Why the new SimCity is the first true sim city

The game's online-only DRM is definitely a downside. I hope the new SimCity doesn't go the route of Ubisoft's original Assassin's Creed, where players who bought the game legitimately were denied playtime cause authentication servers were down, yet those in possession of a cracked copy could still play without a problem.

I keep arguing with people about this. I just don't understand the hang-up.

I was one of those people who, many years ago and despite my own machine always having an online connection, would complain about these sorts of things. I would imagine all sorts of scenarios where my machine would lose a connection and I'd be unable to play for an hour or two, and I'd be upset.

Then WoW came along. And Guild Wars. And Diablo 3. And games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 which didn't necessarily require a persistent online connection to play, but in the absence of a massive LAN, were virtually useless without it. I still enjoy single player games, but increasingly (and almost without my even noticing it), lots of the games I play depend on there being an online connection, and a pool of other people to play with.

So while I understand that SimCity is traditionally thought of as an offline game (and always really has been, with few exceptions), I don't understand the problem here. You're probably always online. It's awesome to have your city saves in a place where they won't be wiped out if you re-format or your hard drive gets corrupted. And if you lose your connection for a while, then do something else.

I think as long as customers are aware of this requirement at the outset, there's no harm in it. It's like any MMO, and when you think of it in that context, it's not weird or awful at all.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Sim City has always seemed like choose-your-own objectives.. Why can't you make a quiet sidewalk city?

I've made several nice farm towns, and it's part of what makes SimCity fun for me.

Great idea. Perhaps in the next version of SimCity points can be awarded to those who design cities in accordance with the ideas in A Pattern Language.

But some of a city's inhabitants would prefer, for various reason, to live in a typical development, so an even more interesting model would be to create some citizen archetypes, which would feel differently about meeting people in the street versus shopping at a familiar chain, or living in a condo versus commuting to a large house they own. Then the scoring would be based on citizen happiness versus other attributes.

me too!! this looks amazing!! I never could get into The Sims though. Sim City is where it's at!