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>Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write somethi

>Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game. I agree that this is a strong deterrent but given how even MMORPG servers have been reversed engineered [1] it's not impossible. If SimCity proves as enduring and as desirable as WoW we may well see it coupled with a LinCity-NG-derived [2] backend or similar. Edit: That said, a powerful stimulus for the development of MMO server emulators was that players dissatisfied with the official servers' community simple couldn't run their own server how they'd like it for whom they like. I assume that the new SimCity is designed to be a far less community-oriented experience and people in control of the neighboring cities are largely replaceable from a player's perspective. [1] See http://www.runuo.com/ http://www.runuo.com/, http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/ http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/, https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator, http://arcemu.org/ http://arcemu.org/, etc. Note how many of those are community FOSS projects, even though running them with an official client is almost always a ToS violation. [2] http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

networked 14y ago
I've got to point out that my previous remark about a LinCity-NG back end was made half-jokingly and now that I've noticed that's not really obvious it's too late to go back and edit the comment. The difference between how your city is represented in SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4, on which LinCity-NG is based, and the new SimCity is quite profound and I thought I'd explain it further. First, the new layout engine finally allows you to construct roads at arbitrary angles and not just along the axes. This makes it fundamentally incompatible with the old grid-based map format used in SimCity since version one with few alternations [1]. Then there's the agent model of economics [2], a change from previous games' broad statistical model, that seems to be deeply integrated with the game's visualization. [1] The biggest change was likely the introduction of varying terrain height in SimCity 2000. [2] The developers give a brief explanation in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE. Looks like they've done some pretty interesting things with it.
sirclueless 14y ago
It's not the engine that needs to be reverse engineered. It's the balance and legitimacy. If you offload all the RNG and cause equipment to be controlled by a central entity, then it becomes both opaque and a single-point-of-failure. People know EVERYTHING about Diablo 2 drops, because you have the machine logic right there. Not true about, say, World of Warcraft, where people know a lot of macro statistics about drop rates and so on through crowd-sourced data gathering, but they don't know a lot of things, like boss pathing rules and event scripting. Running a private server for a MMO has a ton of fundamental barriers. 1) Players don't get timely balance updates. 2) Players have no confidence that admins won't hack/give away items/cause crazy events etc. (Central point of authority = central point of corruption. Even if there don't happen to be any game-breakingly generous admins on a server, you can't signal that reliably to potential players.) 3) Servers may disappear. Since info is central, but private servers may fold under takedown notices, owners running out of money, technical problems, lack of other players, or anything else, players can't have trust that their time spent will have lasting rewards. Credibility is almost impossible to build. Basically, by making games reliant on a central authority, you force the element of trust and credibility into the picture. Usually the only server with any credibility is the one run by the game company itself, since ideally you can trust that their actions will be in the best long-term interests of their game and audience. (EA in particular lost that trust a long time ago, I haven't bought a game of theirs in a LONG time. But Valve, or Blizzard, and even Ubisoft to a lesser extent still have that credibility.)

networked 14y ago

I've got to point out that my previous remark about a LinCity-NG back end was made half-jokingly and now that I've noticed that's not really obvious it's too late to go back and edit the comment. The difference between how your city is represented in SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4, on which LinCity-NG is based, and the new SimCity is quite profound and I thought I'd explain it further. First, the new layout engine finally allows you to construct roads at arbitrary angles and not just along the axes. This makes it fundamentally incompatible with the old grid-based map format used in SimCity since version one with few alternations [1]. Then there's the agent model of economics [2], a change from previous games' broad statistical model, that seems to be deeply integrated with the game's visualization. [1] The biggest change was likely the introduction of varying terrain height in SimCity 2000. [2] The developers give a brief explanation in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE. Looks like they've done some pretty interesting things with it.

sirclueless 14y ago

It's not the engine that needs to be reverse engineered. It's the balance and legitimacy. If you offload all the RNG and cause equipment to be controlled by a central entity, then it becomes both opaque and a single-point-of-failure. People know EVERYTHING about Diablo 2 drops, because you have the machine logic right there. Not true about, say, World of Warcraft, where people know a lot of macro statistics about drop rates and so on through crowd-sourced data gathering, but they don't know a lot of things, like boss pathing rules and event scripting. Running a private server for a MMO has a ton of fundamental barriers. 1) Players don't get timely balance updates. 2) Players have no confidence that admins won't hack/give away items/cause crazy events etc. (Central point of authority = central point of corruption. Even if there don't happen to be any game-breakingly generous admins on a server, you can't signal that reliably to potential players.) 3) Servers may disappear. Since info is central, but private servers may fold under takedown notices, owners running out of money, technical problems, lack of other players, or anything else, players can't have trust that their time spent will have lasting rewards. Credibility is almost impossible to build. Basically, by making games reliant on a central authority, you force the element of trust and credibility into the picture. Usually the only server with any credibility is the one run by the game company itself, since ideally you can trust that their actions will be in the best long-term interests of their game and audience. (EA in particular lost that trust a long time ago, I haven't bought a game of theirs in a LONG time. But Valve, or Blizzard, and even Ubisoft to a lesser extent still have that credibility.)