EA Disables SimCity Gameplay Features to Address Online Server Issues

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  • Shawn Zipay
    Managing Communities 24/7
    • Apr 2003
    • 69279

    #1

    EA Disables SimCity Gameplay Features to Address Online Server Issues

    You know what? I was fine with the idea of always-online being a DRM method. I was fine with it when it works. But when it doesn't, that's another matter entirely. Companies like Blizzard and EA should have expected the huge rushes on the release days for their games but they did not.

    So what's EA's response with SimCity's woes? More servers? More bandwidth? They've started to try adding more servers yesterday, but that hasn't gone too well from the looks of things.

    Instead, they have now disabled a gameplay feature in the game. This will affect you whether or not you are playing solo or with buddies online. They disabled cheetah speed in order to lessen the load on their DRM servers.

    This is part of a recent path that was rolled out just a very short time ago for SimCity.
    - Fix for crash caused most commonly occurring on servers experiencing lag. This crash would happen most often when claiming a new city when playing in a region.
    - Fix for server select dialog not appearing on start-up if the server the player was last on is not available.
    - Disabled Cheetah speed. Cheetah speed is is now the same as llama speed.
    - Crash fix for finding closest points.
    - Crash fixes in transport and pedestrian code.
    - A fix cities having processing problems associated with helicopters.

    This apparently comes after word broke that EA and Maxis were also going to disable other non-critical gameplay features such as leaderboards and achievements. Now, I don't know if those things are disabled in this patch or not. The changelog does not mention these but don't be too surprised if you don't see them the next time you log into the game.
  • DunkinSPE
    OT's Daddy Warbucks
    • Aug 2006
    • 452

    #2
    Any game that runs between $60 and $80 shouldn't have major gameplay issues at launch. If your paying a premium to enjoy a game at launch you should experience a mostly bug free game. EA screwed the pooch on this and I'm glad I went with my gut instinct and held off on dropping that kind of money on an game. If anything game companies should overbuild server capacity at launch and then regress it back as server load normalizes. With the ever growing always on attitude game developers need to realize a digital product has the same consumer expectations as a physical product. A new purchase that fails during initial usage leaves a bad taste in the consumers mouth. Game companies will continue to drive customers away with poor product launches and more customers will wait till after the initial sales spikes to buy a patched game at a discounted price.
    "We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt." -John Winger (Bill Murray) Stripes

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    • signa
      CS-Nation / TGN Staff
      • Dec 2004
      • 4191

      #3
      Online DRM sucks. period. and I love the fact that simcity users will have to install origin too.
      "Crunch's First Officer"
      twitter: @signaprime

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