Fat, plastic looking sims 3...? Missing something?

[abaris]

Every game/program is moddable. The major difference between sims 2 and 3 is unlike 2, sims 3 is closed source. That means modifying the thing is illegal, As in messing with the animations, behaviour or defaults.
Get caught with something like that on your pc, whether for personal use or intent to redistribute, will land you in it up to your chin.

Yeah, I'm aware of the legal implications. And if that close sourced info holds true, EA will have to make do without my financial contribution.

[roerzman]

You could well be a lone voice in the wilderness. (no offence please) I know I'm probably repeating myself here, but. All this came about because EA, have been watching the enormous number of sheep who for years still subscribe to illegal paysites even though the vast majority of the good stuf has been freely available at the exchange and various booty sites for years.
You really can't blame EA. they saw a market opportunity that was to good to resist. They link up with the FAs. or their sites, control the installation and distribution of CC. and these same sheep will ensure that the dollars go into EAs coffers and those who come on board with them.

[abaris]

You really can't blame EA. they saw a market opportunity that was to good to resist. They link up with the FAs. or their sites, control the installation and distribution of CC. and these same sheep will ensure that the dollars go into EAs coffers and those who come on board with them.

Yes, I can only speak for myself. But a vanilla game of any kind never has been my cup of tea. That's not worth 50+ of my money.

[Nalia]

You really can't blame EA. they saw a market opportunity that was to good to resist.

Oh, yes, I can blame EA all right! The paysites, to start with, have been violating EA's own bloody EULA/ToS for years, and one would expect EA to spank those b@st@rs. Instead, EA decided to follow paysites' course --like applausing them for showing no respect to the rules-- turning their practice into an acceptable form, which in turn resulted in the freaking online store for the TS3.
No problem with the online store per se; but when they make TS3 closed source, their practice equals to greed.

So what do we have here? EAxis' complete disrespect for their own rules that led them to make new rules of sort to accomodate their greed, and all that on the players' expenses. Yeah. They have every right to do so, and I have every right to strike them down for that.

[roerzman]

It was CC. pay and free that made the sims into the success they are today. Why on earth would EA.try to shut them down? They were fleecing the public not EA.
It wasn't costing them a cent, on the contrary they were making a mint out of it.
Now it's done the full circle, EA, will become the paysite, anyone else doing the same will probably have to share their spoils with them.
As I said before, it was the tens of thousands of dumb sheep out there who to this day still subscribe to these sites even though all the items can be had for free that have caused this.
That's why some of the more farsighted members of the community set up the booty, they could smell this coming years ago.
It didn't take much imagination to see EA. quietly on the sidelines rubbing their hands and planning a strategy to get their fingers into the pie.

[abaris]

It didn't take much imagination to see EA. quietly on the sidelines rubbing their hands and planning a strategy to get their fingers into the pie.

But which pie? A developer or distributor can only go for the lowest possible denominator - in this case kids. Aged 8-12. That's closing out the adult community, adult hacks of any kind and a sizeable portion of the adult audience. If that's enough for them, so be it.

But I can give several examples how this kind of strategy backfired. Molyneux' the movies for example. Advertised as modder friendly, turned out to be not modder friendly and dissappearing into oblvion along with its development team. Oblivion's the next one. They also tried their hands on paid content, thereby angering the modding community.

[roerzman]

The CC. pie. They're well aware of what TSR and co. turn over. It's only natural for them to want a piece of the action. What better way to do it than with a brand new game.
I don't think they're going to wait for months or a year for the CC. to start arriving.
It would not surprise me if some of those FAs. that were invited to the creators camp didn't have a ton of goodies for sale via the store that they were miraculously able to create within hours of the games release.

[abaris]

It would not surprise me if some of those FAs. that were invited to the creators camp didn't have a ton of goodies for sale via the store that they were miraculously able to create within hours of the games release.

All true, but the denominator problem still exists. Even if they sell goodies, they have to sell kids goodies. Out of legal reasons. So, in my book, they will lose a portion of the adult community. I'm not sure how many adults are willing to run a vanilla game with the option to add paid (kids) content. And I'm not sure how many kids are able to constantly pester their parents into buying some of the offered stuff. By closing down the modding community, they join forces with the losers of the business. I don't know of a single company making a fortune out of that kind of approach.

But that may be a calculated strategy. The product loses longevity, thereby opening up the market for something new they want to sell.

[roerzman]

Probably about 98% of the losers who still subscribe to tsr.Thomas and his sycophants are forever blowing their trumpets about the family values of tsr.
As I said elsewhere. EA. should be selling the thing in a toy store.

[SimGirl20]

You are most certainly 100% correct roerzman about the selling of CC via the featured artists from the creators camp, infact if you look at some of the blogs by the FA's on the official site they even say that when the game is released that there stuff they made for the game will be made available for download through the exchange albeit TS3 store for a pretty penny..now who in there right mind is going to buy 50 recolored objects by TSR_DOT when the game comes out, I mean how lazy would it be of someone to not even use there friggin imagination and recolor there own objects for their game instead of funding EA?! I mean isn't that why they included a damn color wheel for almost every aspect of the game? think people, think!

[abaris]

I mean how lazy would it be of someone to not even use there friggin imagination and recolor there own objects for their game instead of funding EA?! I mean isn't that why they included a damn color wheel for almost every aspect of the game? think people, think!

Lazy isn't the word I would be using in these cases. And I can't imagine their neat little trick working out in their favor. Bethesda had a try on that kind of approach and reconsidered pretty soon. And Molyneux had to learn it the hard way by losing his company.

I for one will refrain from buying even the base game. In my experience a game without user generated content isn't worth the money. That might be different for a child though. But on the other hand, a child doesn't have money.

I just hope, that the modding community keeps supporting TS2.

[roerzman]

I know this thread is supposed to be about how vile they look but the kid and teen friendly/suitability subject is included from time to time. Also how they could end up in a s--t load of it if they made the game mod-able to the extent that 1 and 2 were.
So this one puzzles me, why do they include actual larceny in the game? To get our kids used to the idea of steeling for a living?
Rather strange that they pull out the adult stuff and add this one. So now you can sit down with the kids comforted by the knowledge that you will not see Sally sims naked bum, but you can watch Jim the sim turn over his neighbors house and also make of with their car. "wow! that's cool mum, gee that's what I wanna do when I grow up, and look you don't even have to work" Yea.

[Jenna]

Listen, folks, stop derailing the threads in this section into a debate about EA being in bed with TSR, among other contentious things. We're getting sick of the arguments, and the need to constantly police this section.

...for now though, this is your last chance. If I see this heat up again, I'll start locking threads and handing out warnings.

[roerzman]

Dammit! just as it was getting interesting. Going back to the original thread by cruzer. There is a reason for the dull appearance, it's called polly count. The more pollygons the pc has to process the slower the game will run.
The aim of the game is to flog of the thing off to as many people as possible. If people are going to have to replace their old pcs in order to run the game then sales will drop.
Looking at all the previews I can see the game has enormous potential from a mod and CC, point of view. However if by some chance EA. lets go and allows us to mod the game as per sims 2 then the poor old pentiums that barely run the basegame are going to freak out.
Seamless neighbourhood games have been around for a while. Farcry and the GTA. series are just some examples, They run OK. on mid range pcs as long as you tone them down, but, crank up the eye candy and the things become unplayable.
This will apply to the sims 3. Keep it looking cheap and nasty and you can play it on an old el-cheapo machine. But start importing high resolution CC. and you're gonna have to start thinking about investing in something most people can't afford.
Going back to being able to replace the bland skins with some of the high resolution stuf we're all used to, I'm talking about default replacements. That will probably only happen if sales fall through the floor. Or they have to pull the game and rewrite it when this silly klepto. trait lands them into hot water.

[Nalia]

Here is a post from the TS3 thread at S2C with some pictures showing Sims and content. Looking closing the Sims at picture #1 leaves you nothing to hope for. Why on earth a thin Sim should have such a round fat face?

http://forums.sims-community.com/showpost.php?p=1356817&postcount=1844