SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM? • Hacker News Board

Re: SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM?

#11

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 8:32 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #5

wlesieutre wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I had a few weeks between real internet connections at my house, and it really drove home how bad an idea these systems are. Even Steam, which ostensibly has an "Offline Mode" did not do as well as I'd have liked because one of the residents didn't have it set to log in automatically. So now we're in a situation where all of her games refuse to open and we won't be back online for a while. But you'd think S…

It's interesting that you had issues launching Steam games without an Internet connection. I've never had a problem with it, although I've got a MBP and so my library of games is quite limited. Might the issue have not been Steam, but rather something the game publishers had included that caused it not to work?

If you have Steam set to remember your password and log in automatically, it's fairly reliable. If you prefer to not leave passwords remembered, Steam will not launch even in Offline Mode until you restore the connection and authenticate. This is by design.

http://i.imgur.com/NXCpk.png

While I understand the reasons for designing it this way, it's still very annoying to be caught off guard by it. I'm glad that nobody could get access to any actual account data like my friends list, time played, etc. But I'd much rather it be a system like the Mac App Store, where software will run no matter what once it's been downloaded, and running things I've installed is entirely separate from my account authentication and anything with personal information in.

Re: SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM?

#12

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #8

The TechDirt article says this: > [Developer] Kip's followup was downright laughable. > > "We will allow you to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most likely be minutes." Everyone seems to hate on the DRM, thinking that it's just a business decision that is not at all integral to gameplay, but they all seem to be forgetting one key thing: The new SimCity is, at its core, a multiplayer gam…

I think that a lot of people are aware of that; they question whether it actually adds value to the game. Given the choice between an entrepreneur that moves between cities (and other similar features) or a game that works when the internet goes down for 5 minutes, I'd take the latter.

Having interactions like pollution between neighbors is pretty cool. But there's no good reason it couldn't work with AI neighbors too. The online only features feel tacked on to force players into staying online all the time.

Re: SimCity Developers' Reddit AMA Swiftly Turns Into WTF With The Online-Only DRM?

#13

Post by wlesieutre » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 2:18 AM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #12

btown wrote: post #8

The TechDirt article says this: > [Developer] Kip's followup was downright laughable. > > "We will allow you to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most likely be minutes." Everyone seems to hate on the DRM, thinking that it's just a business decision that is not at all integral to gameplay, but they all seem to be forgetting one key thing: The new SimCity is, at its core, a multiplayer gam…

I think that a lot of people are aware of that; they question whether it actually adds value to the game. Given the choice between an entrepreneur that moves between cities (and other similar features) or a game that works when the internet goes down for 5 minutes, I'd take the latter. Having interactions like pollution between neighbors is pretty cool. But there's no good reason it couldn't work with AI neighbors to…

Perhaps a more important point that I should have mentioned: I can still play Sim City 2000 (published in 1994). Games like this that depend on online servers for basic functionality? I doubt they'll work in 18 years.