Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

All I've read about the new SimCity so far makes me sad.

The gameplay video [1] makes it look like a nice game but I just can't countenance this trend towards making all games online, social and/or persistent. Why do I need to be online to play this?

I played, precisely once, Civ V and it was (IMHO) a terrible game. Civ IV OTOH was an amazing game... not for the game itself but for an amazing mod called Fall From Heaven II [2], which volunteers spent years on. I can't tell you how much time I spent playing that mod and playing out the different races and winning strategies.

The beauty of Civ IV is that it Just Works. You don't need to be online. You don't need to sign in to one publisher's bullshit social platform (one advantage of consoles like the Xbox 360 is at least the bullshit social layer is standarrdized as Xbox Live).

Sadly this doesn't work on a Mac as it adds a number of DLLs. I believe the guys who did that are developing their own game.

Civ has been one of the (now) very few turn-based strategy games, which is what I like to play. Not everything needs to be an FPS/RTS. I've seen reviews of Civ and Heroes of Might and Magic and the like being knocked for "not being an RTS" even though they never weer and hopefully never will be.

Seriously, I'd like something I can put on my laptop and just play on and off as I please without having an Internet connection (eg on a long-haul international flight). I was hoping that SimCity would be at least that but apparently not.

Screw Origin and the rest of the mainstream PC games industry. I can't be the only one. Where are the Kickstarter campaigns for kind of game? If I saw one, it'd be "just shut up and take my money".

[1] http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/fch4fp/simcity-gameplay-d...

[2]: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398

"Why do I need to be online to play this?"

There are many answers to this with varying degrees of truth. I suspect the truest answer is because by forcing you to be online to play it it becomes substantially more difficult for you to pirate it.

The status quo for "big studio" PC game developers these days is to make a game tied to online as a form of DRM and then invent reasons for it to have to be online.

I really do understand your dissatisfaction, as I've felt the same way before about Blizzard games, but I actually feel like this is a game where always-online makes sense.

I've played SimCity since the last time there were no numbers on the box, and the best changes have always been the ones that fundamentally alter the gameplay, rather than add asked-for features like diagonal roads. SC 2012 may add plenty of those (curved roads!), but its real change is making multiplayer integral – playing in a live economy with other players. If it's executed right, opening it up to play solo on a plane should be as desirable as doing the same with Team Fortress 2.

As long as the multiplayer remains in service of gameplay (and not the quagmire of wall-posting "social gaming"), I'm really looking forward to this game.

> If it's executed right, opening it up to play solo on a plane should be as desirable as doing the same with Team Fortress 2.

More accurate to say "as desirable as doing the same with Diablo 3" Team based FPSs don't work for solo gamers, ARPGs and building Sims do.

There will be benefits to the online community model which for some people will be wonderful, but for others the benefits are not wanted so it's just a pile of drawbacks.

I don't think you're quite using enough imagination here. I'm not talking about ARPGs and building sims in general - I'm talking about a very specific sim game that's structured entirely around multiplayer. If SimCity 2013 isn't that game, then yes, Diablo 3 is an appropriate comparison, but if it is, I think the Team Fortress analogy is apt.

>>If it's executed right

That's a big if, is it not?

"You need +3 friends on Facebook for your Sim to be promoted"

I fear that.

I respect your opinion about Civ5, but it's worth pointing out that it did recently get a very large expansion pack called "Gods & Kings" [1] which improved (IMHO) the dynamics of play quite a bit. I would have to concede that the AI is still incredibly poor however.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_V:_Gods_%26_Kings

The Civ teams have often bragged about their AI and the things it does under the hood. Apparently all of the leaders have their own personalities and respond differently, but to me, they do a poor job of getting the Civs to communicate that.

Basically, it goes like this: I act peaceful and focus on cultural advancement, and many instantly hate me. I act loyal to a certain subgroup, they adore me, until they inevitably hate each other, and then both hate me. I can't get much more from the game than that.

Say there is an indie developer working on something like that, what would your wish-list be?

I'm not really familiar with Origin (I have an account, but sadly, if this is Origin-only, I won't be playing it), but surely there is an offline mode like with Steam? So, you would have to log into Origin, and you'd require the network connection when you set it to offline, but then you're good? That's how it used to work with Steam, although now you don't even need the network connection when you set it to offline mode.

Oh, and by the way, you don't have to play multiplayer.

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