SimCity is out

[Jarhead0331]

On Ars Technica someone brought up the interesting point that online-only games almost 100% of the time have a shitshow of a release. This track record stretches back to Ultima Online which is like a decade old. Any major online-only release has been a mess at first. And this stretches across all companies. My suspicion is that testing for extreme load is a lot harder to do than one might think.

Look at Blizzard, a company I think is fairly reputable. Both their online-only games, WoW and Diablo 3, were unstable debacles at release. They took some time but they made it right.

I still do not understand this phenomena. Sure, it may be hard to test pre-release, but don't they have data from the prior release failures?  Can't they make some kind of an educated guess as to load requirements at release?  My money is on they can, but it is more cost effective for them to weather through the initial hiccups and complaints, wait until the dust settles and the demand ebbs, and then implement the necessary server capacity without overdoing it.  It does not make sense that this problem happens 100% of the time on accident. 

[MikeGER]

  My money is on they can, but it is more cost effective for them to weather through the initial hiccups and complaints, wait until the dust settles and the demand ebbs, and then implement the necessary server capacity without overdoing it.

Exactly !  >:(

The problem is: they already got the money ...and the product is unique.
there is no competitive product that give exactly the identical  entertainment experience  at least at the time of those releases.

The only way out -from the customer rights political sight of view- is a bill from the EU: If the already payed service is not provided at release day,  there has to be a refund (maybe 15% of the price) to each customer who files in a claim and evidence (screens).

like we have here in Transportation services, where there is refund for delayed trains and flights       

[Bison]

I've played for about an hour so I'm going to hold back on my first thoughts which were clearly influenced by the server issues.

[tgb]

If nothing else, EA is consistent.

[Longdan]

I make a fatwa against EA anyway.  They get no more of my money.

[PanzersEast]

EA
Amazon suspends sales of SimCity video game
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21712910

[fran]

Is it challenging enough? Take Tropico i like the design but too easy.

[jomni]

Is it challenging enough? Take Tropico i like the design but too easy.

Yes.  One city clearly cannot do everything this time.  Expensive buildings and little space.  Intercity trade is necessary. You can start multiple, ple citiesports he map. I for one cannot solve my sanitation problem.

update: Sanitation problem solved. I did not build enough water filtration plats to keep the water that is pumped clean. But i'm now running out of water (water table depletion).  Time to buy water from other cities (I will create a city that provides excess water).  I like the challenge.  Here's an informative post about water.  http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/107735/does-the-water-table-replenish

Also my industry is stagnating.  I have a relatively wealthy population and they don't want to take industrial jobs.  Some big factories are finding it hard to get people to work for them.  This means I need another town to provide low class workers, and also develop technology (through education) for high tech industrial jobs.

Other interrelationships that I learned... Low education levels lead to more dumb people starting fires.  People who cannot earn enough turns to crime.  Pollution leads to sickness.  The need for middle income citizens to vitality the shopping scene (commercial business).   Civic amenities (parks,  schools sports) lead to personal wealth (land value).
Server issues aside, it is really a great game.

[Bison]

The city zones are too small.  Really fun game, but the small zones are pretty limiting.  I'd like to see agriculture zoning and a few more odds and ends.

[Bison]

Also while I'm thinking about it.  I sort of miss being able to place my own power lines and water pipes.  Also I don't see any means to raise/lower land, build bridges and a few other things from previous editions. 

Finally the zoomed in textures suck.  Fuzzy images are not cool.

[Bison]

I also forgot.  What the hell happened to zone density control?  And freaking one way streets?  Man this game is getting my blood pressure up now that I think about it after a seemingly soothing 3 hour game play session.

[jomni]

I also forgot.  What the hell happened to zone density control?  And freaking one way streets?  Man this game is getting my blood pressure up now that I think about it after a seemingly soothing 3 hour game play session.

Zone density is influenced by the density of the streets.

Small zones force you to interact with other cities. 

One way street is useful.  Hope they add that.

I actually appreciate that they got rid of the power lines and pipes.

[fran]

I thought they said they will look at increased city sizes in future. Current sizes allow the game to be more assessable by keeping required specs low. Could be load of bull but they do have big enough following to do good things in thefuture . I just hope it is game engine improvements and not just pointless skins dlc.

Jomni, sounds nice and detailed.

[Bison]

I also forgot.  What the hell happened to zone density control?  And freaking one way streets?  Man this game is getting my blood pressure up now that I think about it after a seemingly soothing 3 hour game play session.

Zone density is influenced by the density of the streets.

Small zones force you to interact with other cities. 

One way street is useful.  Hope they add that.

I actually appreciate that they got rid of the power lines and pipes.

I understand that zone densitiy is tied to street size the issue is an avenue eats up a ton of space on an already excessively small map. 

Look at how much space some of the specialization buildings take.  Again disproportionately large compaired to zone size.  And why cann't I have a map set that has a huge city space availible?  Why do I have to be forced into building 3 to 12 small cities?  It called SimCity not SimSupplyChainManagement.  I don't mind building the different cities because it can be fun to link commerce, but vary up the zone size. 

[fran]

http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

Can redeem free game on 18/3 and they claim to increased server capacity by 120%