Maxis Rolling Out SimCity Update April 22, Downtime Expected

Maxis is prepping the first "major" patch for SimCity, which is set to launch this coming Monday at around 1PM PST. While I'd argue that it's bizarre to issue a major update to a game in the middle of the day like this, this particular patch looks to be well worth it. In addition to a slew of bugs being fixed, the HUD has been improved for colorblind mode and mayors will now drive their fanciest vehicles around - cars, helicopters, limos and sports cars. Ahh, to be king.

Taking care of complaints that casinos are not profitable enough, those have been improved upon with this patch. Unfortunately, you'll need to bulldoze and rebuild your casino in order for the enhancement to trigger. In addition to a number of fixes being applied to residential effects, education and tourism, bankrupt cities will now be able to receive cash gifts, and those who experienced disasters too frequently should notice them to now be less common.

Regarding the rollout of the patch, Maxis states: "Because this is our first significant Update, we wanted to inform you in advance that we’ll be taking down all servers for a few hours while these changes are being issued. Choosing a time to issue a major Update is never easy, but after looking our peak player time, we’ve concluded 1pm PST is the best window for us to make these improvements. As you can see from the list above, the wait will be worth it."

If this patch rollout is like most others for major games, I wouldn't expect that "few hours" estimate to be too accurate. While the deployment may be smooth as silk, I wouldn't plan my night around the game if you happen to reside on the east coast or Europe.