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[ank]

I got hacked in WoW once, took 10 minutes on the free phone number to fix.

so yeah... this is clearly not the way to handle it.


I kinda get the feeling that Blizzard and EA has the same outlook on DRM, but that Blizzard unlike EA actually has a customer service department.
This explains a lot of why EA gets way more flack over simcity than Blizzard did over D3.

Stray thought: is it time to just make a thread called "EA rage", and leave this thread to people discussing Simcity as a game?

[FritzPL]

I think that falls upon 'things that made you mad today' thread in General Discussion.

Still, fuck EA.
If my not-born-yet son ever asks me about evil capitalism, I'm going to say EA. Just E-A.

[Chattox]

If my not-born-yet son ever asks me about evil capitalism, I'm going to say EA. Just E-A.

And if he asks for a game by EA, HE GETS THE BELT!

[pilgrimboy]

I'm actually asking for a refund, but I bought the game from Green Man Gaming. It was interesting. But I would be disappointed if I had paid $9.99 for this. It's just too flawed. There is nothing to do except let my city run and run, or start my sixth city. I'm just not interested. They probably won't give me the refund. That's fine. It's their choice. But it will be the last time I buy an EA game or a game from Green Man Gaming if I don't get a refund. Amazon is giving refunds, so they seem like the best place to buy games.

[Chattox]

This game has polarised the entire consumer base, it would seem. All of my friends who own the game say that it's actually pretty good, and that claims of it being broken beyond abusive DRM are exaggerated by butthurt gamers raging because they feel short changed. And yet other people are decrying it as the antichrist of gaming. I'd like to see what people think of this some months down the line once the rage has subsided.

[Max White]

Can somebody explain this 'fudged numbers' thing to me?
Some people are saying that it basically fabricates your cities population, yet actually playing the game seems to show otherwise, with populations trending as you might expect. If I ad to hazard a guess, I would say that the 'fudging' is giving it a margin of error so that it appears more natural than just loosing X population exactly as you bulldose a building, and in a simulation that is a good thing, right?
Still, I could be mistaken, anybody know the truth behind this?

[Graknorke]

It just bumps up the claimed numbers on anything, so there's only a couple thousand actual sims being simulated and the "phantom" sims just appear and disappear at places to make the numbers bigger.

[penguinofhonor]

That sounds pretty smart actually.

[pilgrimboy]

The population is much higher than the actual sims simulated. My city of 90,000 has only about 10,000 actual simulated people. The 80,000 are fudged. You can look at your workforce/work available and see the same.

However, the scale is a sliding scale. It isn't 1 sim for every 10 phantom or something like that. That's why you see population explosions when you reach certain levels. The sliding scale has changed.

I don't really mind this. I just wish it was consistent. But then they acted like Glass Box was this ultimate simulation machine, so I guess that makes this phantom pop a disappointment. So it's really not a problem except for their overhyping made it a problem.

[Putnam]

Well, PR likes to say that there are hundreds of thousands of sims in a single city, which is... a complete and utter lie, so...

[Silent_Thunder]

That sounds about right really, I rememeber Sc4 had some insane house to sims ratios. Like 10 people living in a single trailer at the low tier.

[Max White]

It just bumps up the claimed numbers on anything, so there's only a couple thousand actual sims being simulated and the "phantom" sims just appear and disappear at places to make the numbers bigger.

But from a programming perspective that is pretty much what you should be doing.
Nobody cares about the lives of all 150,000 sims. They might get maybe six or seven they really care about, if they are that kind of player. Sims that just exist as population statistics is ideal.
Why do we want all those sims existing as fleshed out entities? Does anybody actually care?

[Putnam]

It just bumps up the claimed numbers on anything, so there's only a couple thousand actual sims being simulated and the "phantom" sims just appear and disappear at places to make the numbers bigger.

But from a programming perspective that is pretty much what you should be doing.
Nobody cares about the lives of all 150,000 sims. They might get maybe six or seven they really care about, if they are that kind of player. Sims that just exist as population statistics is ideal.
Why do we want all those sims existing as fleshed out entities? Does anybody actually care?

When the entirety of your game's hype and its PR were based on the idea of all of the sims acting as fleshed out entities, yes.

[dennislp3]

It just bumps up the claimed numbers on anything, so there's only a couple thousand actual sims being simulated and the "phantom" sims just appear and disappear at places to make the numbers bigger.

But from a programming perspective that is pretty much what you should be doing.
Nobody cares about the lives of all 150,000 sims. They might get maybe six or seven they really care about, if they are that kind of player. Sims that just exist as population statistics is ideal.
Why do we want all those sims existing as fleshed out entities? Does anybody actually care?

When the entirety of your game's hype and its PR were based on the idea of all of the sims acting as fleshed out entities, yes.

+1

What is the point of lying about detail? it does NOT make THAT much difference...until you lie about it.

[alexandertnt]

But from a programming perspective that is pretty much what you should be doing.
Nobody cares about the lives of all 150,000 sims. They might get maybe six or seven they really care about, if they are that kind of player. Sims that just exist as population statistics is ideal.
Why do we want all those sims existing as fleshed out entities? Does anybody actually care?

I completely agree, and think that the whole fudged population thing has blown somewhat out of proportion.

I would have been suprised if those numbers were real and not fundged, as there would be little point or gain in actually implementing that many sims into the world. Fudging the population seems like a totally fine thing to do, and seems to have been done rather well if it has taken this much time for people to find out.

It doesn't justify them lying about it thoough. Lying is bad.