TwoJeffs Has Left the OTHER Building

[croiduire]

Since there are still plenty of people coming to MATY for his mods, I thought it might be a good idea to update the location. TwoJeffs is now at a site named Simbology.

[mitchellcjs]

*sigh*  Another forum to register for.  Thanks for the information.

[vcline]

Perhaps this one should be stickied and the other one about Twojeffs removed.

[Charamei]

Gah!

Oh, well. Better delete my InTeen account, then.

[Alexx]

Heh.SleepyCat In - TwoJeffs Out.

[ZephyrZodiac]

His stuff is still up at the first other building....

[miramis]

Thanks for the heads up,  I'd hate to lose track of TJ.

It looks like Jase is phasing out his presence in the community, I don't use Inteen but it's sad to see the familiar names say goodbye (or disappear into oblivion).

According to the news item TJ's mods will stay at Inteen for a couple of months though all support is now on the new site.

Hotmail ate my registration heh.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The new site is TJ's own, permanent new home, so he shouldn't be moving again. 

I agree, I hate it when members of the modding or design community leave us, gaps are created that never really get filled in quite the same way, but that's life, I guess.

[floopyboo]

Hotmail ate my registration heh.

You too, huh? I was beginning to suspect they just didn't like me.

[miramis]

I changed the email address in the end, but now I have the sending address so you can add it to your filter in hotmail to let it through noreply[at]simbology[dot]com  (replace the words at & dot with @ . )

[floopyboo]

ta for that.

[Sleepycat]

Heh.SleepyCat In - TwoJeffs Out.

actually I'm a Mod at both sites now   

[vilia]

*sigh*  Another forum to register for.  Thanks for the information.

You don't have to register to be able to d/load the hacks which is good.

[Alexx]

Heh.SleepyCat In - TwoJeffs Out.

actually I'm a Mod at both sites now   

Seems your avatar now not too appropriate as for "kitten killers"moder.

[Inge]

Well I know how Jase feels.  That was pretty much behind the reason why I'm not as enthusiastic/prolific as I once was.  It's just mind-numbing boring to have to go over your old work every 6 months updating it - knowing that the more stuff you make the more of a chore you will have when the next 6 months goes by!  Being a hacker is supposed to be about experimenting, pioneering, breaking new ground.  Not about routine maintenance.

It wasn't like this with Sims 1.  They only changed the game core once, at Nightlife^H^H^H^HotDate I think it was, but it didn't stop anything being forward compatible.

[Alex]

Didn't they change it again with Unleashed (and SS and MM for that matter) as well? But you're right, they didn't keep changing it. Even better, they only ever released 3 patches... 

[Inge]

Well and the emphasis really was that each time there was an EP, it merely increased the resources available to the hacker, without losing compatibility with work already completed.   So although new work often required the EP it was created within, old work would go right on working.

[eevilcat]

I think it's fair to say that there has been a change in attitude with game publishers over recent years to 'design less in advance, release now and patch later'. DVD media is cheap so reworking old chunks of content isn't an issue as it doesn't take up valuable space on EP releases. Likewise, they assume that most people have access to a broadband connection to download patches, if not at home then at work, college or a library. While I appreciate you can't design a whole game + 7 EPs in advance down to code level you can at least create a system that better supports forward compatibility. Sometimes it seems that each EP is created in isolation then shoe-horned into the rest of the game.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well and the emphasis really was that each time there was an EP, it merely increased the resources available to the hacker, without losing compatibility with work already completed.   So although new work often required the EP it was created within, old work would go right on working.

This sounds like crazy talk to me. How would you cover the case where a new expansion expands on the functionality of an existing object? Wouldn't this necessarily create a conflicting version? I fail to see how TS1 would be different in this regard: You'd be overriding an underlying resource that changed, yes? And besides, TS1 didn't even *HAVE* hacking until about 3 or 4 expansions in. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten bored with it and quit entirely by the second expansion. All I remember is a number of prominent murder-disappearances of people who did create early SimPE-like things.

[Inge]

The only time a new EP altered existing objects was with Unleashed, where toilets were updated so pets could drink from them.  All other EPs only added new stuff.  And there was certainly no rewriting of existing globals!

What I meant by new resources I was thinking of for instance when with MM there was the ability to make a visitor selectable.  I was then able to make a hack that made visitors controllable.   And when they mended the "Set to next" primitive it became much more useful and reliable.   But if I used it in a particular way after the fix that relied on its new state, I had to say "don't use this hack unless you have at least X EP" or their game would have crashed.   Although I could if I wanted to update my old hacks to take advantage of new features, I didn't have to, and they would go right on working like they used to.

With Sims2, hacks are often neither backward nor forward compatible.

[miramis]

Didn't EAxis try to stop the modding community at first?  I remember reading something about it a long time ago.

[Inge]

The first people to make modding tools were ex-maxis employees, and Maxis wanted to limit how much inside knowledge they took advantage of in their tools.  One of them Don Hopkins, complied and made Transmogrifier with their blessing.  Another was less cooperative and made ScriptStation.   He was stopped and eventually made IffPencil which was more compliant with the rules.

[miramis]

I didn't realise they were ex-employees, I do sort of remember Transmogrifier, something about a pink flamingo tutorial sticks out in my mind.

I still think it would be much better if they left a year between expansions, it gives them time to make more content, fix issues in previous releases and tighten up the code on the current project.  It would also give the community time to breathe with regards to mod upkeep. 

Six months isn't all that long for a game like this, you barely get to grips with the latest expansion when the new one comes out, there are still tons of things I haven't ever done with previous EP's for example, not to mention that it takes ages to fix most of the problems before you can settle down and actually play.

How much real play time do you modders get out of an expansion?  I expect after initial release you don't even get a couple of hours a week?

[Inge]

I seem to *mostly* only play when I have to test something.  I do sometimes decide to play just for the heck of it, but it usually turns out not for long, because I soon spot something that I could do with in the game, and quit again to look for it or make it

[miramis]

I can see where it might be difficult to restrain yourself while playing