pressing the comma key or period key will lower or raise the road accordingly creating overpasses, bridges and tunnels." Sadly however pre-existing roads can not be raised or lowered with this new tool, so you may have to start afresh to see the tools usage.

Other changes to the game include improvements for Traffic behavior to make it smarter, a tree tool to place trees around your city, sports parks are now accepting Sims 24 hours a day and a number of other usual bug fixes.

The new update is currently undergoing some testing and should be available shortly for players.

SimCity developer Maxis has posted to their official forums confirming that update 4.0 for their building simulation title will be arriving shortly. The update is adding a new park "just for our dedicated fans who were early adopters", a new region titled Edgewater Bay which will feature seven cities around one Great Work site plus the usual bug fixes many have seen since launch.

Features that were initially disabled at the controversial launch are also being re-enabled according to the patch notes, with Maxis turning back on the leaderboards, Global Market prices dynamically changing during gameplay and region filters on all SimCity servers.

The new patch comes a week before the "Amusement Park Pack," which is scheduled to launch on May 28 and offer mayors of SimCity the chance to lay down customisable parks which will include attractions and entrances. No price has yet been revealed for the expansion.

In what appears to have been an accidental leak, popular digital distribution store Green Man Gaming has posted up details on the first expansion pack to hit Maxis' simulation title SimCity (via Joystiq).

Titled Amusement Park, the new expansion will offer mayors of SimCity the chance to lay down customisable parks which will include attractions and entrances. Those who do place down parks will also gain an increase in cash through shoppers, tourists and boosting the local commercial economy.

No price on the expansion was sadly revealed, however a smart YouTuber by the name of HypnotoadProductions was able to capture the page before it was taken down which you can check out below. Since accidentally going live, SimCity's official Facebook page has responded stating that "some of you may have seen thrilling new SimCity content that arrived too early at the gate. It’s coming May 28th. We think you’ll be amused."

After launching to a not-so-great-start, today's financial reports for publisher Electronic Arts has revealed the simulation title SimCity has sold over 1.6 million units since March, topping its initial two-week sales of 1.1 million. Of those sales 50% are digital according to the fourth quarter report.

Electronic Arts' Frank Gibeau has stated during the financial call (via Polygon) that while the game is "far ahead" in the company's forecast, it did have a "challenging launch."

"The short explanation for the launch is that the initial rush of consumers overwhelmed our game service, disrupting the consumer experience," he said. "As we stabilized the game and improved service in the first week, fans continued to pour in.

"The key takeaway here: SimCity is a highly resilient, global franchise with a long service life in front of it. But we learned our lesson and are now building better processes to anticipate and service demand. This won't happen again."

For those still clinging to their cities a new update will be making its way to the game this week, offering various tweaks and bug fixes to the game.

Developer Maxis will be launching update 3.0 for their building simulation title SimCity this week according to a new post on the game's official forums. The patch notes include a long list of fixes, varying from pollution changes through to trading fixes that make "gifting more reliable."

Among the changes included in the 3.0 update is a large list of traffic fixes, hopefully to fix the not-so-smart AI. The routing system has been tweaked to offer more information to vehicles through "u-turns, required vehicle stops, and vehicle behavior on certain road types", hoping to make traffic "smarter" in the process. Vehicles will also be able to perform right-hand turns at red lights, improving "some cases of traffic." Fixes to school buses will also be fixed, hopefully eliminating congestion in neighbouring cities.

Trees have also been given an internal boost, now lasting longer but not eliminating as much ground pollution. Continue the pollution changes cities will also be a tad cleaner with sewerage taking "a more direct route to regional sewage plant instead of throughout the city."

Update 3.0 will mark the second major update since the game launched to a rocky start back in early March. For the full patch notes you can check out the forum post over here.

It seems SimCity isn't stopping at Nissan-branded Leaf advertisement, with EA announcing a new campaign with specially marked Crest or Oral-B products, though sadly only available in the US. On offer for those who do purchase the advertised-riddled products is an in-game Attraction Set, which includes five attractions: Giant Garden Gnome, Dolly the Dinosaur, Llarry the Llama, MaxisMan Statue and the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.

Similar to the Nissan Leaf advertisement, the Attraction Set will offer in-game happiness to those in proximity to each building, and will also act as a tourist point for your town. Interesting enough however is that those who do buy the branded products will be able to redeem the coupon for either the Attractions Set, The Sims Social SimCash, or a $5-off coupon for Origin. Those who don't want to purchase the branded toothpaste can also send a hand-written postcard according to the FAQ, which might be a way for Australian gamers eager to get their hands on the advertised content.

Via Kotaku.

EA and Maxis has today revealed that their somewhat controversial city simulation title SimCity will be making its way to Mac-orientated computers come June 11. Players who have previously purchased the title on PC will also be happy to note that you will gain a copy of the Mac title in digital form completely free.

“SimCity is coming to Mac on June 11 and one purchase will give you both the Mac and PC versions. You only need to buy SimCity once to play together across the same servers, regardless of which version you’re playing,” said Lucy Bradshaw, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA’s Maxis Label. “We didn’t want to make any compromises when it came to the Mac so we created a native version that is optimized for the hardware and OSX.”

The press release also reveals that both PC and Mac players will be cross-compatible, allowing everyone to play on the same servers for maximum building efficiency. Maxis is also touting that the Mac version has been completely re-done in OpenGL, "ensuring the best performance for the platform."

Yesterday we saw the return of the "Cheetah" speed mode, allowing players to increase their city speed to maximum overdrive plus a translated leak at what is currently on offer in the upcoming Update 2.0 patch. Check those out here.

A new update on the official SimCity Facebook page has confirmed that the quite controversial simulation title has now enabled "Cheetah" speed, allowing players to further increase the games speed.

Previously the option to play SimCity at Cheetah speeds was disabled during the disastrous launch of SimCity, restricting players to normal or "Llama" speed. Developer Maxis responded to the issues at launch by turning off "non-critical" features which included leaderboards and achievements in an effort to help amend the performance issues many were facing.

The Facebook update has also revealed that Maxis are also working on Update 2.0, with a promise that more information will come soon.

Update: It seems an early look at the Update 2.0 has accidentally been revealed on EA's Czech blog, with a translated piece by Reddit user StSomaa. Here's a quick look at what to expect:

Tourism: Repairs unexplained fluctuations tourists - passenger numbers of tourists are now collected in a better way.

Casinos: Casinos adjusted so that it is more profitable gambling - to activate this enhancement is needed to demolish the old casino and replace them with new ones.

More casinos: Number of modules Sci-fi casino casino and neat rose to six.

Game in the region: bankrupt city may receive financial assistance from the city.

Education: Addressed an issue with buses that are stuck in secondary schools; existing schools are already corrected themselves.

Education: Fixed a bug where school buses picking up students in neighboring towns as well as the absence of bus stops.

Education: Better student population census.

The blog post also hinted at the update coming sometime soon though an official announcement will most likely be close by. Check out the full list of fixes over here and let us know your thoughts.

If you didn't think it could get any more interesting in the recent SimCity saga, EA and Maxis have today revealed the first DLC for the simulation title, a Nissan-branded LEAF Charging Station. Luckily the DLC is free for those who own SimCity, especially when it offers actual gameplay changes like permanent happiness for anyone who leaves the station and surrounding neighbours where placed.

Need an extra incentive to go green in SimCity? Maybe you need a little boost in the form of the new Nissan LEAF Charging Station that is available today. This free in-game item is the perfect way to kick start your desire to create a city that will make you (and your Sims) happy. In the case of your Sims, In the case of your Sims, the Charging Station provides happiness to the Sims that use it and a onetime wave of happiness to the nearby businesses. Need another bonus? It produces no sewage or garbage. That’s right! Green indeed.

The Nissan LEAF item is the Nissan LEAF Charging Station. The Charging Station will be a new destination in player’s cities where their Sims will drive their Nissan LEAF cars in order to re-charge them. Once they leave the Sims will find themselves happier.

Plopping down the Nissan LEAF Charging Station will add happiness to nearby buildings. Zoom in to the streets of cities and players will start seeing a percentage of their Sims from all wealth classes driving the electric vehicles. The Charging Station produces no garbage or sewage as well making it pollution free.

This doesn't mark the first time that EA has dealt with in-game advertisement, previously the Sims titles have included various product placements including Nissan itself. It seems Nissan were only interested in a short advertisement with the offer available for six months starting today. Oddly enough the charging station uses no power, which begs the question on what exactly the cars run on.

Players interested in obtaining the free DLC can do so via the in-game advertisement billboard or over here.

Since launching just under two weeks ago, Maxis' latest simulation title SimCity has definitely had its round of controversial issues. Ranging from the troublesome launch which found many players unable to connect to EA's servers (and in some cases consistent crashing when able to connect) through to modders discovering developer mode tools which enabled further development of a city outside of its artificial zones, the launch of SimCity hasn't been the smoothest that EA and Maxis were hoping for.

Today EA has revealed the full list of free games on offer through their Origin download service, a offer given to those who have purchased the SimCity game in hopes of mending the bond that Maxis believes they have betrayed. Currently eight games are on offer, however two of the eight games (SimCity 4 and Bejeweled 3) will automatically be given to those beneath the minimum age.

Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We sincerely apologize for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin.

At Maxis, our studio values dictate that we innovate and create something that is quirky, complex and challenging. Sometimes this bites us in the butt, but our servers are green and we’re seeing record numbers of players all online and having a great time.

On offer for those who have purchased the SimCity title before March 26th is Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition), Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition), Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition), Medal of Honor Warfighter (Standard Edition), Need For Speed Most Wanted (Standard Edition) and Plants vs. Zombies. Interesting enough is also the offer of SimCity 4, the predecessor to the new SimCity title which gives players the chance to play singleplayer in a completely offline experience, without the hassle of any DRM or server connection (something that Maxis has said isn't possible)

Players who have redeemed their game before March 26th will receive an email detailing instructions on how to obtain the free PC download title, with EA opening up the redemption portal country-by-country, with March 22nd having anyone being able to pick their game. A FAQ is available for those with more questions then answers over here.

With the launch of SimCity past us and the many issues revolving around server congestion and crashes at an almost minimum level now, the sights have turned to the title's gameplay. Many players have since discovered that the AI used in the game isn't the brightest, with the largest problem being the simulation of traffic and how easy it is for your city to burn down due to this problem.

In a new update on the official blog, SimCity lead designer Stone Librande has confirmed that the team at Maxis are well aware of the congestion issues, and that they are "working on additional fixes with the pathing of our Agents and these changes will streamline the way that the simulation unfolds in your city." Librande also explains just how the new GlassBox engines works in respect to the AI, and that an internal patch is in the works to hopefully fix these quite crippling problems. You can also check out the video below of an internal change to the traffic which should give a bit of relief to those with traffic problems.

We understand that when cars always take the shortest route between point A and point B there will be unavoidable (and illogical) traffic jams, so we are retuning these values to make the traffic flow more realistically. Guillaume Pierre (our lead scripter) talked a bit about the improvements that we are making to the traffic system in the game here. To dig a little deeper our roads will have a weighting system based on 25%, 50% and 75% capacity. As a road hits those marks it will become less and less appealing for other cars, increasing the likelihood of them taking an alternate path if one exists.

The blog post also goes into a fair amount of detail into how exactly the Sims - the actual residents of a city - work and just how persistent they actually are. From playing the game it is clear that only certain features are actually tracked between Sims, something that Librande touches on by explaining that "happiness, money, sickness, education level, etc. are [...] persistent", but also revealing that they "don’t own a particular house or have permanent employment." It's also noted that certain other fluff features are not present, such as gender, names or race "in attempt to increase performance so that we could have more Sims in the city."

Librande has also revealed that the online features that were turned off last week to help battle server issues are now being slowly turned on, and asks players to try out the test server available for continued assessment.

The SimCity news doesn't stop there though, as several modders have discovered through reverse engineering that is indeed possible to have a fully offline city, albeit without the social interactions that the online experience gives. According to a user named AzzerUK on Reddit, the modder has discovered that "with a little bit of package editing within SimCity thanks to the modding guide posted to Reddit earlier, and a little playing about in the code, it's possible to enable debug mode." Once this debug mode has been enabled, it can allow players to "mod out" the disconnect timer that would usually appear after roughly 20 minutes of being offline to the servers, causing an indefinite offline play. Discovery of several debug tools allowing the modification of highways outside of the city area through to terraforming tools and even cheat codes was also made through the modding files.

Modders have also discovered various other tools including the ability to remove the fake population that occurs once a city gains more than 500 residents. Other discoveries include mentions of "big maps" which could be possible DLC, ability to play outside the city region and behaviour for offline save handling which looks to have been hastily cut.

Currently Maxis or EA have yet to offer an official response to this modding discovery, however several Maxi employees have offered Twitter posts congratulating the modders, however also confirm that is unknown at this time whether modders will be banned or not. Stay tuned for more.