SimCity can be played offline indefinitely

Shawn Knight

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During a recent interview, Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw said it would be impossible to play SimCity offline without a significant amount of engineering by the design team as the game offloads a large amount of calculations to their servers so the computations aren’t being performed on the local PC.

According to a recent post on Reddit by a modder named UKAzzer, however, that’s not entirely accurate. He explains in the post how he was able to gain access to the game’s debug mode. From here, UKAzzer was able to disable the game’s disconnect timer which allows you to play offline indefinitely as shown in the video below.

He was also able to get rid of the fluffed population count and show the real numbers – a common complaint among players since the game launched more than a week ago. What’s more, he was able to edit the highways anywhere in the game, even outside of your own city boundaries. Edits are reportedly saved even if you log out of the game then return. This proves that highway editing would easily be possible in the “main” game.

There are a few drawbacks to this method, however. Although you can play indefinitely offline, no saves/syncs or region related stuff is possible just yet but the simulation can carry on without an active connection which pretty much debunks the claim from Maxis.

In the meantime, EA has launched a SimCity Server Status page and issued a patch that claims to fix an issue that causes the game to crash. A recent post on Maxis’ blog said they will continue to optimize and improve the experience moving forward.

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Wow...that's a jaw-dropper that a modder could come up with that many debunks and enhancements in a week on a major game release that EA is struggling just to keep running.

Bet it won't be long before EA/Maxis hires him.
 
Well looks like I was wrong. That will teach me to give EA or its studios the benefit of the doubt. Between this, the ability to make larger cities in the debug mode, and the revelations regarding how the agent system actually works (or doesn't), it seems like everything that justified online-only was a bunch of bullshit. I guess it really is about DRM after all. ~~welp~~
 
Lol of course it can be easily played offline, you can pirate a offline crack usually within 24 hours of any drm game release.... within a week they usually have a crack with nearly zero bugs... I just took 2 minutes to look it up this game has already been cracked to play offline
 
Wow...that's a jaw-dropper that a modder could come up with that many debunks and enhancements in a week on a major game release that EA is struggling just to keep running.

Bet it won't be long before EA/Maxis hires him.

Hire him? No. *Sue* him, yes, if they knew who he was. And probably demand his arrest. EA makes Activision and Blizzard seem positively benign.
 
Wow...that's a jaw-dropper that a modder could come up with that many debunks and enhancements in a week on a major game release that EA is struggling just to keep running.

Bet it won't be long before EA/Maxis hires him.

Hire him? No. *Sue* him, yes, if they knew who he was. And probably demand his arrest. EA makes Activision and Blizzard seem positively benign.

Agreed that is usually what they do when someone makes them look stupid or the liars that they are. I wasn't even considering playing this game but I for now won't be buying it.
 
Wow, Maxis was full of it then. No surprise that both Maxis and EA have just been pumping out lies about this whole thing. And now, thanks to their stupidity and horrible launch, they gave pirates a huge boost by making an overwhelming amount of buyers looking into things like this... Which makes building a crack that much more feasible.

Way to step on your toes there guys.
 
It's more-so the higher ups in Maxis talking BS and EA basically being a parrot. The whole point is though, they planned the "always online" from the start. Mostly so they can have full control over your data. Instead of having a general cloud saving / syncing, they have so much more crap piled onto the game.

All so they have more "online" players, but they have so much broken also. There's so much they won't admit, or just cover up because it would look bad. I've looked at it mostly with general skepticism, since EA has yet to win me over on anything. Ditching Valve for their own thing was fine, everyone has a falling out. Just really.. they don't seem overly trustworthy.

After seeing all the bugs thanks to various sources, and other exploits it's no wonder I shake my head. Why invest in something like this, when you know it's just all lies in the end? I'd rather go back to playing, the older SimCity games over this. Sure you lack what's here really, but you don't get this horrible DRM garbage and more.
 
Lol of course it can be easily played offline, you can pirate a offline crack usually within 24 hours of any drm game release.... within a week they usually have a crack with nearly zero bugs... I just took 2 minutes to look it up this game has already been cracked to play offline

Exactly. I often use no-CD/DVD fixes, or as you like to call them "cracks" because when I take my gaming laptop with me I wouldn't want to have to take a disc case and all of my CDs with me.
 
Remember when Rockstar tried to crucify Patrick W for unlocking the "Hot Coffee" mini-games?
 
What I'd like to say here is this, the reason I don't purchase any games that require an internet connection to play "off line mode" is simply this, how dah fuk will I be able to play my game come 4 ect years down the line when EA decides it's killing the servers cause the game is old, I can pull out my other games from as far back as my Amiga days and still play them and not have to worry about any of that crap..I work hard for my money and I've I'm gonna spend it on something I wanna be able to use it when I please.
 
Well, unless EA decides to release a big patch in a few years to allow total offline play, you're s**t outta luck. Or they will just try to sell you another SimCity.

Either way, the legit buyer is screwed.
 
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