By now I assume you're all well and truly familiar with the shortcomings of Electronic Art's latest SimCity and their various attempts to fix them. Now EA is investigating the demand for an offline mode for SimCity amongst other possible new features.

The publisher sent a survey to various SimCity players that listed a variety of new features that could be potentially added to the game in the future. The survey was uncovered by a user on Reddit, see above. One such new feature being proposed was a new mode called 'Classic Mode' which would allow gamers to, "In offline or online mode, play a single functioning city using cheats and unlocks allowing you to create the perfect city".

This implies that an offline mode is actually being considered by Maxis. This follows contradictory statements from earlier this year from the company's general manager Lucy Bradshaw, who said that offline mode would not be possible "without a significant amount of engineering work by our team" and that offline mode did not fit with the vision the team had for the game. But more recently a Senior EA Representative was quoted as saying, "We take player feedback very seriously and it is clear to us that the online only requirement [currently present] is detrimental to our interconnected, social gaming experience."

Other than the implication of an offline mode, there was a whole host of other suggested features such as:

Guilds, shared online events and a possible co-op mode

Bus, Street Car and Monorail Lines as well as a subway system

A bridge and underpass creator tool

Road and city name personalisation

Bigger cities

Terraforming

Military complex & crime syndicate management

Cultural additions like new museums

In addition to all of this there could be the inclusion of a recreated London as well:

"Create a portion of London with Big Ben in your city, where you'll always know when it's time for tea. Includes Double Decker Bus Terminal that cuts down on traffic with their larger passenger capacities."

SimCity may become slightly less of a disaster very soon. But what do you think? Could EA pull this one out of the bag after all? Let us know in the comments.