Modder Makes SimCity Capable Of Offline Play Which Works Flawlessly
from the well,-that-was-easy dept
This SimCity debacle can only be described as an onion. Every time you peel back another layer, you just find yet another bitter layer underneath to make you cry. It all started, as you no doubt know, when EA decided to make the game with an always online requirement. The explanation for this was that it was in part a DRM attempt, but also SimCity was developed to be a social game, requiring an online connection, and EA had also shifted resource consumption and calculation to their own servers, ostensibly freeing up resources on the player's machine. Regardless, the launch looked more like an attempt to reporduce the Hindenburg disaster than any attempt at serving EA's customers and the backlash that followed was harsh. Most recently, someone inside of Maxis reached out to RockPaperShotgun to suggest that the online requirement was strictly DRM and that no important server-side calculations were actually being done. Despite the report, EA maintained that offline play of the game is logistically impossible.And by logistically impossible, they must have meant that all they'd have to do is turn on the debugging mode, as that's what one game modder has done to make the game work nearly flawlessly without any online connection.
The video above shows the game being played offline. The modder states that this can be done for as long as you like without issues. The only real downside being you can’t save the game because it utilizes cloud saves. However, if you reconnect the game it does save, so you can play all day then just go online to save your progress at the end of a session.Thanks, random modder guy, for making EA's product do what EA couldn't, or wouldn't, enable it to do themselves. Assuming this is all legit, the excuses for server-side calculations melt away like the loyalty of EA's customers when they bought this game-on-crutches. Hell, even the requirement for online saves needing a constant connection is clearly nonsense. It isn't like the game couldn't be written to only connect once a save is initiated.
Now, here's the fun part. To achieve this, the modder had to go in and edit the game code to enable debug mode, as I mentioned. Far from simply removing the online requirement, it actually made the game perform better.
In fact, it actually improves the game in some ways. City populations are actually tracked correctly and you can edit outside of your city boundaries. Those additional edits are also saved when you reconnect.Great job, EA. You made your game worse even when it did function, which it mostly didn't, all the while lying your collective faces off to the people giving you their money. It's probably time to come out and issue a serious mea culpa.
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Filed Under: drm, mod, offline mode, simcity, single-player
Companies: ea
Reader Comments
The First Word
“TechDirt's Thursday Sing-a-long!
♫Hello, Modder!
EA's fodder.
Change the game code,
without bother.
Servers busy?
Let me fix that!
Now you can play,
Whenever you want!
There are drawbacks,
To this method.
Things that make you,
Put palm to forehead.
EA's logic,
Is to enslave.
You need to go back online just to game save!
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Take away copyright!
They were warned when they tried DRM on Spore and that failed.
They've made their past games useless by disconnecting servers and ensuring their rent to own model.
They rely on copyright to control what people say about their games on YouTube and other sources while bribing reviewers in major magazines to give their games high Scots through their soft corruption (corruption laundering whereby they give gifts if the scores are high but stop said gifts if the game reviews poorly) and created a cargo copied alternative to Steam to monopolize money which their ENTIRE FANBASE hates for being obtrusive about data and ignoring their complaints.
But all of this just pales to how they absolutely FAILED. The public HATES this. And they made a quick buck but their name is less than mud. How the hell does any company insulate themselves so much that they can't figure our how this was a bad idea?
Finally, this just exposes how copyright and monopolies just don't work. I'm site that if EA could they will go aster this video detailing their failure while Streisand will be proud, but with everything else that they've done in making this game worse for the public, they can't even raise a defense here.
I swear, people should take away the laws that helped create this mess in the first place... Copyright laws that allow corporations to hold onto monopolies for years and the CFAA which would surely criminalize this modder who is exposing how bad they screwed up.
Maybe EA needs to just take a step back and actuallyhire some people that can think. Or maybe they should restructure the company so that the people that make the game stop listening to the publishers. God knows, those guys gave no idea what they're doing and it may be time to head for newer waters.
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Re: Take away copyright!
ARRRRRRR! AGREED MATEY! YHOHOHOHOHOHO
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Re: Take away copyright!
Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me. Fool me thrice? I'm a gullible schmuck TAKE MY MONEY.
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Re: Re: Take away copyright!
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Re: Take away copyright!
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Arrrrgh, Matey.
Really, on the plus side, once everyone hacks their copy of the game, Ea's servers should free right up!
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Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
love it!
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Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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Re: Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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Re: Re: Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
The majority of pirates probably have no clue what DRM is. /s
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Re: Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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Re: Arrrrgh, Matey.
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I wonder...
If you do not expect them to learn from their mistake, breaking the game again sounds like a very reasonable reaction.
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Re: I wonder...
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I wonder...
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Re: I wonder...
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Re: I wonder...
Of course, I wouldn't put it past EA to patch the game in a futile attempt to force it to be online-only again, but they can't possibly do so without further pissing off its paying customers. But, that would just prove that they're more interested in the DRM over the benefit of its own customers - not a good PR move so they deserve what they get if they do.
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Sad part is I don't think this will have any major long term impact. EA still has other franchises to rely on. The sim games may be severely impacted though.
If EA is smart (and they aren't, I'm just throwing in hypothesis) they will NOT try always on DRM again.
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Re: Re:
The problem is their viewpoint on the nature of their customers.
They don't see their paying customers as their loyal fans or friends, they see those customers as their deadly enemies. If you assume that EA considers their customer base to be 100% pirate, suddenly all their decisions start making sense.
They're not screwing their loyal customers, they're sticking it to the bad guys who want to rip off the company. They can even prove that there are tons of pirates, just look at their actual sales falling far below their projections!
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I saw it coming from miles away.
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The big fail
While us "freetards" (I include myself) hate DRM and realise its stupidity, the lying to customers after fucking the whole thing up really undercuts their position and portrays their idiocy.
If I were a shareholder I'd be screaming for blood.
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Re: The big fail
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Re: Re: The big fail
Of course.... anyone with a brain realizes that while initial sales of this game were high, it is going to crash spectacularly and hurt future games. So this increase in stock is only temporary.
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Re: Re: Re: The big fail
Capitalism 101: you only need to stay in power until your cash in your bonus. After that, you don't give a rat's ass about any long term plans for the company.
How much do you want to bet that the bosses of EA have already sold their stock and are planning to bail out?
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Re: Re: Re: The big fail
And it's those economics that drive this sort of thing at the end of the day.
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Re: Re: Re: The big fail
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The lesson here is DRM equals more pirating.
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Fool Me Once
"What's that? One of the three(!) online validations during game startup failed? Well, no loading your simple player savegames then!"
Get bent, EA.
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Re: Fool Me Once
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At least their new slogan is honest: There's no better choice! (yay for lack of competition)
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I would have asked them if they'd notice if you started only paying 1/10 of your bill...
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/05/01
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TechDirt's Thursday Sing-a-long!
Hello, Modder!
EA's fodder.
Change the game code,
without bother.
Servers busy?
Let me fix that!
Now you can play,
Whenever you want!
There are drawbacks,
To this method.
Things that make you,
Put palm to forehead.
EA's logic,
Is to enslave.
You need to go back online just to game save!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: TechDirt's Thursday Sing-a-long!
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Re: Re: TechDirt's Thursday Sing-a-long!
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EA Pressures to have modder charged
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Re: EA Pressures to have modder charged
The System Works!!! .....?
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Re: Re: Re: EA Pressures to have modder charged
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no doubt once a few news sites find out about the video, they're going to tell their EA overlords and it's going to get spammed with false DMCA takedowns.
Save it while it lasts
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schadenfreude at its finest
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And according to Ocean Quigley (Creative director & Art director for Simcity) Modding is quite ok (and wanted) in Simcity 5
His Twitter response about modding
Screen Capture of twitter response (just in case)
For all those who have a legal copy of Simcity 5:
[Via reddit] Enable debug mode by placing [ https://lh.rs/DHL3POuCPqTD ] into your Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityData directory. Press Esc, Expose Debug UI, Enjoy
Oh and looks like the original Modder might be not American so CFAA is moot
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The timing is too perfect to be coincidence...
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An easy local save hack
That's a bad joke, but not by much.
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From the article...
Hell, even the requirement for online saves is clearly nonsense. It isn't like the game couldn't be written to save locally.
TFTFY
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Re: From the article...
If it had, and I'm not making any fact based claims about that, it certainly isn't solvable. Our saves must float above us, quiet and serene, in the clouds above us. Or say I think EA told me.
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Re: Re: From the article...
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Next: sorry?
"We made the game unbreakable, and unlockable..we don't know how this could have happened..must be one of them dirty ol' pirates..er, customers."
I'd hate to be the one to tell them that I was the exec who thought the game would never be hacked, and said so publicly.
Lucy, are you listening? Your days are probably numbered. Go update your resume soon-you're going to need it.
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Welcome to the future.
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