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Posted: Mar 13 2013 11:34 pm

So wait, they give you a free copy of the game, if you can't get online to play the copy you already paid for? That makes sense.

Posted: Mar 14 2013 01:13 pm

Blackout wrote:

So wait, they give you a free copy of the game, if you can't get online to play the copy you already paid for? That makes sense.

Nah they are doing like Sony did when PSN got hacked a few years ago most likely. Give you a choice out of a small selection of games and you get to pick which to get for free. Unlikely to be anything worth more than 20-30 bucks at this point. Though if it was me that got fucked like that I'd be demanding Dead Space 3 for free. Razz

Posted: Mar 14 2013 08:09 pm

Uh-oh, EA's pants are on fire.

So EA outright lied about their servers doing anything related to gameplay. The video shows the retail version of the game modded into a "debug" mode that demonstrates the entire game running perfectly with no connection to the internet, sans regions and saving. Another video shows that you can even modify neighboring players' cities and do whatever you want to them. It's since been patched out. There is therefore absolutely no reason for the game to require online functionality at all. Apparently EA thinks you are all either pirates (because they mandate cloud saving and monitoring of your game at all times) or just stupid (because you believed what they said about the game needing the servers).

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

Seriously with stuff like this it's no wonder the video game industry is going to shit.

I mean it is a business after all and it obviously wants to make money but EA seems to have forgotten the customer service aspect of running a business and when you outright lie and be deceitful to your customers then your business is going to suffer.

It really seems to be the greed of them as a corporation in trying to just suck the money out of peoples pockets and release a semi-functioning/semi-decent product and then charge money for extras. Sorry what is that? You want to build subways? Well enjoy paying $9.99 for your upgrade DLC in which you can do just that.

I mean look at Dead-Space, a game which doesn't even require a Real Life money shop but it has one. Look at Mass Effect and it's ending which received a lot of backlash. Now look at this.

They clearly give few or zero fucks about their customers and it seems that they are starting to suffer for it and I say good riddance. The company has gone to shit, they release games with half the content missing, especially in comparison to their predecessors and then they charge extra money for it.

It's a total disgrace. I'm pretty sure Battlefield 3 has an option were you can pay and boost your character to top level. Like seriously. If this isn't money grabbing then what is it?

...and don't even get me started on Origin.

Posted: Mar 15 2013 08:13 pm

We, like, totally didn't make the game restrictive just to hold you hostage!

Quote:

Always-Connected is a big change from SimCities of the past. It didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control players. It’s fundamental to the vision we had for this SimCity. From the ground up, we designed this game with multiplayer in mind – using new technology to realize a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of the world we live in; a global, ever-changing, social world.

...

Almost all of our players play with connected cities. But some chose to play alone – running the cities themselves. But whether they play solo or multiplayer, they are drawn to the connected city experience. And Always-Connected provides a platform for future social features that will play out over regions and servers.

The game we launched is only the beginning for us – it’s not final and it never will be. In many ways, we built an MMO.

So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision. We did not focus on the “single city in isolation” that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – who want that. But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.

So I guess the take-away here is "if you love the original SimCity, then play the original SimCity"? And the "thousands of people" who said exactly what they wanted to hear all along are the ones who fit with their vision, not the tens of thousands who said otherwise in that Reddit AMA they held last year. Were they even paying attention?

Posted: Mar 16 2013 05:18 am

Ha ha you guys are just too backwards and blinded by nostalgia to realize how awesome Always Connected is, everybody point at the grandpas and laugh at their grandpa guitars and dusty Super Nintendos, we'll be Simming like bosses here in the future, enjoy your ensure and depends!

Posted: Mar 16 2013 11:42 am

Alowishus wrote:

I mean look at Dead-Space, a game which doesn't even require a Real Life money shop but it has one. Look at Mass Effect and it's ending which received a lot of backlash. Now look at this.

Neither of these examples are particularly helpful in supporting your point. Dead Space's shop allows you to advance more quickly, but gets you nothing that you can't get through playing the game - there's nothing unreasonable about that. It may make them a bit more money, and doesn't hurt anybody.

Mass Effect's ending brouhaha was largely entitled fans who were sad they didn't get their ending where Shepard rides into the sunset with a lens flare before opening a hotel on the beach, marrying [your love interest here] and having a thousand babies.

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

Man, this just keeps on getting worse.

Posted: Mar 16 2013 02:33 pm

And now they're filtering their own tech support phone number on their forums.

Anyone want to bet on what the next step will be? I'm guessing television commercials about how great the game is reminiscent of the BP commercials that aired during their oil spill.

The number is 1-866-543-5435, by the way.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

LordHuffnPuff wrote:

Neither of these examples are particularly helpful in supporting your point. Dead Space's shop allows you to advance more quickly, but gets you nothing that you can't get through playing the game - there's nothing unreasonable about that. It may make them a bit more money, and doesn't hurt anybody.

The point isn't that it is unreasonable. The point is that it is totally unnecessary. Sure if you are doing that why just not pay someone to come over to your house and play the game for you. To me personally it defies the point of playing a game, especially one which is meant to be survival horror were you can just pay and get extra ammo or whatever. It just totally bewilders me as to why people even use that stuff. It's like you are cheapening your experience. One of the best parts of playing a game is in beating it and knowing that you got to the end and you basically were successful. Things like that microtransactions just ruin that. They aren't necessary and their sole existence is to just make money when it is totally unnecessary to even have them. It's not like games today are particularly difficult or ruthless. The fact that they even make it available means to me anyway that they don't give a shit about the gaming experience and just want to throw microtransactions into the game to just make them more money.

LordHuffnPuff wrote:

Mass Effect's ending brouhaha was largely entitled fans who were sad they didn't get their ending where Shepard rides into the sunset with a lens flare before opening a hotel on the beach, marrying [your love interest here] and having a thousand babies.

Well I haven't really played the games so maybe this is so. The other point was that with all these points that EA is not a company which currently has a good reputation. Maybe that is so what you are saying but many fans seemed to think that EA fucked them over and I mean if it wasn't such a big deal then I don't see why EA felt the need to retcon the ending. The other thing is that I am pretty sure (though correct me if I am wrong) that EA explicitly stated that the players choices would effect their ending and that there would be a wide range of endings - and the actual ending was just dump - I may have imagined this though in my old senile age so maybe I am wrong. If that is the case they again basically lied to their customers again.

Posted: Mar 16 2013 04:08 pm

Alowishus wrote:

The point isn't that it is unreasonable. The point is that it is totally unnecessary. Sure if you are doing that why just not pay someone to come over to your house and play the game for you. To me personally it defies the point of playing a game, especially one which is meant to be survival horror were you can just pay and get extra ammo or whatever. It just totally bewilders me as to why people even use that stuff. It's not like games today are particularly difficult or ruthless. The fact that they even make it available means to me anyway that they don't give a shit about the gaming experience and just want to throw microtransactions into the game to just make them more money.

To the chagrin of some, Dead Space 3 is an action game, not a survival horror. You basically have infinite ammo anyway. As for whether or not it is necessary, is there a reason NOT to include it? It's entirely opt-in, so while it may ruin the game experience for you, to another it might make it more enjoyable because they can get to whatever they're trying to do more easily/faster.

Alowishus wrote:

Well I haven't really played the games so maybe this is so. The other point was that EA is not a company which currently has a good reputation. Maybe that is so what you are saying but many fans seemed to think that EA fucked them over and I mean if it wasn't such a big deal then I don't see why EA felt the need to retcon the ending.

The ending didn't actually get retconned, really -- fans who were unable to understand the very basic events that were shown in a cutscene complained about a bunch of perceived non-existent plot holes, so they expanded the ending to make it very explicit that the complaints were invalid. Don't get me wrong -- the Extended Cut ending is definitely better than the original, but I didn't have any issues with the game's original ending. It was fine.

Posted: Mar 16 2013 07:17 pm

On Dead Space 3, I have not played any of the games in this series, but I am a bit amused with the inclusion of microtransactions that allow you to acquire upgrades or weapons. I somewhat agree with Huff's opinion on the basis of 1) it's a single player game, and as you're not competing directly against other players, they aren't necessarily disadvantaged by your choice to use currency for unlockables, and 2) if your time or ability to play the game is limited and you want the extra boost, then if it's worth the money, the option is valid.

Still, I personally lean more on Alowishus's side because to some degree, Dead Space 3 is supposed to challenge you, and one would think that difficulty options should already meet everyone's needs - if you don't have much time and aren't into mastering sections of a level to advance, go with easy; if you're really trying to push your limits and don't mind some repetition if you mess up, go with hard. From this viewpoint, throwing microtransactions into the mix seems silly at best and slimy at worst.

Overall, I feel that the $60 for a game trend is (or already has) been trashed, and I am assuming that the industry is having success with these options - so there's not much I can really conclude with other than get used to it or stick with a developer whose philosophy matches your own.

On the topic at hand, thanks to Excel's post in which it appears that Sim City's online shenanigans are completely unnecessary, I am certainly hoping whatever DRM experiment this game was meant to be proves a resounding point to EA; always-online may be founded in good intentions (mostly in the business sense), but in my opinion is completely disrespectful to the players.

Posted: Mar 16 2013 07:41 pm

It gets better! Apparently the servers are not only crap, but thoroughly useless and unnecessary as far as gameplay is concerned, even for the alleged multiplayer aspect.

Quote:

“I’ve analyzed all of the data calls to and from EA servers – all of the APIs, every request for data, and all of the data that comes back,” explains the modder. And in doing so, he’s found some surprising results. “The SimCity servers are not doing any calculations that could not be done on your PC, even for an entire region single player offline mode, let alone just the city you are in.”

It’s his belief (clearly we don’t have a clue – we’re not experts here at all) that the servers aren’t chugging nearly as hard as Maxis say. “All the server sends to your client, is some very basic data about each city – how much power they have available, how much spare fire trucks, you know – that sort of stuff. It’s minor, and it’s sent as raw numbers. Your client then just goes ‘oh there’s XXX power spare from city Z.’ It’s that simple.”

There's a lot more technical information in the article, but the bottom line is that the online functionality is literally just for anti-hacking. If they would have just said so, things would probably not have gotten as bad as they have. If nothing else, I guess this all but confirms the suspicions of some (including me) that all the server crap was shoehorned in late in development. Also, the EA forums have gone Orwellian, and any mention of hacks and mods are deleted, even if it's not about modifying their games.

Posted: Mar 16 2013 08:31 pm

Posted: Mar 16 2013 08:39 pm

I wonder if the PR department will go full-on North Korea and go from whitewashing the controversy by saying the servers are full because the game is so good, to demonizing the people picking the game's flaws apart by saying that they're evil hackers out to ruin the games of legitimate customers. Since they've already reneged on their refunds and customer support number on their forums as well as blacklist the word "mod" in any context, they're already halfway there.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

LordHuffnPuff wrote:

Alowishus wrote:

The point isn't that it is unreasonable. The point is that it is totally unnecessary. Sure if you are doing that why just not pay someone to come over to your house and play the game for you. To me personally it defies the point of playing a game, especially one which is meant to be survival horror were you can just pay and get extra ammo or whatever. It just totally bewilders me as to why people even use that stuff. It's not like games today are particularly difficult or ruthless. The fact that they even make it available means to me anyway that they don't give a shit about the gaming experience and just want to throw microtransactions into the game to just make them more money.

To the chagrin of some, Dead Space 3 is an action game, not a survival horror. You basically have infinite ammo anyway. As for whether or not it is necessary, is there a reason NOT to include it? It's entirely opt-in, so while it may ruin the game experience for you, to another it might make it more enjoyable because they can get to whatever they're trying to do more easily/faster.

Alowishus wrote:

Well I haven't really played the games so maybe this is so. The other point was that EA is not a company which currently has a good reputation. Maybe that is so what you are saying but many fans seemed to think that EA fucked them over and I mean if it wasn't such a big deal then I don't see why EA felt the need to retcon the ending.

The ending didn't actually get retconned, really -- fans who were unable to understand the very basic events that were shown in a cutscene complained about a bunch of perceived non-existent plot holes, so they expanded the ending to make it very explicit that the complaints were invalid. Don't get me wrong -- the Extended Cut ending is definitely better than the original, but I didn't have any issues with the game's original ending. It was fine.

Don't get me wrong. I get your points and they are valid but I think I am taking the negative side (as I always do) and you the positive side. Except maybe in the case of Mass Effect, I didn't really follow what was going on so your probably right.

Posted: Mar 17 2013 04:26 pm

Here's a summary of the entire story so far in six and a half minutes.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

Guy has an annoying voice and way of talking, but I didn't know stuff like the crappy return policy. That's just incredibly shitty. EA seemed like they were trying interesting things a few years ago, but now they're worse than ever.

I used to not care about DRM or always-on since I was mostly a console gamer, but since I've switched to primarily PC, it's obnoxious as shit to not be able to sit and play some games when the internet's out (as it's wont to do out here in nowhere-ville).

Posted: Mar 18 2013 02:02 am

I have never ever bought a game that had DRM other than Steam.

Posted: Mar 19 2013 01:22 am

The thing I think is really wrong about this is EA lying to their customers. The fact that they still won't talk about DRM being a reason for it is proof that they have learned nothing about how to deal with their customers. I also hate how all of their comments and apologies end with "But there are millions still playing and enjoying the game!" It sounds like their telling everyone to just get over it.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

Bob Dylan`s Blues wrote:

The thing I think is really wrong about this is EA lying to their customers. The fact that they still won't talk about DRM being a reason for it is proof that they have learned nothing about how to deal with their customers. I also hate how all of their comments and apologies end with "But there are millions still playing and enjoying the game!" It sounds like their telling everyone to just get over it.

This pisses me off with business in this country lately. My father uses an electric drill from the '50s every weekend, and it still works great. I bought a mouse from Logitech whose left-click didn't work, and they were flat-out insulting me by asking if my USB plug was all the way in.

I'm becoming more and more angry towards advertising firms as I grow older. You don't have to make anything fucking decent anymore, as long as you get your customers' money for something. To them, that's when the transaction ends. Give the customer some crappy replacement or give them the run-around until they give up on your POS product. Fuck the free market, I want full refunds between producers or retailers. It creates the environment where the best product succeeds, instead of the product with the biggest advertising budget.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

Greg the White wrote:

You don't have to make anything fucking decent anymore, as long as you get your customers' money for something.

CAPITALISM.

YA GOTTA LOVE IT.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

John Tortellini or whatever his name is steps down as CEO of EA. Twitter gets its shit together:

http://kotaku.com/5991198/the-best-john-riccitiello-jokes-twitter-has-to-offer

I have a feeling that Sim City being a more casual game helped in the outrage. Gamers are kind of used to bullshit like this, and either pirate it, deal with it, or go crazy fanboy to defend it. Sim City isn't Mushihimesama Futari. It's an easily accessible game that's been played by non-gamers for decades. To the average person who's used to buying a working product and getting a refund for a broken one, this seems incredibly unacceptable.

Posted: Mar 19 2013 09:01 pm

Greg the White wrote:

John Tortellini or whatever his name is steps down as CEO of EA.

Will he ever win?

Posted: Mar 29 2013 04:56 am

Greg the White wrote:

You don't have to make anything fucking decent anymore, as long as you get your customers' money for something. To them, that's when the transaction ends. Give the customer some crappy replacement or give them the run-around until they give up.

I've worked customer support for a whole slew of different companies over the years, and this is far truer than you'd initially think, at least from my perspective. That being said I'm certainly not a fan of it by any means.

There are good guys out there in business however, but in my opinion they're a rare breed, especially if the product has anything to do with technology, consumer goods, or anything that can or might have a warranty.