I'm about to go to Japan next month, staying in hotels that often have dodgy connections (because for some reason, this is the norm even at high-end Japanese hotels). Why should I need to worry about whether I can play an hour or two of the game I *purchased* after coming back to my room at night?

Not as long as the game keeps selling.

Sounds like Lucy Bradshaw just recently learned that too.

Offline saving has already been done.

The only thing that would cause EA to rethink anything would be if the game wasn't selling. And clearly it is, or there wouldn't have been server problems to begin with. (And continuing cockups like leaderboards and such being turned off.)

Most of that has already happened. Actually your first prediction is built into the game - you can create your own private region where it's just you and build your own cities in peace and quiet. There is one default region type where there are only two cities, so they have most of the resources needed even if you…

That's really the heart of the matter. Maxis' "vision" for this game just doesn't square with the general public's (and I firmly believe it's a majority) vision for what a city simulator should be like. I said it on another site - nobody wants to buy SimCity so they can build the next Fresno. They buy it so they…

The sales data will be fine. The servers wouldn't have broken if they'd had fewer players than expected...

You're pretty much right about everything except #6. You can play this SimCity exactly like SC4 - that's what's so infuriating about not having an offline mode. There's just no reason it seems like it's needed, even with all the region stuff. The region stuff is just an extension of what was in SC4, with some more…

Oh please - you have to give games you're *reviewing* more of a chance, but you also have access to a bunch of other games you're *not* reviewing. I know, I've been there myself. I know what it's like to have 10 or 15 games come in per week, and they all just get passed around.

Lack of explanation is a big one for me too - and I'm not usually someone who needs big tutorials. I had to buy a replacement PS3 because my launch system died and the new one came with various bonuses for DUST 514 (which was not presented as a beta when I bought the system, but whatever), so I tried it, and I had no…

They don't see themselves as all one thing, like we see them or like they see us. This is one problem with stereotypes.

The politeness thing is a lot different outside of Tokyo or even other major cities (but mostly Tokyo). Tokyo is like New York; people mostly keep to themselves and are considered pretty gruff by those in most of the rest of the country, although they adhere to the societal forms of formal politeness if you do manage…

Don't assume that just because every country has problems, that means they're all equivalent.

40 million sales *to* OEM's, not consumers. There's no consumer sales number out there yet, but we do know that web traffic stats are way below where Windows 7 was at this time post-release.

Efficiency is a worthy goal, but efficiency means doing the same job with less effort. The fact is you are not doing that right now. You're using fewer words but also giving us less information than required.

I don't think you really want to be telling me what's editorial policy anywhere other than where you currently work. Because frankly, you don't know.

This post is just riddled with inaccuracies.

I thought Kinja was supposed to solve all these problems?

Any phone that requires a case is either poorly designed or poorly made.