I love this house.. it looks so real!  People make such crazy big houses for sims that aren't realistic for the average person's income.. but then again, we can't do "motherlode" either!  Thanks.

Is this just a recolor?

*sigh* I was hoping that you would find a way to allow more than six pets to a household... my search goes on.

Ok, we can all agree that some people are ignorant.  Last time I knew though, creators didn't share their work to just those people!  I'm trying to problem solve.  It's getting frustrating with this pointless agreeing on stupid people.  :/  

I guess you don't see enough creators having to shut down their site unnecessarily.  More creators are being inticed by a certain paysite for petty money and not having to deal with their overloaded bandwidth.  

They *shouldn't* have to do that.  I want to keep them and their content around and give them alternatives to what is already there.

Rgiles, that is true about Torrents dying out.  Maybe a combination of Torrents and Emule?  Torrent available for first month it's new then switch to Emule.

Yes, a part of the Sims 2 community has a difficulty even grasping what a RAR is.  Typically they are the ones unwilling to help themselves and I wonder how much coddling we should do.  Just because they whine the loudest doesn't mean we should talk down to everyone else.  

With everything new, there is some adapting involved.  If I could encourage some makers to try using torrents then I would set up a site fully explaining what torrents are/what they do/etc.

Basically, it's impossible to "dummy proof" anything so I wouldn't let it discourage you from trying something new.

Also Delphy-
1. the person needs to have the software
BitTorrent is like less than a MB to download.  The average Sims 2 download is more than that.

2. they are impatient.
Lately even downloading the "typical" way is slow on your site.  Sometimes the downloads aren't even available at all.  People are impatient no matter what.

A lot of the P2P networks I've seen are too infected with viruses and adware.  The source of content is generally unknown.  The main distributor changes by whoever is on at the time that has a full version.  Torrents are created by their maker and you find them on their website or a collective of already approved torrents.

They come from a site knowing what you are downloading.  P2P programs do not have previews.

You're very right Inge, I did forget to put those options in.  I think they are both reasonable.

On problem solving with file sharing, I don't know if others on this board are familiar with BitTorrent.  You can make your larger files like houses into torrent files and allow others to download it from your computer.  Once they have it, they can seed it as well.  The more seeds available the faster it is downloaded.  So there is no actual bandwidth consumed.

http://www.bittorrent.com/

Depending on how many you're hosting, it can slow down your DSL/cable a bit.  However, I don't think the difference is noticeable unless you're having 500mb or more available at a time.

Let's try to put this in perspective.  Website owners have a limited number of options;
(a)  Run the site with own money no matter how much extra money it costs if bandwidth is continuely overused.
(b)  Run the site until it costs even more than expected then shut it down.
(c)  Keep it half free, half donation to pay for the free half.
(d)  Make it all pay.
(e)  Have it all pay except for a few free sets like it's charity.
(f)  Put site on a lame free site and harass your viewers with pop-ups.
(g)  Find someone to host you for free.
(h)  Have everything free and pay yourself BUT put up donation link and hope someone will click it.

The best option I've seen is C.. XM, Peggy, and other of my favorite artists follow this.  Quality is basically the same for free and donation.

The rest all have a major flaw and usually kills the site eventually.

For all the talk though about copyright by pay sites as I understand it Maxis can take away their intellectual copyright at any time.  There are many companies that declare war on anyone who tries to mod their game(s).  I'm thinking some sims fan creators have forgotten how lucky they have it currently.