EA lives in a different reality

[maggotheart]

 

In singleplayer, it's more of a psychological thing. Depending on how the game is balanced it might also affect gameplay.

 

It doesn't need to be balanced because the user has a choice in it's use. If the player buys/obtains(from pre-order) a cheat, it's their own fault they break the game in it's use.

 

It doesn't effect us.

 

It affects us because the game is now designed to contain microtransactions. They don't make the game and then throw these things in afterwards for people who might want to pay for some extra power, they bake it into the design from conception in order to maximize profits. I'm sure they'll make heaps of cash doing it, just like they've made heaps of cash dumbing games down to the lowest common denominator, driving popular franchises into the ground, and stripping features out to later sell as DLC. I wont touch any games that employ these tactics; in fact it's precisely why im here, and supporting all the other Kickstarters and not giving my money to the big publishers.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I edited out the part about MP, because I get that pay to win isn't necessarily fair. But again it doesn't bother me. (Mainly since I don't play MMOs)

Any multiplayer, not just MMO.

It doesn't need to be balanced because the user has a choice in it's use. If the player buys/obtains(from pre-order) a cheat, it's their own fault they break the game in it's use.

It's hard to judge that beforehand, if not impossible. How do you know a really good looking set of armour is overpowered until you've discovered what you'd also get without the pre-order bonus? Until you've played the game you wouldn't know. It also means you have to actively research these bonuses before even playing, if I pre-order or get a GOTY/ultimate version, I don't want to read about items so I know to avoid them. Also what happens when inevitably, and I think this has already happened, when the scummiest of publishers decide to balance the game toward the DLC/pre-order bonus? Edited March 5, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[TSBasilisk]

One week later, EA exec says not all EA games will have micro-transactions

 

Make of that what you will.

[maggotheart]

One week later, EA exec says not all EA games will have micro-transactions

 

Make of that what you will.

 

"I made a statement in the conference along the lines of 'We'll have

micro-transactions in our games' and the community read that to mean all

our games, and that's really not true," he said.

 

and then:

 

"We're building into all of our games the ability to pay for things

along the way, either to get to a higher level, to buy a new character,

to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be," he said.

 

Ok, EA, that totally clears things up!

[TSBasilisk]

I think the idea is they're developing the infrastructure to allow any game to implement micro-transactions, but they're not going to enforce a rule saying they must be implemented in every game.

 

So, every game will be a rectangle, but not necessairly a square.

[maggotheart]

I think the idea is they're developing the infrastructure to allow any game to implement micro-transactions, but they're not going to enforce a rule saying they must be implemented in every game.

 

So, every game will be a rectangle, but not necessairly a square.

 

Yeah, but I don't trust them. It just sounds like an attempt to calm people down and I would bet money that the vast majority of their games will have microtransactions going forward. They aren't going to develop that infrastructure and then just not use it - this is EA and there's money to be made.

[TSBasilisk]

Hence, "make of that what you will". They're not going to make it a rule that all games must be squares, but that doesn't mean they won't make them squares anyways.

[JFSOCC]

nvm.

Edited March 7, 2013 by JFSOCC

[NOK222]

Hey is this whole SimCity debauchery also the pirates' fault?

Edited March 9, 2013 by NKKKK

[Mamoulian War]

Of course! And used games play heavy role in this as well...

[Malcador]

Hey is this whole SimCity debauchery also the pirates' fault?

 

Yep, the Scene was behind an enormous sabotage campaign, yanno.  

[Nordicus]

Hey is this whole SimCity debauchery also the pirates' fault?

El Presidente, SimCity's current predicament wasn't just an elaborate plan to promote your week-long Tropico sale on Steam, was it?

[NOK222]

 

Hey is this whole SimCity debauchery also the pirates' fault?

El Presidente, SimCity's current predicament wasn't just an elaborate plan to promote your week-long Tropico sale on Steam, was it?

Oh you!

[Calax]

And they're sorting it out and giving away a free game to those who lived with the debacles.

[NOK222]

As opposed to just eliminating the problem at it's source and allow people to play offline? 

 

Hey, Alanchu will Dragon Age 3 be always online too?

Edited March 11, 2013 by NKKKK

[Malcador]

As opposed to just eliminating the problem at it's source and allow people to play offline? 

 

Hey, Alanchu will Dragon Age 3 be always online too?

Possibly could do that - http://www.gamefront.com/simcitys-always-online-mode-is-only-necessary-for-drm/

[NOK222]

http://kotaku.com/5990498/rumor-a-new-video-shows-simcitys-debug-mode-which-allegedly-has-almost-unlimited-offline-play

 

DRM: 0

Freedom: 1

 

Your move EA. 

[Inyourprime]

You got some splainin to do, EA.

[Tsuga C]

You got some splainin to do, EA.

They won't bother splainin, but they'll eventually try to spin why keeping aggravating DRM is better for the consumer.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Tsuga C

[Tale]

I really doubt that's a strictly DRM thing. It wouldn't have been so easy to cut out if it were. My benefit of the doubt suspicion is that they are simply very strongly attached to the idea of SimCity Social to the point they have no regard for non-social play.

 

On the other end, and in-line with the DRM idea, is that always online enables them to verify integrity for DLC and microtransaction purposes.

[Raithe]

heh, and EA apparently are going even one better..

 

Inquisitor - EA censors own support number in forums

 

n4g News - EA Censors it's own support number

 

Destructoid - EA Censors its own support number

 

Developer EA, creator of SimCity, has censored its own support number in its forums.

 

After the servers went down, upsetting myriads of SimCity early consumers to the point where people complaining about the service were getting banned, EA has gone one further and censored its own support number. In the EA forums, if you type the support number 866-543-5435 and submit, the site will replace the entire number with a string of asterisks, much as it does with swear words. Apparently if nobody calls, nobody can complain.

 

The censorship does not work with any other phone number; just the EA support number. Forum posters tried other phone numbers and they posted just fine. It’s just the EA customer support number they can’t post uncensored.

 

Friday, Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw proudly announced that EA is “hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality” of SimCity.

 

One has to wonder what would happen if someone called them and told them how wonderful the offline mod is in their game. This could unnerve some of the higher-ups, as they clearly stated yesterday that there will no official offline mode in SimCity.

 

This could have been a planned bit of foresight, seeing as they didn’t want everybody abusing the phone number and wasting the time of their CSRs. Or perhaps it was intended to keep the number from being spammed in the forums. But why just their customer service number? There are far worse numbers people could call, like the Better Business Bureau, to complain about EA’s SimCity issues.

 

Other methods aren’t possible to get ahold of EA’s customer service. There is no online help chat window, as the company is insisting that customers call the number to handle complaints. It almost seems like EA just wants to pretend everything’s fine and doesn’t want any facts to burst their bubble.

[Malekith]

[Raithe]

Hm, and revuln.com released a white paper over how EA's Origin has a few security issues.

 

 

In this paper we will uncover and demonstrate an interesting way to convert local bugs and features in remotely exploitable security vulnerabilities by using the well known EA Origin 3 platform as an attack vector against remote systems. The attack proposed in this paper is similar to the attack targeting the Steam4 platform we detailed in our previous research. The Origin attack detailed in this paper affects more than 40 million Origin users.

[Janmanden]

 

 

In singleplayer, it's more of a psychological thing. Depending on how the game is balanced it might also affect gameplay.

 

It doesn't need to be balanced because the user has a choice in it's use. If the player buys/obtains(from pre-order) a cheat, it's their own fault they break the game in it's use.

 

It doesn't effect us.

 

It affects us because the game is now designed to contain microtransactions. They don't make the game and then throw these things in afterwards for people who might want to pay for some extra power, they bake it into the design from conception in order to maximize profits. I'm sure they'll make heaps of cash doing it, just like they've made heaps of cash dumbing games down to the lowest common denominator, driving popular franchises into the ground, and stripping features out to later sell as DLC. I wont touch any games that employ these tactics; in fact it's precisely why im here, and supporting all the other Kickstarters and not giving my money to the big publishers.

 

There was a time when I would have agreed, but that time is past. I have played some really nice games over the years and I can't help but feeling a bit sad about them being all done, abandoned and forgotten. They used to look great on small monitors of the past, but now they are increasingly painful to look at. It would have been really great if the developers had kept doing just "that" i.e. developing on these games, offering me new content and them getting paid for their work. Great games would never die as long as interest kept them alive and they would be kept up to date with resolutions, gf-efx and so on for a price of course as it should be. How is that a bad thing? Unless you just want it to be over and done of course, but maybe then gaming in itself is more of psychological thing like an act of compulsion.. Hmm..

[NOK222]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=525129 more ways discovered on how to unplug the always online from SamCity

 

DRM:0

Freedom:2

Edited March 17, 2013 by NKKKK