A new screenshot from EA Spain.
Sims News
14 Aug 2004 - 23:00
Greetings Sims Fans,
Did you accidentally pour orange juice in your cereal this morning or salt in your coffee? Did your neighbor's orange tabby take on a darker, decidedly more jet-black appearance when it crossed your path on the way out the door? Have you locked your car keys inside your running vehicle, or spent time recently lounging beneath ladders? If you're beginning to wonder whether or not the whole world has it in for you, take a look at your calendar. That's right – it's that dreaded day of misfortune, Friday the 13th.
While you're pondering your ability to safely navigate through this, the unluckiest of days, it's always good to have a plan to keep you out of harm's way. Keep sudden movements to a minimum. Don't travel. Surround yourself with pillows and other plush items. No running with scissors. While it's ultimately your responsibility to spirit yourself safely through today, we suggest that you spend the next Friday the 13th parked in front of your computer, basking in the safe and inviting world of The Sims 2. In fact, we encourage you to take it a step further and deflect the damaging physical and psychological effects of Friday the 13th away from you, and on to your hapless Sims all day long.
In fact, there are nearly unlimited ways for you to engineer, or simply suffer through, a terrifically horrible day for your Sims, from a series of minor inconveniences to indulging in their fears. Your bad day can involve minor offenses, like an embarrassing body odor problem at a dignified social gathering, or major bummers the like of which you can see in today's special link.
Introducing Strangetown's very own Nervous Subject. Watch as he struggles to get through Friday the 13th unscathed. Even for this hapless Sim, who is regularly treated to cruel and unusual experiments by the Beaker Family (all in the name of science, and the occasional odd spot of fun), the trials of Friday the 13th may prove to be too much.
Stay away from ladders & black cats!
Lucy Bradshaw
Sims 2 Good Luck Charm & Executive Producer
12 Aug 2004 - 23:10
TEEN PEOPLE. and The Sims™ 2 present the "Live the Young Hollywood Life" Sweepstakes. Enter NOW for your chance to WIN an amazing trip for 2 to L.A. including: Airfare, hotel, dinner at a hip Hollywood hangout, and a shopping spree at one of Hollywood's hottest boutiques. Plus, ten runners-up will receive their own The Sims 2 prize package including a copy of The Sims™ 2 game and an official Sims™ 2 T-shirt!
12 Aug 2004 - 23:00
This week we have 6 new screenshots that show off how your Sims will party! Weddings, birthdays and social hours for all ages.
7 Aug 2004 - 23:00
Greetings, Sims Fans!
We're inching ever closer to completing the game, and you can really feel a change in the office atmosphere. We're all crunching pretty hard right now, but the mood feels more festive by the moment, and you can bet that when the game goes final we're gonna party like it's 2999! And come September 17th, we hope you'll join in the party as well, The Sims 2 style!
That's right – in The Sims 2, you'll be able plan the party of your dreams! Whether it's a quiet get-together at home, a heavy metal head banger, or a dignified and structured social gathering to commemorate a Birthday, Wedding, or Anniversary, we've got the right party for ya!
Just like in real life, the type of party you have and the people you invite are crucial to its success. Parties are all about positive social interactions, so it's generally a bad idea to throw together Sims that don't get along. It's possible to throw a party just for your Sim and a guest, but expect only modest social success if you include fewer than three guests at your party. As they say – two's company, three's a crowd, but four or more is a par-tay!
Naturally, the amenities that you make available go a long way to ensuring a successful party-going experience for your guests. In The Sims 2, there are a variety of different objects which can help get the party started. We don't want to give too much away, but it's always good to remember that everyone loves food, and balloons are always fun. And if the occasion calls for it, a wedding or birthday cake can really set the mood effectively.
So, there you have it, Party People – a great little primer on tearing the roof off the sucka in The Sims 2. Just remember - try to keep open flames to a minimum at your party. You don't want your fete to come to a screeching halt when some poor Sim notices that the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!
Party On:
We don't need no water!
Lucy Bradshaw
Sims 2 Executive Producer and Social Gadfly Extraordinaire
P.S. In case you're one of the legions of people that created Sims of myself, Jonathan Knight, and Tim LeTourneau, we thank you! All three of us have always secretly longed for an army of clones willing to do our darkest bidding, and it seems we're well on our way to living our dreams! Of course, everyone who participated did a great job, but there were a few entries that we thought really shined:
5 Aug 2004 - 23:30
Lucy Bradshaw explains what the development team has been working on, and she also gives us an introduction to some of the unique families that will ship with the game.
The Sims 2 Designer Diary #9
As The Sims 2 nears completion, Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw tells us about some of the new families that will ship with the highly anticipated sequel.
As the September release date for The Sims 2 nears, the developers at Maxis are busy putting the finishing touches on what is undoubtedly one of the biggest game releases of the year. In The Sims 2, you'll once again have the opportunity to create your own sims, or virtual people, and manipulate their lives. However, the gameplay has been deepened, so you will also have to take into account your sims' desires and fears. Sims will want riches, fame, family, and more, and it'll be up to you to decide whether or not to give it to them. Your sims will also marry, have children, grow old, and eventually die, but you can still carry on playing the game with their children. In this edition of our designer diaries, Maxis vice president Lucy Bradshaw explains what the development team has been working on, and she also gives us an introduction to some of the unique families that will ship with the game.
Crunch Time
By Lucy Bradshaw
VP PC development
Here we are at the final phase of development on The Sims 2. Just to give you a sense of what things are like around the office these days, let me paint the picture. It is Tuesday at 1:30am. I just had a meeting with about six members of the team to review how we are tuning the popularity aspiration in the game. Yup, we are in crunch mode. We have a wall here at the office called the "Sticky Wall"--basically a huge wall with a high-level snapshot of the schedule reflecting the last four months of the project (the entire project would take a much bigger wall), completely covered with Post-it Notes. Each Post-it Note represents a specific high-level task that we need to complete. It is a very tall and very long wall. Each time we complete one of the tasks, we stamp a big "DONE" stamp on its Post-it Note. Well, I am very happy to say that we are awash with "DONE"-stamped Post-its!!!! Ah, but we are not done yet...
We are at that point where we are hammering away at bugs and tuning, tuning, tuning. Truth be told, it is a blast. It's like rounding that final curve and all of your adrenaline is pumping. Each day the gameplay gets tighter as we tune. We're also getting a lot of quality time with our teammates; this is a time we like to call "crunch time." One thing that keeps us laughing as we work is our group of favorite bugs. (Oops, that is a sneak preview of what I'll be writing about next month!)
Another thing we go into overdrive on, at this point, is getting play feedback. Throughout the course of development, we pull together play groups and what we call "Kleenex- testing" groups. (Kleenex tests are where we have first-time users play the game. The deal is, once we have "used" this player, that's it. We can't get first impressions again, so they are used up). We check on how well the user interface is delivering and if players are getting the key concepts of the gameplay. One thing that came clear through these tests is that The Sims 2 is an enormous game. It occurred to us, in such an open-ended game, it might be cool if we expose some of the possibilities in store for your sims by setting the stage, so to speak. So we've been having some fun with our own game.
When you enter The Sims 2, you can either choose from one of three neighborhoods that will ship with the game or you can create your own. You can create your own family in any of the shipping neighborhoods, or you can play as one of the existing families that we have created, just to get a sense of what can happen. Each family is very unique. One neighborhood that I like is Strangetown--this is where we decided to put all of our very "out there" sims. And the really fun thing is that you can set up relationships across families. Sims are more aware of their relationships than ever before, so the goings-on in the 'hood can get pretty funny.
Welcome to Strangetown
Without further delay, here's a sneak preview of a few of the families of Strangetown: the Curious brothers, the Smiths, and the Grunts.
The Curious brothers live in the coolest house in town; it's located near the satellite dishes, and it's a modern home with cantilevered decks. The three Curious brothers, Lazlo, Pascal, and Vidcund, are all knowledge sims, which may have been influenced by the fact that their dad was abducted by aliens and never returned (check out their family tree). Aliens play a big part in their lives. Always wanting to catch sight of a UFO, they invested early in a telescope, which they have stationed at the tip-top of their highest deck. Play this house and you'll have a real challenge in store very quickly. Raising sim kids--from babies through those awkward teenage years--is one of the new challenges in The Sims 2. But raising two little alien half-breeds--who would have thought of that? We did! One of the funniest moments is watching Pascal and Vidcund waddle about and eat like maniacs.
The Smith Family has a nice little Cape Cod house with a well-manicured lawn and white picket fence--the picture of suburban normalcy. Take a closer look. The dad's name is Pollination Technical #9. What is that? Take a look at his profile; despite the Hawaiian shirt, it looks like he's going to have an interesting time passing himself off as the typical suburban patriarch. But he just loves his lawn and can't get enough of barbequing. After a long and fruitful career of abducting hapless sims, he decided Earth was a pretty good place to settle down. Now he's just trying to fit in. Those unfortunate genetic traits have been passed down to his son, Johnny, who's trying to make it as a popularity sim, but it's a tough road to haul with his green skin.
The Grunts live in a barracks-style house at 51 Road to Nowhere. General Grunt runs a very tight military household; a true domesticated boot camp, complete with one of the new career reward objects, the obstacle course. He can be found drilling his three sons, Tank, Ripp, and Buck, in the art of boot camp basics. They are not all that thrilled. Tank is a bit on the immature side, and will take any chance he can to pick a fight, give a noogie to his little brother, and just be outrageously annoying. Ripp, the lazy one, wants to chat on the computer, and little Buck is happy just swinging on the swing set. The general is a bit suspicious of the Smiths. He just can't stand the sight of them. But PT9 is so oblivious; he thinks the Grunts are a nice, typical Earth family.
The sparks fly in this neighborhood with all of the alien abductions, the other neighbors butting in, and lots of interesting family connections. Like I said, you can move your own family in and make Strangetown your own, or play one of ours for a bit. You'll have fun with the extreme situations your sims can get into.
5 Aug 2004 - 23:20
Pools, alien babies, thieves and more happenings from Strangetown. Check out the latest selection of screenshots.
5 Aug 2004 - 23:10
Electronic Arts will be conducting focus groups that will discuss The Sims video games on the evening of Thursday, August 19, in Encino, California.
We Need Your Opinion About The Sims!
Electronic Arts will be conducting focus groups that will discuss The Sims video games on the evening of Thursday, August 19, in Encino, California. If you own The Sims Bustin' Out and/or The Sims Get A Life and are interested in participating, we invite you to come to our facility for a two-hour group to talk about your experiences with The Sims.
If you qualify, the discussion will last approximately two hours and participants will be paid $75.
We have hired an independent research company, Adept Research, to conduct these discussions. If you would like more information or would like to participate in the focus group, please call (818) 905-9666 and ask for Alex at Ext. 433.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RESPOND, please call (818) 905-9666 and ask for Alex at Ext. 433.
Thanks,
Electronic Arts