I just use the 800x600 resolution even though I'm capable in going into the larger ones.  Why on earth should I play the game with less settings on a bigger resolution if the current one works?

Cinematics are letterboxes on my computer too, I wonder if it has anything to do with resolution?

It was probably Deluxe then, I swear that this was the only reason that some of these chairs didn't show up in the game.  I completely forgot about the fact that they gave out the DD objects for free.  They weren't anything that special anyway, if I remember right.

I'm disappointed that TS1 had a Pepsi Vending Machine but there is no vending machine at all in TS2.  Heck, that would be another way to make money, stick a vending machine in the middle of the street and have passers by pay a dollar.  Also, where's the McDonalds?  If they can have Cingular Wireless in Need for Speed Underground 2, they can put things like that into TS2.  Then people complain that they're "merchandising".  I believe it's better than what we're getting now.

I believe it's odd that some things for TS1 required Double Deluxe, and yet even if you had both LL and HP you couldn't get it.  They're pretty much what DD included after all.

Where did they get the idea about charging people for "donated" objects?  People like you that are willing to pay for their custom content.

Why the heck do you want to pay someone that's good at photoshop a few bucks a month when there's someone out there that might be working even harder that asks no money for their stuff?  Heck, the stuff from those paysites aren't flawless.  I've heard hair meshes from PeggySims have the exact same problems that free ones do but some people that get subscription fees don't even bother to address these issues.   Yet people prefer them to someone who creates free content and fixes everything they start.

However, go ahead and spend your money on that stuff if you're so inclined.  I doubt that anyone could convince someone set on paying those people to do so otherwise.

It affects us all in the end.  Without these subscription sites, we probably wouldn't have these "Fun" packs.  There weren't very many objects in OFB that weren't business related thanks to these "Fun" packs.

In the game as it is, would the sim need to be a vampire to get the custom overlay much like the servo right now?  If this could be reverse engineered somehow and be available on all sims then we could reduce the amount of skintones used.  I believe they're 3MB each currently.

Hmm, I wonder if they'll have vampire pets?

I know Maxis had the "New Expansion Fixes Old Problems" thing with TS1, but I hadn't noticed it in TS2.  Heck, Makin' Magic was made to be the most stable out there so it would sell more than 5 copies.  Maybe I hadn't noticed this practice in TS2 because everything is already fixed by J.M. a month or two after the game was released.

EA won't listen to their customer complaints until they lose their "sheepish" fanbase.  To keep said people "sheepish", they release Patches to make it seem like they're trying to do something.  If they didn't cater to the sheepish, then they wouldn't release these patches.  The Last Patch released for TS1 was Unleashed, and two expansions came after that one.  TS2 had all its versions patched.

Though, this is all just a summary of what you already know probably.

I upgraded my Geforce MX 440 to a Geforce 6200 and it improved the graphics dramatically.  I have problems with ingame videos now (Most notably in Civilization 4) but it's a small tradeoff for increased performance.  This card only cost me about $40, so if you're on a budget it might be worth looking into but there are better cards.

I do believe TS2 was toned down, and was a reason why Will Wright abandoned it and started his Spore project.  Heck, they even toned down "WooHoo", which was a lot more "graphic" in the first game.

I was thinking when I was playing Veronaville "Romeo and Juliet can't be done right without murder" it could have been pulled at the last minute I guess. 

It's too bad Maxis wouldn't have animal sacrifices in their pets expansion.  Since we can't use cows, I guess people are out of the question too?

If they do have a pets expansion, they better be able to have you be able to throw the pet brick.  Their implementation right now doesn't really have a point unless if that IS the pets expansion.

Ok, so they're complaining about it on a Civilization site.  Heck, they even complain about Civilization 4 there.

It's not Maxis's fault if Christianity becomes the "best" religion if they don't supply objects for it.  Don't you think TS2 would have been already off the market because of the ability to make Adult content?  However, since the meshing community would make the symbols they will take a big hit if that happens.  Maxis hasn't taken a risk since Hot Date I think, otherwise they've acted exactly like Disney.

Maybe Religion isn't such a good idea, but Pets isn't a good one either.  Most ideas revolve around object sets, which are also a matter of preference.

Well, I took the survey.  It seems if you say that you're "Not at all interested" in a pets expansion, they believe that you don't want another TS2 expansion.  I kind of was disappointed that there wasn't a general comments section, where we can berate them and suggest ideas that don't suck.  Well, they probably wouldn't read them anyway.

I could elaborate into a huge system for the religion concept, but I don't think any of you feel like reading all of whatever I would have typed.  Besides, Maxis doesn't have the balls to take a risk and make a religion expansion.  Heck, Civilization 4's done it and no one's complained.

Is there any other company that has a better deal on the 4K Dell Inspiron XPS M1710 that has similar statistics?  As I see it, they're like this.
Processor: Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2500
OS: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
RAM:2GB5 DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
HDD:100GB5 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
CD-Drives:Featured Upgd-8XCD/DVD Burner(DVD+/-RW)w/dble-layer DVD+R write capability
Wireless Networking Cards:Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps6)
Video Card:512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GTX

I plan on using the computer as sort of a "Desktop Replacement" and have it be slightly quicker than my Athlon 3000+ with 1GB of RAM.  I also don't want to buy a new one in the 4 years that I'm going to be in college, which is why I want to spend so much on it right now.

I've heard Alienware Laptops run much slower, even though they have desktop processors.  Also, it ended up being over $5,000 when I customized an Alienware.

I didn't realize deleting them was that simple.  I think before I tried grabbing them before.

I saw those before stairs, but never got around to downloading them.  I'm not sure I'll use Targa's stairs for every one of my families though, but I've got them just in case I do use it for some.

Maxis's Veronaville reminds me of that Crappy Romeo and Juliet movie made in 1999.  It was put in modern times and everyone still talked like they were in a shakesphere play.  I didn't play Veronaville because I find the lack of being actually able to kill another sim and the fact that most of these warring families wouldn't actually meet each other just didn't make sense.

Then again, I really don't play Maxian families.

I generally just build 1 story house.  Efficient 2+ stories could be made, but generally stairs are a main source of efficency loss because sims are morons.  Stuff that's used often should be on the main level.

The Dreamer house is hard to play if you have 3 sims, mostly because of the fact that sims use the stairs too damn much.  I haven't even bothered redesiging Maxian houses, partly because they use Connecting stairs and I don't know how to get rid of those.

Maybe we need a challenge that sees how long a sim can survive in a very poorly designed house.

The "Governor" isn't perfect, but it's better than what we have now.  Macros are "Governors" kind of take care of this now but requires intervention.  It's probably too late to implement the "Governor" system into TS2 this far in the cycle, but it has a slim chance of happening in TS3.  Chances are, they'll use attenuation again but add more checks.

I'd only like the religion idea if we can make new ones and they actually don't make real religions themselves.  Custom religions must be able to limit actions or allow more actions, such as Attacking random people if you follow Pescadoism or slower skill learning for Sheepism.  Religions are very weak with only a few people, and with more the religion can get more benefits or improve existing benefits.  Pescadoists would only be able to attack people slightly earlier until the religion gains power, in which eventually they would be able to attack people with 100/100 relationship.  Using Power is strictly optional, a religion could remain weak forever no matter how many people worship it.  I should probably add that people per Religion should only affect the local game, it would be a disaster online.  Magic could be worked into this expansion also.


I've hated the idea that an expansion can't be altered once it's released.  Heck, I would get a booster pack that added many LTWs or University-required Careers instead of useless objects.

The FFS was very easy to find on BitTorrent, and it was no harder to crack than an expansion.  Sure, this prevented some piracy but it's not even worth installing because of it in my opinion.  Repeated stuff and possible conflicts with hacks are not worth some objects and clothing that I will never use.

Why hell didn't they recall the thing if it had such a fatal bug?  This is one of the reasons I dislike EA, they've got the money to do recalls but just won't do them.  I believe they did go with FFS to copy Pescado, heck they called a TS1 expansion SS for the success of Script Station which they tried to ban before.  I swear, Sony did this also with it's PSP.

I've got to say, if it wasn't for dedicated volunteers like Pescado then I wouldn't even be updating my game with new expansions.

Wait.  You mean that the practice they had in TS1, giving you a patch even if you don't need it, doesn't happen anymore?  I'm shocked to be honest, they used to always say that something was "fixed" with a new expansion that was "fixed" with the patch.

I'm beginning to wonder if the lack of an NL patch is because they wanted to make OFB only one disk rather than being a policy switch.

Expansion Request List
-Fully Fleshed Scenario editor.  I just don't want an afterthought here, I want it to be at least as feature packed as WC3's Map Editor and if it doesn't contain a lot of features give it a script system such as Ruby or Python.  Heck, Civilization 4 is made mostly with Python.  It's sad to see a game that isn't about customization is ahead of a game that is ALL about customization on this aspect.
-Piracy.  I really want my sims to sail the seas and pillage trade ships for some reason.  It'd be a good way to use those useless water tiles, and with the Neighborhood view with NL I know that it's possible to change the background as they're sailing.  I guess they could add P2P networks also but it's not that exciting really.
-Restructured Wants system.  I know there's wants I never get because my sims are obsessed with their current want trees.  Also, what's up with LTWs?  Are they ever going to update them?
-Getting rid of Attenuation.  The current AI system follows Attenuation, a crusty old system from TS1 that tells a sim to use an object that Maxis thinks gives the most entertainment.  This is why sims bogart swings so often.  What should it be replaced with then?  Like a "Governor" in the Civilization Games, Free Will is run by what you have told them before.  Want them to be addicted to TV?  Have them constantly watch it.  Want them to skill constantly?  Start them off skilling a lot then they'll continue.   If this transferred to other houses too it'd give them distinct personalities.  Situational Awareness would demand too much from your CPU, and people already have problems with running the game quickly.
-More Careers that are unconditional.  Seriously, I don't want to send a Sim to University just because I want them to be an actor.  Wait, does that even make any sense?

That's it for now.

That might be it.  I was using an international version of the installer that had other languages on it.  The game also uses a 24 Hour clock instead of the 12 Hour.  I'll try editing the English_UK section and see if that does anything.

EDIT:Yep, it worked.  I used some phrases from BlueSoup's mod but replaced "Initializing Woolprop" and "Paying at the Box" with "Initializing MATY Database" and "ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!".  I forgot the number of R's that I actually put in it though.

Well, about the expansions improving TS2...  They butchered the dating part of TS1:HD with TS2:NL.  They'll probably do the exact same thing with pets, and I personally didn't like the pests pets all that much.  The Careers that came with the thing weren't as good as LL's.

Oh, and I'm done buying expansions until they make it worth paying $35 for.  Heck, I only had to pay $30 for TS1 expansions and you got a lot more content.  I always was looking forward to what new crap Maxis would come up with, but now there's nothing.  The fact that OFB only came with 1 disk really made me angry, which is why I didn't buy it.

The amount of disks that came with each expansion of TS1 are as follows.  TS1-1 TS1:LL-1 TS1:HP-1 TS1:HD-1 TS1:V-1(Could have been 2) TS1:UL-2 TS1:SS-2 TS1:MM-2 plus a TS2 video disk.  The amount of disks that came with each TS1 expansion are as follows. TS2- 4 CDs or 1 DVD plus bonus DVD TS2:Uni-2 TS2:NL-2 TS2:Holiday-1 TS2:OFB-1 TS2:FFP-1.  Though, most of you probably already knew these numbers.

There's also a poofy hairstyle that don has which is slightly gray that's shown on the extra bonus disk that doesn't appear in the game.  I'm wonder if it's still in the base game and someone just hadn't unlocked it yet.

Don't their faces look slightly more detailed as well?  I think that picture might be from a beta build of the game.

You mean, it's not possible to make a hack for that?

Deleting UI.package doesn't seem to get rid of the Family Fun logo on the loading screen though.  It does give the OFB logo back to the neighborhood select though.

Yes Blue, the text isn't working.  It's odd that it's not working since everything's there and it seems like it would work.