becoming != has become

does it really need explanation? Adopting to something that's not achieved yet?

Sorry for being a prick, but your post and some of your other posts annoy me, because you seem to have the ignorant "american" style, you doesn't seem to be aware that other parts of the world also exist (and obviously game studios are like that too).

Okay, if I'm not in the USA than why I want to play with recent computer games anyway?

Plus you seem to always act like the Devil's advocate (and not doing it that well...).

Until then, all of us losers with no stable internet should shut the fuck up.
Your whole post was a total bullfuck.

This is why it's hard for me to take these arguments seriously. Heaven forbid we actually try to have a polite discussion.

I never once said it wasn't shitty. I said the internet is becoming pervasive and it's totally shortsighted to expect games or any piece of technology not to adapt to that.

>I don't want to sound offensive but it is the slightly naive statements like those from way2lazy2care

What about my statements was naive? That internet access is becoming an expectation rather than a luxury? Enlighten me.

Adapt to it? Sure, make use of more networking functions, encourage more social interactions, etc. But when a game is still 90% or more single player with no need, want, or desire to interact over a network, then what sense is there in 100% requiring you to have internet access ALL THE BLOODY TIME?

And the naive bit about your statement is the fact that there are many reasons one might not have internet access, or access to the games servers, but still want to play the game they have legally purchased.

Lets list a few:

1. EA's servers are down for whatever reason.

2. My internet is down due to technical issues, and I want to play a game while I wait for a tech to come out and climb the pole and fix it for the fifth time this year.

3. Maybe I've lost my job, so I cut non-essentials at home, but still want to play a game I legally own and have already paid for...

4. Working up north with limited sat-based internet reserved for official data only. (Been there, done that, minor frost bite was enjoyed by all. Getting an internet connect far above the treeline can be surprisingly annoying)

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against semi-regular 'check-ins' on a resonable basis, and I have nothing against games heavily focused on their multiplayer (such as MMOs). What I have a problem with is games that are basically single player expecting me to only ever play while connected to their server, simply because some bean counter is paranoid that I might not have paid for their game I bought from them.

Hell, given that apparently there are reversed engineered WOW servers out there, it wouldn't surprise me if someone will eventually come up with their own SimCity Server client. And guess which one I will be more interested in using: The company's official server, or my own private one?

And the naive bit about your statement is the fact that there are many reasons one might not have internet access, or access to the games servers, but still want to play the game they have legally purchased.

I am aware, which is why I agreed with you in my previous posts.

>Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against semi-regular 'check-ins' on a resonable basis

Just on this, to my knowledge this is how it works now. You need to be online to log in, then you need to be online to accept trade from the world market or switch cities I think. I haven't lost connection during a game, but I've seen coworkers lose connection and continue playing.

It would be cool if you could store regions locally just so you could switch cities and do regional trade though.

If you remain offline long enough, you get kicked.

You can have data corruption due to exiting after playing while offline. I became out of sync, and then EA decided to overwrite part of my data later when their system detected something was weird.

You can't play if the servers aren't up to log in

You can't play if you have no internet access on which to log in at the time.

I have used lots of software with 'phone-home' security functions, and generally I can go a week or more without being impacted by my lack of a connection.

I don’t understand why companies like EA continue to use these draconian DRM schemes that just drive away potential customers. The game will be pirated, all the DRM does is slow down the pirates in the short term, and make piracy even more appealing in the long run because people won’t be stopped from playing a pirated version if they have a bad internet connection or when EA’s servers are down.

There’s a definite trend of attempting to fight piracy by turning games into an always online service that the customer pays for the privilege of using, rather than a product that he actually owns. (although being a "service" makes you wonder why people will pay for a service that doesn’t even work) In a singleplayer game, this is completely unacceptable and customers ought to boycott any game that does it. Another big problem, even besides not being able to play is the potential side effects these anti-piracy measures are having on gameplay. Are the very small map sizes and pseudo-multiplayer “social” elements there because of the DRM’s limitations, because if they are I would argue that the core gamplay is suffering because of it. Even without the always online DRM, I still wouldn’t have bought the game because of what I consider to be its “dumbed down” gameplay.

It’s also concerning, but not unexpected that EA would have several packs of day 1 DLC, which really should have been included in the actual game.