SimCity (2013)

[riviera74]

Hopefully EA will learn from this, though I doubt it

If EA was ever going to learn, it would have been the Spore launch debacle. But they didn't, or rather they "learned" that people getting pissed off about an obnoxious and crippling DRM scheme should be solved by spending a bunch of money to build an even more obnoxious and crippling DRM scheme and have marketing say it's a feature.

If it's any consolation, I doubt EA will still be around in ten years. Something will come along that bored frat boys enjoy more than playing Madden, and the rest of the company can't survive without the cash cow propping it up.

EA disappearing in ten years is not a consolation for this reason: What if everyone is STILL playing EA games and the DRM servers are switched off? Problems galore. EA lives and dies off consoles, not PC games. Therefore they will survive the next decade easily.

[drfish]

So this happened, confirming what most of us already knew.

Now I'm starting to read things about how only about 10% of the population in a large city is actually simulated using the whole fancy agent thing and that's why "big" cities get horribly broken (money and transit wise) and almost certainly the reason cities are so small in the first place.

We have the technology... 3Ghz+ quad-core hyper-threaded processors for less than $300. 64-bit operating systems everywhere. 16GB of RAM for just over $100. Scalable system requirements. Why, why, why?

[lilbuddhaman]

From the [H] thread,
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/51338 ... i-js-L8510

simcity.GetFudgedPopulation = function (a)

Code: Select all

simcity.GetFudgedPopulation = function (a) {
a = "undefined" !== typeof a ? a : simcity.gGlobalUIHandler.mLastPopulation;
if (500 >= a)
return a;
[b]if (40845 < a)[/b]
return Math.floor(8.25 * a);
[b]a = Math.pow(a - 500, 1.2) + 500[/b];
return Math.floor(a)
};
simcity.GetRoundedFudgedPopulation = function (a) {
a = simcity.GetFudgedPopulation(a);
return a = 25E3 < a ? 10 * Math.round(a / 10) : 5 * Math.round(a / 5)
};

and a reddit theorycrafter guy: http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comment ... ion_sizes/

A Low Income - Low Density House has 6 adults, 4 are workers and 2 are shoppers. If you destroy this home, your total population at the bottom center of your screen goes down by 6. Makes sense.

A Low Income - Med Density House has 60 adults, 40 are workers, 20 are shoppers If you destroy this home, your total population at the bottom center of your screen goes down by 60. Makes sense.

A Low Income - High Density House is where things go all whacky... By the pattern above you would assume that a high density home would be 600 adults where 400 are workers and 200 are shoppers, and this is true. If you look at the data layers (at the right times) you will see that there are indeed 600 residents and 400 are workers and 200 are shoppers....

BUT...

If you destroy this High Density house, your population goes down by 5200!!!!! (As well as increasing by 5200 when it gets rebuilt)

So either the worker/shopper count is bugged for high population buildings, OR they are purposefully "padding" the bottom center population numbers to make the city look bigger than it actually is.

[axeman]

A fellow I work with says this is being blown way out of proportion. He claims he's had no issues connecting or playing the game since launch day. I call BS, as I suspect him of being full of it in general. Since you can pick your server to login, is there a logical reason for believing him, like the actual "servers" are actually pointing to some sort of distributed system?

[druidcent]

Oohh.. now there is pathfinding issues for Sims

http://bgr.com/2013/03/13/simcity-pr-nightmare-analysis-372284/

[drfish]

Yeah, read the some of that here. *sigh*

[drfish]

A great summary of the issues beyond the server stuff... *sigh again*

[tanker27]

The pathfinding issue is huge. But it makes me wonder if the Devs were just asleep when coding the algorithms or was it that EA was just pushing them a punishing dev schedule.

To me this is like coding N Tier, you show the PoC of a webapp by directly connecting to the DB but then you go back and break that link and code the DAL and BLL layers for security, ease of maintenance and future enhancements.

It makes me actually feel bad for the Devs who are now associated with, what amounts to, a broken game.

[lilbuddhaman]

A guy modded the game, unlocked dev tools (which some don't work), and is able to make highways outside the city borders, and it saves. A bunch of other stuff found too....Looks like full region editing might be possible soon. F***ing EA crippling their own game...no doubt to sell it later.

[tanker27]

Do you have a link?

[RtFusion]

Vidoes in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmce9oIxJag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROy6VE5Z ... r_embedded

[killadark]

been wanting to buy this
so i went to cjscd-keys.com and brought one only to pay money for nothing they took my money and no key

[tanker27]

is that even a legit place? (I cant see it at work 'cause its blocked)

[idchafee]

I read somewhere that they buy retail copies in like Indonesia or somewhere its a lot cheaper, then resell them here. I don't know if that's legal or not

[steelcity_ballin]

been wanting to buy this
so i went to cjscd-keys.com and brought one only to pay money for nothing they took my money and no key

You tried to skirt the system and got burnt. Hopefully lesson learned. So what was your reasoning behind not purchasing

I read somewhere that they buy retail copies in like Indonesia or somewhere its a lot cheaper, then resell them here. I don't know if that's legal or not

Perhaps in whatever their country of origin (no pun intended) is, but certainly not in the US. I would have been more surprised if it wasn't region locked somehow.

[cphite]

been wanting to buy this
so i went to cjscd-keys.com and brought one only to pay money for nothing they took my money and no key

You tried to skirt the system and got burnt. Hopefully lesson learned. So what was your reasoning behind not purchasing

I tell you it's a sorry world we live in when you can't trust criminals anymore...

[lilbuddhaman]

That's what you get for not pirating it.

[NovusBogus]

Sad but true. I haven't looked but I'm assuming someone's either cracked it already, or is in the process of doing so.

[tfp]

List of games is out, can't say I'm impressed or surprised.

During the rollout, individual users may find they get access to the free game portal slightly before or after others in their region. Everyone worldwide will have access no later than 5:00PM PST on March 22 and will have until March 30 at 11:59PM PST to redeem.

Which games are available?
Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
Bejeweled 3
Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
MOHW (Standard Edition)
NFS Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
Plants vs. Zombies
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition

Why this list of games?
We’ve put together an assortment of some of EA’s top hits.

Top hits, right.

But anyways what would everyone pick?

[JustAnEngineer]

Mass Effect 3 is a good title. I didn't like it as much as the first one, but it's still good.

[Airmantharp]

Sadly, I don't think that EA has a game that I don't already own (I have BF3 and ME3) that would make me want to plop down $60 for it and SimCity. SimCity 4 might do it, but really, I'd rather just get SimCity 4 on Steam and call it a day.

[JustAnEngineer]

Hopefully EA will learn from this, though I doubt it.

http://news.yahoo.com/electronic-arts-c ... ector.html

[Waco]

Hopefully EA will learn from this, though I doubt it.

http://news.yahoo.com/electronic-arts-c ... ector.html

Good. Now if the rest of the management follows suit we'll be in good shape.

[UberGerbil]

[Chrispy_]

That facebook grab is priceless.
I've been boycotting EA for a while now, never once regretted that decision, and I still have a huge backlog of games to play.

When I say boycotted, I may have installed Crysis3 but I didn't buy it (Thanks AMD, <3 your game bundles)

[NovusBogus]

I won't put up with Origin so I've had a de facto EA boycott for about three years. My money goes to companies that respect me as a consumer, if they don't want said money it isn't my problem.