Now that I’m back at uni and have a whole lot of extracurriculars on my plate, my attention has drifted from Sims stuff. I did just install High-End Loft Stuff a few days ago and played for around … ten minutes. I’ll get back into it some time, I suppose; I have a couple of interesting mod concepts that are half-done, and one huge one that’s about 1/5 completed, although the upcoming Ambitions EP may throw it for a spin. (more…)
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.
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.
Trawling through the TS3 scripts, one finds a lot of interesting code, no doubt implemented in anticipation of cashy expansion packs.
For instance, pets are all but confirmed.
The fact that ages are defined for the same animals as in TS2 seems to reduce the chances of a Farm EP. I mean, farm animals age too.
Also, Piano?
Did they cut pianos from the game? You know, I’m 99% sure one of the Store hairs was shown in a preview video somewhere as part of CAS. As if you needed more evidence that EA is out for the money.
I’m not really a ‘news blogging’ person but Rod Humble (Head of Sims and EA Play, and the guy who wrote the no-DRM open letter) mentioned a few interesting things in this forum thread. I’m just picking out the interesting stuff that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
That seems to confirm post-release tools (neighborhood editor FIRST please!) and technical support for modders.
Also, Rod Humble thinks Sims players are perverts. Aren’t we all? :)
As we approach the release of TS3 I’d like to give a shout out to all the sensationalist media outlets and moral crusaders. Your misinformed insights and biased reports bring joy to all gamers. I know that the game isn’t out yet, but if most ‘angry’ critics don’t bother to play the games they’re complaining about, why should I?
Here’s ten fresh controversies for the nutters with microphones. (Keep in mind some of my suggestions are actually saner than others. I needed ten things, OK?)
This post is very emo and whiny about pirates getting stuff before honest folk, and the second half is really me railing against oppressive broadband quotas.
Regard this as your forewarning.
Well, it was 99% certain to happen early, but the Sims 3 (weighing in @ 4.94 GB) has leaked.
Edit I: SecuROM is BACK. Run.
Edit II: Whispers that it may be an early leak of the Download Edition (already confirmed to contain SecuROM). Jury is out on whether the disc version will have the Blight. Alternately, may be preview code, due to missing content. Smart to wait until retail version is up. Smarter to buy the freakin’ thing.
I’m angry at this. Two reasons.
SimSocial, the so-called “free trial” of TS3 went live this weekend. I currently have horrendously slow internet but I did play it for about half an hour, and found the most interesting aspect of it the careers. We now have some information on career tracks that will probably make it into the final game! There’s probably a list elsewhere on the net, but here’s the one I’ve been compiling. As you may tell from the snarky comments, I’m not a big fan of them.
Huge missed opportunity here. Here’s my list of suggested traits,
political correctness be damned. Almost all of them were derived from
the ‘opposite’ of the vanilla traits.
With TS3′s story progression and simultaneous aging would it be harder to create an integrated economy. That is, one where taxes and fees go out, and money is used in a meaningful way. Even with appropriate mods and hacks, every other family is left ‘chaotic’, freely squandering their family funds without any player control over where the money goes. Even if there was some kind of automatic deduction hack, it still might be limited by an inability to pay at the right time. Further yet, families will autonomously move house, presumable with more money from nowhere…will the madness stop?
While it’s a blessing for those of us who hate micro-managing everybody, it doesn’t help players who want to keep records, levy fines and stop money coming from nowhere. If you want the degree of control back, you have to return to the TS2 static model. Well, it’s not clear how aging and story progression will be tied together, but I presume you’d need both on, otherwise you’d end up with families full of kids (no aging) or Sims growing old and dying alone without your input (no SP).
I imagine there will need to be some creative hacking of the game, plus the capabilities to allow it, before there could be a truly integrated ‘autonomous economy’ in TS3. Otherwise, players who wish to ‘integrate’ will need to return to meticulous micromanagement of each Sim. Bit of a bummer really. I really hate the giant promotion bonuses and 20K handouts.