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Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

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Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#11

Post by chc »

larrydavid wrote: post #7

As usual with 'anonymous sources/insiders' it's all complete conjecture. The only people that truly know are EA/Maxis. EDIT: Seems people disagree that this isn't complete guesswork. Yes the game runs for a while without a connection, but that doesn't prove that servers aren't necessary as the headline claims. There is no hard, undeniable evidence. It's the same story that has been rehashed since the game was release…

This isn't really conjecture. There are firm claims here (e.g. an inside source provided this information, players have been able to play without a connection to the server) that are either true or false. It may not currently be within our power to prove all of them one way or the other, but that does not make it conjecture.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#12

Post by devindotcom »

larrydavid wrote: post #7

As usual with 'anonymous sources/insiders' it's all complete conjecture. The only people that truly know are EA/Maxis. EDIT: Seems people disagree that this isn't complete guesswork. Yes the game runs for a while without a connection, but that doesn't prove that servers aren't necessary as the headline claims. There is no hard, undeniable evidence. It's the same story that has been rehashed since the game was release…

Well, you have to choose your level of trust. I don't think RPS would post this unless they were reasonably sure. "Complete conjecture" isn't really an accurate description, I think, although "unconfirmed and incomplete" is certainly something you could say.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#13

Post by MBCook »

The thing I don't understand about all this is why they were unable to new servers online. After everything hit the fan, they announced they were working on it and had gotten two new servers up the day before.

Two servers?

It just seems unbelievable to me that the backend was designed in a way that it couldn't be scaled out any faster than that. Since each region is a discrete unit, you'd think they should be able to move them between servers.

Was it all intertwined? Did the regions, stats, achievements, and DRM all run out of the same database? Were they not separate services?

They had to know this game would be popular, they've been pushing it for months (to great effect). It's a major property and the first release in about a decade.

Then there is EA. Even if Maxis couldn't figure this out (and I doubt that), EA has online experience. They're the publisher for Mass Effect, Madden, Fifa, NCAA, and more. They should have the resources, the people, and the experience to have prevented this.

If you completely ignore the DRM or the seemingly unimportant always-online requirement, it this whole thing still seems botched. There were multiple groups who should have known better and prevented this. My understanding is that they got some warning signs during the beta.

I would kill for a postmortem blog or article on Gamasutra explaining why they couldn't scale out faster; to know what decision was the lynchpin that held them back.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#14

Post by MBCook »

manmal wrote: post #2

Given that Sims 3 runs on my old Windows machine (on low graphics settings), it's not that surprising that servers are not actually needed to run SimCity. I don't know if they really use the same simulation engine, but I'd say the scale is on the same order of magnitude.

They don't. SimCity runs on a new engine called Glassbox. They've been releasing videos and articles about it for months to get people pumped up.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#15

Post by MBCook »

manmal wrote: post #5
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

So, if it's not much engineering effort for EA to make the game single player it shouldn't be too much engineering effort for people who are not EA..

I'm pretty sure they reused lots of Sims 1-3 code, and they really have this simulation thingy figured out. Most probably some really good and generic engine, or else they could not pump out Sims extensions every other month. I have quite some respect for this, it certainly took years.

What makes you think SimCity reuses code from Sims 1-3?

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#16

Post by chrisacky »

"With the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud. It wouldn't be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team."

I'm going to point a finger and say that this is clearly untrue, and very easy to disprove just from basic network monitoring over 5 minutes of playing the game. I would immediately fire a systems architect that designed a single player game to compute significant calculations on our expensive [buzz word] cloud servers. Unless we use different definitions of the word significant...

It's a little ridiculous to suggest that?... plus, for zero benefit (above DRM), it would have a non-negligible affect on their bottom line if they are computing time cycles for SimCity on their own servers...

Anonymous source or not, conjecturally, it's hard to not agree with what the insider has said.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#17

Post by seanalltogether »

scottchin wrote: post #9

Although I'm not thrilled with the launch experience and DRM of SimCity, I don't think that this article adds any validity due to everything coming from an anonymous source.

I think the anonymous source perfectly illustrates why other players have been able to handle playing offline for up to 20 minutes without any hiccups in the simulation. If indeed the server is simply processing the messages between cities, it makes sense that they have a time constraint on how long a city can operate without hearing from other cities in the region.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#18

Post by throwaway420 »

MBCook wrote: post #13

The thing I don't understand about all this is why they were unable to new servers online. After everything hit the fan, they announced they were working on it and had gotten two new servers up the day before. Two servers? It just seems unbelievable to me that the backend was designed in a way that it couldn't be scaled out any faster than that. Since each region is a discrete unit, you'd think they should be able to…

While I don't know for certain, I can't possibly imagine that they've just added two physical machines. Small websites operate with more servers than that, let alone a AAA title from a major studio. I don't think they literally mean two servers - it sounds like they're trying to make the explanation simpler for consumers. What they're probably referring to is a self-contained cluster of machines that runs all of the necessary services that the game relies on - databases, notifications, social rankings, etc.

That being said, all of this wouldn't be needed if they'd just release an offline mode. The upcoming DLC content to unlock expected features (bigger cities, more transportation options, etc) is bad enough, but the always on requirement just makes this game impossible for me to buy.

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#19

Post by throwaway420 »

wmf wrote: post #3

I'm not sure how fun "a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff" would be, considering how small each city is. A lot of the fun is playing at the region level.

Don't worry.

I'm sure Sim City "Megatropolis" DLC is soon coming that doubles the default city size. Only $19.95 or whatever they think people will pay.

And don't worry about the traffic jams from bigger cities. Sim City Subway edition will comes out soon after. Only $15.95.

(yes I am very cynical and angry about this and making bitter sarcastic comments. This is a game I've wanted for a long time but is so flawed because of bad decisions)

Re: Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

#20

Post by inafield »

manmal wrote: post #5
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

So, if it's not much engineering effort for EA to make the game single player it shouldn't be too much engineering effort for people who are not EA..

I'm pretty sure they reused lots of Sims 1-3 code, and they really have this simulation thingy figured out. Most probably some really good and generic engine, or else they could not pump out Sims extensions every other month. I have quite some respect for this, it certainly took years.

They didn't. It uses a new engine, Glassbox.

There's a difference between Sims and Sim City.

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