#simshitty

[DANGERMAN]

I don't know if anyone has been following this, but here goes.

The new Sim City is always online, like Diablo 3 was, so even if you're playing single player you need to be connected to EA's servers. EA have been running the game on press servers for the games press to play, they've encouraged them to review the game based on this, most have refused.

Polygon, who have previously claimed to be changing the face of games journalism, did review the game early, giving the game a whopping 9.5. Since the game launched yesterday there has been near constant problems getting on to the servers, which means no one can play it, not in multiplayer, not in single player, the game is unplayable.

After the internet tore in to Polygon for reviewing the game, and reviewing it so high, whilst the game is fucked Polygon have decided to lower their score... to an 8. They've also said that once the servers are unfucked they'll be putting the score up to the original 9.5. They argue that this is part of their policy, to always be rereviewing games, which has prompted the likes of Notch (Minecraft) to complain that they haven't rereviewed his game since it has had numerous patches and updates.

It's also prompted metacritic to take the piss out of them

As things stand the servers are still down and Sim City is still unplayable, Polygon's reviewer, Justin McElroy, has decided the best way to deal with this is to make smart arse comments all day. You might not know Justin McElroy by name, but he (a professional reviewer) did a dance of joy when his copy of Skyrim arrived which you might have seen

[HandsomeDead]

All I know of Justin McElroy is from the Polygon documentary where he said he would like to be proud of being a games journalist when he tells people what he does at parties and stuff. He doesn't seem to be contributing to the cause.

But I heard him on a podcast once. He seemed like a nice guy, I guess.

[Craymen Edge]

As things stand the servers are still down and Sim City is still unplayable, Polygon's reviewer, Justin McElroy, has decided the best way to deal with this is to make smart arse comments all day. You might not know Justin McElroy by name, but he (a professional reviewer) did a dance of joy when his copy of Skyrim arrived which you might have seen

Not the first time he's been a dick in situations like this. When Polygon put out that documentary about themselves making a website as if it was some momentous game-changing event and people took the piss out of them, he and the whole staff were kind of passive aggressive dicks about it unable to see why people were finding it so funny/pretentious. He's also gone of on rants a couple of times likening use of ad-blockers to theft.

I don't value his work/opinions as a games 'Journalist', but as a podcast clown he's pretty funny.

[DANGERMAN]

I've only ever encountered him when he's making a twat of himself so I can't judge him beyond that tbf. That said someone on gaf posted some of his more hyperbolic reviews, they read like he was aiming for a box quote

[HandsomeDead]

I don't value his work/opinions as a games 'Journalist', but as a podcast clown he's pretty funny.

I'm surprised to hear that as the one I heard him on he was often outwitted and was definitely the quiet one on the podcast I heard.

[wholehole]

I like all of the McElroy brothers (Justin, Griffin and Travis) for their comedy, their podcast 'My Brother, My Brother and Me' is always hilarious, but their games journalism leaves a lot to be desired.

The Polygon podcast, 'The Besties', which both Justin and Griffin are a part of, is a complete and utter joke as they never seriously discuss anything. One of the other hosts is always taking the piss out of something when they're describing the games they've been playing.

The Polygon website and it's content always comes across as slightly pretentious, but the quality of their reviews and other coverage doesn't really back that up.

I'm not sure that launch day issues should really affect the review of a game though. By all accounts Sim City looks amazing and probably deserves the 9.5 they gave it. The login issues won't be around forever, these things always happen with this type of game. Everyone always loses their shit over it, where a little bit of patience wouldn't go amiss. If you've ever tried to log on to WoW when a new expansion is released you'll take this stuff well in your stride.

[DANGERMAN]

difference is that WoW is an mmo, sim city isn't. And people got on Polygon's back for reviewing the game early, essentially reviewing a version of the game that the public wouldn't be playing. Had they waited a couple of days then they could have addressed this, even if it was to say "teething problems, still a good game"

[wholehole]

As far as I understood it, the review copies were exactly the version the public would be playing, with the exception of not having hundreds of thousands of users trying to log on at the same time.

This SimCity is basically an MMO, the label is just semantics though. You'd have a hard time playing it on your own by all accounts due to the way the game requires every city in the region to share it's resources. You could create 15 other cities and run them all if you want, but it goes against the game's fundamentals.

[DANGERMAN]

exactly, you could play it by yourself, it sounds like most of the reviewers did play it solo. Having online functionality, even if that's what the publisher would like you to play like that, isn't the same as an mmo. If they'd included a proper offline mode, even if it then backed up your save to the server at some point, then this wouldn't be a problem, there's absolutely no need to this to always be connected to the internet.

And the reviewers playing a version the public wouldn't be playing, I was referring to the servers. It's the reason most reviews have been held until after launch

[Hendo]

The Giant Bomb review suggests it's not just server problems that's to blame, it's a severely cut down version of what a Sim City game is meant to be.

[DANGERMAN]

as I understand it the cities were larger in the beta, which would have meant it was perfectly feasible to play solo. The cynical might say that they've been shrunk so you can buy larger cities as dlc later on, but it could be to reduce server load.

[Hendo]

Alex Navarro reckons it's made as hard as can be to play truly solo - you're pushed to play with others and not build on your own.

[wholehole]

This is what I was saying about it being like an MMO. It's not just some random online functionality they've dropped in, it's a fundamental part of the game, built into it from the ground level.

[Craymen Edge]

I like this quote from Penny Arcade Report:

My rational brain thinks that anyone who bought the game at launch should have expected this rocky road, but having our expectations lowered to the extent that we browbeat gamers for having the audacity of thinking their games should work on release date is a depressing state of affairs.

We dont have an easy answer for what EA could have done to manage their servers better, and its definitely a complex problem, but were also not asking $60 for a product that gamers cant use reliably.

As we've seen too many times, expecting EA to deliver a working online product out of the box seems beyond them. But accepting that you won't be able to use a product as advertised for an unspecified time after you've bought it doesn't seem reasonable to me me either.

From what I've read, reviewers didn't play the game under the same conditions as normal users. They either went to a sepecial review event held by EA, or those who declined were given access to development servers (I think read this on Joystiq or Polygon, can't really remember).

Personally I stay away from always online games as much as I can if I don't think the game merits that approach.

I'm probably going to swerve Sim City because of the basic philosophy behind the design as much as any online issues. I'm sure Maxis thought the multiplayer/co-operative working with other player cities thing was a cool feature that people would like, but it's not what I want out of this kind of game and it sounds like it's so ingrained that you can't really function without it.

A guy on Kotaku wrote about how when playing the game for review, he destroyed his city and started again. Unfortunately he'd been trading power and services with a colleague and it fucked this other city up so badly the guy had no option but to start again.

[DANGERMAN]

Alex Navarro reckons it's made as hard as can be to play truly solo - you're pushed to play with others and not build on your own.

Jeff said on the podcast and the livestream that he played solo and built 2 or 3 cities. Didn't he spend like 10 hours playing like that? The gamespot guy played a chunk solo, Ryan Davies played solo, one of the Weekend Confirmed people played solo

Personally Wholehole I think you've fallen for a bit of pr spin, like those who claimed Diablo was an mmo, but it does raise an issue. Take something like Fifa, EA could easily make that so the league positions in single player were decided by aggregated online results, if they say that's the design then so be it. It's a change made to force the drm, not one that came naturally. Different perspectives I guess

[wholehole]

No, I totally agree that embedding the multiplayer was to force the DRM. It would be silly to think otherwise. It doesn't stop it from being a decision made early on and having game features built around and tied into it, whatever the reason was.

[Hendo]

I dunno, it sounds pretty much like you have to brute force a single player game out of it.

"Yes, it is entirely possible to play SimCity on your own, without any other players, but this is not really ideal. If you're managing multiple cities in a region, that turns an already intense time suck into a more stressful endeavor. I did not enjoy the act of trying to balance multiple cities in a region by myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm generally of the mindset that games like SimCity should be played in tomb-like isolation, but that isn't how this SimCity is meant to be played. It's meant to be played with friends. To try and fight against its multiplayer is to fight against the very nature of this game's design."

I might try one if the earlier games if they come up on sale in Steam (if EA will allow them, are they there already?) but I'm certainly not interested in funding a game they couldn't be arsed getting to work properly. The server issue shouldn't have been there - throw servers at it to begin with and then drop out what's not necessary after the initial surge, surely?

[wholehole]

It sounds simple when you put it like that, but throwing money at it is only going to eat into their launch period targets.

EA are fuckers and always have been. They don't really care about whether gamers are having a good time. We're a fickle bunch and they know that we'll find some other drama to moan about in a few days and this will be all but forgotten about.

It was mentioned on one of Giant Bomb's features that Maxis and EA's relationship has become more and more strained over this whole thing. If I was at Maxis I'd be pretty pissed off at all the negative press from this as well, especially considering how long they've been working on it.

[DANGERMAN]

No, I totally agree that embedding the multiplayer was to force the DRM. It would be silly to think otherwise. It doesn't stop it from being a decision made early on and having game features built around and tied into it, whatever the reason was.

agreed, apologies for any implication in my last post, reading it back I could have worded that better

@Hendo that quote starts by saying it's entirely possible to play Sim City in single player. I wasn't saying that it's not got online functions, or that it's even a better game like that, only that it's not an mmo, and whether the reduced city size could be to force that (whether cynically or not)

(unless I've misunderstood what you're getting at?)

[Hendo]

The point is that it is technically a single player game but you have to fight the design to play it that way.

It's like you can play a freemium game without paying any money at all but they make it really fucking hard for you.

Either way, the servers are fucked, EA are incompetent due to either not being prepared or not wanting to spend too much money on launch and Polygon look a bit dodgy.