A SimCity Mod by UKAzzer allows Offline Playability

Since its launch SimCity has been plagued by server downtime, always-on DRM and controversy over EA banning people who have tried to claim refunds through PayPal and their banks.Currently, it can be seen that the situation has improved a lot since launch day but things are still far from perfect and improvements are coming into place very slowly. As far as refunds go, people are still having trouble and people are still being banned – EA’s accountability has been horrific at best.

During this entire time a LOT of people have been unhappy with the way EA have organised the SimCity DRM system. This includes gamers, modders, hackers and many other people with an interest in the SimCity game. However, the first successful attempt to make SimCity playable offline came not from a Torrent hacker but from a modder known as UKAzzer. The mod he has created essentially provides a workaround that effectively removes the always on DRM controls.

What the mod does is it fixes connection issues by removing the game’s disconnect timer. Previously, you were able to rack up about 20 minutes of offline gameplay before the game would stop and require reconnection. However, now you are able to play indefinitely. Although, there is one major and significant drawback which is that if you want to save your game you need to be online to do so.

UKAzzer also modded a few more things making highway editing outside your city possible and changing the population count to more accurately reflect how many people are living in the city. UKAzzer provided a video of his achievements which you can see below. What we all want to know is how will EA respond? Will they block this particular mod? Will they patch some of his changes in? Will they offer an offline mod? Or will they just continue with the status quo? Let us know what you think.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmce9oIxJag[/youtube]

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