SimCity might not be as dependent on servers for its core functionality as suggested by Maxis, according to a Maxis insider. The Maxis employee says servers are handling online and messaging components, but the game’s core city building functionality could be transferred offline without major engineering work.
“We offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud,” according to Maxis’s Lucy Bradshaw. “It wouldn’t be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team.” This is contradicted by the new information below, as relayed by an anonymous Maxis source.
“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that. But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything.”
Source Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Filed Under: Gaming News, Technology News