EA "investing quite a bit" in SimCity's always-on requirement

Maxis boss Lucy Bradshaw has said EA is doing everything it can to avoid the horrors of a flaky online launch ala Diablo III.

Videogamer name dropped Diablo III when broaching the subject of SimCity's controversial always-on Internet connection requirement.

"I think that's why we have to be really, really good about the service that we provide. Electronic Arts is investing quite a bit in making sure we're locked and loaded," the designer replied.

"If you've seen some of our recent launches they've been really quite flawless. Battlefield had huge amounts of players and stayed extremely stable, and think SWTOR was one of the most absolutely stable MMO launches.

"We understand that, when we go down this path, one of the things we have to do is provide really great service. Not only in the steps that a player takes to get into the game, but also in the game services themselves."

Although you will need to be online to play, Maxis has said repeatedly that it has some sort of "nice, graceful" solution to common problems like drp outs mid-game, so players don't lose progress should their modem spontaneously combust in the middle of construction.

"I don't want people to have to tolerate bad connection or downtime. The asynchronous multiplayer aspect to what we're doing allows us to be very graceful in how we address any kind of hitches," Bradshaw reiterated.

"We also take very seriously games as a service. And I do think, yup, as with any technology there's going to be moments of 'here we go' and we've seen it with hordes coming in and systems that are overloaded and what not. But we ultimately have come up with more and more graceful ways to deal with that. And I think the opportunities it affords in terms of gameplay are so significant, that if we're not going to push in that space and stay on these little self-contained islands that we're not going to explore new gameplay."

SimCity is due on PC in February 2013.

Thanks, Destructoid.