The Sims 2 is gold. ::does happy dance::

Cafe Society
41

The inside scoop, as far as I’ve been able to glean, goes like this: When EA bought Maxis, it was because of the SimCity franchise. The Sims was still in early alpha, it was called The Dollhouse, and at that point it didn’t have all the goofy relationship stuff everyone loves. I’m not even sure it had characters at all, the original idea was for an architectural game (or “electronic toy” as Will Wright likes to call his products, since they don’t really have specific goals). Wright said he wanted total freedom to develop The Dollhouse and a promise to get it published, and EA agreed because they really wanted their hands on SimCity. But, now that EA knows which cow has more milk, they’re squeezing the hell out of The Sims franchise.

I hope they design the sequel to be expandable from the start. The original suffered from some utterly ridiculous problems if you did something as seemingly innocuous as install the expansions out of publication order. Some things that regularly happened were: messed up registry keys, messed up InstallShield data, messed up game data, messed up saved game files. Often it would be easier to “nuke” everything and do a clean install than to try and salvage anything usable. It got to the point where the customer support database had entries of “UDR” for “Uninstall Delete Reinstall” in the description field.

The other major problem was that the basic data files (couches, wallpaper, skins, etc.) weren’t well separated from the saved game files. So if the customer used third party skins or certain cheat codes it had a chance to permanently corrupt a lot, or even an entire neighborhood. Literally the ONLY 100% reliable way to correct the problem was a UDR. Often I could instruct the customer to copy and rename specific files and that would be successful, but not always. In a sensible game, you could just delete the saved game and start a new one, but The Sims doesn’t have that option. The Bulldoze tool removes the family and building elements from a lot, but it doesn’t reset all the files like you would expect. There is no equivalent function to level the entire neighborhood, either.

42

There was something undeniably creepy about doing up a house full of you and your friends as Sims and then they turn out to make, er, different choices than you would. I had no problems with my other houses of completely made up Sims ending up in gay relationships, but it was a bit hard to explain to my friends -

“Look, James, that’s you!”
“Uh… why is my room done up in leopard print?”
“You’ll have to ask Jesse about that.”
“WHAT?!”

Or “Oh, how cute, look at me… wait, why did I just pee on the floor?”

Alarmingly meta.

43

They definitely have designed it with EP’s in mind. They know where their money comes from. Now, whether or not it’ll actually work as planned remains to be seen, but at least they’re much more aware of the issues than they were with the original.

And again, they’re completely aware of all the skins, expansions, etc. that have exploded from the original game, so they’ve put a lot of effort into customizability in the sequel. Most of it’s been an attempt to incorporate the editing/modding stuff in-game instead of through hacks and having people modify data files directly, so it remains to be seen whether that’ll make people happy, or whether they’ll get right back down to hacking into the data files.

As for bulldozing lots, save game files, etc., I suspect that they’ve solved most of the problems. You still work with families that you move in between lots, but the lots aren’t pre-generated save game files. If anything, it works more like SimCity 4, in that you choose where to place lots on a large neighborhood map. Each neighborhood is like a SimCity 4 region, and each lot is like a SimCity 4 city. Of course, a lot of old-schoolers hated the whole regional save game stuff from SC4, so there are going to be people complaining about whatever solution you come up with.

One of my friends was telling me he had to uninstall the game because it was causing too many fights at home. He’d started up the game by modeling his own family, and would then notice that his wife was annoyed or angry with him for seemingly no reason. When he’d ask about it, she’d finally tell him that she was pissed at something his sim had done to her sim in the game.

My “alarmingly meta” points always came after I’d been playing the game for a few hours. I’d have all my Sims making good use of their time, making sure that everything was going well, and I could still tell that something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was though – money was coming in, their relationships were okay, all their motives were fine, but something wasn’t right.

Eventually it would hit me: it’s not them, it’s me. I need to go to the bathroom!

44

I love the SIMS and can’t wait for SIMS 2 to come out.

I’m a very strange player though - I can’t just build crazy houses with weird wallpaper and ugly furniture. My houses have to be very colour-coordinated, and my families are all very ‘normal’.

I can’t seem to force myself to make an ugly house with weird furniture. And I REALLY can’t make Sims that aren’t nice, and active, and tidy, etc etc.

I’m weird … :frowning:

Or maybe just anal.

:slight_smile:

45

At least I am not alone in my torture! My sister keeps gleefully reminding me of its release date, but I am dreading it. I have work and college to go to - how can I be expected to do that when my Sims need me??

I am also like Stainz. I don’t care if that fuschia couch is the most comfortable, it doesn’t go with the room!

46

Yes, but do you do a little dance and then piddle on the floor because you were too busy picking a bag of chips off the floor?

47

My problem is that I have the architectural skills of a computer programmer (which I am). My houses are so damn logical that they’re hideously ugly. Square or rectangular buildings (because I want to maximize space) with no more doors than is necessary to separate a bedroom and a bathroom. Those gorgeous houses that the best designers make, I have trouble maintaining. Eventually I end up bulldozing a wall and expanding it, because “there’s still room there.” My creativity obviously doesn’t expand beyond my writing ability.

48

Those are fine as long as the interior rooms have lots of angles. Sims love angles.

I’m looking forward to being able to actually use diagonal walls! I’ll fiinally be able to use one of my more ambitious designs: an octagonal great room surrounded by smaller octagons and squares.

49

Okay, another Sims confession.

Am I the only one who likes building the houses and picking the families, but then doesn’t have the patience to actually get them jobs and build relationships?

I get all gung ho at the beginning, but then my attention wanders, and I just bulldoze the house and build another one. That part seems to be the most fun.

EXCEPT, my houses are all very much the same. Entranceway, with a living room on one side, a bedroom on the other, walk down the hallway to the bathroom on one side, and the kitchen on the other. BOOOORRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG.

I’m such a dud. But I LOVE the game. :rolleyes:

50

I don’t mind the jobs but I haven’t had the patience for building friendships. Advancing up the career ladder often requires a new family friend or two.

51

Hot Date was great for this. I’d have a couple, one working, one not. While the one was sleeping before work, I’d have the other invite someone downtown. Forced conversation over dinner, all kinds of interactions that the invitee doesn’t really have any choice in, and you’ve got an almost guaranteed friendship by the end of the outing. Of course, my outings tend to take about a day and a half, and my Sim is invariably in a really bad mood by the time s/he gets home, but at least I got that stupid friend count up.

52

Here’s a better way to do it that doesn’t require any expansions:

Make a Friend family with 8 people. Build them the cheapest shack possible, and make sure they have a phone. Hell, you could just buy a section of counter top and put it in the middle of a vacant lot and put a phone on top. If you aren’t going to play the Friends directly, they don’t need luxuries like walls and plumbing.

From your main family, invite all the Friends over for a house party (House Party expansion optional). Now you can socialize in the comfort of your own home, spend less money, and even work on skills by playing chess or cooking or whatever.

53

I wouldn’t say that this is a better way, only because it’s very hard to make a friend in your home in a short amount of time, because they just leave whenever they get tired. Hot Date makes it possible for you to force people to stick around as long as your active Sim can handle it, as well as making it easier for you to get actual meaningful interactions. At home, if a person really isn’t compatible with your Sim, they’ll stop the conversation after a brief word or two. During a Gourmando dinner in Hot Date, they’ll talk all through the meal, and the game seems to skew towards positive results rather than negative ones. That, and a rather convenient side effect is, even if your working Sim is technically at home sleeping, a lot of the time, they’ll show up downtown when the Friendmaking sim is downtown with someone, and make friends of their own, and those relationships are saved when you leave the downtown area.

Another strategy I like is to have Sims flirt right up to the point where there is a mild romantic relationship - those seem to decay a lot slower than regular friendships do.

54

Actually, that was in House Party.

I’ve also found some adult items out there-a vibrator, more graphic love beds, etc.

I found some today, and I’m going to test them out later, to see how they work.

AND you can get some nude skins and the like.

A few other tips-if you have Sims Wardrobe, you can use the Hot Date buyable skins, even if you don’t have Hot Date. (Which is next on my list)

Cheat objects-there are downloads out there for maxing all of your bars (GREAT for when your Sims have babies, or when they wake up, and are hungry AND bored, AND dirty AND have to pee.)
There are downloads that make all of your sims friends in the neighborhood.

I have an electricuting shower. THAT is loads of fun, let me tell you.
My Sims are all pretty much unemployed millionaires. They live in big fancy houses and wear formal type clothing all the time. EXTREMELY unpractical, but fun.

And I usually have one Sim be the neighborhood pariah. He calls people up at 3 am, his house is a pig stye, etc. It’s great!
I’m also attempting to make some skins. We’ll see how that goes.

55

The only time I really got in to the Sims was back in highschool boarding school. There were 4 or 5 of us that would play on the one computer and most of our time was spent wife swapping – the first thing anyone would do as soon as they started a game was seduce and marry everyone elses’s wives :).

56

D’oh!

If you want to make skins that will work for sure, get Deluxe and use the Creator tool. It’s a bit clunky, but you don’t have to worry about file nomenclature and palette matching and all that stuff. But if you want to get more adventurous, you’ll want to try your hand with a 3D modeling package and make your own meshes. The coolest stuff I’ve seen was some Gundam characters, complete with shields and wings, and an X-Wing on blocks for redneck Jedis to put on the lawn. I don’t have any specific advice on that though.

57

I tried-unfortunately, I guess I have too many skins, because Creator just crashes.

58

I bought the DVD special edition, and wouldn’t you know, my dvd drive broke. Damn.

I ordered a new one, a recorder, for $69 including shipping and 5 blanks. I need my Sims!

59

Bear with me … I’m very dumb today (blame it on the allergy medicine) … does the “Special DVD edition” include the game software AND a DVD?

My PC doesn’t have a DVD player, when McDeath built it for me, I couldn’t see why I would need one, so I told him not to bother.

But of course we have a DVD player hooked up to our TV.

So would I be better off getting the DVD special edition, or just the regular Sims2 for PC through pre-order?

The DVD is intriguing but I don’t want to get the wrong thing.

Help a dumb Sims fan?

S.

60

I’ve got the allergy medicine kicking in here too, so don’t feel alone. :wink:

The DVD version is the game software in DVD format. That way it’s just one disc instead of what I imagine will be several CDs for the standard version. The special edition also comes with another disk with tips and tricks or something (Gamespot has an interview with the producer on their site today).

Anyway - since you don’t have a DVD drive on your computer, you’ll need to stick with the standard edition.