More Awesome Than You!

Did anyone see the post that tanja481 made is this (http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1115435#post1115435) thread?
Does this mean what I think it means!  ;D
Pescado? Motoki? Can you see if they are in there?

Heh, I'm in the middle of making a pink servo but I can take a peek.

*Edit: I don't see it. I bet it's some BS from the BBS like twinzr2cute etc. Unless someone can be more specific about what file it's supposed to be in, I'm not buying it.

*Edit #2: Looking at that shot again, I'm fairly certain it comes from Maxis. Not only do I not see those items in the OFB files, even if they were there those are obviously rendered shots from a professional 3D program. Someone would have had to have extracted each of the meshes and textures one by one, loading the mesh into a program like 3DS Max or Maya, applied the texture, then taken a still render shot and repeat for each of them. I doubt Alexcool or whoever he is has the patience to do that or likely has the know how or 3D program. Besides if they were in there I would think Numenor or someone would have found them by now.

Those are the items from the family fun  pack...interesting coincidence.

How did they get those pictures?

Maxis promotional stuff probably. I'm sure it's floating around somewhere. Trust me, those are 3D renders from a professional program like 3DS Max or Maya. They aren't from in the game and they aren't from SimPE.

I think that those look like the catalog pictures. They are missing parts like what happens with beds.

Okay well believe what you want. Good luck finding them. I'm sick of wasting time looking all over the net trying to find the source of those damned pics so if you want to believe they are in there, go looking for them and have fun while some BBSer is secretly laughing at you.

 :P

Um... maybe they got the pictures from here: http://www.snootysims.com/familyfunart.php

I'm sure there are more where these came from.

I am already laughing at them I saw all the items earlier today....big whoopedity doo...I believet there was a link to it  in the los pescados thread...   http://thesims2.ea.com/about/sp1_renders.php

Gee a fish shaped rug, wonder if they got the idea from Windkeeper hmm.  ::)

What parts are they missing?  I don't see any missing parts.  I agree with Motoki.  Those pictures are too detailed to be from the buy catalog. 

The edges are chopped off on some of them.

It's called cropping.  ::)

LOL, thanks Motoki.  I was just trying to figure out how to say this.  As usual, you cut right to the chase.  ;D

Well.. Actually.. I went snooping in simpe for something else entirely, and found a couple of the thumbnails as well. I have no idea if they're actually in any of the game files or not, I haven't bothered looking for them because I doubt that they're there, but I may take a look later.

http://temp.djssims.com/thumbnailsinsimpe.JPG

http://temp.djssims.com/thumbnailsinsimpe2.JPG

I know what those are. That file contains all the cached thumbnails for objects. Normally they're generated on the fly, and then stored in that file, but continue to exist even if the objects are no longer present in the game for whatever reason. They sometimes become corrupted, necessitating the destruction of this particular file much like groups.cache.

This means the objects at some point existed in the game, but have been removed and are no longer present.

Well the meshes aren't there and neither are the textures. They probably worked on it around the same time and yanked all that stuff out but forgot to remove the thumbnails.

Makes sense, I figured they wouldn't be in the packages, and a quick search shows that they aren't anyhow, but it does show that they existed before Open for Business came out, so we could have gotten them with this expansion, but now have to pay 20 bucks for them instead.  ::)

Without these fun packs, that's exactly what WOULD have happened. Or they would've been released one every week on the website, like, oh, say, Sims 1.

But instead, not satisfied with just the money generated by the best selling game ever. They want more.

Wow it's going to cost us 20 bucks for just items ? What a rip off. >:(. I'm on a tight budget and I don't believe I'll want to spend that much just for that. What a shame

Well, It's a damn rip off and I will not be getting that fun pack. But as long as there are sheep out there that will buy it, Maxis will continue putting crap like that out.

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

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.  ::)

I don't plan to purchase this pack.  Not my fault if my computer does regular "updates" on its own.  ;D

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..

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.

Great comeback J.M  :D. 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  ;D

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

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? :P

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 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=138677) 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?

I totally obey this  ;D 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).

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.

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.

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!  ::)

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.

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.  ::)

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.
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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.. >:(

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.

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.

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. :P

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).

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.

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.

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.  ;D

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.


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!


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?

Yes, that would be the one.

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...  :D

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

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!

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.

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).

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.

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. ;)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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  :)

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 :P

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.

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.

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.

You may be interested in this (http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2320).

Yeah. Exactly.

And I bet my bottom dollar those ppl in those commercials aren't paid diddly squat just like the bulk of us and being in the commercial makes them go right home and burn something! lol.

If anything, it makes the studio spend LESS money on their next movie, and that still doesn't affect the set guy's pay as the Union ensures that they always have a good work environment.

One could counter that argument by pointing out how much money they wasted on Catwoman.

Only people who take a hit are those small time filmmakers and indie artist that are hoping for a big company to pick up their movie/script. That's what LionsGate Films is for, who wants to be picked up by the company that tried to pass Halle Berry off as Selina Kyle?

Hey! I liked Catwoman. It was totally worthless and good for a great laugh....

Boingboing covers the whole piracy issue a lot, and every time I read one of their posts, I lose ever more respect for the Music/movie/etc. industry.

I thought this one was kind of funny - http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/18/mpaariaabsa_no_break.html

Great way to get people on your side. ::)

Creators who care about the quality of their work will sought improvement regardless of cricitism or not. That' s how it works in RL too or at least that's how I believe people who sought to better themselves behave. If a creator asks for feedback sincerely (not one of those kids who just want "OMG! YOUR WORK IS AWESOME!") , I might provide it if I have the knowledge to do so. Unforuntately, not everyone can give good criticism. Only real experts such as Numenor etc are able to provide such.

Anyway, the fact remains that most people work on recolorings/ meshes for a hobby. Its not a professional job or stuff like that. We don't need to pile them with ciriticism saying their stuff sucks big time blah blah. If its just a person's hobby to do some recoloring/meshing, I don't see why we need to discourage them. You don't tell your kids "Your drawing sucks...", do you? Similarly, you shouldn't cricitism a person starting out.

No one creates bad stuff intentionally. If they want to share, I like to believe they want to share what they have created despite their febble efforts and hope the world will like it (unless its some people who just want to chalk free days at TSR).

But as I said, if its paid sites, its different but even those 'great artists' at paysites have difficulities accepting crictism.

It doesn't hurt me to delete a free crap cc from my game but it can seriously hurt a person's emotions/ morale/self confidence if the person receives sucky criticism about his/her work. And just for that remote possiblity, I won't ever criticism a free crap cc.

Just my 2c.

Thanks, I'll try that, but are you telling me it's normal for the game to use 500,000kb of memory???

I'm getting the impression you didn't actually read anything I said. Let's simplify and condense:

Creators need critique to improve, period. They do, as you said, need a willingness to improve, but without critique they will have a very hard time figuring out everything they need to fix and an even harder time figuring out how to fix it. Good critique points out not only what needs to be fixed but how to fix it.

Good critique is not rude nor a personal attack, although newer crators/more sensitive types may initially take critiques as personal attacks. It is important for their own growth that they learn to seperate actual attacks from critique. This is done... by their getting critiques, even when just starting out.

I don't buy the apparent message in your reply of "Bad critique can cause a person to stop creating, so no one should give critique to a creator, ever." If someone is going to stop doing something they supposedly enjoy because of some misconstrued remarks a person they don't know made, they are probably in the wrong hobby. Not everyone is going to be good at or have the wherewithall to do everything.

Yes.

Thank you for finally clearing that up for me JM.. ;D

Renatus

I do read what you wrote but you didn't read mine carefully.

"Bad critique can cause a person to stop creating, so no one should give critique to a creator, ever."
I didn't say that so pls stop putting words in my mouth.


Summarised version:
Most people give crap criticism that doesn't help creators in any way. Only if you are an expert or are good / know what you are doing/able to give constructive comments on how to help people to improve, then you are good enough to give critique. If not, pls don't give any otherwise you are not contributing to helping the creator in anyway. Comments such as "You sucks" are totally useless and should not count as constructive critique.