Major Maxis Slipup

[jfade]

Exactly. And you can thank all the people who paid $15 for the Christmas pack for the fact that they are now coming out with another pack for $20. If this one sells, I suppose the Glamor pack will cost $25. 

Well, all I have to say is that the Holiday pack was a rip off as well, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. And I agree, it wouldn't be surprising in the least to see the glamour pack priced that much, and I'll bet that a good chunk of people would blatently ignore that fact and shell out the money for it anyhow.

You know, I've been reading a back and forth battle between analysts claiming that the video game industry is on the decline, but they obviously aren't taking the Sims players into these facts, it seems like a large percent of them will buy anything with a Sims logo on it..

[J. M. Pescado]

You know, I've been reading a back and forth battle between analysts claiming that the video game industry is on the decline, but they obviously aren't taking the Sims players into these facts, it seems like a large percent of them will buy anything with a Sims logo on it..

And this isn't an obvious sign that the people who claim it is in decline is right?

[jfade]

And this isn't an obvious sign that the people who claim it is in decline is right?

Decline quality wise? Definately. Decline money wise? Moot. People are still spending money on stupid crap like this, so I doubt that the game companies are truly hurting for money. At least not in this community. If they're trying to pull this with other games, it's no surprise to me if they are losing money there.

[Wolfee]

You know, I've been reading a back and forth battle between analysts claiming that the video game industry is on the decline, but they obviously aren't taking the Sims players into these facts, it seems like a large percent of them will buy anything with a Sims logo on it..

And this isn't an obvious sign that the people who claim it is in decline is right?

Great comeback J.M  . Although I'm sure the BBS sheep will disagree

ETA:jfade : I think J.M is referring to the mentality of the gaming community i.e. the BBS sheep 

[Motoki]

Heh, I saw this little news blurb the other day in reference to a new Will Wright game being produced called Spore (you basically start with a spore and evolve it through various levels of life forms)

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30322

By Nick Farrell: Wednesday 15 March 2006, 15:29

EA GAMES has told Business Week that it is changing the way it makes and peddles its games.
The video games giant has made a fortune by basing its products on something popular, marketing it to death and then pushing out a new version every year.

These days it is not working particularly well and the bottom line is suffering. So the outfit has turned to Will Wright, the creator of SimCity and The Sims, to release a god game called Spore to pull it out of the dole-drums.

[Renatus]

Oh, that's just wonderful. Yes, it does explain nicely why OFB is only one disc, doesn't it? I don't think I'll buy it after all, even if it is knocked down to 5 euros after a while. I may have to... ahem... acquire it somewhere else.

Now where's my rum and eyepatch?

[nectere]

I saw those two potted bushes somewhere posted...MTS2 or TSR I think I will have to dig around but I know I just saw them as Lost and Found extracted items just the other day.

Those stepping stones look just like one of 4esf's latest donation item packs

yup at MTS2 here they are, Numenor also extracted another booth type as well. If they are there I am confident that Numenor will post others, he is good at bringing us stuff that Maxis left behind - apparently for people to find. I guess its like easter eggs?

[Jysudo]

It is the official position of More Awesome Than You to discourage the purchase of this pack.

I totally obey this  but like Bluesoup, we have computers that will update on their own.

I think its evil that they put those stuff in OFB only to take them out and sell it to us for $20 ! Because of that, I do think its justified that we get them at no cost since we are SUPPOSED to get them in the first place   


Now now, if only we could knock some sense into the empty heads of the TSR and BBS sheep....because of them, we are probably gonig to see brisk sales of the fun packs. Speaknig of which, anywhere online to check sales of the holiday pack (Which I am ashamed to admit I have a original copy of).

[veilchen]

Numenor also extracor another booth type as well. If they are there I am confident that Numenor will post others, he is good at bringing us stuff that Maxis left behind - apparently for people to find. I guess its like easter eggs?

That's definitely true Nectere. I have many items that Numenor dug up. I will not buy that add on either, as far as I'm concerned, they can stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. Greedy sob's.

[skandelouslala]

I refuse to buy the add on packs as well.

It's a stupid waste of money.  I would rather donate $20 to the modders and creators in the community who really make this game what is is. 

I like OFB, but I'm still sourta mad I paid $35 for it and then Maxis wants to go and charge people $20 more for a set of objects they took out of OFB...right.
I wonder if this is the new trend..each EP becomes less and less when it comes to objects and is followed up by loads of add on packs to get what you should have been paying for in the first place..... 
I wish people would not buy these things so they might get the freaking hint, but alas....to many people out there that will buy anything with the Sims 2 logo on it.

[kasumiarmstrong]

Exactly. And you can thank all the people who paid $15 for the Christmas pack for the fact that they are now coming out with another pack for $20. If this one sells, I suppose the Glamor pack will cost $25. 

Well, all I have to say is that the Holiday pack was a rip off as well, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. And I agree, it wouldn't be surprising in the least to see the glamour pack priced that much, and I'll bet that a good chunk of people would blatently ignore that fact and shell out the money for it anyhow.

You know, I've been reading a back and forth battle between analysts claiming that the video game industry is on the decline, but they obviously aren't taking the Sims players into these facts, it seems like a large percent of them will buy anything with a Sims logo on it..

This reminds me of the retarded survey they had when you registered the game.  "Would you buy a figurine of your sim?"  Would you buy clothes of your sim that you can make?"  "Would buy objects that you like in your sims game?"  Hell no! 

[Kristalrose]

Okay, here's my theory.  Maxis meant to include the Family Fun items in OFB.  But, they realized that this would make it more than one disk, and they were trying to keep production costs down.  Sooooo, they took off the nautical themed stuff and some other extra tid-bits, gave it a name, and packaged it to try to squeeze out another $20 from us.  I'm still choking.  $20!!!!  And it's not even pretty stuff!!!

[Pegasys]

Okay, here's my theory.  Maxis meant to include the Family Fun items in OFB.  But, they realized that this would make it more than one disk, and they were trying to keep production costs down.  Sooooo, they took off the nautical themed stuff and some other extra tid-bits, gave it a name, and packaged it to try to squeeze out another $20 from us.  I'm still choking.  $20!!!!  And it's not even pretty stuff!!!

Yes I agree, $20 is too much. At first I was thinking, hey maybe, these items look okay. I went to SnootySims and looked at the pictures and thought some of it was cute (love the mermaid costume). However then I realized there were only 60 items (I was thinking it was maybe 125 items). I counted the items pictured at SnootySims and there were 54 shown. So practically the entire pack is on display. It's not really worth it unless the price drops by at least half. I could get a subscription to TSR and go on a downloading spree for one month for far less.

And then, if you think about it, would you pay $55 for the OFB expansion pack even if it had the Family Fun items? Because that's how it adds up. I think not, $55 is more than the price of the Sims 2 game. $55 is a very expensive game, even for the PC. I tend to give Maxis more the benefit of the doubt than other people on this board, but here I do have to agree it's out of line.

[Motoki]

I could kind of see these items having been in OFB since there's already a lot of kid oriented stuff in it. Although these objects do look a little more detailed than your average Maxis stuff. But that just makes me wonder about the poly counts on these things. Maxis isn't always the best about following their own guidelines in terms of poly counts. 

[sara_dippity]

Well, all I have to say is that the Holiday pack was a rip off as well, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. And I agree, it wouldn't be surprising in the least to see the glamour pack priced that much, and I'll bet that a good chunk of people would blatently ignore that fact and shell out the money for it anyhow.

Actually I'm glad I bought the Holiday pack. I think the dancing new year toddler is at least worth five bucks, santa and the dancing snowman radio worth another five, and the cheesy holiday clothes for your sims worth another five, then all the other stuff worth five. But I like to take breaks from one style of gameplay to another, and the pack renewed my interest in throwing parties again.

It's a stupid waste of money.  I would rather donate $20 to the modders and creators in the community who really make this game what is is. 

I think this point of view is funny. You enjoy the game enough to even visit forums about it, and you would willingly give money to people who make hacks, objects, and outfits, but you think it's a waste of money to make the company profitable enough for EA to keep producing it. It takes a couple of weeks to throw together a spectacular set of custom things from someone working in their spare time, and it takes months to create a product by people dedicating more than eight hours a day on it (remember the letter from the wife of someone complaining about how she never saw her gameprogramming husband?) but the custom creators deserve money, not the people who actually made the game that we all enjoy so much.
Ironic.
I also think it's funny that people complain heavily about the bugs in the game, but few people would dare complain about poorly made custom objects out of fear of offending someone. I've seen a bunch of crap released by the modding community, but it's all praise, praise, praise for them. Sure, some people in the modding community are stunningly fantastic, but the percentage is small and the ammount of time it takes to weed out the stuff you found online that looked great when you downloaded it, then like crap when it was in your game, is never complained about. Some people don't even weed it out, they just play with it and never get bothered by the lack of depth to the color, or the fact that their hacks seriously conflict with other hacks (kitten killers), or the akward meshes, they just play and praise and say the modders are so much more deserving than the professionals.
I will buy the object pack. It will fit my style of gameplay. It will make my family days much more entertaining. I think it is worth $20. I also think the occasional donation to a great modder or skinner or object maker is worth it too. Both sorces of content are of equal value to me, and I treat them with the same respect. I occasionally complain about Maxis, I occasionally get frustrated by custom content, I hate EA but see them a nessesary evil, and I continue to shell out money because I enjoy the fun the content provides.

[Motoki]

Oh if I think custom content is bad trust me I'll say it. When I was posting about poly counts I got accused of making a 'Schindler's List' and I thought I was actually going out of my way to be nice by only listing those with low poly objects instead of the other way around. 

There is a lot of crap in the community, no doubt about that. Some sites even encourage it. The Exchange by letting any 10 year old upload, TSR with their incentive program gets you free days when people download your stuff so many people make total crap because some fools will download it just so they can get free days.

I'm come across a lot of poorly done and/or buggy stuff in the community. On the whole, Maxis' stuff tends to be better made, but they definitely have their bugs too and their clothing and hair textures I just find very dull and lacking of any detail. On the other hand, there are a few people in the community who really seem to put a lot of care into their creations and so over time I've come to look out for certain names that I know generally make high quality stuff.

I think the big issue for me here is value for the money and also feeling like a guinea pig. I think a full game for arounf $50 is an okay value and an expansion for around $30 is not as good as a value (60% of the cost for less than 60% of the content) but it offers enough new stuff that I don't mind so much.

With these packs $20 is 40% the cost of a whole game and about 60% of the cost of an expansion. But you're only getting around 60 new items, not really much in the way of new interactions or animations or things the community has had a hard time doing well, mainly just clothes and furniture. I'll grant you, it does look a little nicer than the average Maxis stuff, but still I feel like $20 is too much.

It also irks me that they went testing the waters charging $15 for the Christmas pack and when they saw people would pay it started charging $20 for the next one. It's like they are test marketing it on us and seeing how much they can get away with charging us. I know that's a free market in action but I think there's something to be said for customer loyalty and making customers happy too. Hell, even in OFB if you manipulate a customer into buying something, they'll buy it, but you'll lose loyalty. :p

I guess though the bottom line is as long as people are willing to pay for it they will keep making them and charging as much as they can get away with and if we don't like it, it's up to us as the consumers to vote with our money by not buying the packs.

Still, compared to making a game or expansion these packs cost them very little in terms of time and money to make and they don't even have to create a separate team to work on them, they can just squeeze them out of the team working on the expansions which is what they obviously did here since the remnants of the thumbnails were left in OFB.

[Morganthe]

It takes a couple of weeks to throw together a spectacular set of custom things from someone working in their spare time, and it takes months to create a product by people dedicating more than eight hours a day on it (remember the letter from the wife of someone complaining about how she never saw her gameprogramming husband?) but the custom creators deserve money, not the people who actually made the game that we all enjoy so much.
Ironic.

What I find ironic is that its seen as okay for a full team of expert programmers to make 60 objects in a few months, when a bunch of hackers in their spare time can throw the sixty together  in half that.  There were fixes for bugs in all three expansions in just days, here and other places, yet Maxis took until after Nightlife was released to fix University.  And people were okay with that.

I'm all for a free market economy, but they only work if consumers are rational.  Anyone who's ever even peaked into the BBS can tell that at least the consumers THERE aren't generally rational, which makes the whole market fall apart.  60 items and no interactions isn't worth *MY* $20, though I'm not against snagging it from someone else, or having my sisters buy it for me.  The items are great yes, but J.M. makes better patches, and Numenor makes better items...and neither are trying to take $20 for it.

Hopefully this prices enough people out of the market that they won't do this for the next expansion.  i doubt it though....

[Jysudo]

I think people don't want to complain about crap cc because they know that they are free.

One is as a general rule you don't complain about free stuff and secondly, you know the person spend a lot of time doing it even if its crap so you don't want to throw cold water over them so to speak.

I am of the opinion that we should not  cricitize crap cc when its free. This is because some creators improve over time.. If you pile them with crictism, they might get so discouraged that they never make good stuff again. In that case, we lose a creator who might create better and better stuff over time.

Look at Sim Chic. They sucks at the begining but now they make my $5 worth every cent I paid for.

Maxis on the other hand is different. So are paysites. They are companies. If I pay for it, I'll jolly well complain all I want about it if its crap. In fact, for $20, I would demand low polys and even flawless textures and every other thing Motoki mention above...

But with Maxis...I think I am better off downloading from Mango Sims or throw my money to TSR for FA's stuff.

[Renatus]

Meh, Jysudo. How do you think creators who offer their stuff for free improve if they are never critiqued? Oh, they can, albiet slowly and possibly never noticing some errors, but critique is the key to a steady pace of improvement. Ask any artist, writer, or craftsperson.

[BlueSoup]

I think it's probably in how it's worded to the creator.  If he/she never gets any constructive criticism, only negative, "THIS IS CRAP, STOP CREATING FUGLY STUFF!", then they might quit.

[flowerchile]

At this point in time I will NOT even consider buying anything Maxis.  In the last three days I have uninstalled and reinstalled my game 3 times.  Why?;   You may ask...wel, I had no problems to start with and all of a sudden my game is crashing, pretty well every session, then I get messages saying that I'm low on virtual memory and so on.  So I wiped EVERYTHING, that had to do with the Sims2 and thought I would be okay from now on.  NUP..Played for about two hours today, first time since reinstalling, had a home business and the same shit is popping up again.  So no more EP's for me till I find out WTF is going on as it is..

[Renatus]

I think it's probably in how it's worded to the creator.  If he/she never gets any constructive criticism, only negative, "THIS IS CRAP, STOP CREATING FUGLY STUFF!", then they might quit.

They might, and while that would be unfortunate they need to grow a thicker skin if rude comments from anonymous persons are going to put them off of creating entirely. If all a creator gets is unhelpful, rude comments they should consider posting their creations in different places and they should also look at how they are reacting to the comments. It's fine to be upset by things people say but throwing a public fit about it will, unfortunately, invite more of the same. It is also important for a creator to not confuse a harsh critique with a personal attack, which many people do if the critique isn't put forth in a very apologetic, kid-glove sort of way. Problem is, apologetic, kid-glove sorts of critiques are rarely very helpful.

I know that all sounds harsh but after eight and a half years of being on various online art communities all I can say is that is the way it works, and every artist, writer, or whatever finds that they have to come to terms with it if they want to be in the public eye at all. If they can't, they need to reexamine why they are creating and just what they want to get out of showing it to other people.

[Tyyppi]

At this point in time I will NOT even consider buying anything Maxis.  In the last three days I have uninstalled and reinstalled my game 3 times.  Why?;   You may ask...wel, I had no problems to start with and all of a sudden my game is crashing, pretty well every session, then I get messages saying that I'm low on virtual memory and so on.  So I wiped EVERYTHING, that had to do with the Sims2 and thought I would be okay from now on.  NUP..Played for about two hours today, first time since reinstalling, had a home business and the same shit is popping up again.  So no more EP's for me till I find out WTF is going on as it is..

If it complains that you don't have enough virtual memory then... then you need more virtual memory.

Start > Settings > Control panel > System
Advanced > Performance > Settings
Advanced > Virtual memory > Change

You should be able to change the amount of VM for your OS to use, just add few gigs and it should work.

[Motoki]

They might, and while that would be unfortunate they need to grow a thicker skin if rude comments from anonymous persons are going to put them off of creating entirely.

You're absolutely right, but speaking as someone who has been on the end of the rude comments, it's hard sometimes. I'm an emotional person by nature and feel like I put a lot of myself into my work. Okay well maybe not my TS2 stuff since I have done that much and some of it's silliness like putting a 'fro on a nanny and such, but in the Morrowind community I really took it seriously and spent a lot of time and effort on it. It was also my first real delve into the world of modding. I would do things because people wanted it even though I didn't feel like doing it and I put pressure on myself feeling like everyone's waiting on me to get this mod done etc. Now if I don't feel like doing something, I don't.

I think different personality types handle things different. The coders in general seem to be able to shake things off more than the artist types do. I also think it depends on what kind of comments you get and the source. Comments like 'OMG tH1s 1S dA sUxX0r!!!!!oneoneone' I can easily ignore. But on one Morrowind face replacers mod my friends and I did we got called racist and that really bothered me. We used pictures of real average people as the basis. I actually did think some were attractive, just not in a standard supermodel sort of way. And the caucasoid races we did had some average and unattractive types too (again based on real people). Our point was to have real looking faces not supermodel ones because these were going on all the npcs walking around to towns and we didn't want them all to look like supermodels. All I can say is those people who thought we were racist would have a fit if they saw what Maxis tries to pass off for African features.

Now one big pet peeve of mine in this community is how so many people freak out about uploading their stuff to the Exchange and get all worked up about. I've even seen several throw a fit and completely remove their work because of it, which doesn't punish the person who uploaded it because they already have it, it punishes everyone else and is a completely immature obnoxious thing to do. People need to understand that if you upload something, ANYTHING to do with TS2, sooner or later somehow it will end up on the Exchange. It's just a fact. The Exchange is a black hole that sucks up any and all custom content. Also, who cares if someone uploads something there? It should be saving the creator bandwith and helping to more widely distribute the item. If credits are the issue then I have to ask, did the creator make the item for internet fame accolation and pats on the back or did they make it becauser they wanted to share it with others so they can get enjoyment out of it? It seems like for a lot of people in this community it's the former rather than the latter and there are a lot of divas with attitudes that get worked up over the smallest things (not that I don't myself sometimes lol).

[J. M. Pescado]

Comments like 'OMG tH1s 1S dA sUxX0r!!!!!oneoneone' I can easily ignore. But on one Morrowind face replacers mod my friends and I did we got called racist and that really bothered me.

I can't imagine why this would be bothersome. It's not a properly formatted critique of the actual work, since it refers to the character of the artist, not the work itself. Therefore, it has no useful content to consider, and should be disregarded. At least a comment like "OMG tH1s 1S dA sUxX0r!!!!!oneoneone" expresses a valid opinion of the work. Unfortunately, it, too, is improperly formatted, and thus must be similarly discarded with a syntax error.