Post by Dan @ 11:13am 15/01/14 | 12 Comments
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.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.
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.
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Posted 11:21am 15/1/14
It's OK Bro, it didn't work online too.
So they spent 6 1/2 months spent trying to save their brand from the puss they associated it with when most very quickly pointed out from the moment they heard it, no offline was a bad idea...
Posted 11:40am 15/1/14
And Microsoft and Windows 8.
It's not wrong that s*** software comes out, it's bound to happen. What's wrong is when they ignore what people actually want.
"We want a start menu" - "We've changed it so you don't need one" - "We want a start menu" - "We'll allow stuff that isn't a start menu in 8.1" - "We want a f*****g start menu?!"
Let the Metrosexuals have their Metro, but f*****g hell, we want a start menu! - Still no start menu, MS know s*** ain't selling, and still no talk of start menus in Windows 9. Oh and yeah, Windows 9 already. Is it there to fix f***ups in Windows 8 or are we going to start seeing regurgitated s*** come out of MS for 5 versions of Windows before they make a new kernel? Will they keep going with making x.1 versions of DirectX and force people to upgrade over it?
This is why Linux is on the rise. This is why we have Steam boxes. This is why Valve is making SteamOS. This is why manufacturers are starting to use APIs other than DirectX. You can't lock people into things with IT, because one day you'll piss off a company worth billions/trillions and within a year or two the carpet is completely pulled from underneath.
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This guys sad tale isn't that sad. I've played far more complex games that require no back end infrastructure in the US to run. They're full of s***.
Posted 11:51am 15/1/14
Posted 11:58am 15/1/14
His team should have seen this path BEFORE the game's release. I hope they learned their lesson that a game like SimCity should offer both offline and online modes by default.
I guess it was too much to ask for a simple offline mode ala classic SimCity 2000 style.
Posted 01:28pm 15/1/14
This is just more PR bulls*** for them to save face though. I hope more people call them out on it.
I'm looking forward to when more games support Linux out of the box.
Posted 01:47pm 15/1/14
I generally don't read your ramblings but this one I totally agree with.
Posted 01:54pm 15/1/14
Posted 03:08pm 15/1/14
same. haven't used the start menu since xp/vista. I guess people just sook about change. Like windows 7 had the xp people (and all before that), windows 8 will have the windows 7 people. as an overall OS, I far prefer Windows 8 over previous versions of windows.
on topic though, shouldn't have been like that in the first place and hopefully big lesson learnt by most.
Posted 03:17pm 15/1/14
Posted 03:21pm 15/1/14
Yep, but I have to move my mouse around more to do the same thing. Yeah, sure, one mouse movement, but I launch a f*** ton of things this way, and frankly I don't like it. Why couldn't they leave it in and give the option? I don't see why it needed to be stabbed in the face. This is the breaking factor for me. If Windows 8 had a start menu, myself and a ton of others I know would use it. As a core OS it's quite reliable, boots fast, and has latest DX, but yeah.
Not to mention the first time I fixed a computer running W8 and I had to f*****g Google how to restart it and I've been working with them for a long time. I thought I was just being dumb but the threads I found were damning. Why change it? What's wrong with Alt+F4? What is the functional reason to change it to something harder, or change it at all? I see that you can now search for it ('restart') but early on that wasn't the case. It was a laptop and iirc laptop Windows 8 is/was a tad different to desktop in regards to how it wants to shut down.
My bet is the same reason they change everything in Office. Because companies have to pay for more refresher courses for their certifications. MS probably makes more money from training than they do software now lol.
/rant
Posted 04:43pm 15/1/14
Edit, soz didn't mean to continue this derailment.
Posted 06:31pm 15/1/14
I wonder if they financially broke even with SimCity (or MS with W8 for that matter).