Electronic Arts has finally created something that has captivated the world with an intoxicating melange of drama, tragedy and sick humor. Too bad all of these elements emerge from EA’s project management, not the game itself.
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The SimCity saga is evolving into a mesmerizing example of mismanaging a highly ambitious project in several ways. Forcing consumers to opt for an always-on Internet connection; underestimating server loads; insisting on the unnecessary and destructive goal of having “real people” populating the simulation; capping the size of the cities at a level that obviously alienates long-time fans; and deciding to go ahead with the game launch even with clearly inadequate pathfinding algorithms.
~Tero Kuittinen, FOX NEWS
I feel bad for my fellow gamers who purchased SimCity based on the awesomeness has been the franchise since the late 80s—not to mention impressive reviews from the likes of Slate's Farhad Manjoo. I don't blame the reviewers here. They were able to play with exclusive connections to servers prior to the game's release, I am sure, if not at Maxis headquarters itself. In particular, Manjoo raved about the "individual" Sims behaving somewhat willy-nilly. I'm guessing it is even more erratic than he realized.
I might purchase SimCity in in the future. But for now, I'll stick to my MMORPGs.
Sim City 4 + that game's Network Addon Mod (NAM) would be a better idea than every getting this much-lobotomized thing masquerading as a SimCity game.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those bitter old-school Maxis fans who is just disgusted at how far they've fallen.
I played SC4 for a bit. Ironically, the smoothed tiles killed me at the shoreline, I could never figure out where to aim roads so that bridges made sense. I hadn't played SC3K, and SC2K had much simpler graphics.
DeleteI was intrigued by some of the options - particularly streamlining the way utilities worked, but this has been a dumpster fire from the start. I was a little worried about that because of the announcement "hey we're pushing back the release" and then the "haha, no not really by all that much." As usual, if you can't get it out on the original release date, extra development time is not going to untangle your problems in any significant way.
ReplyDeleteI was interested until I heard about always on internet connection. I made that mistake with Starcraft 2, and I won't make it again. I'm fine with always on in an MMO, since you know, it's an online game. But for playing single player campaign games? NO! It's one thing to give me the option of going online if I want, but forcing me to is a terrible idea. Starcraft 2 was my game for traveling when I had a bad connection. In single player mode, it was only supposed to verify who you were, and then everything would work offline. It constantly booted me when the internet slowed down.
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