It kind of kills me to be so excited about SimCity . On one hand, it is looking. On the other, its always-online requirement is probably sentient and going to try and strangle us as we slumber. While I was at E3 this week, I dropped by EA's booth to check out SimCity and ask its devs just why they opted for the always-on thing, anyway. Are we going to have to learn to sleep with an eye open? Maxis ' Vice President Brett Barry says that an always-on connection is necessary due to SimCity's "asynchronous multiplayer experience," as demonstrated by the Glassbox visuals system."The city is always simulating," he told us. "People are always moving about. Construction workers require time to put up their buildings, people move about, they might go to work, or they might decide to skip work and go to the park one day – just like people in a real city. And just like a real city, we wanted to have players from other cities help you out, just like what might happen in real life."Three Maxis employees demonstrated this to us: when one encountered problems powering his entire city, another took notice and was able to offer a power link her city to his. Later, the three players teamed up to build an airport, widening the reach of all three of their cities. Not all the multiplayer is positive, however - in another case, criminals moved from one player's city to another's, robbing banks and roughing up the neighborhood without prompt. Barry said that having real people step into each other's games like this to heighten realism was a necessary part of gameplay.I'll admit I had my doubts when news of SimCity's multiplayer first emerged, though from what I saw, it's been implemented very nicely. It's something I'll definitely be tinkering with, anyway. How do the rest of you feel about it? Do you think such "realism" is necessary in the SimCity experience? How do you feel about being forced to be always online for theidea of what realism is? How many of you are staunch single-player fans for whom the multiplayer component will add nothing?