Update 2: The patch notes for SimCity's latest update reveals Maxis disabled Cheetah speed in an effort to combat server performance issues.
Here's the notes in full:
- Fix for crash caused most commonly occurring on servers experiencing lag. This crash would happen most often when claiming a new city when playing in a region.
- Fix for server select dialog not appearing on start-up if the server the player was last on is not available.
- Disabled Cheetah speed. Cheetah speed is is now the same as Llama speed.
- Crash fix for finding closest points.
- Crash fixes in transport and pedestrian code.
- A fix cities having processing problems associated with helicopters.
Responding to a question over Twitter , EA's official support account says it's "doubtful" the change will be permanent, but didn't offer any details on how long the disabled speed will stay in effect.
Update: A new forum post from Maxis' community manager reveals that "non-critical" game features, including leaderboards, achievements and region filters, are to be disabled in an effort to reduce server load.
"We are continuing to do everything we can to address the server issues. In the meantime, so that we can give you as good an experience as possible, we are in the process of deploying a hotfix to all servers. This includes various improvements and also disables a few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements and region filters). Disabling these features will in no way affect your core gameplay experience.
"We will continue to let you know as we have more information. We know it has been said before, but we do appreciate your patience as we complete this latest update. Getting you playing is our absolute highest priority."
Original story: Despite reassurances that Origin would be ready for SimCity's international launch, players are still experience connection troubles as the game releases in more countries worldwide. Following yesterday's Australian launch, players are reporting delays with Oceanic servers. In a statement on the SimCity Facebook page , EA say they hope to reduce server traffic by "aggressively undergoing maintenance on the servers and adding capacity to meet demand."
A more detailed statement, from SimCity senior producer Kip Katsarelis, appeared on the SimCity forums this morning:
"This has been an exciting and challenging week for the team here at Maxis, the culmination years of planning and development. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours. We are hitting a number of problems with our server architecture which has seen players encountering bugs and long wait times to enter servers. This is, obviously, not the situation we wanted for our launch week and we want you to know that we are putting everything we have at resolving these issues.
"What we are doing is deploying more servers over the coming two days which will alleviate many of the ongoing issues. We are also paying close attention to all the bug reports we are receiving from our fans. We've already pushed several updates in the last few days. Our live ops team is working 24/7 to resolve issues and ensure that bug fixes roll into the game as quickly as possible.
"While the ongoing issues are troubling, we can also see that players are really enjoying the game. In a single 24 hour period, there were more than 38 million buildings plopped down, nearly 7 and a half million kilometers of roads laid down, 18+ million fires started and (my favorite fact) over 40 million pipes filled up with poop.
"This team has put everything into this game and won't stop until things are smooth. We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding."
SimCity is due to launch in the UK tonight at 00:01 AM.
Thanks, Polygon .
