Hasta La Gadget!

After the disastrous launch of SimCity last week, Electronic Arts and Maxis moved quickly to try and get the game back up and running after servers crashed due to overwhelming demand. This led to download failures for many gamers, and some pre-orderers weren’t even able to get access to the download at launch. However, EA has announced that they’ve finished upgrading to the newer and faster servers.

In a blog post, EA detailed some of the changes and upgrades they made throughout the week, including the completion of migrating all of their original servers to the new, faster and higher capacity servers. However, while the migration is complete, EA says that they’ll continue to provide “ongoing optimizations” for the servers.

EA also launched a server status page, so that gamers could see the status of server operations from around the world. EA says these are updated live. The page will list whether a server is available for play, or if its full. Servers that are experiencing high volume will be marked with yellow. However, most of the servers are currently green at the moment, which means they’re available.

Last but not least, EA released patch 1.5, which addresses “some trade intermittency issues.”EA says this should make regional interaction more responsive, and the publisher is going to continue to improve the speed between cities within a region. The patch should also decrease the chance of losing progress on your city via a rollback.

EA completes SimCity server upgrades is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This past week the re-launch of the SimCity franchise was threatened with connectivity and crash problems galore – but according to the MAXIS label under EA Games, they’re almost in the clear. Speaking as General Manager for the MAXIS label this weekend for a widespread blast this morning, Lucy Bradshaw gave a tentative nearly-all-clear with an assurance that “the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us.” Bradshaw also made it clear how much she appreciates those who have stuck with the development team in this hour of panic.

When you’re creating a video game that’s released to the public, there’s always a moment of panic – or heart-clobbering anticipation when the final software build has hit the market. When that moment is over, you’re generally allowed to sit back and watch the sales numbers grow (or pan) while you take a much-needed rest.

For the creators of the 2013 edition of SimCity, there was just about enough time to have a glass of lemonade before they were struck with a spit-take at customer complaints across the board. As the game is based largely online, connectivity problems reported by customers from across the country were not a welcome wake-up call for this game’s creators.

The good news is that all is nearly well at this point, with “tens of thousands of new players” joining the game every day according to Bradshaw. She’s spoken up on how humbling it’s been to see the amount of confidence the gaming community has shown in the developers behind the game given the problems it’s had thus far, and has thanked the public endlessly for that faith.

Our biggest fear was that people who love this franchise would be scared off by bad reviews about the connectivity issues.

But you put your faith in us.  You bought the game with the understanding that we’d quickly fix the server issues.  For that support – that incredible commitment from our fans — we are deeply grateful.  As the general manager of Maxis, I want you to know that we cherish your faith in us, and the love you’ve shown for this franchise.

Thank you very much.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see the whole SimCity 2013 story as it’s rolled out over the past week and be sure to let us know how your experience is when you pick the game up yourself this week!

[via EA Games]

SimCity creators ask for faith as problems “almost” over is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yes, we are quite sure that many of us out there are more than aware of the uproar that has surrounded EA for some time already, especially with the botched release of SimCity 2013, a title that has plenty of potential to be a blockbuster, but unfortunately, issues with its server has not endeared the game to most folks. What made the situation worse is EA not responding to a refund request where digital copies of the game were purchased, and Maxis (the company behind SimCity) GM, Lucy Bradshaw, mentioned that their programmers have been working hard to add new servers, although capacity alone is not their main concern.

Brandshaw said, ”We have teams producing new servers, but we’ve identified that many of our issues were related to how [SimCity’s] GlassBox [engine] managed the vast amount of simulation data through its database. We’ve addressed that and we’ve seen an 80% decrease in connectivity or responsiveness issues.” Hopefully things will look up for all you Sim-loving folks in the week ahead!

Not only that, EA has plans to offer one free game from its catalog to those who are affected. Hopefully it will be something updated and not from the past.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: TeleSound Kickstarter Project , Samsung Galaxy Camera Wi-Fi Announced,

SimCity has updated its blog and has stated that its making good progress in restoring stability to its servers. Lucy Bradshaw, the General Manager of EA’s Maxis Label, stated that tens of thousands of new players are logging into SimCity everyday. SimCity’s launch on March 5th was admittedly a huge failure. The always-on DRM and the server issues with the game resulted in a majority of players being unable to login, download the game, or even unlock their game.

Bradshaw stated that SimCity is seeing major improvements. She said that they have improved their server response time by up to 40 times, doubled the amount of players in-game, and have reduced the amount of server down times. They are also rolling out new servers and replacing their old servers so that more people will be able to maintain a stable connection to the game. However, because they’re replacing the old servers, you may see some downtime in the near future.

Also mentioned by SimCity through its Official Twitter is the possibility of there being an offline mode in the future. While it won’t happen anytime soon, it may be implemented in the future. The tweet says, “We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we’ll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts.”

SimCity will begin updating its servers today during the evening. This is great news for those of you who have the SimCity game and weren’t able to refund it for your money back. Players will be updated through the EA forums as well as through the game launcher about pending updates. Also for those of you playing SimCity, you will also receive a free game from EA beginning on March 18th. We’re still not sure whether or not you’re allow to choose which game you get for free, or if it’s going to be a selected by EA themselves.

[via SimCity]

SimCity increases stability and considers ‘offline mode’ in the future is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The botched launch of the new SimCity game has upset many this week, however there is a little good news. EA Maxis exec Lucy Bradshaw posted that the company is working on its server issues, with capacity reportedly up 120 percent in the last 48 hours and “disrupted experiences” down 80 percent. As a way of making up for a launch that was “dumb” for not anticipating far more players and activity than seen in its beta, EA will offer all those who’ve activated a copy by March 18th a free PC game download. There’s no word on which game(s) from the EA portfolio will be available but users will be notified by email. The one thing they won’t be getting however is what many are asking for: an offline option that avoids all the server mess and entanglements of always-on DRM.

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Source: EA