 "SimCity's server problems are 'behind us', says head of Maxis")
Maxis seems to be getting SimCity to stand back up on its own feet. Maxis boss Lucy Bradshaw recently posted on the company’s blog that many of the problems plaguing the game have been fixed. The major problem of players not being able to connect to the game’s server “is behind us,” posted Bradshaw.
The company has released a new patch for SimCity that mostly eradicated the connection problems and added a new, rather strange, server: “Antarctica 1”. According to Bradshaw, this is “getting virtually everyone into the game and, once in, having a great time building cities and sharing regions.”
She has pointed out, however, that not all of the problems have been solved yet. The company needs a few days of data before it can claim that the problem has been solved completely and the game is running at “100 percent”.
SimCity’s issues are “behind us”
Last week, Electronic Arts had announced that it is giving a free game to everyone who has activated SimCity on their Origin accounts while the developers work on getting the server issues fixed. People who have bought and activated the game on Origin will get an email on March 18 telling them how to redeem the free game. The company hasn’t mentioned which game we’ll be getting, but it will be from EA’s line-up.
Many gamers have been facing issues with SimCity since its North American launch earlier last week. EA blamed “server instability” caused by too many players. The company has since been in damage-control mode and is scrambling to bring additional servers online.
SimCity is the latest game in the popular city-building franchise and is meant to be a reboot of the series. The game goes back to its roots, streamlining the gameplay while leaving behind some of the arbitrary complexities that the previous games had, like the difficulty in laying down underground things like subway systems and water systems.
A major new feature in SimCity is the game’s unique take on multiplayer. Multiplayer in itself is a new feature to the franchise. When you play a game, you have to first pick a region to build a city. Other players can join your region and take to building cities on the empty city slots. The game is balanced around co-operation between the different cities in a region.
The multiplayer component also ended up causing quite a stir as the game requires you to be online all the time—even if you’re playing alone in a private region. While this originally resulted in angry retorts from gamers, the problem revealed its true form during the US launch of the game, when a staggering number of gamers were unable to even start the game. This is presumably because EA failed to predict the number of day-one players.
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
