BluebellFlora

EA closes another studio, RIP Maxis Emeryville

Published on March 4, 2015 by BluebellFloraLeave a comment

Maxis Emeryville, the studio behind Spore and the 2013 SimCity reboot, has been shutdown.

Well it was a fun 12 years, but it's time to turn off the lights and put the key under the door. #RIPMaxisEmeryville

— Guillaume Pierre (@DesignGuillaume) March 4, 2015

SimCity was the very first computer game I ever played on a Mac, back in 1989. I thought the 2013 reboot was great. Yes there were and still are controversial issues with SimCity, most notably, initially always having to be online when playing, not having a single player mode when launched, and small maps. The first two issues were resolved in a patch but the small maps continues to be a bone of contention with scores of players.

Sadly Electronic Arts, Inc. have a history of closing great studios. Buy them up, chew them up, and spit them out. I’m only hypothesising here but I can’t help but think that Maxis Emeryville were probably hampered at every turn by suits in big offices who didn’t have the first clue about game development and what gamers actually want.

Good luck to all those who have just lost their jobs, I’m sure you’ll find employers who really value your talent and inspire you to do even greater things 😀

Busy making and creating

Published on March 1, 2015 by BluebellFlora3 Comments

Apple World is coming along very nicely:

And I took a couple of pretty pictures in The Sims 4 last night:

More soon 😀

Sims 4 on a Mac – Major Bugs update

Published on February 21, 2015February 21, 2015 by BluebellFloraLeave a comment

Grey and opaque windows

All non-Retina MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs with integrated Intel graphics which have Laptop Mode enabled in the in-game Graphics Options are experiencing grey/opaque windows. When Laptop Mode is disabled the windows appear normal but performance is diminished. Some are reporting that their games crash if they do not have Laptop Mode enabled.

All 11″ MacBook Airs from early 2011 to present
All 13″ MacBook Airs from early 2011 to present
All 13″ MacBook Pros from early 2011 to present
Mid 2014 15″ MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Intel Core i7

I suspect this is causing an awful lot of the crashing issues people are reporting without realising it’s their graphics card causing it.

There is no solution at the moment. If your game is affected by this you have to decide whether you want decent looking windows with poor overall performance or bugged windows with good overall performance. We have a thread on the Mac forum detailing Macs affected in the hope EA see it and release a patch. The more posters we get reporting this issue the sooner EA will release a patch, hopefully!

Intel HD 4000

This issue is still ongoing. Please read my previous blog post about a workaround if you have changed your Graphics Options and cannot now launch your game. EA are aware of this issue but have not yet released a patch.

CC and Mods causing the game to crash

SimGuruModSquad acknowledged that there were errors in the game which were causing crashes for people who use CC and/or Mods. A patch was released today to fix some of these errors but EA are still working on resolving the issue . If you are affected please head over to the stickied thread on the Mac forum for updates.