What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

  On 3/8/2013 at 5:03 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 3/8/2013 at 4:35 PM, eugene said:

simcity1.PNGsimcity2.PNG

 

great job, EA !

And that folks, is why you don't trust Metacritic - EA is either buying off the reviewers or Metacritic... or both.

yeah, but its like that with most reviewers. customer comments are really the only semi-reliable reviews.

  On 3/8/2013 at 5:03 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 3/8/2013 at 4:35 PM, eugene said:

simcity1.PNGsimcity2.PNG

 

great job, EA !

And that folks, is why you don't trust Metacritic - EA is either buying off the reviewers or Metacritic... or both.

I think the whole thing is a bit silly. Like always gamers have a tendency to overreact. Sure, EA miscalculated... or actually, they didn't, because there's no way to stress test the servers in a way that will be anywhere close to what the real launch will be like. Just calm down, read a book or something and come back when they've fixed the problem.

95% of all gamers are a bunch of entitled babies (or.. that's how it seems at times). Sure EA does some stupid shit from time to time. But the backlash they receive when they do something wrong, is just starting to get silly. It's like every month there is some big controversy surrounding EA.

Anyway...

I bought Tomb Raider, and I'm starting it tonight.

I've heard good things about it, so I can't wait. I've never played a game in the series, but this reboot looks awesome

  On 3/8/2013 at 5:57 PM, Ceerial said:

95% of all gamers are a bunch of entitled babies (or.. that's how it seems at times). Sure EA does some stupid shit from time to time. But the backlash they receive when they do something wrong, is just starting to get silly. It's like every month there is some big controversy surrounding EA.

Yeah, it's all this "Boo! Fuck you, big company! If you make a wrong move we'll trample all over your shit!" which is just extremely childish.

Seriously.. fuck all that whining.

I'm not really referring to watmm here, but the gaming community is going nuts over this (again).

I'm pretty sure Maxis had the absolute best intentions to make the release as smooth as possible. But it didn't turn out that way. That's just how it is sometimes with these types of online focused games. It's that big of a deal really. I can't think of many multiplayer games, that haven't had some kind of troubled first days of release.

Well, if EA didn't make wrong moves every single week, there'd probably be a lot less complaining. The hate for Sim City, from what I've read all over the place, is justified. It's nearly unplayable for many because of crappy servers.

Not saying that they don't release awesome games, because they do, but it has nothing to do with them being a huge company or anything. Take Two is a huge company too, and you rarely see a whole lot of hate for those guys.

edit: Best intentions doesn't matter much if you've paid 35£ for a brand new game and it doesn't work. I agree that the gaming community is filled with whiny man-babies, but If you sell a downright broken product, you better be ready to catch some flak for it.

Well.. Maybe I just don't get as easily irritated over that stuff. There's plenty of other things to do, than getting angry over you can't play a game for a short time.

And some of the complaining is definitely justified. But the amount of whining is already getting too much (once again).

Some people are so enraged at EA's incompetence, they've started a Kickstarter fund to create a SimCity clone called Civitas...

It has nothing to do with time. When you pay money for a product, you should be able to use it. I agree that whining about the ending for a videogame for a year in a row, or being angry about the main character's hair color, is a bit much, but not even being able to play the game is horsecrap.

If you'd paid 30-40£ (or 400-500 Denmark coins) for a game, and you were unable to play it days after release, would you seriously just shrug it off? I mean, look at this sheeiiit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00B47CP9W/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_top?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

For once, I feel people have every right to be pissed off. EA is a HUGE company who should be able to afford some working servers, and they should have foreseen that quite a few people would be picking it up during the week of release. You don't need super-human abilities to figure that one out.

You have some good points, and I agree with what you are saying. But all I'm saying is that it's really worth getting so angry over.

I don't think it really matters how much money companies have spent on servers though. We have seen it happen time after time. They just can't predict how much server activity there will be the first days. The same happened with Diablo 3, as far as I know.

I think I'll leave it there.

"They just can't predict how much server activity there will be the first day."

Yes they can. They have the pre-order numbers, which at least should give them an idea of the amount of traffic the servers should be able to handle, on day-1.

The reason we keep seeing it is because they keep getting away with it. That a lot of people are getting really pissed off about this is a good sign.

why does single-player simcity need a server?

Getting away with what?

  On 3/8/2013 at 6:54 PM, Friendly Foil said:

"They just can't predict how much server activity there will be the first day."

Yes they can. They have the pre-order numbers, which at least should give them an idea of the amount of traffic the servers should be able to handle, on day-1.

 

The reason we keep seeing it is because they keep getting away with it. That a lot of people are getting really pissed off about this is a good sign.

So you are saying they are fucking up intentionally? That just seems kind of odd to me (even if the folks at EA can be pretty dumb at times).

Maybe I'm wrong, fuck it. I don't really care.

It's easy to hate on EA because they don't seem to love us customers either. They've also bought and dumbed down or killed off a lot of great studios. They had a short burst of creativity with a lot of new IP's around 2007-2008 (Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect, Skate, Dead Space...), but they've been pretty much milking those cows ever since. Have you seen their PR department at work? Pretty much everything they tell the press these days they will backtrack on later. Some of the things EA has blurted out in the past year or so: "We will put microtransactions in all our games", "Our games won't be Origin exclusive", "Steam sales cheapen intellectual property", "Single-player only games 'finished'"... I would love to play buzzword bingo in an executive EA meeting. I'm not sure customer satisfaction, creativity or quality would get much hits.

I don't think that the new SimCity is bad just because of the server problems. I think it's bad because of the incredible small city size. If the simulation can't handle bigger sizes, they should have simplified the simulation. But I'm sure they had their hands full figuring out some convoluted client-server architecture and coming up with features to justify this bad idea. Maxis might have had some right intentions, but the people that make the big decisions at EA do not.

  On 3/8/2013 at 7:02 PM, compson said:

Getting away with what?

Getting away with games that are unplayable in singleplayer and/or multiplayer in the week after release, either because of server issues or crappy always-online DRM. In this case, it's both of those things.

  On 3/8/2013 at 7:07 PM, Ceerial said:

 

  On 3/8/2013 at 6:54 PM, Friendly Foil said:

"They just can't predict how much server activity there will be the first day."

Yes they can. They have the pre-order numbers, which at least should give them an idea of the amount of traffic the servers should be able to handle, on day-1.

 

The reason we keep seeing it is because they keep getting away with it. That a lot of people are getting really pissed off about this is a good sign.

 

So you are saying they are fucking up intentionally? That just seems kind of odd to me (even if the folks at EA can be pretty dumb at times).

 

Maybe I'm wrong, fuck it. I don't really care.

I have no idea what the hell EA are doing or thinking, to be quite honest. A lot of the time, their actions makes very little sense. What I do know though, is that EA are not afraid to cut corners and do stupid stuff, when they know they'll get away with it.

In a perfect world, all the people who just got screwed over with this whole Sim City thing would stay far away from any EA product in the future. But what we all know, is that EA will get their shit together in a week or two, and 90% of consumers will go "eh, shit happens."

Anyways, let's end it here yea. I haven't bought Sim City, and now that the Mass Effect trilogy is finally over and done with, I'll stay far away from anything EA in the future. Not much more I can do.

Now you're just being silly. If EA had said, "fuck our customers" everytime they had released a game they probably wouldn't be around anymore.

I think the last time I intentionally bought an EA game their logo looked like this -

Whoa. WHOA there. I didn't say they did stupid stuff all the time. Often, but not constantly.

i just want mac version of simcity. i thought we'd entered the world where mac and pc releases came out at the same time.... but i was wrong

  On 3/8/2013 at 8:17 PM, dr lopez said:

i just want mac version of simcity. i thought we'd entered the world where mac and pc releases came out at the same time.... but i was wrong

Just buy Sim City 2000 from GoG.com

It's the exact same story as Diablo3.

Can't wait to play it though, the videos and livestreams I've seen make me eager to play it which hasn't happened to me in a looong time. Gonna wait a few weeks and need to find myself a cheaper copy too, €45 digital minimum seems a lot.

Here's a great review though: http://www.jonathancresswell.co.uk/2013/03/review-simcity/

  On 3/8/2013 at 7:02 PM, jhonny said:

why does single-player simcity need a server?

i wanna know this too.

  On 3/8/2013 at 9:15 PM, Frankie5fingers said:

 

  On 3/8/2013 at 7:02 PM, jhonny said:

why does single-player simcity need a server?

i wanna know this too.

Because of piracy and when you build your city, the cities around your city, which can be controlled by other players, become your suppliers of various materials (TVs, minerals, power, water, etc.).