Engineering SimCity for Offline Play
Hi, I’m Simon Fox, lead engineer on the Single Player Mode for SimCity, and I’m here to tell you more about how we engineered Offline gameplay for SimCity.
When the game released, our fans were calling for Offline. I rallied the team to start making that happen as soon as practical after launch.
REENGINEERING A CREATIVE VISION
The original creative vision for SimCity was to make a game where every action had an effect on other cities in your region. As such, we engineered the game to meet this vision, setting up the player’s PC (client) to communicate all of its information to the servers. That means that our entire architecture was written to support this, from the way that the simulation works to the way that you communicate across a region of cities. So yes, while someone was able to remove the “time check” shortly after launch, they were unable to perform key actions like communicating with other cities that they had created locally, or with the rest of their region(s), or even saving the current state of their cities.
My team did, however, see a path forward towards Offline, one that would maintain the integrity of the simulation. Lucy once said that Offline wouldn’t be possible “without a significant amount of engineering work”, and she’s right. By the time we’re finished we will have spent over 6 ½ months working to write and rewrite core parts of the game to get this to work. Even things that seem trivial, like the way that cities are saved and loaded, had to be completely reworked in order to make this feature function correctly.
REWRITING KEY PIECES
I wish it were as simple as flipping a switch and telling the game to communicate with a dummy client rather than our server, but it’s more than that. Entire calculations had to be rewritten in order to make the game function correctly.
SimCity was written to rely on the servers. The game routinely pings the servers for critical pieces of data (region status, workers, trading etc.) and it relies on that information to keep the simulation moving. This meant rewriting the entire system, which previously existed in Java, and putting it into C++. We’ve had to knock out the internet pipe stuff. There’s lots of code that hits the servers looking for information. We’ve had to write a lot of code to produce that data locally, specifically for region information.
Our game routes pieces of data from one city to another as data flows through the regions. All of that code exists on the server, and now we’ve brought all of that down into the client. The client processes the region box, which is what all of the cities pushes their data into. We’ve brought that down into the client as well.
And now, all of the regional simulation needs to be done locally. The algorithms governing trading between cities needed to be retuned in order to make the behavior between cities more responsive for this type of play. This in itself required major optimizations in order to run the simulation locally. We have an obligation to make the game fun and functional on all specs of machines. We wouldn’t want someone who was enjoying the Multiplayer game to find the Single Player game crippled due to poor optimization.
And it’s not just adding, we had to remove parts of the game for it to function properly as well. This means removing lots of code integral to Multiplayer include code and UI supporting Trading, Social Features, Global Market, Leaderboards and Achievements. And, all without crippling the Multiplayer game.
So where are we at right now? We’ve been working on this since August and now, we’ve hit Alpha and are in the final stages of testing before we release it as part of Update 10 in the future. On behalf of the engineering team, thank you for your patience on this one. We know you want Offline play in SimCity and we are really happy that we are finally getting ready to deliver it to you.
Comments
I truly enjoy the multiplayer
I truly enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the game, but I do find appealing the ability to play the game offline in solo (especially useful when your travelling.)
A Big Thank you to the Simcity Team for your hard work.
3,320 Amazon reviewers gave
3,320 Amazon reviewers gave this SimCity game a one Star rating. so according to this I think I would just be wasting my money if I bought this game.
Though I did get to play the Demo of this SimCity game when EA sent the trial version out for some to play, and it was not so good.
Smh
You base decisions off strangers (trolls) opinions...really...wow. So you just ignore the over 2 million units they have sold... And most of the negative reviews were from frustrated users who couldn't play the first few weeks. Mistakes happen. Most of us have been playing these games since we were kids... They owned up to it and gave us all free games for the slip up. More people will complain about an issue then give praise for a good game. Your loss!!!
not facing the facts
And you sound like a paid troll. It sounds like it has been EA's loss, actually, when all they kept doing was saying it would never be offline. Something must have changed. Their three lead developers take off, as well as JR, right as this game should have been proving everybody wrong.
And you sound like your
And you sound like your parents never had any living human offspring. Oh no, someone doesn't agree with me. Someone doesn't take the usually highly biased nonsense in Amazon reviews seriously. He must be part of a great conspiracy by *insert company/organization/government here* and be on their payroll.
Yes, Amazon.com reviews are spot on
Because they aren't controlled by EA's paid trolls. And that makes you mad, doesn't it. Admit it, it is so frustrating to read real honest reviews about how much Simcity 2013 failed to live up to EA's greedy expectations. So much so that they have now conceded to make it offline, when they initially stated they couldn't! Yet, someone was able to do it right away. Someone who was not on EA's payroll.
Yet, here you are resorting to a personal attack, rather than sticking to the facts. The game fails big time. Admit it. It is ok. Those of us who had the guts to stand up and say it were right. And continue to do so. Too bad, all of those little gold award stickers EA paid for on the game boxes didn't amount to ..... They should have spent more on actual programming.
Yes, Amazon.com reviews are spot on
Yes, Amazon.com reviews are spot on because they aren't controlled by EA's paid trolls. And that makes you mad, doesn't it. Admit it, it is so frustrating to read real honest reviews about how much Simcity 2013 failed to live up to EA's greedy expectations. So much so that they have now conceded to make it offline, when they initially stated they couldn't! Yet, someone was able to do it right away. Someone who was not on EA's payroll.
Yet, here you are resorting to a personal attack, rather than sticking to the facts. The game fails big time. Admit it. It is ok. Those of us who had the guts to stand up and say it were right. And continue to do so. Too bad, all of those little gold award stickers EA paid for on the game boxes didn't amount to ..... They should have spent more on actual programming.
right now u are hurting your
right now u are hurting your case agenst the game u say u think it is bad but here u are on the ea sim city blog protesting the game. it makes it look like some one is paying u to say the game is bad. that and amazon.com reviews is not a good sorce to see if a game is bad or no 99% of thous how got the game did not get it on amazon i did not even know about the review there my self. if i were to give it a review it would be a 3 out of 5 the smaller map being the biggest prob but it is still a fun game if not a little to chalinging for the casual gamer
Thanks for lowering the bar.
I'll make it very simple for you. Amazon.com is a retailer, who has nothing to gain or lose by promoting Simcity 2013, as they have millions of other products they can sell. EA is heavily invested in making sure their product sells. The fact, again, that they have conceded to make it offline, when they have sworn up and down that they would never do so, as it was built from the ground up to be online only, kind of blows your argument out of the water. If the maps are your only issue, and not the other gamebreaking bugs, than, obviously, you are not someone who needs a challenge. Go enjoy your game, and don't worry about what others are saying! By the way, also learn to use proper grammar, as you do seem like the type of casual gamer they were initially aiming for, and that definitely helped to ruin what could have been a great game.
I'm struggling to find any
I'm struggling to find any element in your opinion... Firstly strangers aren't trolls. I doubt there are very many people (who haven't bought the game) and then decide to have a rant on the forums (maybe a couple..) which are therefore trolls.. Secondly at £65 for a game released 3 months too early, hell yeah i'm gonna have a rant! It was the worst release ever in gaming history, thats not just my opinion, but one of 1,000's around the world.
Agreed EA tried to fix by offering the 'Free games' - i'm yet to find someone that has thought that was a good deal (unless you didn't already have BF3). It's all a bit too little too late.
And lastly, praise is given when earned, maybe when the offline version comes out and the traffic is fixed, and this..and that... and and and..... MAYBE then we can give praise.But we're now Months into the game and still isn't satisfying...
Worst Game Release In History
You may like or dislike the game but its your opinion but I strongly disagree that this was the worst game launch in history, are you 5? There have been far worse game releases, Diablo 3 had the same problem with not being able to go on but it took them longer to fix it and not to mention all the other catastrophes of game launches like Anarchy Online
So, rewriting key components
So, rewriting key components from Java to C++ for 8 months with a team of God knows how many is OK, but resize just 2 values (Width & height) of city maps is to much to ask?
We want bigger maps EA. Come on... You know it, Why won't you comply?
It is easy to change the size, but that's not the end of it
It is in fact, easy to change those variable, it isn't trivial. However, the problem is that (which is what they have been saying all along) the game will be severely impacted for "most" of their players. It's not about the map size, but rather the engine itself. The engine processes thousands of simulation units per second. As they said way back, the game isn't just a visual spreadsheet anymore. It's a simulation with each blob actually moving around the map bringing power, water, money, etc... across the map... The more of these on the map, the more the engine has to process. Which is why they made the map smaller to essentially set a virtual ceiling for these so that the simulation will run properly.
Lots of people have good machines, ones that can probably handle large maps. However, it would be discouraging for their "other" players who doesn't have as much power on their machines. Everyone loves options, I know... It's a decision they have to make, and right now, it probably isn't best to make most of their players suffer just because some can.
I suggest they use the
I suggest they use the disrupt engine.
DUMB
YEAH, use a proprietary engine developed for a game that hasn't been released yet. DERP
HAHA agreed
HAHA agreed
then again, there could just
then again, there could just be an option while creating the region allowing you to choose whether or not you wanted large cities
The average computer shouldn't be the excuse
So just because not everyone has a good PC, it means that nobody get's to play with bigger maps? I wonder what would've happened to games like Crysis if all developers thought that way. Not everyone can play Crysis at full settings, but that didn't stop the developers from giving us the OPTION.
It would've made a massive difference.
You have no idea what you're talking about
Yea you cant compare crysis to simcity at all, crysis was specifically made to be the best looking game out there simcity was not. Its common sense to balance out the game so that everyone has a chance to play not just people with good PC
Except SimCity has always
Except SimCity has always been known for having somewhat high demands on systems around the time it was released. Look at SimCity 4. That came crushed computers when it first came out, but that didn't stop them from having huge maps in addition to small and medium ones. Yet to this day, SimCity 4 is considered among the best and perfect representations of what a SimCity game could and should be. You know what I did my computer couldn't handle a large map? I MADE A SMALL ONE.
Seriously, this argument is getting really tired now.
Yes you're right!
Yes you're right!
Online was discouraging not bigger maps
It does not feel unreasonable to give players the option of bigger maps, the fact is that I and I'm sure many others like me have spent thousands on a gaming machine to be able to get the absolute maximum out of the games I buy. Online mode crippled my gaming experience due to the poor connection speeds where I live (something that no amount of money can change, I literally just have to wait until the phone company installs miles and miles of new cables). Online is something players had no choice in, where as the option of bigger or smaller maps depending on your processing power would not disrupt anyone's experience.
My faith is beginning to be restored in the company now that I have seen that they have put hard work in to give the customers what we have been calling for, thanks and keep up the good work!! =)
Than EA should
make the maps on SimCity to automatically adjust to what the performance your PC can do. so for those who have custom high end PC's can build bigger cities according to there PC specs.
Than EA should make the maps
Than EA should make the maps on SimCity to automatically adjust to what the performance your PC can do. so for those who have custom high end PC's can have the option to build bigger cities according to there PC specs .
You don't really get it its
You don't really get it its not your computers processing it the servers. they have to save a copy of your city in the cloud for multiplayer use even though the working copy of your city is saved locally. When the servers crash it cascades into local processors (a.k.a. your computers). this game was deigned so that all cities and regions need to be in sync (Solo play will bypass this) and this can only be accomplished with a network of servers. Normally when one sever gets overloaded its load flows over into backups which could consist of emergency servers or another server in the network (ex. Europe East server could send part of its processing load to Europe West) but if multiple servers get overloaded they would cascade fail severely damaging the server net work. A similar failure recently happened to Nintendo's WII U and 3DS/DSi network on December 26 (the 25 in the western hemisphere and Europe around 4 am. EST.) the release of the software Pokémon Bank resulted in so much data being consumed in their Asian servers that they began to fail normally servers in Europe and America would take the extra load but because of hundreds of WII U's and DS systems going on line and signing into these eshops their servers crashed and were off line for nearly a month causing massive problems and pushing back the release dates of new applications and software by over a month. Also existing titles and services run by these networks such as the 3DS's Netflix abilities and other global communication systems were crippled or had completely collapsed. This required Global Nintendo to spend a month repairing, diagnosing, and augmenting their sever network as well as installing fail safe measure and stop gaps. This serves as a cautionary tale to how any server net work can collapse if it has to process to much data at once just think if a company as big as Nintendo couldn't avoid this what chance would Maxis and EA have? Nintendo dwarfs them. they only have one choice and that is to play it safe. (rant over) details on the Nintendo server failure can be found on their website and its affiliates.
They could just give the
They could just give the player an option to choose what map size they wanted. So then the people with lower spec machines could choose a smaller map and then the people with higher spec machines can have bigger maps.
I was like you at first. Then
I was like you at first. Then I understood the regions. Playing by yourself you can use and entire region to support many cities. buying and selling between each city. You can have one to be a water meca and the next a power beast, and one with all the City Hall buildings in it. So it is like one big city. in the region. That is how it is supposed to be played. Not like the old Simcitys. This is the most simulated City games they have made, yeah id like more space as well but you learn to adapt.
What a bunch of incompetent,
What a bunch of incompetent, greedy schmucks. How embarrassing.
You're talking about the
You're talking about the players, right? Because that's all I ever see - all these players complaining and complaining even after the game's team has been working months to provide what people are asking for. Some people's comments on these articles and the facebook page are deplorable...
The game has plenty of shortcomings, but I've managed to find over 100 hours of fun from it, and I applaud the team for working so hard to right what they realized early on was a wrong decision. Keep it up Maxis.
The problem is that this is
The problem is that this is still not the simcity most players wanted. I don't want to rearange my city after only 3 hours playing? I don't want wanky AI that only choosed the shortest path and first comes, first gets. This game could be 100% better if they worked it good at it. But instead they only managed to have the first 3 hours to be fun, every other hour is being frustrating becuase that there's no space. I have more fun with simcity 4 with the NAM mod then this godforsaken game. And it's about the state they released the game in. First impressions counts. If you followed the hype (which I sadly did) you were promised simcity 4 but 100% better. Well this game is way worse then simcity 4 when that was released. The promised that you could follow someones life in your city. Well I when heard that I didn't think of an AI that only drove to the first empty home/workplace he/she can find and that every day in and out. If a game like simcity 2013 is always online, I expect really good AI, big cities and alot of stuff simcity 4 didn't have. Instead we got a slimmed down simcity 4 with wonky AI. Nah I have given up faith in Maxis. They even try to get their name back by tying it into the sims 3/4 whereas thoses games are made by a completly different team that almost don't have any ties with the real Maxis.
Ok first really! that's how
Ok first really! that's how EVERY COMPANY ON EARTH work they divide work into sub divisions, and the Sims series has nothing to do with this. what's the point of even mentioning something cross canon. I love this game going on 800 hours of play. and if you see my previous rant, it clearly shows what could happen if you push too much on online processing. Also where are you getting AI this isn't even in the same galaxy as AI. If anything the game processor is closer to an AR control mechanism and simulation runner mainly because that's what it is. An AI or Artificial Intelligence processor in the truest meaning of the word is decades and possibly centuries away the closest thing we currently have to AI is a fencing robot in Japan and all it is, is a robot arm with a pole attached to it and a motion tracking camera and it barely qualifies as AI if even at all. AI would be things such as Androids and Cyborgs, to be a true AI it would need to interact with, adapt to, and monitor its environment while simultaneously predicting probability of events through past knowledge and outcomes so it can react to stimuli, in essence a true AI would need to be sentient, and the game processor fails dramatically on all accounts as it cannot in any way even remotely interact with its environment(the real world not the game world) or us past knowledge. So unless your debating with a microprocessor or carrying on a conversation with a flash drive its not AI. Technically speaking both the internet and Xbox 1 could count as primordial AI systems proverbially they're the first cell.
This is what they get for
This is what they get for attracting over-compulsive and socially-inept 13-year olds to play the game. Not to mention the nostalgia critics...
This comment...... IS FULL OF
This comment...... IS FULL OF WIN
It is becous of the
It is becous of the complaining fans that we get Offline and modding. You guys are such a55holes. Instead of thanking the critis, you still try to bash them. Realy, realy sad.
Also, Maxis and EA are full of lies! They said it would not be possible to give offline mode cos the game was too advanced for our pc's to calculate all the agents.
Here is a quote:
"A significant portion of the GlassBox Engine’s calculations are performed on our servers and off of the player’s PCs.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/16/simcity-bosss-straight-answer...
Though, we are still waiting for bigger maps. And as soon as this offline patch gets released, i block the game's internet connection with my firewall so i can mod the sims without EA servers watching me.
At first they thought it was
At first they thought it was impossible. But then they looked farther into it and found the solution. Also all you guys that are complaining, that is ALL you ever do. Why not look at the good stuff about the game for a change.
Finally someone that actually
Finally someone that actually thinks clap clap clap
Yup
Solution was to unplug my WIFI adaptor and just play for 20-40 minutes with no internet connection. The game would then stop - you could plug the adaptor in again for 5 seconds, then take it out for another 20-40 minutes.
Not sure just how much we are supposed to believe happened in that 5 seconds (allowing for connection time and ping) Most of the game code needed to be run then according to Maxis/EA
A position they still seem to be sticking to despite Youtube being full of videos of people playing SimCity offline for ages at a time just days after launch - proving Maxis/EA at best "wrong" at worst ...
It isn't a very good game. This and X-Rebirth were buy "4x, city builder, empire builder" games I looked forward to the most in 2013. Both followed on from truly excellent prequels - both were huge steps backwards.
Shrinking, nerfing and simplifying gameplay yet somehow claiming (and perhaps actually adding) levels of complexity under the hood - which added fat-sweet NOTHING to gameplay
The agent system might take a lot of AI code and processor time to run - but to what benefit?
How does the player benefit from it?
It doesn't work (AI path-finding is still appalling) The pathfinding on SC 2000 was - in terms of simulation - far better.
Better to have an excellent macro simulation of demographics that works on that level - than a really poorly executed micro agent one that hogs resources and produces such terrible results.
Looking at it as a black box process.
If EA/Maxis hadn't TOLD US they were using agents?
We'd just think..."Wow - this is rubbish"
Yet for some reason we credit them for delivering a failed system because "at least it shows they tried something hard - even if it is a dismal failure - better to be smart arse failures than stick to simple success" .
Just "de-varnish" it Maxis.
Give us a system that works in game-play terms not a system that's "oh so terribly clever" but in practice complete crap
Why cant people look past the
Why cant people look past the negatives to see the positive. and again what AI system is even involved in this game. to be considered AI a machine has to think act and react like a human being this game exhibits none of that and true AI Is decades if not centuries away computers aren't even complex enough yet to support an AI system. This game uses algorhythmic and simulation based programming both are the result of AI research but are not AI. get it right people.
Its not that the game is too
Its not that the game is too complex to be run locally but that quality would take a massive hit as graphics would be degraded and the game would freeze a lot and possibly crash. Maxis and EA were actually caring about the player contrary to popular belief among those who cant see past the minor imperfections to actually see how amazing this game really is few games ever created can rival this one in complexity of course there are glitches and the cities are on the small side but that cant be helped.
well said permalink
well said permalink
Since you first stated that
Since you first stated that originally having an offline feature is impossible yet now it is coming out, then truly it is possible for a larger map for Simcity in which EA once claimed it was "impossible". I really hope for that feature. A larger map. I've stopped playing for quite a while because it gets bored when you have to deal with such a small maps over and over again.
For the record, they never
For the record, they never said larger maps was "impossible" but rather, it will degrade performance on "most" of their players since larger maps = more simulation to do. Their engine isn't well suited for it. (and it shows well, since they do have to re-write code just to make it run better on client computers instead of servers)
You mean your "dads" old pc
You mean your "dads" old pc is not capable of doing exchange of 10 numbers every 30 minutes between cities? All region play does is send number of citizens and amount of products available or consumed, i don't see how hard can that be on computer. Counterstrike probably exchange more information during lan games than whole region. Besides it only send some simplified city model too, i don't see that being hard on computing. They lie for the profits. Well did i buy expansion? No! Will i buy it? Hell no! No more games from EA for me. Indie games are now gaining! I'm waiting for Banished to satisfy my city building needs.
The bigger maps will come out
The bigger maps will come out in the Bigger Maps expansion, that will cost just as much as the original game.
The bigger maps will come out
The bigger maps will come out in the Bigger Maps expansion, that will cost just as much as the original game.
New things they can add to
New things they can add to the next DLC.......GM building from detroit,New trade center,how about the retractable museum in milwaukee?
other things
That all sounds great! Imagine if they would add buildings like the tallest building in the world? Or an expansion where you get Chinese buildings, or maybe even a placeable pyramid. And now with future city's why not get floating buildings? It is amazing what they could add, and maybe even modders can add things like that :D
OOH and also a gigantic FREE
OOH and also a gigantic FREE update with tons of new buildings, maps, and such!
Farms would be nice...but we
Farms would be nice...but we would probably need larger cities for that.
Farms
The solution to that is to add vertical farms like the solution to population problems was to add mega-towers. Nice idea dude. I also think they should add mega-vertical-factories with the same VTOL as the Omega buildings and the same design system as a mega-tower. Imagine cramming a omega factory or a smelting factory or a processor factor or just plain old industrial space hundreds of feet in the air. http://www.the-edison-lightbulb.com/2011/03/09/vertical-farms-the-21st-c...
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