Sim City is BACK and now simulates running a city better than ever before! Nonsensical restrictions, lack of funding, the entire city coming to a complete standstill due to worldwide crisis, it has everything a governor could expect!
<img src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-9cXZC54/0/950x10000/i-9cXZC54-950x10000.jpg">
Okay, Penny Arcade is actually funny this time. :)
Glad I didn't drop any cash on this turkey. I might bite when the game's $5, has bigger cities, and the always-on online DRM has been disabled because everyone hated it and didn't work.
See my new thread... now that the game can actually be played, it's even worse than we thought.
ABF, why do you do this? There was already a Sim City thread this could have gone in. It's similar to how you will, at times, for completely arbitrary reasons, create an entire new thread for new games you bought, post there for a while, then for again seemingly arbitrary reasons, post other new games in random older threads of your's. I'm not sure I get it.
Bah, you merged them? I liked my thread title... I did think of this thread while posting that one, but I thought it worked as a new thread too; it was for a new issue, after all.
Quote:how you will, at times, for completely arbitrary reasons, create an entire new thread for new games you bought, post there for a while, then for again seemingly arbitrary reasons, post other new games in random older threads of your's.
I've only done that a few times, and it's usually by accident. It is true that I don't move the post to the correct thread after noticing, though.
No worries, your original thread post now bears your thread's title in all its glory.
But really though, considering this thread's very subject is ABOUT Sim City's issues, there was no reason why new ones need get their own thread. Of course, if you feel it creates the illusion of a more active Tendo City to make every post its own thread, then yeah, I can see that. :D
So what do you think of these mods for Sim City? Very interesting stuff I say. I also find it interesting that they altered javascript files, java SCRIPT files, the files that run the internet. Is Sim City 2013 essentially a browser game run at full screen?
Ugh... apparently this game sold 1.1 million copies at launch. Best SimCity launch ever. :(
This seems appropriate.
<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EnHfWdlCaQk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
... And then they all go to the bad movie anyway. Or at least, that would make it like what happened here, apparently...
I'm willing to bet that most of those copies were sold well before it was revealed that EA had no idea how to manage the launch and that the game was a bug-filled mess.
That is probably true. It doesn't help that SimCity is a very casual-focused series, so people who bought the game probably aren't the most informed gamers... some probably haven't played many (full-price) games since the last SimCity 10 years ago. They'd have no idea that it was this broken.
So I called EA's customer support (which I should add is better than Microsoft's by a LOT. EA has a very messed up culture when it comes to their developers, and they really nickle and dime people on content (Dead Space in particular is a big example, and worse is how those extra suits and weapons just destroy the balance of these survival horror games), but I am shocked at just how good their customer support is. It rivals Nintendo's in fact. I was able to register about every PC EA game I own with their Origin network so I can play the games without a disc now (and don't have to worry about the discs besides). As a result, I've got Sim City 4 registered as a digital download. They really worked with me on that one. They couldn't register my copy by itself, so they went ahead and gave me a registration for the Deluxe Edition with the expansion pack. This extended to my copies of Battlefield 2 as well. Now, Origin itself is a little glitchy in that games older than a couple of years can't seem to be registered directly in the client, but wow did EA's customer support bend over backwards to help me.
This is how customer support is done. Scripts are all well and good (actually, I don't recall having to deal with any annoying scripted questions we both knew weren't going to help, I could just tell them my problem we went straight to resolution), but it is far more important to give tech support agents the freedom to make decisions on their own. If they can do that with only guidelines and some trust in their judgement, you get far more satisfied customers. Nintendo's agents are the only ones that compare in this regard.
Microsoft's tech support system, as always, is terrible. I usually leave those calls frustrated at the impotence of the agent to actually DO anything on their own, not really mad at THEM, so much as whoever oversees their tech support network. If I call Microsoft, I often find that I can't accomplish anything more with them than I could just dealing with computer prompt based support.
Um, anyway, just wanted to say it was helpful to get Sim City 4 entirely digital on my machine. If for whatever reason the digital DRM proves more frustrating, I do still have my discs and can switch right back to disc checking as my DRM restriction of choice.
Oh, this is not to say that EA doesn't suck in other ways. The corporate "official solution" to offer free games was well meaning, but their selection was pretty terrible.
So here's a thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_64
I vaguely recall this game being announced long ago, but sadly, it never came out here because it was a 64DD game. From the description, it appears to be heavily based on Sim City 2000, but with some incredible foresight in first including features later seen in Sim City 3000, Sim City 4, and even the latest Sim City reboot (street level life, done right). It honestly sounds like an amazing version of the game.
So you actually bought the game? Why?
Um... reread what I said. I have a feeling you didn't actually read it, or you never would have reached that conclusion.
Yeah, I obviously misread your post. Somehow read SC4 as the new one. :p
Reading it did make me think of that story about how (during the SimCity debacle) some official help posts in EA's website had EA's customer service number censored out automatically... EA doesn't want people calling them, or something. Kind of bizarre...
Yeah, really bizarre. I actually had to put "EA support number" into Google in order to find out what it was, through a third party. I will say this, it takes about an hour or two to actually reach someone on that line. I basically call them, get on hold (their phone tree is, fortunately, one of the easier ones to navigate), and then set my phone on speaker while I go about my business as some of the WORST hold music plays in the background (like Kenny G. ripped off the best hits of the 70's). You'd think they would have music from, say, some of their actual GAMES in there.
For all the trouble EA goes through to hide their support team, it is still one of the best I've ever dealt with though.