Major Maxis Slipup

[Zandi]

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).

Ahhh the quest for net fame in the Sims community.
It's sad isn't it when you see someone who thinks they are the end all be all of custom content creation and have a real royal hissie fit cause OM freaking God Some THEIF had the nerve to upload a sim wearing an outfit I made the texture for! And they didn't credit me for it in the discription of the Sim * What kind of ungreatful criminal would do such a thing?* Or some scum bad didn't credit me for making something you can kinda see in a screen shot in their story...
And the truly dumb thing is these are mostly people who only do skins made on meshes they didn't make and more often than not they're made using pictures of some designer clothing along the lines of Baby Phat or something some star wore to some awards show or something....

Sometimes you see it with other things and on occasion the hackers have a little tusstle over simular things being made but it's generally the unknown modders and creators who wanna be famous who you see pulling this nonsence while those with the real skills just make their things put them out there and let it be knowing that if it's on the net it will be shared.

Makes ya wanna smack them and tell them to grow up or something.

[Renatus]

You're absolutely right, but speaking as someone who has been on the end of the rude comments, it's hard sometimes.

No argument here! I was recently pissed for two weeks after the 'critique' I got on a Celtic-themed painting I submitted to an e-zine - all of them one sentence, and one even claiming it 'wasn't Celtic enough' when my submission was the only one that drew from actual Celtic mythology, but since I hadn't plastered it with bad knotwork and cultural appropriation... Haha, obviously I'm still irritated. 

I don't expect anyone not to get irritated, annoyed, pissed off, etc. at rude or obnoxious comments, but I do expect people who are at all serious about their work not to flounce off in a shower of tears and ultimatums. In my case, I demanded real critiques - and got one that was truly useful.

But on one Morrowind face replacers mod my friends and I did we got called racist and that really bothered me.

Understandably! But as JM said, it's not a properly formatted critique... it sounds more like a more literate way of saying 'OMG u sux0rz'. Unless the people making such statements qualified them they were ultimately pointless and had no bearing on your work.

Hm, was that the Better Heads mod, by any chance? If so, that and the Better Bodies mod are what made me be able to get into the game. I couldn't stand the default models at ALL, they were so badly done. Like hell the faces chosen were racist!

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.

Every time I see anyone with a signature reading that they will pull all of their uploads FOREVER!!! if they find them on the Exchange, I want to hit them repeatedly, for the reasons you and Zandi wrote. I also want to punch them in the face because if they tried that shit in actual art communities they'd find their asses kicked so hard they wouldn't be able to sit for a month - not to mention the possible legal repercussions of using photographs of someone else's work.

[J. M. Pescado]

Every time I see anyone with a signature reading that they will pull all of their uploads FOREVER!!! if they find them on the Exchange, I want to hit them repeatedly, for the reasons you and Zandi wrote. I also want to punch them in the face because if they tried that shit in actual art communities they'd find their asses kicked so hard they wouldn't be able to sit for a month - not to mention the possible legal repercussions of using photographs of someone else's work.

When I see that, I want to upload their stuff to the exchange, then point and go, "Hey, look, your stuff is on the exchange! Gonna put your money where your mouth is?"

[Renatus]

Every time I see anyone with a signature reading that they will pull all of their uploads FOREVER!!! if they find them on the Exchange, I want to hit them repeatedly, for the reasons you and Zandi wrote. I also want to punch them in the face because if they tried that shit in actual art communities they'd find their asses kicked so hard they wouldn't be able to sit for a month - not to mention the possible legal repercussions of using photographs of someone else's work.

When I see that, I want to upload their stuff to the exchange, then point and go, "Hey, look, your stuff is on the exchange! Gonna put your money where your mouth is?"

Hahaha, that's great! I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time I'm bored and in an evil mood. Have you ever done it before?

[Motoki]

Hm, was that the Better Heads mod, by any chance?

Yes, that would be the one.

[Renatus]

Super awesome. You and the others who worked on it did excellent work, and it's still being enjoyed - I've shared the link to those with three people since the summer, when I started playing Morrowind. I think it was partially the cause of my husband hijacking my disc so he could play it himself... 

[Jelenedra]

I can't play that game without those mods, Motoki. You did a very good job on it. =)

[MutantBunny]

I just wanna add my vote: I will not buy ANY 'packs' either.  

I haven't bought OFB, although I was one of the most vocal about wanting a business EP. I was right there for Uni, even tho the base game was so buggy we couldn't play without JMs fix. I was right there for NL, even tho Uni added little enjoyable game play, it did fix the base and I like the extra slots. But then NL was so buggy, the first patch screwed my game up, and I have been waiting for OFB and the 'built in NL patch'. BUT, I have learend to read first and buy later. From what I read, ther edoesn't appear to be ANY aspect of OFB that isn't flawed! It's either buggy or just stupidly designed/executed by Maxis. NO Thanks, Maxis! You ain't shafting me again. If it wasn't for the community, all the hackers, modders, dreators, whatever you wanna call yourselves, the game would have died a long time ago.

As for paying for any items: I don't partake of pay sites, can't afford that and I think it's a rip. I'm not the only one that feels this way: look at all the threads that have been based on 'down with pay sites'. And it seems to me that these packs are nothing more than Maxis' version of a 'pay site'. Well, they can go.....monkey dance alone.... in the out house...with a spoon. (*what are MATYs policies on profanity anyway...*)

I think Maxis IS in trouble finacially. I think the packs are their effort to get money fast. I believe that the 'real' talent is working on Spore (great google video) and they have left the second linemen to The Sims 2 and hence the rotten EPs (not in theme, but in function). Bad decision. Plain stupid, IMO.

When Maxis puts out a GOOD EP (any theme, just one that isn't more buggy than it is functional or interesting)(one that doesn't need a 'rushed patch'!) then they can have more money from me. I hope everyone that is against the packs will speak up here. So, there you go, you lurking Maxiod, read that!

[skandelouslala]

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.

W/o the people at Maxis there would be no Sims... umm gee yah don't say? 
Let's see...over the years I have bought every TS1 EP at full price except one... and now every TS2 EP.  Count the millions of others who have done the same and I'm sure Maxis/EA people are doing just fine.  I can't say I'm feeling sorry for them.

 Anyways...  as far as the random ranting and raving about custom content goes, personally I think people should do it for the love of the game and not to make a profit of it, but if they accept donations and/or people want to donate money why should anybody have any say of what they do with their money?  In the end it's a personal decision rather you want to pay for something or not and if you don't want to you just move along.

I'd say I am usually happy with 98% of my downloads since I started getting pickier about what I will download.  And if I get a crap object/mesh/recolor whatever in my game I'm not afraid to tell the creator about it.  But if somebody else wants to ignore it and play with it, again who cares.  That's their problem. And unfortuantly the creator is missing out on getting quality feedback in order to better their work if they do want to better it.
Again with hacks, if people are having issues with the hacks in their games and conflicting issues it really for me comes down to that being their own problem.  You cannot expect every person who creates hacks to get in touch with members 1-598 who make hacks and make sure they don't conflict.  Sometimes you have to make a choice of what you want to play with and occassionaly sacrafice something that might conflict. I just can't stand when someone bitches and moans that x hack conflicts with y hack and then expects the creator of x to fix the problem when they have  nothing to do with y hack.

Yeah..that's my bitching of the day.  Carry on.

[veilchen]

Yes, I agree. That was good work Motoki, and as Renatus said 'racist, my ass'. I've uninstalled my copy when I had to reformat my C-drive, now I can't find it back. Oh well, I'll find it eventually, I always do. Problem is, I did some tidying up, always a mistake. I can never find anything afterward ;D

As far as TS2 is concerned, I am also very particular about my downloads, and if I have a problem with one, I usually PM the creator directly. That way I can be reasonably sure that they take it the way it was meant without the publicity. Besides, any critique is usually lost in the OMG TX111, I worship you, I'm first yay, etc. posts. It's unfortunate that the boards are full with people pissing all over themselves with gush, without having even tried the download first (I know, weird sentence, but I'm not changing it, so there).

[Jelenedra]

I stopped going ape-crap over new expansions when they got to Unleashed and Superstar (and I didn't even have Vacation) It just got silly after that methinks.

[nectere]

I firmly believe the issue with a lot of the bugs in all the Maxis games lies in the install; they seriously need to get that fixed. Why else would one persons game be partially broken, the next completely and still another with hardly any issues at all, all on the same type of system. I have had this very issue with my own installs clean or otherwise, as I know many of you have as well… one install is completely broken, the next kinda broken, the next major breakage and if I get lucky somewhere in there I get a good install…it's a crap shoot.

There are hard coded bugs in the game I don't deny that, I know that but thats kinda true with most software, but the installation issues really and truly need to be looked into, refined and fixed, its ridiculous we shouldn't have to play Russian Roulette with the installation just to play something we paid good money for.

I know why they do these packs etc, they are taking cc (the idea, intent whatever) from the community and packaging it so to speak for those that are scared of anything non-maxis, and they are making up the difference in sales with it and cashing in, I don't really fault them for that. Bottom line is, if you aren't scared of cc, then you really don't need the packs and in some cases the whole EP as many creators have already made things that work as well if not better than the EP items. Of course however, as an insurance that you will buy the next pack/EP, they know that many people do buy those EPs and then make new cc content which wont work without the EP which you have to then buy if you want to play with it, its quite the scheme. Pretty damn smart I would say.

[MutantBunny]

you might have a good point. I don't know how an install really works I guess, I thought it was a simple copy this from here to there, but maybe not. I know with the base game and thru several installs, I had the tulip lamp work right all the time once and the tulip lamp not work right any of the time several times and that had to be the installs.

I think Maxis does indeed take stuff from the community and call it their own. Rework the mesh and texture a bit, tada. I've seen too many coinsidences for that not to be true. And, altho I don't like that (there are tons of ideas, they should think up their own.) But I don't mind that type of content in an EP near as much as I mind all the damn floors and wallpapers!

PS: you know, if Maxis would LISTEN and take heed of what the adult community wants, suggests, and execute it well--they'd have a game that couldn't stay stocked on the shelves. But instead they choose to market to teens (read pre-pubescents) and sapparently need to grub around for money. You'd think they'd get a clue.

[Ruann]

you might have a good point. I don't know how an install really works I guess, I thought it was a simple copy this from here to there, but maybe not. I know with the base game and thru several installs, I had the tulip lamp work right all the time once and the tulip lamp not work right any of the time several times and that had to be the installs.

Actually Maxis marked three items on that lamp as candidates for color options, and the game usually flips out and selects the Bulb as one of the ones it will let you recolor (even though it obviously doesn't have recolors).  Sometimes, the game will load it correctly.  Usually, it won't.  I believe that the CEP fixes it now.

[nectere]

Yeah and there is another thing in the install issue, sometimes when you install the game, one or two of the premade houses/families will cause a crash and the only way to fix this without reinstalling is to find the affected packages in Simpe, take note and then go to the disk that they are located on (and which ever base or EP) and copy them over from there. That is def and installation issue.

[liegenschonheit]

I don't think I will be buying this pack, I didn't buy Holiday either and don't have it installed, legal or otherwise. Some of the items are nice though, and honestly, I feel no guilt over "aquiring" an objects pack like that. But yes, EA is trying to get our money. That is the way it works, with businesses. Funny, huh? They know that a good chunk of people will either decide not to buy it or pirate it outright, but they are counting on the BBS types and the computer illiterate, who have no idea how to pirate anything, to rush right out and buy it. And of course, they will.

As for the comments about creators, well, I am one and can say with confidence that people can make intelligent, well thought out criticisms all day and that is fine with me. I'm not a coder, and my ventures into the world of meshing have been woefully bad, so I guess I qualify as an "artist type". I am not going to get all angry or hurt if someone says something that may help me make better items, but yes, there are some comments that hurt. If there is a problem with a particular item and people point it out, I usually will fix it to the best of my ability or find an alternate solution. As accomodating as I try to be though, I hate people that bitch and moan about things, or don't make some effort on their own behalf.

As for the exchange bit, I am realistic and know that everything ends up there, and I am not going to throw a hissy and pull anything and sulk about it. I generally ask that people not post it there, but thats about as far as it goes. Still, when TS2 first came out, I started a little website with some truly terrible clothes (though at the time they were about as good as anyone was making), and I had some little asswipe from the exchange steal everything and post it, claiming that he made it all. That sort of thing is extremely irritating and discouraging, when someone else takes credit for your effort, and EA made no recourse for that sort of thing. Now that sort of thing rolls off of me, but at the time I was an unknown creator struggling to get people to come to my site, and that actually made me decide to pack it all in and just create for myself for awhile. Maybe it was a good thing though, in the long run.

Just a quick edit: From my point of view, if you see something wrong with a CC item, by all means tell the creator! Most of the time, the person who made it overlooked something and has no idea there is something that needs to be fixed. I was actually annoyed and embarassed when I realized that something I'd uploaded had a big ugly mistake on it. I didn't realize it until I happened to catch a glimpse of it in my game almost a month later, yet no one said anything at all about it. One comment letting me know about it would have been worth 10 of those "OMG I <3 you!!!!111 I'm first!1" posts.

[MutantBunny]

Yep, businesses are in business to make money.

That does not mean it should ever be OK to be selling a half assed item, whatever it is car, house, clothing, cereal, software.

Also: with every other item you can buy, cars and houses included, you have the right to return the item in thrity days if you have the reciept. That is federal consumer law and pertains to all states. Sorry, have no idea what return policy is for any other country.

But SOFTWARE you can not return if it is opened. If it isn't opened, how do you know if it's good or bad?? They expect us to hold out hands way high and let them do whatever, maybe we'll like it and maybe we won't but tough shit for us if we don't.

[Renatus]

As accomodating as I try to be though, I hate people that bitch and moan about things, or don't make some effort on their own behalf.

I can very much understand that - the entitlement issues that some people in the Sims 2 community have are amazing and even though I have yet to really upload anything I've made I get really angry at people who do that to creators. Critiques are one thing, demands are quite another, and I very much understand when someone stops making things for a while (or at all) because they're tired of dealing with the legions of gimmie pigs.

On the flip side, I also get irritated at the creators who throw a big dramafest about the whiny idiots - I know that they are in the minority with their dramafests, at least, but they set a bad example. Learning how to say "no" and put people on ignore if necessary is an important skill for surviving when posting creative works in public, and I wish the dramaqueens would get that through their thick skulls *cough*Exnem*cough*.


Mutantbunny, the reason why software cannot be refunded for money once opened is because of copyright issues in the States and how stores choose to deal with them (at least, that's my understanding - the stores may be forced to deal with it that way). So if a disk is bad you can return it for an exchange, but not for money because you may have already copied it. Yeah, I know it's very much treating the end user like a criminal with no evidence, but that's the way the entertainment industry cookie has been crumbling.  However, I do know that one gaming store - maybe EB, I can't quite recall - would accept a game back for a full refund within 10 days if you found you didn't like it.

[BlueSoup]

However, I do know that one gaming store - maybe EB, I can't quite recall - would accept a game back for a full refund within 10 days if you found you didn't like it.

In Canada, in Victoria at least, EB won't do that.  They will take games for credit and for exchanges, but not at face-value.

[MutantBunny]

Yes, I know that about software. And clothing can be worn and cars acan be driven and houses can be lived in or partied in: in other words everything else can be used too but it is returnable. Not everyone is a thief and it insults me and down right pisses me off to be treated as one ALL the time which is what the software industry does.

So, again, Yep, I know why they don't allow returns of software. That doesn't make it right.

[shezoe]

As for the exchange bit, I am realistic and know that everything ends up there, and I am not going to throw a hissy and pull anything and sulk about it. I generally ask that people not post it there, but thats about as far as it goes. Still, when TS2 first came out, I started a little website with some truly terrible clothes (though at the time they were about as good as anyone was making), and I had some little asswipe from the exchange steal everything and post it, claiming that he made it all. That sort of thing is extremely irritating and discouraging, when someone else takes credit for your effort, and EA made no recourse for that sort of thing. Now that sort of thing rolls off of me, but at the time I was an unknown creator struggling to get people to come to my site, and that actually made me decide to pack it all in and just create for myself for awhile. Maybe it was a good thing though, in the long run.
 

it's one thing for someone to steal credit for making something (really rotten) and another to threaten to pull stuff if it ends up on the exchange, i think. seems to me that the exchange is the best advertising an artist/modder could have if everyone put their site address on their stuff.  i didn't know there was a whole other sims community BESIDES the exchange originally. i found out about all the awesome modders and cc artists by something that i accidentally downloaded with a lot-would prob'ly never have known differently if not for "illegal" uploading of cc.  i bet that's how MOST people find out who the "more awesome" artists/modders are. Shouldn't be upset about free advertising imho  

[liegenschonheit]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, they assume everyone is out to steal all media. You can't return opened DVDs or CDs either.

Well, you know what they say, if you're already being punished, you might as well commit the crime

[Renatus]

In Canada, in Victoria at least, EB won't do that.  They will take games for credit and for exchanges, but not at face-value.

This was in Portland, Oregon, and years ago so things may have changed, and I have no idea if I am remembering the name right - after being overseas for a year a lot of store names have faded out of memory. EB hasn't because there is one at the big Metro station in Helsinki (and they make them dress like prats here, too). All I know for certain is that some stores here in Finland seem to be more lax about that (perhaps due to local laws), as my husband has been able to return an opened game for full refund.

Mutantbunny, I agree that it isn't right to treat all consumers like criminals. It doesn't even work - pirated material is as big as ever.

[MutantBunny]

Everytime I hear that little speech at the movies "DVD copying blah blah is pracy blah blah theft blah blah...." Makes me wanna go home and burn something.

Treating us all like criminals, making us 'pay' for crimes of others , making us pay inflated prices for stor theft, etc: all that makes most of us WANT to lie, cheat and steal. The "I got the name, might as well play the game." And why not if we are already paying our 'debt to society' for crimes we haven't commited.

[Jelenedra]

My husband likes to point out when they show those anti-piracy commericals where it is the set painter or something talking about how it affects them too and blah, blah. That the construction crew and set painters and whatnot are UNION workers and therefore, the profits of said movie has no affect on their pay, as they get no residuals.