(I have no idea if this was previously mentioned. Didn't see any other threads, so if a duplicate, feel free to ignore!)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-14-simcity-modded-so-it-can-be-played-offline-indefinitely

A fellow going by the name of AzzerUK went into the code in SimCity, managed to turn on the debug mode and figured out how to modify the highways and such outside of the city limits. As well, he was able to remove the disconnection timer and played for as long as he wants. He can't save the city while off the server, but it rather effectively shows that EA and Maxis were relatively full of crap when they stated that calculations for the city are online only.

Pretty amusing, really.

Yeah, the client forces a disconnect from the server after 20minutes of not beeing able to contact the server.
it is in the code and can be disabled.

the feature i would like is the drawing of regional highway.. would be nice to have more then one entry-point to your city

Yeah, that seems like it should be a rather fair request.

They're going to be lucky if this thing comes close to a million copies because of their launch and their methods. Naturally, EA will blame the fans.

What surprises me is that there are in fact highways allowing you to connect your cities. Seems that they disabled these on purpose to release it later as DLC. I'm quite disgusted at EA as of late. I used to defend EA as they would bring out some of the interesting IPs at the time, such as Mirrors Edge and Dead Space, but now they're killing everything they touch.

They do seem pretty intent on pissing their fans off as of late, aye. Companies need to learn that fans only take so much before they start losing them. Good example as of late is probably DmC. Technically good game, but not doing well because Capcom seemingly angered their fans a LOT.