Sim City 5: "players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave"

[Great Rumbler]

They haven't learned anything at all.

[Joe Molotov]

TL;DR: "It's hard to make Fire Engines in HD"

[pilonv1]

They're not even in HD since your dads computer

[Trent Dole]

[pilonv1]

SIMCITY CITIES OF TOMORROW EXPANSION PACK COMING NOVEMBER 12

Speculative Technologies, New Specializations, and Massive MegaTowers Take Gamers' Cities to the Future

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – September 19, 2013 – Bring the cities of today into the world of tomorrow. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced that the SimCity™ Cities of Tomorrow* expansion pack is currently in development for Mac and PC and will be arriving November 12. Built upon the foundation of the ultimate city building simulation that has more than 2 million players worldwide, SimCity Cities of Tomorrow gives players the ability to transform their cities as they take them on a journey 50 years into the future. Using new technologies and experimental urban planning techniques, mayors will shape the destinies of their cities, thriving in a utopia of clean technologies, or a dystopia of hyper-commercialism.

"Will the world of tomorrow be a utopia powered by clean energy or an industrial society consumed by mass commercialism?" said Patrick Buechner, General Manager, Maxis Emeryville. "With SimCity Cities of Tomorrow, players can build the future as they imagine it. Transport your Sims on MagLev, power your cities with fusion reactors or tidal wave generators, manufacture a legion of drones to serve your Sims and build massive MegaTowers that dwarf modern skyscrapers. We're giving you plausible technologies to take your cities onto a journey 50 years into the future. What will you create?"

SimCity Cities of Tomorrow gives players an entirely new way to dream about their city of the future. New regions, new future technology, new city specializations and new transportation methods will transform the way that cities take shape and evolve. Will they create a utopian society underpinned by clean technology under the auspices of the Academy, or encourage giant corporation OmegaCo to strip-mine natural resources and pollute in the name of feeding consumerism? For the first time in the history of the franchise, cities can be built vertically with enormous multi-zone MegaTowers that extend high into the sky and dwarf the rest of the city. Education and research will help players discover new technologies that make their cities less polluted, less reliant on natural resources, managed day-to-day by service drones and fueled by green energy. As the population increases, Sims will live, work, and play closer together. When players have finished deciding whether they want their Sims to live together in harmony, or as members of an exploited workforce, they can rain chaos upon them by unleashing an all-new disaster exclusive to this expansion pack.

The SimCity base game is available now on Mac and PC and developed by Maxis. SimCity is cross-platform compatible, so all players play together across the same servers. Players can play both versions with the same Origin account, allowing them to seamlessly continue their cities, achievements and leaderboard progress across the Mac and PC. Since its launch in March, SimCity has had seven major game updates that have made upgrades to the core simulation and provided game content and features at no additional charge.

SimCity Cities of Tomorrow will be available for Mac and PC and is not yet rated for the ESRB. Pre-orders will begin soon at www.SimCity.com.

Cities of tomorrow the size of cities of 1850!

Also $30

[Joe Molotov]

Remember Archologies from SimCity 2000? They're back, in $30 DLC form!

[benjipwns]

As the population increases, Sims will live, work, and play closer together.

Because of the city sizes or because of their inability to travel anywhere in the city?

Maxis probably should have taken a look at what Fraxis did to "save" an underwhelmingly received sequel with their expansions.

[pilonv1]

Civ 5 vanilla was infinitely more playable than Sim City was though. At least they had the basis of a good game under some stuff that didn't work very well.

I don't even think 2 Brave New World level expansions could fix the core issues with Sim City

[benjipwns]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131002/04045724727/simcity-refuses-to-learn-its-lesson-knee-caps-modding-community.shtml

See, SimCity is a PC game, and if PC games have any great advantage over their console competition, it's the ease with which gamers can mod the originals and make them better, more interesting, and even drive sales of the original product. Unless that game is SimCity, that is. Why? Because apparently EA hates you.

The good news is that SimCity will soon be allowing user-generated content. The bad news is that EA is looking to place so many restrictions on what you can actually mod that it seems almost pointless. In reaching out to the game's community with its initial plans, EA has already put its foot down on mods that change the way the game plays. Here are the two key points from its "first draft":

-UGC that effects the simulation for multiplay games and features are not allowed.
-Examples of acceptable UGC include swapping art assets, like buildings and vehicles.

In other words, EA took one of the greatest sandbox games of all time and is limiting what you can to with it to what color sand you put in that box.

http://kotaku.com/simcity-is-ruining-its-mods-too-1437491634

[Great Rumbler]

A shocking turn of events!

[benjipwns]

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-offline-is-coming

Let’s get right to it.

SIMCITY OFFLINE IS COMING!

I’ve wanted to say those words for quite some time, so my apologies that I didn’t take the time to say Happy New Year first.

Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing. As one of the final steps, we’re putting Offline into the hands of some of our most hardcore players, the DevTesters. This group of volunteers is going to put Offline through its paces before we release it.

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.

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.

[Himu]

who gives a shit. the actual game is a turd, drm or not.

[pilonv1]

As much as the death of this game should make me sad, I can't help but enjoy reading how much of a clusterfuck it is

[Great Rumbler]

who gives a shit. the actual game is a turd, drm or not.

Give it a few months, and there'll be enough fan mods and patches to make it worth playing for $5.

[Diunx]

Even with all the fan mods and patches if you give EA money for this game you are a fucking idiot.