PC SimCity (2013)

Kevin

Code Monkey
Staff member
So, is it safe to pick up a copy of the new SimCity yet? :thinking: I loved the original SimCity games and was an avid player up to the SimCity 2000 release (I know, that was years ago!).

With the arrival of the new game I was looking forward to it but so far it has been plagued with nothing but problems. First EA underestimated the number of people who would be buying the game when it first came out so they did not ramp up the number of their servers. That is an issue because the game, like nearly all EA games now, require an 'always-connected' internet connection to play, even in single-player mode. Then there are reports of people losing their cities because of server issues and minor other bugs that are interfering with the game play. Speaking of the server, it turns out that even though the servers are named by a geographical location, making you think that selecting the closest server would be best, all of the servers are actually in the same Ireland based data center. o_O

Visually the game looks great but should I hold off buying a copy yet or has EA worked out their problems?

 
The disaster is costing at least one person their job, the CEO of EA! :eek:
EA said:
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced that John Riccitiello will step down as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective March 30. The Board has appointed Larry Probst as Executive Chairman to ensure a smooth transition and to lead EA's executive team while the Board conducts a search for a permanent CEO. The Board will consider internal and external candidates with the assistance of a leading executive search firm.

To make up for the fiasco EA is offering a free game to some purchasers. Customers are starting to get their notices that they are eligible.
 
It's playable, but still buggy. There's a lot of fail that went along with this launch, but it is a really nice game at its heart. Iron out the kinks and all will be well.
 
It's playable, but still buggy. There's a lot of fail that went along with this launch, but it is a really nice game at its heart. Iron out the kinks and all will be well.
I went ahead and did something stupid. No, whatever the first thought some of you guys/gals may have had, it wasn't that. :cautious: I bought the new SimCity last night.

Still haven't played it yet because, after downloading the installer stub, it took several hours for it to download an "update" so I let go into the night and went to bed. Later this week I will hopefully have a chance to get some play time in with it.

The interesting part for me was that I bought it last night but after launching the EA/Origin client on my laptop I was immediately greeted with the notice of being eligible for a second game for free! :cool: The selections to choose from were petty limited and since I don't play FPS type games I ended up selecting... SimCity 4. :LOL:
 
Yeah, I bought the game before all the kinks were worked out. Based purely on the strength of my wife's playtime. Looking through the options for the free games though I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I figure that anyone who wants those games probably already has them.
 
I've been thinking about buying it, but frankly the whole online element has me underwhelmed. I bought CitiesXL and that was a major disappointment, and the online element was removed from that very quickly. I am disappointed to see that EA is determined to keep the online element. Their record with online gameplay is far from satisfactory. I have heard of numerous problems with their FIFA franchise ... every damned year!
 
I started playing it this morning and, in a rather short time, was able to cause it to freeze up. No idea if my cities will still be there when I restart it again. It is running so painfully slow that I think I'll be trying out the free copy of SimCity 4 that I chose to see if that performs any better.
 
Be prepared for SC4 to e more buddy and close randomly so save your city often. If you're on 64 bit windows install it to your regular Program Files directory not x86 to save from numerous issues.

I have yet to choose a free game because I already own SC4 and could not care less about the others.
 
Logged on to Origin yesterday, realised I actually get a free game. Decided on Mass Effect as I haven't played them, and I liked Dragon Age: Origins.

"I've been thinking about buying it, but frankly the whole online element has me underwhelmed."
I'm exactly the same. Online components can be great, but you need to make an effort to do it right, and have a point to it. The ONLY reason that SC5 is completely online is for the DRM. If they allowed an offline mode, or a LAN mode, you could get the exact same functionality, but no need to worry about servers. It was the exact same situation with Diablo 3. These are games that traditionally are not online. Diablo 1 and 2 were LAN party favorites because you didn't need to be online.

One game I've seen do it right is Torchlight 2. You don't need to be always online, but you can play online if you wish. You can also play over LAN if you wish, and you can also play single player.
 
I started playing it this morning and, in a rather short time, was able to cause it to freeze up. No idea if my cities will still be there when I restart it again. It is running so painfully slow that I think I'll be trying out the free copy of SimCity 4 that I chose to see if that performs any better.
It is running so slow on my two-year old HP laptop that I, with absolutely no artistic skills, could draw the cities in colored pencil faster than the screen refresh responds. :banghead:

Be prepared for SC4 to e more buddy and close randomly so save your city often. If you're on 64 bit windows install it to your regular Program Files directory not x86 to save from numerous issues.
I am indeed on 64-bit Windows (Win7 Pro in my case). Weren't there some patches released for it?

I have yet to choose a free game because I already own SC4 and could not care less about the others.
I wasn't sure if me getting the free game offer was a fluke or not, since I had just purchased the game after the free game announcement was made, and I didn't play the rest of the ones offered.

One game I've seen do it right is Torchlight 2. You don't need to be always online, but you can play online if you wish. You can also play over LAN if you wish, and you can also play single player.
I've heard good things about Torchlight 2 from online friends but haven't picked it up. If that was offered as one of the free choices I would've grabbed it.
 
I know of no patch that was released after Windows 7 came out. The last patch was years before Win 7 and the popularization of 64 bit systems.

I got my info from many reviews on Amazon, all claiming the same problem, and found the fix on a random site and it worked for me.
 
Spent about 30 minutes working on a city building up a high wealth area; without warning the screen went black with only the cursor visible and then after a minute or so it took me back to the main menu. I selected the resume game option and, sure enough, none of it saved. :banghead:

Time to go see if SimCity 4 loads.
 
Wow, I haven't had any of those issues. It hasn't been running great, but it's not been crashing. I guess I've been lucky.

On the Mass Effect 3 front, holy felgercarb, I've put in about 15-18 hours over 3 days. I haven't done that in AGES. It's pretty good. I recommend it if you like RPGs and Science Fiction.
 
A major update was released yesterday; the next time you launch SimCity it will automatically download. The changes are big enough that they've gone from release 1.8 straight to a 2.0 designation.

https://help.ea.com/article/simcity-updates

Hopefully this update will at least let me play it for than 30 minutes at a time.
 
My brother and both sisters like SimCity. Thanks providence, I have my personal lop-top, because access to PC, where this games instaled, is not awailable for me when it's "Then SimCity time!" Hell, I never even tryed to play it. :P
 
I purchased the game on release day and played it a little but haven't really went back to it ever since but plan to. Apparently the latest patch is supposed to fix the roads or something and many other bugs so it's a game I'll certainly be playing at some point in the future.
 
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