Winners from his contest were posted last week in the categories of Best Writer, Best Male/Female Character, Best Heros / Villains and more. This week, we feature the winner of "Best Album" as a Maxis Pick!
Sims News
29 Jul 2004 - 23:00
24 Jul 2004 - 23:00
Greetings Sim Fans,
A certain species of geek may be quick to point out that Klingon is the fastest growing new language on the planet, but those of us involved in the making or playing of The Sims games know what the real score is – Simlish is enjoyed everyday by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people! Will Wright knew how to keep the bar low on getting people fluent in the language of The Sims – give it emotion! Even though the language may lack formal structure, that doesn’t mean that recording all the vocal parts of the game was a slapdash, haphazard affair. No way! In fact, a tremendous amount of care and planning was required to get your Sims spouting the language we all know (sorta) and love. Here to shed a little light on the process is Claire Curtin, one of our super-talented Game Designers, and Robi Kauker, our Audio Lead. Take it away, Claire & Robi:
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With all the new updates and gameplay options in The Sims 2, there are several features that players of the original The Sims will recognize. One of the cornerstones of the Sims identity is the gibberish language we call Simlish. This time Simlish is back, with new voices representing each of the age ranges. We’ve included a few samples to give you a sneak preview.
A quick bit of Simlish history: when The Sims was originally designed Will Wright wanted the language the Sims spoke to be unrecognizable but full of emotion. That way, every player could construct their own story without being confined to a Maxis-written script (to say nothing of the mind-numbing repetition). We experimented with fractured Ukrainian (one of the original The Sims designers was a native speaker), and the Tagalog language of The Philippines. Will even suggested that perhaps we base the sound on Navajo, inspired by the code talkers of WWII. None of those languages allowed us the sound we were looking for – so we opted for complete improvisation, originated and performed by some SF Bay Area professional actors whose specialty was improv; Stephen Kearin and Gerri Lawlor.
So now it is five years since Simlish was born, and the tradition is carried on by an additional nine actors performing all the age range voices: baby, toddler, child, teen, adult and elder. The auditions were held January through May 2003 with over 100 actors from SF and LA trying out. We selected a highly talented cast and quickly got them to work recording many full 8 hour days, recording voice to over a hundred animations a day, resulting in thousands of takes a day.
With such a huge amount of voice data -- 40, 620 samples at the moment -- our pre- and post- production processes have been streamlined to get the voice into the game so it can be listened to, assessed and either re-recorded (in rare cases) or hacked (constructed out of similar-sounding files). Currently there are at least six Maxoids dedicated to getting the sound effects and voice in the game.
And even though I said Simlish is not a language per se, there are some common words that we directed all the actors to perform. If you listen closely, you’ll hear a word that means baby (nooboo), another for pizza (chumcha), and another phrase said during the Dirty Joke interaction that isn’t exactly defined, but just seemed to fit. That one was invented by Liz Mamorsky, our elder female voice.
Check out these samples and see the talented Claire and Robi themselves!
Maishuno! (You’ll see what that means when he game comes out on Sept 17th)
22 Jul 2004 - 23:20
Play Poppit! on Pogo.com July 20-30th and you'll be entered for the chance to win The Sims™ Mega Deluxe plus other Sims expansion packs!
22 Jul 2004 - 23:20
Play Poppit! on Pogo.com July 20-30th and you'll be entered for the chance to win The Sims™ Mega Deluxe plus other Sims expansion packs!
22 Jul 2004 - 23:10
Game reviewers were invited to EA last week for EA's Hot Summer Nights. See what they had to say after spending some time with The Sims 2 and don't miss the video interview with Lucy Bradshaw!
22 Jul 2004 - 23:00
We put together a special page of pictures just for you!
Hot Summer Nights At EA
Here are some pictures of what happened at Hot Summer Nights last week.
Sit down and enjoy a margarita while Lucy gives you a personal tour of The Sims 2.
Tim, Lucy and Jonathan posing for the camera.
Demos, demos and more demos...all day long.
Here's The Sims 2 demo room, the bar is on the left in case you're wondering where to stop first.
It's the EA plumb-bob tree. Now you know where we got the idea for the game!
The highly desirable mens t-shirt...
..and of course a special version for the women.
21 Jul 2004 - 23:00
Vanaf 26 juli ligt het nieuwste nummer van de Power Unlimited, het populairste spellentijdschrift in de Benelux, in de winkels. In dit nieuwste nummer lees je alles over De Sims 2. En op thesims.eagames.nl kun jij als eerste al zien hoe het nieuwste nummer er uit gaat zien want wij hebben de cover al binnen!
Power Unlimited is het eerste spellenblad in de Benelux dat De Sims 2 al exclusief heeft kunnen spelen op het Nederlandse EA kantoor. Tijdens het bezoek hebben ze het spel flink kunnen testen, iets waarover je alles terug kunt lezen.
Daarnaast staat er een leuk interview in met Lucy, de producer van het spel. Ook vind je er een gesprekje met Isabelle de Meyer, een van onze bekendste Sims-members in terug.
17 Jul 2004 - 23:00
Greetings, Sims Fans!
Yesterday was an EA event called Hot Summer Nights, and apart from the fact that it was held largely during daytime hours, and the weather was quite mild, it absolutely lived up to its name! For HSN, EA rolled out all our upcoming titles, including The Sims 2, for the press to get a gander at. We really wanted to just blow them away with the game by letting them see more than we had a chance to show at E3. Even though the day gets a little blurry towards the end, fear not – I was taking notes for your benefit. Here they are, completely unexpurgated:
Approximately 2PM – The press are assembled, and you can tell even now that they're impressed. You should see their jaws drop when the see the huuuuge poster for The Sims 2 that we hung in our cafeteria in their honor. Wait til they get to play the game! Oh look, Jonathan Knight just brought me a drink. Thank you, Jonathan!
Approximately 4:15 PM – People loves this game even more than they love the open bar, and that's saying something! Oh, how nice! Now Tim LeTourneau has brought me a drink! My team loves me – they keep bringing me things to drink!
Approximately 5:45 PM – I looooove you guys! You're all withour a doubt the besrest commumity in the whoooole world. Sims 2 rocks!!!!
Approximately 7:15 PM – I gotta sit down.
Approximately 7:30 - ...
[The remainder of this week's Lucy Mail will be completed by Jonathan Knight and Tim LeTourneau]
Approximately 9 PM – What an amazing success today was! While you wait for the press' reactions, we have a little Body Shop challenge for you: Using the photos included in this email as reference, create Sims of either Lucy, Tim or Jonathan and upload them to The Exchange. Then email communitymanager@maxis.com and include a link to your creation, so we can view it. Everyone who participates will get a cool blow-up Plumb Bob, and we'll give a Sims 2 shirt to the best of the lot. You have from now until next Friday to qualify for any of the prizes, so hop to it, gang!
Don't forget to check out these pics from the big day:
Happy Simming!
Jonathan Knight & Tim LeTourneau (as proxies for Lucy Bradshaw)
17 Jul 2004 - 23:00
Greetings, Sims Fans!
Yesterday was an EA event called Hot Summer Nights, and apart from the fact that it was held largely during daytime hours, and the weather was quite mild, it absolutely lived up to its name! For HSN, EA rolled out all our upcoming titles, including The Sims 2, for the press to get a gander at. We really wanted to just blow them away with the game by letting them see more than we had a chance to show at E3. Even though the day gets a little blurry towards the end, fear not – I was taking notes for your benefit. Here they are, completely unexpurgated:
Approximately 2PM – The press are assembled, and you can tell even now that they're impressed. You should see their jaws drop when the see the huuuuge poster for The Sims 2 that we hung in our cafeteria in their honor. Wait til they get to play the game! Oh look, Jonathan Knight just brought me a drink. Thank you, Jonathan!
Approximately 4:15 PM – People loves this game even more than they love the open bar, and that's saying something! Oh, how nice! Now Tim LeTourneau has brought me a drink! My team loves me – they keep bringing me things to drink!
Approximately 5:45 PM – I looooove you guys! You're all withour a doubt the besrest commumity in the whoooole world. Sims 2 rocks!!!!
Approximately 7:15 PM – I gotta sit down.
Approximately 7:30 - ...
[The remainder of this week's Lucy Mail will be completed by Jonathan Knight and Tim LeTourneau]
Approximately 9 PM – What an amazing success today was! While you wait for the press' reactions, we have a little Body Shop challenge for you: Using the photos included in this email as reference, create Sims of either Lucy, Tim or Jonathan and upload them to The Exchange. Then email communitymanager@maxis.com and include a link to your creation, so we can view it. Everyone who participates will get a cool blow-up Plumb Bob, and we'll give a Sims 2 shirt to the best of the lot. You have from now until next Friday to qualify for any of the prizes, so hop to it, gang!
Don't forget to check out these pics from the big day:
Happy Simming!
Jonathan Knight & Tim LeTourneau (as proxies for Lucy Bradshaw)
17 Jul 2004 - 23:00
Greetings, Sims Fans!
Yesterday was an EA event called Hot Summer Nights, and apart from the fact that it was held largely during daytime hours, and the weather was quite mild, it absolutely lived up to its name! For HSN, EA rolled out all our upcoming titles, including The Sims 2, for the press to get a gander at. We really wanted to just blow them away with the game by letting them see more than we had a chance to show at E3. Even though the day gets a little blurry towards the end, fear not – I was taking notes for your benefit. Here they are, completely unexpurgated:
Approximately 2PM – The press are assembled, and you can tell even now that they're impressed. You should see their jaws drop when the see the huuuuge poster for The Sims 2 that we hung in our cafeteria in their honor. Wait til they get to play the game! Oh look, Jonathan Knight just brought me a drink. Thank you, Jonathan!
Approximately 4:15 PM – People loves this game even more than they love the open bar, and that's saying something! Oh, how nice! Now Tim LeTourneau has brought me a drink! My team loves me – they keep bringing me things to drink!
Approximately 5:45 PM – I looooove you guys! You're all withour a doubt the besrest commumity in the whoooole world. Sims 2 rocks!!!!
Approximately 7:15 PM – I gotta sit down.
Approximately 7:30 - ...
[The remainder of this week's Lucy Mail will be completed by Jonathan Knight and Tim LeTourneau]
Approximately 9 PM – What an amazing success today was! While you wait for the press' reactions, we have a little Body Shop challenge for you: Using the photos included in this email as reference, create Sims of either Lucy, Tim or Jonathan and upload them to The Exchange. Then email communitymanager@maxis.com and include a link to your creation, so we can view it. Everyone who participates will get a cool blow-up Plumb Bob, and we'll give a Sims 2 shirt to the best of the lot. You have from now until next Friday to qualify for any of the prizes, so hop to it, gang!
Don't forget to check out these pics from the big day:
Happy Simming!
Jonathan Knight & Tim LeTourneau (as proxies for Lucy Bradshaw)