'SimCity' may eventually go offline to "earn back your trust"

Head of Maxis Lucy Bradshaw has taken over the SimCity Twitter account for a 45-minute period in an attempt answer any and all quandaries people have about the city simulator. Using the hastag "AskLucy," Twitter users have been throwing more burning questions at Lucy than can be counted, but one answer she recently Tweeted has grabbed some serious attention

[Cirran]

To late.

[Hydrolex]

yea if they make it offline,

make the maps bigger, this would be an AWESOME game...seriously, way to ruin a nice game

[ProjectVulcan]

The game itself is good. It absolutely does need bigger maps however, desperate for a bit more room even with the idea of taking over lots of cities.

If they can just get the servers stable and double the size of the cities I would be ultra addicted.

[HammadTheBeast]

The whole reason for smaller "specialized" cities is to force you into multiplayer which is bullsh**. Sure, you could make 16 different cities, but all other cities but the one you're using is frozen in time.

[pompombrum]

Sadly, if they announced next week that they will let people play offline, I'd pick the game up. I don't support EA's greedy decisions but this game does look fun but I certainly won't buy it while the always online function is there.

Still, EA execs will be fuming at her for saying this come Monday. Either she's saying it herself and trying to push for it or she has been lying about the overwhelming demand for the game and EA are sweating that the game isn't going to meet targets.

[Root]

They said something along the lines of it would take "significant engineering" to get it offline

All I have to say to that is...get to work then

[Scenarist]

lol .... exactly

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

"it would take significant engineering"

That's bullshit. I've seen the game demonstrated for several hours and the only multiplayer aspect can be accomplished by yourself.

[Derekvinyard13]

Dam u DRM

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

Title is false

[Megaton]

So they have no intention of earning back anyone's trust right now, but maybe later if things get even worse.

[rataranian]

Fail.

[Th4Freak]

So they want to win our trust again to stab us in the back later again? o_0

[HmongAmerican]

expect to see console version without always be online in the future. Like Diablo 3 for PS3/PS4.

[paybackprahl]

If it goes offline, and is actually re-developed to cater to single-player gameplay (I've heard it's very nature demands multiplayer), I'd seriously consider joining the craze. Not a moment before, though.

[jay2]

That's the only time I'll buy it.........NEVER thought I'd say this......... THANK GOD I DONT LIVE IN THE US AND COULD CANCEL MY COPY AND AVOIDED THESE PROBLEMS!

[2pacalypsenow]

If it goes offline i will buy it

[sdozzo]

With some mods and offline it would crush. And... We'll never see that.

[PirateThom]

I am thinking about just playing Sim City 4 instead.

[SpiralTear]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Maxis say that it would take a huge amount of engineering, resources, and developer work load to truly make this an "offline" game?

If that's the case, they should just make another game, one that has everything that the users want without the crap that they don't.

[Linsolv]

You think people would accept stupidly draconian DRM if there wasn't some hand-waved excuse?

I don't want to sound like a total nutcase, but it's damage control 101 to say that people need to have the thing they don't want to get the thing they do, even if it's not entirely true.

Maybe this time is the exception and it's just a weird coincidence that their real, totally honest reasons sound like a con. But why should I give EA the benefit of the doubt?

[Scenarist]

half the people here are honest "if it goes offline i will buy it"

the other half should be saying " if it goes offline the crack would come out sooner and i would download it "

[Linsolv]

If the other half think that EA will put out an offline version in the next 6 months then my guess is they've got another thing coming. Considering that private servers are already possible, I can't imagine a crack coming out AFTER an official offline mode.

[Scenarist]

there will be one before... but these types of cracks or private servers (or local emulated servers for that matter ) takes awhile

[aLiEnViSiToR]

LOLz nice tittle xD

[bmwyallaa]

you know what, iv been a fan of simcity back when it was on snes and the original simcity pc on our IBM 486 33mghz 2mg of ram and this game particularity iv been following its progress for some time now i swear i was waiting for time of work so i can go buy this game and then i found out all this shit about single player online and saving your cities on servers and some other cunts city affecting mine mate i just wanna play single player not everyone has a good internet connection. Or when the data cap is almost at its limit, you don't want to fucking use the internet to play single player fuck ya

[v0rt3x]

They're just waiting until the initial sales (with which they are making their money) die down.

[SDF Repellent]

I am so glad this game failed critically and hopefully commercially. I been a fan of Sim City for a long time but if this game somehow succeeded with the always online BS, then that might give the idea for not just EA, but also other publishers to adapt the same unethical scheme into future console gaming as well.

With both fans and critics fighting back and the PR nightmare this is causing EA, hopefully that will send a message that "People do have the power" in some aspect.