SimCity System Requirements, Multiplayer Detailed, More
More details have spilled regarding SimCity 2013 including multiplayer support and the initial list of system requirements.
On Wednesday during GDC 2012, three Maxis creative leads went into greater detail about the multiplayer aspect of SimCity (2013), reporting that the game will have a cloud saving feature which will work continuously in the background as the gamer plays online. A further list of specs reveal that the game will support a 16-player multiplayer scenario -- likely the "region" as described in the official announcement.
On Wednesday Maxis said that SimCity was "built from the ground up to support online" gameplay. The team also mentioned "play anywhere," meaning that gamers can play SimCity across a variety of different devices. This is interesting given the PC-focused announcement released early Wednesday morning. However there's speculation that the game will be playable on devices with a web browser, although the fully-featured version will likely reside as an installed application on the PC.
During the event Maxis also revealed that SimCity was designed to support mods. "We're huge fans of our modding community," creative director Ocean Quigley told the audience. "We've designed all this stuff to be moddable."
"We know modding is hugely important to our community," Quigley added. "We know the reason why people are still playing SimCity 4 ten years later is because the modding community has kept it alive. GlassBox is built to be moddable, but beyond that we haven't announced anything"
Maxis will be using the same package format The Sims and SimCity 4 used, he said. This should make it easier for SimCity 4 modders to make the jump to the new GlassBox engine.
Now for the system requirements. Electronic Arts has posted a single list via Origin, as follows:
Processor:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0 GHz or better
Operating System:
Windows XP/Vista/7
RAM:
Windows XP: 1.5GB
Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB
PCs using a built-in graphical chipset are recommended to have 2 GB RAM
Graphics Card:
ATI X1800 or better*
nVidia 7800 or better*
Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better*
DVD-ROM:
8x or better
*Minimum of 256 MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support.
EA is already teasing a $79.99 Digital Deluxe Edition and a $59.99 Limited Edition. The latter LE edition sounds awesome, packing super hero and evil villain lairs, characters, crime waves, and associated items. The Deluxe Edition sounds quite different, containing British, French, and German city sets which include popular landmarks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, London's famous double-decker bus and more.

3rd Party DRM:
Origin
who wants to bet EA will NOT let users mod ANYTHING in SimCity to keep community "uniform" ie so EA can make money off DLC instead of modders keep our games alive year after year?
p.s. the "Deluxe" edition is Origin only...good luck if you don't want to install Origin or prefer boxed version....
I hope they improved the AI and logic.
It sucked to build up a really nice city and be stuck in a loop where alien space ships kept destroying large chunks of it.
The graphics from that screenie do look nice, though. I have no interest in online multi-player and Origin. Seems quite a stretch from the core SimCity but some folks might enjoy it if done right.
.....
nVidia 7800 or better*
Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better*
Verry strange, that nvidia 7000 series has the same feature set as the 6000 series, and the 6600gt is about on par with the intel HD graphics, which in turn is way faster then the intel 4100.
Where is the logic in that?
Translated:
we'll kiss the PC users behind even though we dumped them for the console and now that the franchise is getting stale and Skyrim with its true modding community is stomping everyone else into the ground we want a piece of that pie.
3rd Party DRM:
Origin
Maybe the code runs better on the intel graphics???
And there is reason for Origin/EA hate. It is not pound for pound the same as Steam/Valve, so don't treat it as such. Steam is a very open source platform and Valve is a very transparent company (relatively), while EA is very closed and controlling of its IPs and has a history of ****ing with good games by using DRMs and other unnecessary bullshit. I have never used Origin because I refuse to install such garbage on my PC, but I'm sure it will reflect the same qualities of EA: overrated and of poor quality.
Using Steam is not the same thing as using Origin. To some gamers, the price tag means more than buying a game, it means supporting a company; supporting a business practice. Many people are willing to stand behind and support Valve, show me the number of people who are willing to do the same for EA. That alone speaks volumes for the differences in their customer relations and their way of business.
And there are no Steam-only games that are not developed by Valve. But there are Origin-only games that EA forces onto their platform even though all they do is rush the dev cycle, stamp their logo on the box, and push it out the door.
I dislike DRM like anyone else, but I don't view Steam as inconvenient nor the Apple of gaming. To me, it's worth putting up with Steam for the automatic updates, not having to dig around for the disc to play it, community involvement, etc. The sales are NOT crap and they have been more than fairly priced even before competition even arrived. Key term here is reputation, and EA has tarnished/trashed theirs repeatedly over the years. Monopolies are bad for business, but Valve has been more about the gamer than the buck from the start of Steam (no I'm not fooling myself over the laws of business - this is perception) - something gamers are fond of and remember well. EA has proven itself to be pro $$$ and does everything to make more of it by screwing over gamers whether it's day 1 DLC, not releasing a full game with anticipation of DLC, Madden (need I say more about this one?), Releasing a game that has DLC ON THE DISC that you have to buy to unlock it, using junk DRM to deter piracy, trashing good studios after acquiring them - I could keep going. In the end, Origin is tied to this F-ing company that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, how does Valve stack up in comparison? As for Origin itself, it may be in it's infancy, but it's slow, very buggy, crashes fairly often, uses a web browser interface for a lot of things for some reason (BF3 is horribly done here), can be considered spyware on your computer depending on how you interpret the TOS, and oh yeah - EA's baby.
So yeah, SImCity to me is Maxis, and Sim..... hasn't been the same since being acquired. I'm puzzled over the system requirements, but reserve judgement on how it turns out until it ships and see what it is.
At the end of the day these system (Steam, Origin, Impulse, etc) are in place because of piracy. We never needed this crap when games came on discs. If you want to hate something, hate the people who steal games and force Steam/Origin down our throats. Sure, cloud storage is nice but I would rather not have to deal with DRM in the first place.