"Tonight and tomorrow we'll be monitoring each server and gameplay metrics to ensure that the service remains strong and game is playing great." "I had hoped to issue an 'All-Clear' tonight, but there are still some elements coming together," Bradshaw said. Two days after launch, Polygon lowered its score to a 4, saying the loss of cheetah mode and many multiplayer features that were part of the reason to require always-online connections in the first place made the game less fun on those rare occasions when one could actually connect to the servers.įive days after launch, Maxis head Lucy Bradshaw let everybody know the core problem was "almost behind us."įive days after launch, Maxis head Lucy Bradshaw made a post on the game's official blog to let everybody know the core problem was "almost behind us." On the day of release, the inability to sign in for many and the glitches experienced by those lucky enough to actually play the game caused them to lower the review score to an 8, as they advised would-buyers exercise caution while acknowledging the issues were likely temporary. Polygon initially gave SimCity a 9.5 out of 10 in a review that went up the day before release, raving, " If addiction is a freight train, then SimCity is the roaring locomotive pulling you into the night." Uh, I think that was supposed to be a rave, at any rate. Gaming websites still coming to grips with the idea of reviewing live service games struggled to keep up. In fact, it was so bad that EA asked its marketing affiliates to stop promoting the game on their websites. Yet two days into a true debacle of North American launch, EA was still confident that SimCity's international launch later in the week would go off without a hitch. The Origin service was so hammered that people who purchased other EA games from Origin were unable to play them, either.Īmazon posted a warning on the SimCity product page and pulled the digital version of the game from saleĬonfusion reigned supreme, with Amazon posting a warning on the product page and pulling the digital version of the game from sale, while EA spokespeople telling affected customers that they could request a refund, only for the company to then deny those requests.ĮA desperately turned off "non-critical" gameplay features like leaderboards, achievements, and the time-accelerating "cheetah mode" hoping it would improve matters, but it did not seem to make a difference. Two days later, the problems had only gotten worse, with plenty of bugs and lengthy wait times for players to get into a server. Naturally, EA's servers fell down straight away. In March of 2013, EA did basically the same thing with all the good will the SimCity franchise had built up over the years, launching the first mainline SimCity game in a decade, but doing it with an ill-advised always-online requirement, having apparently learned nothing from seeing Blizzard gleefully run full steam into the same sliding glass door with Diablo 3 just the year before. I loved the original SimCity, planning out my eventual metropolis from its humble village beginnings, building it meticulously and planning out the roads, trainlines, and power grid with an eye for where the nuclear power plants and airports would be.Īnd when I had grown the city as large as it would get (or simply started to lose interest in it), I would reach into the pulldown menu and unleash an array of disasters upon my unwitting SimCitizens.
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