The good news is that SimCity will soon be allowing user-generated content. The bad news is that EA is looking to place so many restrictions on what you can actually mod that it seems almost pointless.
In reaching out to the game’s community with its initial plans, EA has already put its foot down on mods that change the way the game plays. Here are the two key points from its “first draft”:
- UGC that effects the simulation for multiplay games and features are not allowed.
- Examples of acceptable UGC include swapping art assets, like buildings and vehicles.
So you can… reskin objects. Because of the game’s insistence on linking everyone’s cities together, you basically can’t do anything else. No tweaks to rules, to gameplay, to map sizes, anything.
SimCity launched with so many compromises and problems that it would have been a modder’s delight. Opening the door to user-generated content, then slamming it shut on all but the most mundane edits even at this early stage, is one of the biggest missed opportunities of the year.
You can always hope that, at such an early stage, EA heeds user feedback, but given the company’s track record with the game thus far I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Comments
6 responses to “SimCity Is Trying To Ruin Its Mods, Too”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath”
But would you hold yours?
Good morning Luke =)
This is getting beyond a joke. Pretty sure the entire SimCity experience has been one big Troll-Attempt by Maxis… No longer taints my HDD
I think Maxis are trying to resurrect their game but the regulations are put in place by EA.
I launched it the other week, first time in months. I just had no desire to keep going, or start another city. Real shame, for the 30mins it takes to build a proper city, it is quite fun. after that though, it is just stale, with no incentive to keep going. You cant build anymore stuff and starting a new city is just plain boring, I want to expand my current city. Bah, wanted to like this but its time to uninstall me thinks.
Way to completely miss the point of mods and yet again highlight just how horribly forcing everyone into online multiplayer hamstrings the actual outside-the-box enjoyment which extends games’ lives long past their intended usage. (See any Quake/Half-Life engine mod EVER.)
You’d think they’d learn from examples such as Counter-strike, Team Fortress, or DOTA – incredibly successful franchises (or in the case of DOTA an entire fucking genre – MOBA) born exclusively out of the ingenuity of modders mucking about with the game rules. Even if you’d consider it ‘cheating’. (Hell, take Warcraft 3. In a conventional game, if you had a multiplayer map in which a structure continuously and autonomously poured out units for free, you would probably consider that a ‘cheat’, no? And yet… DOTA.)
Just… way to miss the point, EA/Maxis. Well fucking done. This is what happens when you let people who don’t know games make design decisions based on their ABJECT TERROR that they can’t control every aspect of the player’s ‘experience’. Newsflash. There is always someone better. 7 billion people on the planet, the odds are good that someone, somewhere is going to come up with better experiences than you can. And they’re going to do it on their own time, for free, with IP you control. SMART people might consider that to be a brilliant resource which can be absorbed/purchased/recruited on the cheap, and exploited for millions upon millions of sales.
(See: Portal, Team Fortress, Counter-strike, Battlefield: Desert Combat turning into Battlefield 2/3, DOTA and its ultra-profitable clones.)
Part of the polish and success of World of Warcraft springs from its rapid theft incorporation of player-made UI mods into the base product. Yeah. Crowd-sourced UI design/improvement, giving that gargantuan MMO an edge in polish over its competitors. SMART.
The short-sighted idiocy in Sim City from EA and Maxis is mind-boggling, and obviously a management-dictate that I HOPE would have every actual gamer working there shaking their head sadly.
Just to make everyone even more bored and frustrated.