Premades and Precepts

I’ve posted in the past about my fondness for using random generators while simming. For the moments that your own creativity doesn’t cut it, it’s always fun to defer to a random number and a list of elements; it’s all the better when the power of computing and other people’s work does the work for you!

OK, I’ll get to the point now. I’ve added several more random generators to my links, mainly for my own reference, but there’s probably somebody out there who will find them useful too. Hover over the links for a short description of what you can do with them, but note that not all of the links have descriptions. I’m lazy.

Here’s a plug for a mod I whipped up a couple of weeks ago while the weather was incredibly hot and I was bored. I uploaded it to CS3 yesterday, take a look: the Hot Coffee mod. I mean ‘hot coffee’ literally, of course.

Basically, it adds dozens more ‘elements’ to the random drink recipe generator for the coffee/beverage machine. My currently active Sim’s favorite drink is an Iced Filtered Macchiato with Passionfruit Swirl. Mmm.

If you see my previous post, I posted a too long to read rebuttal to my query about paysites (post before that). Jeff actually did respond to my concerns, which is kind of nice:

Ryan,
Well, first, my reply was more just me being a flip smart-ass than what you would call an official statement of policy. :) My point, I guess, was that if these guys were really doing something wrong or illegal, I guarantee you that EA would not be linking to them, and would probably be going after them. So, your questions are worth trying to get a more official response. I’m off for holiday break now, but after the new year, I’ll ask the Sims folks to help sort this out. –Jeff

Will we get satisfactory answers? Official licensing? Another forum sticky? Nothing? I think a “To Be Continued…” is appropriate here!

In other news, the Error 12/13 problem with my old save unexpectedly disappeared. (I posted on MATY about it; no, I don’t know what the hell I did to make it work again.) So now I’m on the verge of Generation 6 in my “don’t call it a Legacy”. It’s definitely the furthest I’ve ever played in a Sims game. What? I think it’s cool. Pics soon.

Also, Create-A-World. Man, I plan on having some fun with it, but my handmade efforts so far have sucked, and I tried to import a heightmap only to get crazy spikes everywhere. I have another modding project that I want to finish before starting a new custom town though.

I’m not in the sharpest of moods right now, due to it being the day after Friday, so apologies for rambling incoherence.

Anyway, I got a public response to my pointed letter on paysites! Yay for corporate sincerity.

Jeff Green writes:

Well, the fact that we link to many of these sites ourselves, as you say, gives you the answer to part of your question: These sites aren’t doing anything wrong. Part of why The Sims is so dang popular is this ability to create and trade objects with other gamers. There are a ton of sites that do this completely for free, too, offering thousands of items at no cost at all. So, really, you don’t have to "put up" with anything. You can ignore the pay sites and go to the free ones. Or, make your own stuff and sell it yourself.  Capitalism FTW! God Bless America!

I posted the following (long) comment to the post on ea.com. In case it fails moderation, I’m posting it below.

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I found out through Simprograms that Jeff Green, former member of Department Sims over at EA and current EA.com editor, has a Mailbag where you can send in questions. Questions on anything! I thought to myself, there’s no way I’m passing up such an opportunity to rant a little about Sims paysites. The world must know…

Anyway, here’s the contents of my short letter, preserved for online posterity.

(And in case it ever gets a response…but I’m not very optimistic.)

Dear Jeff,
I love The Sims 3, but we fans of The Sims have had to put up with paysites for years. These sites make a tidy profit from selling unlicensed user-made content and mods. As a lifelong PC gamer and modder, it disturbs me that The Sims is virtually the only modern PC franchise where paysites operate so openly and rampantly. I’m not seeing a Dragon Age or Battlefield 2 paysite taking off any time soon, either – it’s just The Sims where you’re ‘allowed’ to stick a price tag on your pixels and get away with it. My question is, why does EA turn a blind eye to Sims paysites? Selling modified game files breaks all sorts of IP laws and the game’s license agreement to boot, so it’s entirely within your rights to be cracking out the legal threats and busting these scumbags. Instead, I see paysites getting endorsed on the official forums and their representatives invited to fan events. What gives?
–Ryan D.

Additional remarks:

• If you search Google for “dragon age paysites” and “battlefield 2 paysites”, guess what? All roads lead to The Sims. That’s how idiosyncratic this problem is.
• If anything the second-to-last sentence is too hot for EA! However, it is factual. Here’s my evidence should I need to back the claims up:

TS3 forum sticky: Custom Content Sites – Share em’ with us! [sic]

• Save parsimonious.org, all the sites listed withhold a portion of their content from non-paying customers. I believe this advertisement is a pretty prominent endorsement of their continuing operation.
• The PMBD definition of paysites: “a paysite is any site that offers user-created content that you must pay for, whether through a donation or a subscription. If it is not freely available to all, it is a pay item.”

Another sticky: SIMPOSIUM Write-ups and Reviews from the attendees

• Both The Sims Resource and Holy Simoly are paysites whose agents attended this recent event. This was just the most recent one: paysites have attended past events, and if nothing changes, future Sims events too. It’s a bit like a cop inviting a gang lord on a skiing trip, isn’t it? (Don’t tell me, I suck at analogies).
• TSR is definitely the worse offender of the two, being an incorporated business and all. That’s just the tip of the murky iceberg that is The Sims Resource.

That’s all I’ve got today. Well, seeing Jeff Green’s name makes me want to go and watch some Curb Your Enthusiasm, so I think I will now. You know, I keep meaning to actually post some screenshots of my TS3 games or something up on this site. I’m sure I’ll eventually get around to it.

Just another stream-of-consciousness post so my blog doesn’t go another month dormant (which it probably will, since the end-of-year exam period is coming up for me). I haven’t actually been playing TS3 lately, though I have a mod in the works that I’ve been experimenting with. Again, the lack of an EA hood editor (coming up on five months) doesn’t give me much motivation to play with premade templates, apart from making and testing stuff out. I say an EA one because it seems all but certain the community will come up with a solution before The Man does.

Not long ago, the Left 4 Dead 2 “boycott” amicably wound up (I hate to admit it, it seems like an instance where online petitions do work.) Now outrage is brewing and gamers are cracking out the signatures with the news that the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will not support dedicated servers – the tried and true model of multiplayer FPS gaming. A brief but amusingly weary summary can be found here. Naturally, this sort of news would not be easy to accept for casual gaming communities, competitive clans, modders and their fans. The developer, Infinity Ward, already indirectly responded to this controversy, rebuking ‘the modders and the tuners’ who want to ‘bifurcate the community’ in favour of a solution that will satisfy the majority of their audience. But is it necessarily good to alienate your most ardent fans in this way? Sound familiar?

Now, neither of these are actually games I play. I rented Call of Duty 2 AGES ago if that counts for anything. It’s just interesting to see that video games will always arouse strong and passionate opinions, and there are circumstances where a game company simply has to make concessions for its own sake. Interesting sort of interaction.

Also interesting how apart from the SecuROM fiasco (for which The Sims was only one game affected) EA seems to be largely immune to its community opinion. Outside of their official forums, is there any meaningful interaction or contact to speak of? I believe this dynamic is no doubt driven by the ‘silent majority’ who help keep Sims games on the bestseller lists constantly. I wish they’d speak up more.

Old (like 2 months old), but a few choice quotes:

“We’ve planned our launch windows better this year.  As you know, we moved The Sims 3 into Q1 [2010] to give it the best chance of success.”

And:

“… the marketing metrics for a few of our titles are not as strong as we would like to see at this point.  In order to improve this trajectory, we’ve decided to allocate some additional marketing dollars to these titles to better position them.  We are making cost cuts in other parts of the business to fund these initiatives.”

(Must go. Need to wash marketing speak out of brain.)

Yeah, my site got defaced by some Italian guy (or something). As far as my previous hosting arrangements were concerned, it was the last straw. Seriously, 3IX sucks. They go down all the time and they aren’t such great value for money when you consider that. Also, for some reason, when I logged in today to check out my account (they were offline last night when I discovered I’d been hacked, COINCIDENTALLY) they were listing my password as the default and horrifically-insecure one you get assigned with when you sign up, not the one I changed it to ages ago. Dunno what’s up with that, but if there was an exploit anywhere it would be in my insecure account password.

Anyway, I’ve packed up and moved to greener pastures. I’m now on a faster and more local host (cheers, COVE *clink*), and I have a shiny new domain! I’ve also been rearranging and editing some of my past posts and pages. Regular ranting and whining will resume shortly.

EA now typically spends two or three times as much on marketing and advertising as it does on developing a game. That’s because advertising is critical to getting a game in the top ten rankings. If you have a $10 million game, don’t be surprised if the the TV advertising costs drive the ad budget to $30 million. If a $60 game yields revenue of $35 for EA, then (according to my math) the company has to sell 1.1 million copies just to break even.

I’d sure like to know how much it cost to develop The Sims 3, and exactly how much of that budget was spent on flashy billboards and product placements.

(Source)

As I kind of just declared on this blog a few days ago, expansion packs suck. Let’s look back at TS2 for a moment: But which one, in retrospect, was the worst? In the spirit of negative awards, I present the AFAs – the Aspiration Failure Awards for The Sims 2.

If you agree or disagree with me, feel free to comment.

DISCLAIMER: These are just my personal opinions. As I’m a storytelling player more than a gamer or modder, that’s the perspective from which I’ll approach my choices. Also, I completely ignored the mods that fixed many of the problems I mention. EA/Maxis didn’t provide those; the community did.

On with the awards…

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