More Awesome Than You!

What in hades happened to MTS2? I visited there for the first time in weeks (I gave the sims a break for a while), and it's like everyone has been fitted with stupomitron helmets. Scary.

I suspect it's not something that's happened to MTS2, but something that's happened to you.  You've been reading the MoreAwesomeThanYou forums and have gotten used to a higher quality of posters.

Hook

Well when MTS2 first started out it did have a higher quality of posters, but this was months not weeks ago.  :(

Somewhere along the line, they just went crazy with the expanding and broadening their focus trying to become all things to all people and becoming this super huge site and ended up picking up a lot of BBS refugees along the way, which in turn tended to drive a lot of what I consider the higher caliber of posters away to other smaller communities and you ended up with the situation you have now.

I also very strongly dislike their new interface which I find somehow paradoxically overly complex and yet dumbed down at the same time. If the point was to make things easier to find, they've failed, at least for when I've tried to browse it with the new interface.

It's funny, I remember when I first started playing the game(I got it for Christmas last year)I didn't know what the heck I was doing.  So I went to the forums for answers.  Well, I found the comments to be really stupid- Like,I even knew that --Don't you play the game?  Then I found Mod the Sims and I was glad to find the modders.  You got better quality of answers.  Then I found Varioussimmers and then this sight-now even mod the sims seems a little redundant--I still go there to check out mods but the forum has gotten a little scary.  I guess now that I know what I'm doing I should be more understanding to those that are still learning--but they shouldn't act like they know the answers when they don't.

I hate the new layout at modthesims2 as well. It's a pain in the butt.

I almost gave up on forums altogether until I found variousimmers, that site had good quality posts - i.e. readable and with good information too. I followed Pescado here because I recognised quality hacks and haven't regretted it once. Variousimmers has gone a bit like, you know, LOL & L33tSpeeK, since then.

I truly appreciate the fact that most people here are capable of forming complete sentences. That's the bare minimum in a written medium as far as I'm concerned.


Yeah, what Hook said. ;)

I'm waiting for this forum to start deteriorating.  You can't fight entropy, after all.

 - Gus

Have you read some of the threads lately... in my not so humble opinion, it's already started... *shrugs*

Not that I haven't contributed to that myself, but I'm just a drip drop in the bucket.  :D

Ste

I hate the new interface too.  I was in the chat with JM and Nectere when it launched.  Nectere was the one who told me to go check it out.  He was quite upset about the change and I had to agree.  It's confusing.  You can use the old interface though, there is a link at the bottom of the main page.

C

That link is for the old front page and that's basically it.  To get a mod, you still have to go through the new interface.

I think it sucks.  It's extremely unwieldy an having the requests in the same area BITES.  The filters are junk and some mods are in the wrong categories.  >:(

I remember looking through the hacks (which apparently now are forever in the "Testing Ground" no matter how old or well established they are) and seeing a long list of stuff I though sounded interesting, only to discover 95% of it was requests.  ::)

It's funny, MTS2 used to be the place for hacks but now it's rather pathetic and barely worth going there for hacks anymore as the bulk of the ones worth anything are either here, VS or Simlogical.

I thought I was the only one who hated the new look at MTS2.  Way too difficult to find things and wading through the garbage just to find a few recolors is way too time consuming for me at this point.  If I had a paint program I would just make my own stuff, all these damn meshes to play with and no way to finish them and since I am not in the 'clique' no one is willing to help (but many of them can get togeather and make sets, go figure).  I get more help here so this is where I go.

I am glad somebody started this thread because I was thinking the same thing.  I tried to download something today and couldn't,  so I went to the site problems forum and I read something about people stealing bandwitdth and that Delphy wanted people to turn off their firewalls when they wer downloading stuff or some crazy shit like that.

  I think they have totally lost their minds over there.  What is up with them??    ::)


and yes I hate the new downloads and all the reorginizing,  I can't find a thing.  ???

me thinks perhaps somebody has to much time on their hands or else they are very compulsive-obsessive.      ;D

I don't like sites where I have to hit F5 so often to make it load properly -- i.e. the columns don't load at the right width -- or where I have to scroll endlessly to get past the fact that you have the explanation as a header for every page.  The new MTS2 format can be  highly annoying, though it was nice that I could reset home back to the original.

Connections are breaking...  Downloads are taking forever to find and get...

I swear that Satan made those forums... You keep going in a loop just to get something specific. ???

humybyrd: You could try downloading Paint Shop Pro at jasc.com. It is shareware, but you can use it for 60 days at least (it says 30, but it lets you use it for another 30 days past that) There's also some freeware paint programs such as GIMP which I personally haven't used but I know others who have.

If you've got meshes made seems a shame not to be able to use them. :(

Don't go by my post count - I've been here since MATY opened. As the old joke goes, up until now, the food's been fine.  I don't post much.

We have a winner! This is exactly why I posted. Not only 95% requests, but 95% subliterate requests.

And the new layout smells like ass.

Thanks Motoki I will have to check them out.  I am really anxious to see if I can get my escalator and chainlink fence done. Would like to work on my electric chair some too but that also involves coding and well lets just say that results have been less than positive (unless you want to create a large graveyard the minute you place an object on a lot, lol).

That's what Retardo Land is for. If something is stupid, it will be put there. As long as you don't go into Retardo Land without your crash helmet, you'll be fine.

Dunno about the crash helmet, a raincoat might be better protection against all the spitting and frothing...

Oh, I don't mean to imply that there's something *wrong* with you. Sorry if you took it that way.

I registered a day before you did here.  And I mostly quit reading any other forum.  But occasionally I'll take a quick look somewhere else and be totally amazed at the general unawesomeness of the posts.  I don't think that the other forums have changed that much, but that I've simply gotten used to having intelligent adults around.

It's not new.  Back when I was still working on making Supreme Social Sim on the Maxis BBS (I was the second one after Pinstar1161, creator of the Legacy Challenge), a typical thread would be someone asking a question followed by several wrong answers, a right answer, and then several more posts, many disputing the right answer.  And it was painfully obvious that many of the posters didn't read the entire thread before posting, even if the thread was short.  Answering questions almost never got benes;  I viewed it as community service work.  The whole thing quit being fun long before I stopped going there.

Hook

Heh I wondered if I was the only one completely confused by their new layout. 
I thought they spent all that time to make things more organized?

Uh yeah...real organized over there now *chuckles*

I didn't chat much over there...just took the downloads...thanked whoever did a great job and left. 
Now I can't even find what I'm looking for w/o running in circles and skimming through tons of worthless posts.

I loathe MTS2 now. Like so many here know, it used to be a good forum and you could find really excellent material. Now, the new interface is a piece of shite, and the forums are a complete joke. In my humble opinion... lol

J.M., please don't let the wassacks (not all are) in Retardo Land attempt a takeover...I implore you. It's scary in there sometimes, and crash helmets are the least protection you require. I'm considering investing in a full-on bio-hazard suit with matching body armour.

laeshanin, you should NEVER go anywhere without body armor anyway.  ;-)

C

I have the old-style links bookmarked:

http://www.modthesims2.com/forums.php

The new style is obviously meant to discourage people from finding (and therefore downloading) anything.

LOL, I just browsed over there and there's a whole slew of people asking what happened to some of Pescado's stuff like the Novel Progress bar (the download links no longer work) and no one is answering.

Retardo Land frightens me. It's bbs-obsessed. It's disturbing. Boring and disturbing.

I thought I was the only one thinking that...

The new MTS2 layout looks like a kindergardener drew it up on a chalkboard. It's ugly. It's pastel easter colors.

I thought it was hard to find things before, it's seriously harder to find anything than it was ever before. The original MTS2 layout was nice.

Take over what?  The Podium?  I sure as heck wouldn't try to do that--after all, Brynne would then get bored with this section as well.  :P

And apparently ness, as well. ;) No offense, it's just not my thing.

We have our little civil wars and episodes and things like that, but on a normal day, it's quite fun.  I'd hang around The Poduim more often, but I'm not very technical.

I don't like MTS2's forums anymore, either.  I have looked at their new "Sims 2 Community", and eagerly followed the NL threads from those who were lucky enough to get their games early.  Since then, I haven't had much use for it.  I loathe feeling like the only adult in a room full of children.  I start to feel like I am babysitting and not getting paid.  LOL LOL

I do my Sims "Socializing" here and at World Sims.  World Sims is a smaller community, but we all get along really well and have some very interesting and intelligent conversations.  Even our younger members seem to be mature and well-written. 

I don't visit "Retardo Land" for the same reason I don't visit the Official BBS.  I can't stand all the jargon-speak (2cute4u!  Put a Bunny In Your Siggie!!!)  and reading those posts, and then making fun of them, just makes me sad.

I don't like how MTS2 has something like 40 sub-categories.  You click on Hacks, and you have to decide if you want Object Hacks, Global Hacks, and nine other things, after which you have to figure out if you want Requests, In Testing, Finished, followed by which expansion pack.  It must be Delphy's mid-life crisis.

Oh, and Kristalrose, it's actually "Put a bunny in ur siggie!"  Just thought you'd want to know.

And trust me, we all HATE Netspeak over in RL.  Any use of it is tongue-in-cheek.

Indeed. Beating up the kids on the short bus gets *really* old after a while. PV

I'm a mod over at mts2 for the help section. I don't have all that much to do with the site as an entire site, but I do stick my nose in some parts. I'm very rounded and I also have a very keen awareness of how newbies see the site, so I'd like to clear a few things up constructively.

One of the main "problems" is that a lot of things changed at once.
Firstly, some of the forums were reorganised to be more logical and to match the way the game itself categorises things.
Very shortly after that, the new design was implemented and you were presented with what we call 'core' pages which are the blue pages. As well as that, the hacks and downloads section was given a new browser.

Because so many changes happened at once, people who were used to the old layout probably felt overwhelmed and thus there were a lot of complaints, both via PM and publicly.
Now, one of the problems was that people saw the new layout, played for about 10 mins, decided they hated, detested and downright loathed it, and posted to complain. And I am the first to admit that even I found it quite a major shift in the way things were done (however I didn't post hate mail). Delphy did actually make a post introducing you to the change, in which he clearly said you could still use the site map to access the "old way of doing things". Unfortunately, most people didn't bother reading down that far.

It may interest people to know that you can happily skip the core pages simply by using site map, or just by using bookmarks. Personally I have no use for the core pages so I bookmark the forums I need to.

Okay so the reason the new layout went in to start with was because the old one was very poor for new and existing visitors/members. Basically it was an overcramped index page (which incidentally is still available to use) with too much information and not enough organisation. If joe guest managed to find the site map link, they were presented with 200 different forums which were extremely confusing, not least because hacks got tied in with downloads. It personally took me 5 visits to actually begin to see how things were laid out. So, it was totally reorganised for clarity and ease of use.

In my personal opinion it's one hell of a lot better now than it was before, as it removes 95% of the clutter for new peeps.
Most people got upset not because it is a bad change, but because it's a big change compared to what you had before.

Now to address some individual concerns/assumptions in this thread.. you'll have to excuse the unformatted quotes, smf uses a link and unixtime(?) time format and I can't be bothered to work them out (it also doesn't show all posts on the reply page so quickquote is out...)


Quote = Andygal
"I hate the new layout at modthesims2 as well. It's a pain in the butt."

We do adore posts like this, so helpful and constructive. Of course, you did take the time to read the part that tells you how to access the previous state, didn't you?


Quote = Gus Smedstad & syberspunk
"I'm waiting for this forum to start deteriorating.  You can't fight entropy, after all."
"Have you read some of the threads lately... in my not so humble opinion, it's already started... *shrugs*"

Curious, the number of visitors has actually rocketed over the last month. At least 25% more pageviews and the files download server is maxed out far more than it ever was. I wouldn't call that deteriation. You may also want to check out the MTS2 Alexa ranking, and compare it to months past.


Quote = Mokoti
"I remember looking through the hacks (which apparently now are forever in the "Testing Ground" no matter how old or well established they are) and seeing a long list of stuff I though sounded interesting, only to discover 95% of it was requests."

The hacks are split deliberately to show "stable" and in testing, this gets rid of all the annoying "TESTERS WANTED:" titles that never seemed to change.
They remain in the "Testing Ground" area to keep things together. I mean, how logical would it be to have testing hacks in one section of the site, stable hacks in another, and requests in a third? Wouldn't you be miffed if one day you saw it in one part then the next it had ''just moved''. Course we could use redirects but then someone would whine that the forum is cluttered with those.


Quote = LynnMar

"I am glad somebody started this thread because I was thinking the same thing.  I tried to download something today and couldn't,  so I went to the site problems forum and I read something about people stealing bandwitdth and that Delphy wanted people to turn off their firewalls when they wer downloading stuff or some crazy shit like that.

  I think they have totally lost their minds over there.  What is up with them??"

People were hotlinking. Simple as. We want to ensure the files server is serving people who have registered, and in most cases contributed, so the site, rather than anyone who hasn't even heard of MTS2 who has gotten the link of some thieving fansite. This is irony in action you see, people moan when the file server is too slow, then when Delphy helps improve the speed, people whine about it.
If you look through one of the 3 million people complaining about this, you'll see that the solution is a simple tickbox change.

"and yes I hate the new downloads and all the reorginizing,  I can't find a thing."

That's because you're use to the old method, allocate half hour to feeling your way around the new one and you'll get used to it.


Quote = Shivani

"I don't like sites where I have to hit F5 so often to make it load properly -- i.e. the columns don't load at the right width"

This was actually fixed two or three weeks ago. Basically it was a difference in the Gecko vs IE rendering engines, and a CSS attribute occasionally threw Firefox into a tizzy. However once the problem was tracked down, which was difficult because the bug was sometimes hard to recreate, it was fixed promptly.
Additionally, you didn't need to f5, you just needed to reflow the page by clicking back/forward. Or temporarily use IE for MTS2, no risk of spyware or other junk from there.


Quote = kasumiarmstrong

"Connections are breaking...  Downloads are taking forever to find and get..."

Due to the site's popularity and features, there are now 7 servers totalling $1500 a month. Please do bear in mind that this is a totally free site that relies on google ad clicks and donations to keep it running. There is only one files server due to the rest being allocated specific tasks, and the files server is very expensive as it has limitless bandwidth. At this time another one can't be afforded. Therefore, at peak times, you do have to wait. I guess you could say that in that respect the site is a victim of it's own success. But please do keep the 'totally free' aspect in mind - it's not an excuse or scapegoat, just a fact.


Quote = pet_peeve

"We have a winner! This is exactly why I posted. Not only 95% requests, but 95% subliterate requests."

Can't comment, no idea, don't go there. Judging by the file server being maxed out most weekends I'd say it can't be that high though.

"And the new layout smells like ass."

Oh look, another constructive and helpful comment.


Quote = dizzy-two

"The new style is obviously meant to discourage people from finding (and therefore downloading) anything."

Yeah that's absolutely right. It was designed to throw people off being able to find anything. .... Or perhaps it's just structured to logically fit the game now, which it does. Did you think of that?


Quote = Kngidomapaloce

"I thought it was hard to find things before, it's seriously harder to find anything than it was ever before. The original MTS2 layout was nice."

The search is still there.
The site map is still there.
The old pages are still there.
You did of course read the thread covering the new design, that tells you this, didn't you.


Quote = LK

"I don't like how MTS2 has something like 40 sub-categories.  You click on Hacks, and you have to decide if you want Object Hacks, Global Hacks, and nine other things, after which you have to figure out if you want Requests, In Testing, Finished, followed by which expansion pack."

This post I found most interesting.
People are complaining about the new core pages, and yet people are complaining there are too many sub-cats, and also people are complaining there are too many things mixed in (think requests). So how do we win this one?
Well, the core page forum view is everything in one. That is to say that if you click on Testing Ground, you'll get a core page with Object Hacks, Global Hacks, Requests, Testing and Finished all on one page. You can even say which expansions you have and only get showed compatible hacks. Sounds pretty logical to me. Alternatively, you can click site map and browse each section individually.
Yes, there are a lot of options, but that's cos there need to be.




I know MTS2 isn't perfect. Of course it's not, it's grown from a couple of forums and like 10 members and an alexa ranking of $null E+45, to 300+ forums, 110,000 members and a ranking of about 15,000 in under a year. It's obviously going to be scattery in some places.
However, work is being done every single day to improve everything. There is much much work to do, but there is also a lot of work successfully done. For example the help section has recently been hugely improved, putting in a new subforum with things that have been asked and answered and confirmed to work, so that it's even more helpful and usable and cuts down on duplicate posts cos no one could find anything. Perfect? No. But with 20k+ visitors a day, it's going to be difficult to achieve something that everyone is totally happy with.
We do value people's input (when it's actually useful input and not "this is the suxx0r" and usually act on it if it's beneficial to the majority.

Rather than saying "MTS2's layout sucks ass", why not perhaps think of the new guy who is no longer overwhelmed by seemingly random bits of text, but has several clearly defined sections to deal with. In fact it's not just new users, it's easier for seasoned ones if you just take some time to get used to it. And if you do truly hate it, use the site map and ta-da.. the "old version". There will be options going in that allow you to skip the core pages, and the new download browser too.
Instead of whining about how the download server is too slow, perhaps think of the fact you aren't paying for a single thing anyway and it's sometimes going to be slow. It's not that we don't give a crap, it's that demand is high and servers cost, and the accounts need to actually balance (input vs outgoings) before we can get more. We send upto 100 gigabytes of data per day in files alone. You know only 0.1% of pageviews result in an adclick, with the donations that doesn't leave much extra on the monthly costs. When there's enough, another file server may be added. Simple.

Oh and yes, there have been some posts by the unintelligent BBS migraters recently, however we are taking steps to combat their stupid traits.

If you hate it now for whatever reason, then that's fine you can hate it, but you've heard a little from the other side and while I expect some to disagree, I would hope that some would at least try and see things from another point of view, and I would hope that those who wish to critisise could do it in a constructive way so that we can look at how things could be done differently.

Bairy, perhaps you are right in all the things you said - but:

I am one of the "oldest" members of MTS2, and when a player is used to find something right away, without the "sophisticated logic arrangement" - he is puzzled, and feels uncomfortable. I don't need logic - I want to see all at once...:). As a matter of fact, I was puzzled too.

When dizzy-two published the "old" URL - I immediately put it on my "favorites"; there I could "swim", without digging in the "logic system"...:). Now I enter MTS2 only on this URL, and I don't care if the administrators want to show their witty logic...:).

The "classic" built of the site was the best. I have enough troubles with the game (NL) - and don't need another "logic" game...:).

Give us the old frame - that's what we ask for...:).

You can change your options to view the old index by default, and there will be code going in to let you skip both the new core pages, and the new download browser, effectively presenting the site as it used to be (minus the forum movearound of course). I don't know when this will be implemented but it will.

Well, to be brutally honest about all this, I didn't like the way it was before. The lack of decent categorization made it difficult to notice updated material. The new categories have improved that aspect of the site quite a bit.

The layout of the site, however, is not as efficient as it used to be. I prefer the old site map because in one click from there you can be in any forum on the site right away. The subforums makes it a bit more work, but that's what tab-browsing is for.  ;D

Strickly speaking, entropy (using website terminology, but the general principle applies to everything) is not a measure of popularity, although it may be affected by it. It is definitely not inversely proportional (proportionate?) to the size and popularity of a website. If anything, entropy increases when a website gets more hits. Entropy is a measure of the "messiness" of a system, or in this case, the disorganization of a website. When people on this site speak of a forum deteriorating, they are referring to an increase in the average stupidity of posts and of an increase in the stupid posts to non-stupid posts ratio, and thus how much dross must be waded through to get to interesting stuff. By this measure, the entropy of MTS2 is definitely increasing, because even leaving aside the layout (which I personally dislike since I dislike excessive subcategorization, primarily because a system of categorization and subcategorization that makes perfect sense to one person's way of thinking may be obtuse and inane to another persons way of thinking, and this increases dramatically with the amount of subcategorization) there are more and more non-useful non-interesting posts for every useful and interesting post. Most requests fall under the "non-useful, non-interesting" category, since the people doing the requesting often ask for things that are technically nonfeasible or don't provide enough details to actually implement their ideas. Also, a person looking for hacks does not want to have to look through requests; that's something that for the most part only modders with some time on their hands are going to be looking through.

Generally speaking, the more users you have in a forum, the more entropy you have in that forum. The larger your system, the harder it is to organize said system.

ahhh I am corrected on that. I knew I should have looked up the definition but it was 2am.

It is true that there arae quite a few useless posts. We do encourage search as much as we can but you know some people. The fact the new core pages have the search in the top left is hopeful that people will start searching, plus the search page itself is planned to be made a lot more useful (as in select the actual areas you want (downloads, hacks, help etc) rather than reading through each forum in the list, selecting which you want, and then by the time you've done that forgetting why you're there)

We do enforce the rules as much as we can, bumps are removed, excess smiley usage is removed, stickies are put up asking demanding that people do their own work before bugging us. And then actual threads are moderated (at least in help, I can't speak for anywhere else) so that stuff that's answerable with a search is closed.

It is however, as you said: More users = more size, more size = harder to organise. But we are working hard on it.

Hey, it's pretty impressive that MTS2 is still functioning at all, considering the probably traffic load.

I do miss MTS2 the way it was a year ago, there hasn't been a place quite like it before or since. I don't have any criticisms for Delphy and if it were me I'd have given someone else the reins long ago. It's still sad that the place turned out the way it is, but I know everyone there has done the best they could and it's ultimately a positive contribution to my game.

I still visit MTS2 on IRC and say hi every now and then.. I made some friends there.

Well, I'm sorry, but it's not fixed.  For reference, I browse with Mozilla 1.7.11 (Gecko/20050728).  In a short test I just conducted, the first several pages loaded fine, but the next loaded with incorrect column widths again.  I doubt it makes a difference, but I was in global hacks/testing at the time.  Something is still being overlooked.

As for using IE, I'll be damned before I use that piece of trash unless I absolutely have to (SimCribbling, anyone?).  It has nothing to do with spyware, et. al., because I have other programs to handle those intrusions.

Additionally, I do not see the point in having to click back, then forward, when I can hit F5 and have it done in a single action (if I'm lucky, because not even that works every time).  Maybe I wouldn't care if I happened to be on my desktop and could use the mouse buttons to programmed to handle those actions, but I'm not.  Heck, I'd probably just hit F5 anyway out of habit.

Mind you, I'm not angry with the response, but I am annoyed with the some of the advice given.  I'll also continue to wander through MTS2.  After all, I've had years of practice with dealing with annoyances from Win98 in the past.

Unfortunately, no one has told us that Mozilla is still playing up. Firefox and Mozilla are supposed to use the exact same rendering engine and firefox is fixed (at least, no one has said otherwise)

I suggested back/fwd because I find it's usually faster than reloading the page. I suggesting using IE because the site works perfectly on it, and although I'm not exactly keen on it, it was my choice for ease when the site was playing up.
However it's obviously your choice what you do :)

Now that I know, I'll get hold of moz and work with Delphy to see where the problem is, assuming I can recreate it.


*update* Mozilla should now have been fixed. Basically the user agent string for firefox is slightly different than for Moz, and it was classing Moz as IE and thus not removing the problematic CSS attribute.
You might have to clear the *modthesims2* cookies and the cache then restart moz before it actually works.


If there are other problems that anyone has, please report them to the mts2 site issues forum (http://www.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24) (or here if you're not registered there and don't want to be, I guess) . Sometimes it can take a little while to sort the problem because it needs to be recreated and tracked down, but usually all problems get solved eventually.

All very interesting about MTS2, but I think I can speak for a number of us on this forum when our concern is about the migration of "fans" from the bbs/MTS2 to MATY, and the complete nonsense posted. It's drivel, without a doubt. I've also noticed this has been the case on the forums in MTS2, and I have been nuked on a number of times merely for expressing an opinion that did not concur with the people on that particular thread. At least here, if you do dare to express some rationale it will be discussed in an intelligent and adult manner. Or, you'll be ridiculed, but you have a perfect right to take the pee back and no-one will think less of you.

As for the new format... It is certainly very attractive, but it is also a pain to get round. And yes, I do indeed still use the old style pages.

"I've also noticed this has been the case on the forums in MTS2, and I have been nuked on a number of times merely for expressing an opinion that did not concur with the people on that particular thread."

We remove flaming/off topic posts as much as we can. If you make a constructive or helpful post then usually it won't be touched however we do try to keep things on-topic as much as possible.
If we didn't they would turn into TSR-style chatfests (or flamefests) and the thread would lose most of it's productivity. With a site as big and popular as MTS2, you have to nip bad posts as quickly as possibly, before they turn the thread into a bad one. People can unfortunately be very explosive and 200 posts later, you can't even remember what the thread started out as.

I did think about making a complaint but decided never to bother posting again. I'm not interested in getting people banned, and can't be arsed with childish/abusive remarks about the level of my intelligence, knowledge, impartiality or otherwise. Unfortunately, after checking through a number of threads on the site I've been really disappointed as most of them seem to be random rubbish. I don't doubt they are enormously fascinating to those joining in, but it just don't float my boat. Perhaps it's just a reflection of the average age of the people who use the forums as they all seem very young, not that I'm decrying youth in any way as there are those who display oodles of maturity, or, maybe, not terribly well educated?  ;) My, that sounds horribly arrogant, doesn't it?

A little, but you have a valid point. There are a number of, shall we say, under experienced in netiquette, users around. That's not really the fault of any one thing (except perhaps AOL), it's just how it is.

I think there are a couple of problems
1. People use l337 or shrthnd speak or excessive size/color tags (which are hacked so they won't work for anyone below moderator level btw), which is really irritating. They think it's the norm because they use it on their cellphones etc and they think this is perfectly acceptable because they've learnt on places like the bbs that it is.
2. People can't be bothered to find out what's needed of them. For example, in the help section we still get many posts that have been previously covered despite us giving instructions on how to find the previous posts. This is either laziness, or inability to look on their part. It is partly the forum's fault because searches can be quite complicated (there are plans to simplify)

It is true that a lot of kids are sims fans, and they usually provide lower quality posts. The more experienced posters then either don't understand, or don't want to understand, the posts, which leads to problems. And then this can escalate because the original poster gets all pissy, takes it personally and you have yourself a flamethread.
This is really down to the original posters' lack of understanding of netiquette. I am planning to write a guide at some point on how to use the forum, including a nice guide on netiquette.

There has been a recent run of "I'm first!" posts, which is ongoing. Although we try hard to keep up with them sometimes it's difficult. The problem is "the line". If we're too harsh then we get critisised for being so, and if we're not harsh enough then we get critisised for not doing anything. We're still learning the balance but I believe that we will master it.

Nice way of putting it  :D

Lk, I wasn't directing anything personally at you. I hope you didn't take offense to what I said. I just can't stomach Retardo Land, but that's my opinion. Apparently many can stomach it just fine. What bothers me is that Retardo Land is the only impression some have of MATY, which makes us all look like fools with a serious superiority complex. I know that shouldn't bother me, but it does. 

Now that I've gone back and taken a fresh look at it, I think I see where the problem is with the new MTS2 design:

1) You cannot see who the most recent poster was.
2) There is no indicator of which "Show" and which "Sort" is being used.
3) Requests are mixed with the posts (which makes it confusing in the Testing Grounds especially).
4) The navigation links don't remember your "Show" or "Sort" settings (and sometimes don't make sense).

I think those are the major problems I have with the new design.

Don't worry, I know you weren't (although I like to pretend like that I do; it makes it more fun).  And, yes, I've noticed that some people do think all MATY is is RL--I playfully remind such people that they should cork up their ears, lest more brain cells leak out.

I admit, I hated the new layout at first, but I hate change in general. And Firefox was horribly broken when MTS2's new layout first hit. Currently it's been working well the last few weeks and I have gotten used to the new layout for the most part. (IE blows chunkies, don't ever ask me to use it, I will quit first)

I do agree though, I miss the part where you could see who the last poster in a thread was, so I don't have to keep clicking back in the thread to see if my question may have been answered or not. I don't like the testing ground area, because of all the requests. But I do like the core pages because it lets me see everything at once and I can see what is new at a glance without having to drill down. I don't particularly like the front page, but that is because I already know what I want and where I am going. Not a big deal, just bookmark a different page.

I guess what I am trying to say, is yes I was irritated  when MTS2 first introduced the new layout, it didn't work correctly with my browser, and I had had a few drinks at the time when I complained in chat so I was shall we say, a little too candid or abrupt. I saw I hated, end of story. But since it now works with firefox I have gotten used to it. I am sure it will never be exactly the way I want it because I didn't design it.

We will always have to deal with ten and eleven year olds no matter where we go, that is just the nature of being an adult and being a gamer. That's why I don't particularly care for RL, I don't see the point in poking fun of children in such a spiteful hateful way, I would be really annoyed if my kid was being treated that way simply because she isn't as mature as the "adults" on that forum.

O, and I am a woman faemidwife. ;)

For me personally, Mod the Sims2 is over-modded. I don't care much for heavy-handed moderation and I noticed one day that more than half/3/4s of the first page of the sims2 chat section consisted of locked threads of one sort or another (complete with little "you can't say that here" messages, and who cares if someone says "yeah I'm first to say thanks" before they say "thanks I love this dl?" All the content of a post like that is fluff anyways (good fluff, but still noise, not signal)). I think it would actually be better to deal with the "issues" privately - probably that many PMs isn't feasible, I guess, but... even just deleting some stuff without saying anything would be better in many cases (imo, of course - not that my opinion is of any import) than making it so obvious.

I still don't like the "chat" division anyway - I suspect if one wanted discussion on that site, it would be more interesting discussion if it wasn't so divided all up. Go here for this one, and there for that one. Then, I'm not sure the site wants to be a discussion site at all, and in that case, might be better off not even bothering to try to cater to that aspect, but leaving that for other chat sites.

As for the new format, I like some aspects of it quite well. It is, imo, overly and unnecessarily graphics heavy which makes it slow to load and clunky (and clunky-looking, not as streamlined professional as it could be - the opening screen pics look like tarot cards to me) and it "requires" things of its users (a certain large browser window size, and when someone said they didn't like that Delphy said something like "bigger screens are the wave of the future, catch up" which doesn't much take into account those of it who prefer not to give away our entire valuable screen space to one window, even if our monitors are plenty large enough (I tend to do many things on my computer at once). It still doesn't work well with my mac (netscape and/or firefox depending on which computer I'm on, IE doesn't get along with my mac either), actually (or didn't, I haven't been over there in a bit) but I didn't see any reason to mention it as the earlier posts said it was or was going to be worked on and I didn't see anything saying it was supposed to be fixed. When I mentioned an aspect of the old system I'd like to see included in the new, I was told to just use the old one... well, uh, I was saying I'd like to use the new and it just had something missing for me. Using the old one wouldn't provide the options of the new I liked - I mean... I dunno, that's a kind of strange response.

It's a strange board, really... I'm still sorry about the decision that seemed to dump a large number of the best builders and think the building area suffered for it. It seems to be coming back some now... and it's still the best place to go to find out new stuff or how to do something, or for some good downloads. but I've only been on this one a few weeks and have no idea what moderation and information and other such things are like over here or anything like that, so dunno about comparisons.

I'm glad that there are others who feel the same way I do.......

Retardo Land is obviously a lot of fun and entertainment for some people and I'm not one to criticise anybody's choice of that, but I find it less than entertaining and yes, the superiority complex does seem to be alive and well in there  :-[

As someone who only uses a very tiny number of hacks outside the critical ones, I rarely looked at MTS2, less than 10 times total in the last year. After NL came out I went looking for updates and the new system was horrible, unorganized, difficult to use, and not logical in any way.

So its not just the people who use it all the time and are used to a certain way.

If you want to keep this useless confguration with broken searches mixed with requests etc, at least make a list of direct links to complete hacks and in testing hacks that is easy for anyone to find.

As for the increase in traffic, more is not always better. 

You know, you'd be right in saying someone like me never bothered to post at MTS2 about the problem.  Then again, I so rarely actually say anything anywhere that it'd be a miracle indeed if I had.  I won't reiterate earlier comments I made--you've already read them.

I will, however, wander off that way shortly to see if it's corrected itself now.  Danke.

dizzy-two,
I've passed your suggestions on to Delphy. I don't know when/if they'll get implemented (I know that hack requests are going to be moved back to the requests section)


nectere,
I agree Firefox did rather botch the site up. One of the problems was trying to figure out exactly why it did it, and it took some time until there was time to actually consistantly reproduce the bug and track down the reason for it.

"IE blows chunkies, don't ever ask me to use it, I will quit first"

IE gets a lot of bad press. Yes, it's awfully designed, slow, sloppy and generally crap. However it does do what it's supposed to (barely) and isn't unsafe to use so long as you have various protection in place, just in case. The only reason I suggested people use it is because we couldn't even figure out why the Firefox bug happened, and in a toss up between bad page rendering, and proper page rendering on an badly thought out browser, the browser won because after all it was just one site for a short period of time.

"I saw I hated, end of story. "

You and about 500 others...

"I don't particularly like the front page, but that is because I already know what I want and where I am going."

If you edit the options, you can choose which page you want as the home page. And with new code upcoming, you'll be able to skip the core pages completely and be taken straight to the "old" version (i.e. the forum itself)

"I don't see the point in poking fun of children in such a spiteful hateful way"

This is a catch 22 in a way. Some of the kids don't know the better and some of the adults get pissed off due to lack of tolerance/understanding.


sagana,
Firstly, thanks for such a well thought out post. It's nice to get a geniunly constructive post we can actually work with.

I don't think MTS2 is over-moderated. There are occasions when a lot of threads are deleted within a short space of time for various reasons, and it does look heavy handed however this isn't a regular occurance.
This is the thing. Comments aren't really there for "I'm first!!" posts, they aren't even there for "thank you!!!!!" posts (there's a button for that), they're there in case there's a problem with the download, or in case someone can offer something constructive. If the "I'm first" and generally useless posts were allowed to run rampant then there would be several pages of rubbish and the one comment saying something is wrong could be missed, which means someone misses out for the sake of someone else boasting about being first.
The idea of just making posts disappear is good in principal, but then there would be an in-flood into Site Issues about it and we know from experience that people will happily smack the new thread button to ask a question that already has 15 threads on the main forum display ergo a ton of "where did my post go??????" threads pushing the real site issues out.

I can't really comment on the "chat" element or the build comment because I joined 3 months ago when the site was more or less developed (forum wise) and so I had no say in either.

With the new format, I do agree that the core pages can be rather overwhelming at first, however they are improving all the time, the help one, although still quite fully packed, has been reduced quite a lot from the original one. I think the others need simplifying too. Again, it all takes time to really sort out. I would also say though that I still think it's a lot better than the previous version in the sense that each section is now actually explained instead of you just getting thrown into a forum listing.
A problem is that when we ask people for feedback on the design, we get "it sucks ass majorly" or "yeah it rocks" (as my reply to sanmonroe below will testify). No one is actually specific on what they do or don't like, so it's difficult to judge what is and isn't wanted.


sanmonroe,
"After NL came out I went looking for updates and the new system was horrible, unorganized, difficult to use, and not logical in any way."

I don't know what to do with that info because it doesn't really say a lot. What did you find difficult to use, how do you think it could be organised better or more logical?

"So its not just the people who use it all the time and are used to a certain way."

Fair point.

"at least make a list of direct links to complete hacks and in testing hacks that is easy for anyone to find."

Good idea. I don't know how easy that will be to implement or maintain but it's certainly worth looking into.

Well, I find the new interface to be a bit daunting myself, but I think it is unfair in the extreme to bash Mod2.
 
1. They were the first real Sims2 site to come on line. They are responsible for paving the way, so to speak for many of the later sites. Many who have their own sites now, started out at MTS They were the real start of the Sims2 community.

2. They host their site for free and the also support others
.
3. Delphy and Mod the Sims are the ones that created the tools that so employ in their making of objects. If we had to rely on Maxis we would be still waiting.

I enjoy this site myself, but I don't feel the need to bash MTS in order to show my appreciation for this siete. It is one thing to say you don't care for the new layout, and quite another to say they "suck". etc.

Much as I love MTS2, I don't think it's fair to rob the real authors of the tools of their due credit. Quaxi, myself and several others created the tools. MTS2 just made them popular.

So are you saying Dizzy-two that you don't get credit for your creations over there?
That's not fair at all!! :(

Mendota: MTS2 was the best site for any piece of information for a great length of time, and I still go there to do just that, as well as for the downloads. I won't go to the exchange unless I really have to, and MATY is the only other Sims forum I'm even remotely interested in. Various Simmers has also gone down the pan somewhat, and there is a distinct air of bitterness about it... So what are we left with?

I really enjoy the discussions and repartee here. People are intelligent, thoughtful and witty, without being abusive, and that is my big gripe. You can make a point without resorting to adolescent name-calling.

Aussieone,
I don't think dizzy-two was saying that, I think he(?) was just pointing out to Mendota that MTS2 hasn't created every great tool out there, which is true. So far as I'm aware, everyone who creates good stuff gets credit.

laeshanin,
I can't comment on VS or the BBS because I very rarely visit either. I can't even comment with any solid confidence on MTS2 outside the Help section because most of my MTS2 time is spent buried there.
I can comment on your last part though. This thread has been nice, there have been some good constructive posts we can actually work with and it's (largely) void of pure insults, which means some progress can be made.

Just to update everyone, we have now implemented a set of options so you can effectively skip the "new" design and go back to how it was.

Please see the "In other news" part of post 1 of this thread (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=96128)

Of course you need to be registered to actually have a user control panel. But once you are you're free to adjust the settings to your liking :)

By the by, bairy, are you the geezer from Brum in the UK? If so, which bit? I live in Acocks Green.

I stand corrected on the creation of the objects tool. I actually thought Quaxi, and dizzy two were a part of MTS. With so many migrations it is hard to keep track. I certainly do not want to rob anyone of well deserved credit. Whenever I go to Sims Resource, the tool used to create objects was sited as coming from MTS. They may have changed that now. :-\

laeshanin,
Yes, South Birmingham.

Mendota,
I'm assuming you mean the CEP. I'm not fully aware of how everything on that subject works. So far as I know, full credit has been given but I might be wrong. I really don't want to get into it here because I don't have the full story, and this topic is about MTS2 as a whole :)

oh yeah. Because apparently now you have to be really really really careful about crediting who made what and how, when, where, why and if your cat helped and the tools you used and the idea you got from some random post somewhere...and heaven help you if anyone finds out you didnt credit the whole freaking universe for allowing you to live in the first place. ::) It makes me so glad I am not the sharing type.

There was a big hullabaloo when CEP and such first came out because TSR was crediting MTS2. Some people thought the individual modders and not the site should get the credit. I know Inge was really big on this. At the time, I didn't think it was such a big deal. MTS2 was A LOT smaller, had a lot more of a savvy, respectful and intelligent (if not always the nicest ;) ) crowd and it was more or less like a small community of modders all helping each other to figure things out. In retrospect, I now have to side with Inge on this. Since there has been a mass exodus of talent from MTS2 and most of the old timers have been replaced with BBS refugees whose contributions include "First!" posts (not to mention a lot of behind the scenes drama that has gone on at MTS2 of which I will spare everyone the details.  :P ) it's probably better to credit the individuals as most have since moved onto other sites.

While I do think the Sims community it rather overzealous and ridiculous with the whole 'rights' issue and it's a game and we should share and be happy, I think when pay sites were brought into the mix and profiting from tools and discoveries that others made it's only fair to at least acknowledge those people.

At any rate, TSR pretty much credits Quaxi, Numenor, RGiles etc individually now and it's been that way for months.

Motoki, I am almost entirely referring to the current behind the scenes blowout among certain creators of certain items and certain tools and the "new" issues surrounding them. I think its great to credit people and all, but it seems currently its getting a tad out of hand when some of the things that are going on as of late. When the focus becomes more about getting credit where credit is due rather than the creations themselves, its seems a bit contrived, egotistical and like you aren't really doing it because its something you enjoy doing, but to get some sort of fame. I don't know, I guess I am just really bummed about so many things going down right now, not just sims2 communities but the pervasive attitudes I see inflicting more and more people on a regular basis. It's almost frightening. Everyone wants to be right at all costs, look at me look at me, tis all about me! I guess it's because we have become a disposable generation and folks feel they must get their due before they are disposed of I don't know. I see more and more people fighting for no good reason, getting really bent out of shape over the simplest of things. Knee jerk reactions are common, but when it permeates your every thought and actions for days on end, at some point it becomes destructive. ok I have said too much.




***Bairy - do you think you guys could bring back the last poster indicator though? So we can see if the creator has posted last in the thread without have to open the thread and clicking to the last page? I ahve to say I really like the feature that keeps the main post on every page, I hated having to answer questions over and over that were answered in the first post but people too lazy to go read the first post. Thus I dont share! (problem solved)

I must have missed this current round of issues as I've been isolating myself here lately and trying to stay drama free.

I'll have to admit, MTS2 is a lot better now. 

I use Firefox and the screen was giving me a lot of problems. 
I also did not like the requests being in the same area as the mod threads. 
Thanks for moving those out of there.

Nectere is right, I want the link to go to the last post in the thread back.  It's a pain the way it is.

The last post indicator is in place on the "downloads section" page. It isn't linked to anything, would it be more useful if it was?

Also, would it be useful to have the Last Post on the Create and Game Mods pages?


Yes, it was decided to move requests out of Testing Ground, and rename it to lessen the confusion, and as I said in a previous post there are now options to go back to the "old" style too.

See, we do listen when people request ;) :)

I am not sure we are talking about the same thing or not. When I clicked into the forum in the old style there used to be a column that gave the time and name of the last poster, so at a glance you could see if there were any new replies and who the last one to reply was. So that if you asked the creator (or thread starter or whatever the case may be) a question you could quickly see whether or not they replied without having to click in the thread or actually subscribe to the thread and be notified via email. Just a quick visual check.

I reset my front loading page last night, the problem I encountered however is that anything I clicked on (that should have taken me to the main page) kept me on the my revised setting page. i.e. I would click on the logo or what have you to get to the main page but it kept putting me back at the page I set as my start page. Is there any way around that? I didnt realize it would affect it that way so I put it back to the new style.

I went and revised all my settings to the old style, but I got stuck in the sort by functions or room area when I went to downloads, I dont like that way of searching/viewing so I ended up resetting everything back to the new style to get the core page back which has all the stuff in that area in a list (with the sort titles on top that you can use to drill down) style format so I can see right up front whats new and whats not regardless of category.

If you have the core pages enabled (or rather don't have them skipped) then the downloads core page (but none of the other core pages at present) does have "Last post" column in the forum part. There's no actual link to the last post but it will show you who made it.

That's what's meant by "Home page". If you click Home or the logo, it will take you to your preferred page. The only way to the new or old index page is by selecting those as your home page.

There's not a lot can be done about that, it's one method of browsing, or the other.

ok, well that all makes sense then.

Yes a hotlink would be great on the name of the last poster to enabled a jump to the last reply rather than having to click on the thread and then go to the last page. (lazy I know...)

Site is looking (and working!) much better now than it was a couple weeks ago..I can now find stuff much more easy.

I feel a bit bad for jumping the gun and not giving it more time...that'll teach me to be a bit more patient *heh*

I don't know if its a moderation issue or just a God complex but I have posted houses on MTS2 without a problem.  Being limited in what I can create at this time I tried my hand at some female mass murderers.  No matter what I did I could not get them posted.  There was always some excuse (pictures not good enough, need shots of real and simmies for compairison etc.) I complied with the wishes of the forum mod until I got to the point of the face shots were not close up enough to show the details and a week later someone had a celebrity posted without a real person photo for compairison (something I had been turned down for on my 3rd try to get these posted!).  I wasn't able to get back on for a week or so but figured that it just wasn't worth the effort anymore.  At that point I decided to forget posting my stuff and just check in from time to time to see whats new.  I rarely get help from anyone with regards to how to do things (wasn't that the original intention of the site?) I just get not so politely referred back to a tutorial that if I had understood in the first place I would not have had questions. Last but not least on my list of reasons I seldom go to MTS2 anymore is the fact that though the modders can group up to make these big sets or pair off to help each other on projects only 1 time was an object request actually followed through on.  Now I relize that its not easy to do (hell if it were I would already be doing it) but even simple things like a floor pattern or wallpaper that could be done quickly enough by those with paintshops were ignored and I am working an a really large project house that could be much more realistic with a little help and was going to be posted on site for all to enjoy.  Changing the format was just the last straw for me as now I cannot find things without spending a ton of time hunting through pages and pages of stuff.  At least in the old format it marked what I had previously viewed so I would not have to waste time (du'oh I have been here already). Yes I still go there and will continue to do so but less frequently since I seldom have that much time to spare these days, and I will not post my goodies on forums run by wannabe's who only put their friends out there for the world  to see.  And before you mistakenly think that I should have voiced this to MTS2 understand that I did and recieved no reply other than to say that if my stuff wasn't put up for download than to just keep trying. So for me it was not just a matter of the change that keeps me from visiting often its also the way the site is run.  I am glad you came here to answer questions and are able to put a bug in a few ears and get some positive change going there.

Personally I can't comment on any of this because I don't deal with any kind of download moderation. I will however pass what you've said onto Delphy (site owner) and the people who do moderate it.


Again, not really my department, I generally do game help and don't usually stray outside that. I know from things I've read that there are a lot of people who skip straight past all the tutorials specifically to ask. Unfortunately people who already have may be getting tied into that wave. Again, I shall pass this on to the people who deal with the creation area.


You can probably guess what I'm gonna say here :)


If you go to edit Options, you can now choose to skip the core pages and new download browser, effectively giving you back the "old view". You can also set your home page for the old index page, the site map, or any of the sections in between.


I don't think that's entirely fair or true. I don't look extensively at the download section but I know there's quite a range of posters. I understand why you'd say that though.


Will pass that on.


I'm glad I came here too. It's been largely constructive and well thought out and there has been some good progress. I'm glad some people like yourself are able to make posts that are actually useful without resorting to insults as it helps us see what's wrong.
Unfortunately, being only a help mod, I can't comment on a lot of the download-area concerns but I will definitely pass the address of this post on to the various section moderators.

I had to interject here and please don't take this in any rude way. I approve the sim uploads on the site. Yes you did work hard on your upload I'm sure. However your first submission you had no pictures of who they were modled after- If someone happens to upload an Angelina Jolie sim (god lord help me please make them stop uploading her)
and it doesnt have a picture, but the post is dont properly with links and photos- The general population does in fact know what she looks like. So a celeb photo is not always required there.
The sims that you made were based on very old historical characters that the general population does not know. If you had not titled your post no one looking at those sims would be able to identify them for who they were. Its not saying your work is bad but that is outr main criteria. If you submit a sim based on someone it has to look like them without guessing. Approving uploads is not a personal issue. We dont reject things becuase we feel like it, or we dont like you. If you worked hard on the sims and they didn't look enough like who they were based on you can always upload to the "other" category as many have done. Celebrity sims have stricter guidelines than other sim uploads.

As far as the thread closing issue I also have to defend this. We dont deliberately get heavy handed for fun either. But with such a massive number of posts piling up, the forum requires a good hard cleaning once in a while. there are outdated posts, and double posts, and silly BBSer posts, so sometimes it does look like were being bullies but if we continued to let the foum pile up with wasted postings then we'd get complaints on how hideously sloppy it is. Its a no win situation.

And for those of you who hate the layout- I myself am not even a fan of it, However its really easy to navigate if you use the site map- atleast for me it is. I only like certain areas of the forum and I can easily find them by just using the site map button. Instead of getting upset and ranting elsewhere, we are always open to constructive comments on how to better the site. Theres a thread just for site suggestions.
Not everyone can be happy all the time- and we only try to keep in mind that the site is perpetually growing. Even if you decide not to go back, hopefully there was something on there that you found useful. :)

I have to agree with you Motoki on the quality of some of the recent posts many of them sound like th BBS'ers that post in retardo land here and have the misbegotten belief that retardo land is the main MATY forum.I also dont care for the new interface  on MTS2 itis paradoxical in its format as you say and also like you navigating the new interface is far more difficult. to find a specific Mod I was looking for I had to type in the Modders name in the search engine. the download times are horrible and thats putting it mildly and 50% percent of the time  I get connection hang up and timed out.It took me four hours last sunday to get an item I needed for a sim Brynne sent me .because of connection hang ups and timed outs

Bangelnuts,

As I've said at least twice in this thread, if you edit your options you can opt for the "old style" of mts2.

It may interest you to know that the new design is about a third lighter on the queries, meaning slightly faster page loads. Also, a "bug" was recently squashed which reduced average page rendering time from 5 mins to a few secs.
It is still slow at peak times (weekend) yes, and yes the files server is flat out for the entire weekend meaning many many requests are rejected, but being a free site, MTS2 has to work with the servers it has. Work is being done often that actually speeds things up. Of course the problem is that it allows more users, which slows it back down again.
The servers currently cost $1500 a month. The income is, give or take, $1500 a month. Unless donations or ad clicks go up, nothing more can be bought so I'm afraid there's not a lot can be done about the delays.

I do donate to MTS2 . but aside from that many of us come here to post for help now because   its far easier to get help here and the posters here on the Podium are quicker to respond than the help forum at MTS2. I had a game issue I posted for help onMTS2 and never got a reply. came here posted the same issue and got  an immediate response

No, not really.  There were hundreds of Sims 2 sites in the Ultimate Sims List (http://www.ultimatesims.com/) before MTS2 came along.  (I host the Ultimate Sims List, y'see; I've seen thousands of Sims sites come and go over the years.)  I can't think of any feature of MTS2 that was new.  MTS2's growth came from effective marketing and being the original host for many modders and hackers, but not from any great innovation.

MTS2 is an impressive achievement and can stand proud among the giants of the Sims community.  That should be sufficient laurels for anybody, with no need for false advertising.

The mistake underlying the user complaints was changing the user interface.  MTS2 is a very large and complex site.  It takes work to learn how to find things.  Every time you change things around, people have to go through the same work all over again.  With thousands of other sites, people will tend to just go elsewhere rather than invest their time and energy keeping up with your changes.

Greg

Yeah I can relate to that.  The *one* time I  did get a response it was from someone who wasn't even a moderator getting shitty with me about doing a forum search first.

I'm not an i-net retard...I know how to use a forum search and they never took  into consideration that perhaps I did  do a forum search (and I did, but did an answer to my question come up?  Noooo...why do you think I asked genious?)

Believe me, I know the annoyance of people posting the same question over and over again due to frequenting othe TS2 sites *cough*TSR*cough*.  But still..if you know that it's already been discussed and know where the answer is, just leave the person the damned link and don't get all high and mighty.

Okay I take some of that back...I finally did get a response to my question from somebody who left me a link..and it was in a thread that was like 10+ pages long....I would have been sooo likely to find that answer on my own. Who doesn't love skimming through 10 pages to find an answer to a question.  ::)

This isn't just a rant about MTS2..it happens other places as well.  But when stuff like that does happen..it doesn't make me want to participate in the community.  Especially when it happens the first time you ask a question or something.  Just sets a bad tone and I like to enjoy my time online..not deal with those who wish to act high and mighty without just cause  ;)

/rant over.

thats why I like this forum all you have to do is click see reponses to your posts and it takes you right to the post