Sim City 5

[Regs]

Lol, Amazon stopped selling digital copies yesterday:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/amazon-reinstates-simcity-digital-copies-6405002?

"Online retail giant no longer allowing consumers to purchase downloadable version of just-released PC game. "

"Many customers are having issues connecting to the SimCity servers," Amazon said on its website. "EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed."

 

[Maximilian]

That's ridiculous.

Why? EA have 9000 employees, its definitely realistic they they have some of their 9000 people (marketing probably) posting crap on forums, maybe thats not their full time job but it will be a secondary task for them until this catastrophe is forgotten about. Its not like a takes long to make a post and its not like said post has a limited audience, potentially everyone could read it, its a really cheap easy way to tell people everything is fine and sell as many copies as possible to avoid a loss.

They may well have specific paid shills, nvidia have done it, possibly AMD too, cant see why other companies wouldn't.

 

[exar333]

Get your tinfoil hats ready.


I flat out don't believe the people claiming they've had no problems since day 1. No way, no how. The EA forums are full of people paid by EA to specifically say over and over that it's "just fine, just be patient and try again! It's an amazing game so don't give bad reviews! I have had 0 problems connecting!!"


Every night I have attempted to connect and reconnect, countless times, and have been able to play the game only twice, maybe three times.

Every day at lunch I've tried to connect, just to see if it would, and have had NO luck.


This is across every NA server.

I think we have a bunch of people, here included, who are paid by EA to spread misinformation regarding this game.

Agree.

[not directed at you - just in general] It is certainly possible some folks just get 'lucky' but I certainly doesn't help the dialogue to say 'I am connecting fine, so I doubt anyone else has issues...'

If you are one of the 'lucky ones' then acknowledge as such and be gracious you had the chance to play. Don't insult the others and pretend no issues exist. Obviously someone is getting to play (the servers are full) but for how long and to what quality is highly suspect.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

That's ridiculous.

Have you spent any time on the EA forums?


There is no doubt whatsoever that EA shills are on there posting this junk.

Hell, we even have a couple of people in here posting the EXACT same verbiage of drivel.

 

[-Slacker-]

Christ this shit is bananas

EA hires hundreds of chinese spammers to post positively about SimCity's always on requirements.

You know what? This wouldn't surprise me in the least if it turns out to be true - in fact, I'm sure it's partially true. It would be naive to think a corporation like EA does not employ shill marketing.

If it is true, though, EA should cease to exist as a corporate entity, or an entity of any kind. Smack the book of law and justice in their face, enough is enough.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Like I keep saying... Just spend 5 minutes reading the EA forums and there will be no doubt in your mind.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/4122.page


Look for "just fine, just be patient and try again! It's an amazing game so don't give bad reviews! I have had 0 problems connecting!!"

With a HUGE focus on how you shouldn't post bad things about the game, it's not the game developer or EA's fault, that these things "happen with all online focused games"

 

[DrunkenSano]

Christ this shit is bananas

EA hires hundreds of chinese spammers to post positively about SimCity's always on requirements.

You know what? This wouldn't surprise me in the least if it turns out to be true - in fact, I'm sure it's partially true. It would be naive to think a corporation like EA does not employ shill marketing.

If it is true, though, EA should cease to exist as a corporate entity, or an entity of any kind. Smack the book of law and justice in their face, enough is enough.

It's not true. They didn't hire from China. They hired from India.

 

[T9D]

Have you spent any time on the EA forums?


There is no doubt whatsoever that EA shills are on there posting this junk.

Hell, we even have a couple of people in here posting the EXACT same verbiage of drivel.

You guys need to stop with the "everybody is a liar mentality"

Sim City is online. All you have to do is go look at all the many many cities and regions to see that many people have been playing. And playing a lot. The leaderboards were all filled up with cities with huge populations and accomplishments. I have 3 Cities now one with 250k people.

A LOT of people are actually playing and having fun. If anything it's the pirates and anti DRM people who see an oportunity don't even own the game who are doing a lot of complaining and lying. They do it with every single game.

Yeah we know the servers couldn't handle the load and a lot of people are actually having trouble. But when people say they are getting on and have proof, and are posting screenshots to share their city, or asking advise on how best to play, then take it for fact that a lot actually are playing too and enjoying the game.

I played 12 hours yesterday. The game is a great game. That's my opinion yes. It's also the opinion of all the game websites before they had to play on the servers. So it IS a good game. Just it's having trouble with the huge load of players and the surprise it was on how many wanted it.

 

[-Slacker-]

It's not true. They didn't hire from China. They hired from India.

That would explain why the posts are relatively articulate, or at least the ones they quoted.

You guys need to stop with the "everybody is a liar mentality"

You are confused; We do not need to do anything.

 

[Dominato3r]

I see the creative directors vision quote: "Real cities don't live in bubbles, real cities are connected to each other."

Then shouldn't this be Sim World then? Maybe he over shot the scope of the game.

No, because region plat was important in simcity 4 as well.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

<snip>

Yeah we know the servers couldn't handle the load and a lot of people are actually having trouble. But when people say they are getting on and have proof, and are posting screenshots to share their city, or asking advise on how best to play, then take it for fact that a lot actually are playing too and enjoying the game.

I played 12 hours yesterday. The game is a great game. That's my opinion yes. It's also the opinion of all the game websites before they had to play on the servers. So it IS a good game. Just it's having trouble with the huge load of players and the surprise it was on how many wanted it.

Do you work for EA?


"You" (EA?) may have known the servers were overloaded, but that is not really the root of my issue here.


It's one thing to let people complain, but it's quite another to PAY employees to go on forums and act like there's nothing wrong.....


If you were able to play 12 hours straight then you must have some really fantastic trick to make this work. Most people (conveniently also the ones who aren't trying to convince people to not write bad reviews) have been unable to play longer than a few hours since release.


It's not like it's one server that's having an issue. They were ALL down. So I really don't understand how anyone is able to connect for 12 hours straight with no problem.

 

[Dominato3r]

I feel for the guys at maxis. Look at Quigley, the guy has been answering everything on twitter, but what can he do as an art director

 

[JamesV]

I don't own the game, but have been checking this thread in case I decide to buy.

Just thought you guys might be interested in an IGN article that pretty much bashes EA (who would have thought something like this would ever happen?) - http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03...ublishers-on-the-dangers-of-always-online-drm

 

[SpatiallyAware]

At this point I'm way more ticked off at the obvious EA employees all over the forums trying to downplay this entire thing.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

And everyone on the EA forums is still saying unable to connect... No "wait times" or anything, just unable to even start the game. The forum is blowing up with posts about it.



.....................Of course, I'm ready for the 3-4 same people to jump in here claiming they've had the game running for 12 hours straight.

 

[Maximilian]

You guys need to stop with the "everybody is a liar mentality"

Sim City is online. All you have to do is go look at all the many many cities and regions to see that many people have been playing. And playing a lot. The leaderboards were all filled up with cities with huge populations and accomplishments. I have 3 Cities now one with 250k people.

A LOT of people are actually playing and having fun. If anything it's the pirates and anti DRM people who see an oportunity don't even own the game who are doing a lot of complaining and lying. They do it with every single game.

Yeah we know the servers couldn't handle the load and a lot of people are actually having trouble. But when people say they are getting on and have proof, and are posting screenshots to share their city, or asking advise on how best to play, then take it for fact that a lot actually are playing too and enjoying the game.

I played 12 hours yesterday. The game is a great game. That's my opinion yes. It's also the opinion of all the game websites before they had to play on the servers. So it IS a good game. Just it's having trouble with the huge load of players and the surprise it was on how many wanted it.

Tell your superiors they screwed up badly. Again.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I feel for the guys at maxis. Look at Quigley, the guy has been answering everything on twitter, but what can he do as an art director

I also feel bad for maxis. They have hinted that they didn't want this always on DRM nonsense, but were strongarmed by EA.

 

[Nintendesert]

Why? EA have 9000 employees, its definitely realistic they they have some of their 9000 people (marketing probably) posting crap on forums, maybe thats not their full time job but it will be a secondary task for them until this catastrophe is forgotten about. Its not like a takes long to make a post and its not like said post has a limited audience, potentially everyone could read it, its a really cheap easy way to tell people everything is fine and sell as many copies as possible to avoid a loss.

They may well have specific paid shills, nvidia have done it, possibly AMD too, cant see why other companies wouldn't.

You have no evidence of it other than accusing members of this forum, some members here for a good many years of being shills, because they don't have the same level of problems you have. That's just unacceptable without evidence.

So if you have evidence feel free to present it, until then I'm just going to keep reporting you for attacking other forum members.

 

[waggy]

to be fair everyone knows EA is a shit company. so is it any suprise they would hire shills to post?

They may well have specific paid shills, nvidia have done it, possibly AMD too, cant see why other companies wouldn't.

no shit. it has happened on Anadtech. Caused a lot of flack had a Nvidia Shill posting and getting people banned when they asked about it.

The shit happens.



btw it seems to have slowed down on the Sims forum. i didn't see as many

 

[SpatiallyAware]

You have no evidence of it other than accusing members of this forum, some members here for a good many years of being shills, because they don't have the same level of problems you have. That's just unacceptable without evidence.

So if you have evidence feel free to present it, until then I'm just going to keep reporting you for attacking other forum members.

Please.... I can't help that their posting style is so blatantly obvious. And we have had it happen here before, with users who have been here many years.


There's no way to say without any doubt that username22345253 is a paid shill, but they are all posting the exact same diatribe (that NO 'regular customer' would EVER post) it makes it easy to single them out.

 

[Dominato3r]

I played for a couple hours last night around the 8pm-10pm EST time frame, while you guys were in this thread bitching and moaning about how it is unplayable. I'm on US East 2.

Really fun game, runs better than the first beta. For those who actually bought it and are playing, what do you recommend when starting out a city as far as roads are concerned? Do you try to save cash and build only the smaller roads, then upgrade later on? Or are you starting out with 4-lane traffic light roads?

EDIT: I'm also still looking for a couple of friends to start a region with. Origin tag is blurredvision81.

I start off with or or 3 main avenues and then build around those. Mainly because. streets can't be upgraded for streetcars later on.

 

[gothamhunter]

My hopes and dreams of ever playing a new Sim City have been destroyed. Back to 2000 for me.

 

[Maximilian]

You have no evidence of it other than accusing members of this forum, some members here for a good many years of being shills, because they don't have the same level of problems you have. That's just unacceptable without evidence.

So if you have evidence feel free to present it, until then I'm just going to keep reporting you for attacking other forum members.

You are mixing me up with others, i have as of yet accused noone, don't really need to tbh as its obvious who the shills are.

As has been said all you need to do is look at the EA forums, evidence is all over there.

 

[Wyndru]

It's definitely possible that specific servers can be available in certain geographic locations and not in others. If there are routing issues, things like this can happen. So I don't doubt that some people are able to play without any issues.

But we have aggressive standpoints from 3 sides, the side that wants to play and can't, which are rightfully pissed, the side that is defending the game because it is working correctly, and the bystanders that are basically laughing at the whole mess (or feel bad for Maxis at this point like myself).

Regardless of how you look at it, there are definitely issues with this release, which will inevitably all get sorted (otherwise EA has some much more serious things to worry about with class action lawsuits), but at the moment everyone has a very strong opinion one way or the other.

I'm surprised someone was actually removed from this thread though, while this poster was pouring it on heavy, I get the strange feeling that he was just really into the game and just wanted to let everyone know how he felt. Just like everyone els is venting about it being down. I don't know the poster's history, but to me it didn't come off as a EA rep posting in disguise. I could be wrong though, I usually just ignore what I don't want to hear, so sometimes I miss some details.

 

[waterjug]

Saw this on reddit this morning: Simcity on pace to be worst rated product ever on Amazon. Wow what an abortion. I like the negative comment that was rated most helpful. About sums it up