I have a policy of increasing the number of posts on the Internet reflecting good customer service, so here's a positive note:

When returning our rental car at 3:00 AM after our vacation in Washington earlier this summer, there was no apparent request for dropping off any documentation or place to do so. Just a number of lanes to leave the car in.

A week later I got a bill for $61 with no explanation of what it was for. I went to their web site and, with some difficulty, sent them a message.

It took five weeks but they did eventually get back to me. The charge was for fuel, despite the car being returned with a full tank. Looks like their after-hours return process assumes that you'll be filling out and dropping off a form. When someone did close out the rental, they didn't acknowledge that the tank was full. The good news was that they did refund the incorrect charge. For some reason it took another week for the refund to actually process, but their email predicted that, so that was OK.

It wasn't the smoothest rental I've ever done, but it did get resolved correctly. I won't be avoiding Hertz in the future.

So word eventually reached me, as it was bound to, that Maxis saw the light and is working on a real successor to SimCity 4. This may be called SimCity 5 or they may try the modern marketing theory of just calling it "SimCity", because confusing and frustrating your customers is the hot new thing this year. It looks interesting: everything is individually simulated and moves on-screen. This might address the lingering issues from SC4 relating to incorrect scale.

I started planning my next computer purchase, because I buy games so infrequently that I have to buy a whole new computer every time. (As a bonus a new gaming computer would let me get beyond merely installing The Sims 3.) It's supposed to come out in February, leading to contemplation of whether I should take a week off at the beginning of March or plan it for later, in case the schedule slips.

Then I read that along with everything else, they turned it into a multi-player online game that has no standalone mode, and I lost interest.

More recently I've been rethinking that. My problem with it being online only is that I have to get whatever value I want out of it in the 12 months or so after release, after which the servers will surely be shut down. I would be more on-board with the concept if they priced it as a service, like an MMORPG, so that the servers would have ongoing revenue to support them. Everquest is still running, right? But pick a random EA game with an online component and unless it's no more than two years old, often closer to one, the servers are gone.

Then I started to ask myself why $60 for a year or two is worse than $10/mo. ongoing. It sounds like less. But that requires that I do all the playing I want — forever — in 2013-14. My usual mode for a game like this is to be deeply into it for a week or two, accomplish whatever it is that interests me, then ignore it for six months, then come back to it. Look at what I still play: Civ3 and SC4, both of which run great on a computer from 2005 with some new RAM and GPU.

So I don't know now. Might leave it until release and read the reviews. Maybe they'll listen to all the feedback and hack in a standalone mode? There's time, and I'm not asking for the full regional play experience if I'm not online, but so far they think it's a core feature and do not understand the objection. Multiplayer is an exciting new direction for SimCity that I would look forward to trying out, just as long as it isn't the only thing there is.

In other news:

• Twitter has pretty much pulled off the mask and begun laughing maniacally while thunder and lightning roll in the background .... I need to go ahead with my plans for this site to properly replace it. But not for at least a month. I'm way too busy with my new job.
• Oh, should write about that too, maybe.
• Breaking news: Chicago blogger hookup in progress ...