Nightlife: Censor Blur won't die!!!

[witch]

Actually, it is because we are blamed for practically everything.  Then again, it is probably all my fault.

AAWWW HatedMaxoid, it's probably not all your fault. 

[Renatus]

AAWWW HatedMaxoid, it's probably not all your fault.

For example, there is no possible way you could have been responsible for the last ice age.

[Lerf]

AH, but what everyone is failing to see is that his remark was aimed, not at the intelligent modders such as one finds here, but at the kind of people who are regularly given billing in Retardo land.   Maxis has to deal with the lowest common denominator, ie the user with the intelligence of a sea slug.

[Jorenne]

Now now, what have those poor sea slugs ever done to you 

[MaxoidTom]

AAWWW HatedMaxoid, it's probably not all your fault.

For example, there is no possible way you could have been responsible for the last ice age.

I'm sure someone here could find a way to disagree with you. =)

[Twain]

Now now, what have those poor sea slugs ever done to you 

yeah what have the sea slugs ever done to you, in fact by comparing the Average BBSheep to a sea slug, you are in fact degrading the whole Sea Slug community.

And, HatedMaxiod, we don't blame EVERYTHING on EA/Maxis.
EA/Maxis is not the most evil company out there.  There is still Disney afterall 

[Kitiara]

I apologize in advance  if I am speaking incorrectly for the masses.

I feel, and guess that most here would agree to some extent, that Maxis/EA is not evil. We are all here because we enjoy playing the Sims games. The Sims (and TS2, of course) are amazing games and obviously are the result of much creativity and hard work.
We understand that in an undertaking of this magnitude bugs and/or glitches are inevitable. We do not curse you for this. We curse you for your unwillingness to fix them in a timely manner.

Expansion packs are great; they add dimensions to gameplay and modify the game so that it can remain in play longer without growing stale. However, do we really need a new EP every 6 months? I would suggest slowing down the releases so that the EPs can be more thoroughly beta-tested, and time can be found to create a patch for whatever problems have been found. Of course, no one asked for my suggestions. Ah, well...

I, for one, am going to stick to my earlier statement. I Will Not Buy Nightlife untill Uni has been patched and I have heard feedback from others on the extent of new bugs.

Now, for anyone I may have included in my collective we that cares to disagree, it is your turn to rant.

[RainbowTigress]

Well said, Kitiara.  I for one am in complete agreement with your statement.

[Motoki]

Actually, it is because we are blamed for practically everything.

Well, that's how customer service goes, and I say this as someone who had worked in customer service for several years. To all of us end users, as our point of contact, you are all of Electronics Arts and Maxis. It's nothing personal and obviously no one is mad at Tom because we don't know you. People are just frustrated with problems with a game they otherwise enjoy and would prefer to work without problems.

The internet is a magnet for drama and emotions run high. I know I've certainly got caught up in it on multiple occasions. :p I also admit to not having the best opinion of Electronic Arts or huge corporations in general and I kind of remember the good old days when some geek in a basement was making games because he loved doing it.

But no one hates you as a person. Okay well maybe Pescado does, but he hates everyone so it's nothing personal.

[Zeljka]

EA/Maxis is not the most evil company out there.  There is still Disney afterall 

you forgot Microsoft

[Twain]

No I didn't, not even I am so careless as to mock Microsoft on a machine that is running Windows.
Don't you know Microsoft is watching everything we do on our computers?

BTW I LOVE MICROSOFT YOU GUYS ARE GREAT 

[veilchen]

That is decidedly true, well said Kitiara and Motoki. Nobody hates the maxis employees personally, we resent being treated as if we were invisible. If we all but would be so fortunate as to hate the game, we could just chuck it into the dustbin, shrug it off as a learning experience, and forget all about ea/maxis and ' the sims'. But we do like the game, it is a wonderful concept, and the possibilities (if they were working correctly) are endless.

The resentment started a while ago, with me in any case, with the appearance of the dreadful 'jump bug' in the base game. When first reported we received the now standard: "uninstall, reinstall, uninstall, reinstall... ad infinitum", or the even better "it's all your fault, you don't know how to play the game right" (my personal favorite); another winner from customer service: "it's downloads and hacks" and not to forget "your computer is probably not up to it". When ea/maxis finally admitted that it was a genuine programming bug, MTS2 modders had already put out a fix for it, two month ahead of the company that reaped the benefits of our purchase of the game.

We then experienced a replay of the same scenario when the Uni bugs crawled out of the woodwork. Once again it took a long time for the company to even admit to the bugs' existence, and then we were treated to "we don't plan to put out a stand-alone patch for Uni". The screaming and yelling that unleashed changed the company's mind, supposedly. But other than a few strokes and pats, we haven't heard anything specific about a patch yet (officially, that is).

Our problem is therefore that we like the game. Without the talented people such as JM and twojeffs however, many of us would no longer be able to enjoy playing. The company that took our money seemingly abandoned us, that is the reason everyone is so upset with the corporation of ea/maxis, not with the individual employee.

So unless you are the one who made all these extremely unpopular decisions, no, no one hates you personally, just what you represent is looked at with a critical and, unfortunately, cynical eye by the consumer.

[Hairfish]

I don't hate Maxis/EA. I don't even hate Wal*Mart. But I do vehemently HATE that censor blur!

All discussions of Jack Thompson aside, you should try seeing that blur through the eyes of someone with...shall we say, certain "perceptual limitations" (I'm using that euphemism because some people don't believe attention deficit disorder exists, especially in adults). It's like a giant insect on the screen, twitching and vibrating its wings and drawing your already challenged attention to it and holding it like a glue-trap.

Since I simply CANNOT play the game with the censor blur activated, I will not be buying Nightlife until there is a way to deactivate it. And since I can't see helping a company profit that will not help me, I've shut down the Sims2 areas of my website until there's a way to deactivate the blur, so I can buy and play Nightlife.

~Hairfish
Mermaid Cove
www.mercosims2.com

[Ancient Sim]

I don't hate Maxis/EA. I don't even hate Wal*Mart. But I do vehemently HATE that censor blur!

All discussions of Jack Thompson aside, you should try seeing that blur through the eyes of someone with...shall we say, certain "perceptual limitations" (I'm using that euphemism because some people don't believe attention deficit disorder exists, especially in adults). It's like a giant insect on the screen, twitching and vibrating its wings and drawing your already challenged attention to it and holding it like a glue-trap.

I have very bad eyesight and I found that it actually hurt my eyes.  It sort of flashes and I know what you mean about your attention being drawn to it.  It's far too big as well.  I just feel that at the age of 51 (in my MIDDLE-AGE lifespan) I shouldn't be told I can't look at a man's willy.  It's not as if I haven't seen one before (although not for a while, I must admit.  Maybe I need to find a real one to look at ... sigh).

[Kitiara]

Bravo Veilchen, quite eloquent. And true.

[Motoki]

I just feel that at the age of 51 (in my MIDDLE-AGE lifespan) I shouldn't be told I can't look at a man's willy.

Or lacktherof It's not like they actually have one once you remove the censor blur.

I still don't get why it's okay for kids to undress Barbie dolls (and every kid I have ever seen play with them does) and look at the plastic genital-free nudity and yet for a game like TS2 to be rated Teen, not G mind you, Teen, then that same sort of non-nudity nudity is not allowed. Sometimes ratings boards and American society in general just doesn't make any damned sense to me.

[Hairfish]

I just feel that at the age of 51 (in my MIDDLE-AGE lifespan) I shouldn't be told I can't look at a man's willy.

As a fellow MIDDLE-AGER (46), I'm on that bandwagon with you. In bifocals.

Motoki, I've argued that logic with others ~ who don't play the Sims, but have read Thompson's propaganda ~ and they just don't get it! Those who don't actually play the game believe what he says about pedophiles using naked Sim-children to practice their disgusting acts. Not only do they not believe me when I tell them there are no such animations in the game, that children can do no more than HUG an adult, or give a friendly family kiss, they don't seem to grasp the fact that, as the game is shipped, those actions can only occur while the Sims are both fully clothed, with no blur. And if anatomically correct and "invisible clothing" skins are used on a child (shame!), the only time the blur bothers to show up is in the tub or shower, or on the toilet. And Sims shower and pee alone. So what's the point?!?

It's like talking to a stump.

[Edited because I forgot toilet blur.]

[witch]

woohoo & makeout are far more explicit sexually then a barbie doll in a shower. Bizarre

[Inge]

I know.  If I was a censor I would get rid of the woohoo option, especially that tacky cut-scene video.   I wouldn't bother with blurs as it just draws more attention to the naughty aspects of nudity instead of letting it look natural and innocent.

Funnily enough, since that Jack Thompson started fussing, a google search of The-Sims draws out pages and pages of matches containing the words "labia, genitals, penis, pubic hair", which it never did before.   If you have children googliing for things to do with their favourite game, that is going to expose them to far more of the subject he was hoping to avoid them seeing than ever before he piped up.

[dizzy]

My beef with the blur is that it SLOWS THE GAME DOWN. I hate that aspect of it, therefore I kill it.

[Renatus]

Same here, dizzy-two. I could live with the blur for the whole silly cartoony aspect of the game if it didn't slow my poor laptop down to the speed of a snail over broken glass with it on in, say, a dorm, where more than one sim may be showering/using the loo at once. It causes a major performance hit, so off it goes. I'm going to be preeeetty unhappy if I can't find a way to turn it off with NL.

[Motoki]

Ditto for me. I think the whole woohoo thing is far more risque than someone taking a shower in the nude with plastic barbie doll non genitalia and no body hair. I mean gee two people get under a bed and roll around under the sheets and a woman can get pregnant from doing this. Gee, I wonder what they are doing.  

I guess the ratings board feels the thinly veiled and heavily implied sex with giggles and fireworks and that can lead to pregnancy is more acceptable than non sexual, non explicit genitalia-less body hair-less nudity. That's pretty much saying anything is okay as long as there is no nudity under any circumstances, including infants and toddlers being bathed or having their diapers changed.

I think there's this underlying idea somehow in Western society and definitely it's heavy in American society, that nudity=sex. Having lived in Japan for a time, I can tell you there they have public baths and show bathing with nudity on television during the daytime. To them bathing is bathing, which you obviously do nude (duh) and sex is sex and they are two separate things.

As for people thinking pedophiles play the game to interact with children sexually that's just ignorance and willfull ignorance at that, but people do that kind of stuff all the time. How many times do people scream about how terrible some book or movie is when it turns out those people haven't even read or seen the damned thing and flat out refuse to do so.

[Brynne]

Oh, please dear God I hope there is a way to remove the blur. I'm installing the game tonight, and I want to be able to see my beautiful custom skins!

If I lived in England, my son would be old enough to play the game. You said it was age 7, right, Inge? But Jamie happened to look at my laptop as two sims jumped under the covers, and he asked what they were doing. Now, he has Asperger's, and is extremely literal. If I would have told him what they were doing, he would walk around school talking about sex and going "honk! honk!". And I'd get yet another note from the teacher. 

I, too, find it insulting that we apparently have to be shielded from barbie doll (or *gasp!* anatomically correct) nudity. Especially on the babies. What sicko thought we needed that? And we can't see them naked, but we have to make our sims woo hoo with 30 others. Or in public. It's crazy! So it's not the sex, it's the genitalia, apparently. Although calling sex "woohoo" is a weak attempt at protecting the kiddies from what is really going on under those covers .

So, I assume I shouldn't put the userStartup.cheat file back in when I install? Shouldn't typing "help" in the cheat box show the cheat for changing the censor grid, like it does in Uni, or did they leave it out altogether?

[RainbowTigress]

I am curious Brynne, what did you tell him?

From what they said on SnootySims.com, they have removed the cheat altogether.

[nectere]

Actually I think the issue of nudity has more to do with puritan efforts than an equation to sex. Nudity is bad, in fact in the Christian bible it was bad when Adam and Eve discovered they were nude, they were in fact ashamed because they were nude, it had nothing to do with procreation.  That's why nude beaches and nudist colonies are so taboo, not because anything goes on, but because of nudity. Which is rather odd when you consider the fact that Barbies can in fact be undressed to a state of nudity, it seems with all the anti nude obsessions that they would have painted underclothes since its not like they really sell underwear and bras for Barbies anyway…

You can be rest assured though that the censor blur will more than likely be the first mod for NL, from various creators.