That won't happen, since the USA haven't the collective European memory of bombs and shells raining down on most every village. So they won't change their bizarre stance of violence or nationalism being something positive as opposed to sex. Same goes for religion. The American christian lobbies would be a laughing stock in the largest part of Europe, if they had a try at selling their wisdom here.

But that works both ways. Because of that particular colloective memory, many European politicians have a peculiar stance about video games being too violent. I remember vividly the debates after a German school shooting where the shooter was playing counter strike prior to the attack. That was used as a pretext to ride a general attack on computer games and what they are doing to the mindset of children - without taking into consideration, that that guy was well off age and not a child.

Problem is, that politicians are all too eager to jump into debates they don't know shit about as long as some populistic stance promises to buy some more votes.

Either way. Regualations like these are rendering all the talk about freedom of speech and freedom of expression into a joke.

It's the same with every game company. Take Bethesda with Morrowind or Oblivion, take any other game company, take Molyneux's "the movies". No children.

The problem runs deeper than general cowardice. The problem is the USA being the biggest market and every company has to suck up to the bizarre rules and lobbies of that particular country. Best example would be the Vice City scandal around the hot coffee mod. And that in a game, tailor made to shoot, knife or club your way to the top.

Don't get me started on the very special fire moronism. I always wondered what this fascination with fire is all about. It renders the "make emergency call" function of the phone pretty much useless, since they're rather burning to death watching and hopping like drag queens in dispair, than dial for the fire fighters.

My very first Sim surprised me with burning to a cinder preparing his first meal in the house. What's more, if he's dead, the  fire comes with the house. The next family I moved into the same lot was burning too once they had moved in.

My answer is no and I'm obviously a minority. The reason why I voted to the negative is, that I know corporate life and I know, that corporations don't give a (insert any dirty word of your liking here) about wishlists like that. Also, if they're aiming for release sometime in the first half of 2008, the product is pretty much done anyway. And since the majority of potential buyers doesn't give a (insert any dirty word of your liking here) about the quality of the product as long as it's called the Sims, EA won't even consider and the mail will land in one of those wonderful virtual shiny bins.

But you shouldn't feel sorry for the bloke who bought it. Most everyone was warning him on the boards and he still insisted - the squirrel is what he's got for his money.

Thanks, these were unknown to me.

Malicious joy is the best joy as a German saying goes. I always keep gloating at people, who fork out good money for obvious crap. I mean the cover of face factory already says it all. Actually, you don't need any additional ingame horrors to foresee the outcome, if you take a look at what has become of that boy pictured there.

Pitty, that you don't understand German, because the linked and featured experiences with fashion factory make for some very amusing reading. White dresses turning grey and things like that. People agree, that this product line is deeply rooted in the intestinal region.

One of the users has posted his results with styling factory: http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=unbenanntrs8.png

Very stylish indeed.

That's OT, but since it has been mentioned, does anyone know of a good movie modding site? I have given up on that game, since activision imposed a rigorose modding ban on the game, thereby killing off the franchise very effectively. And doing a google for "the movies" isn't really helpful either. I only know, that the few half decent movie sites like "movie workshop" closed shop a long time ago.

I can't agree with your definition, since I've yet to see a butt being that ugly.

Which they are, as has been explained in other threads. But I haven't had them make babies since my first few games, since the seen it once, seen it all effect kicked in.

That's probably right and the major reason why I build my systems instead of buying a complete one. Maybe that's also the reason why Vista runs without any major problems on my system, since I configured it with DX10 and all the other things known about Vista in mind.

But you had the same issues with XP when you were buying a rig instead of building it. If you didn't go for high end, you were stuck with cheap parts, that didn't even work together well.

beosboxboy, that's exactly the reasons why I still have XP on the other drive. But if Willow7697 owns a premade system with Vista installed, one can at least try to work out the error, if he was giving some more information. And reformating to instal an older system is probably more of a pain than getting one single application running.

Why didn't it work? What's the error? Might be, that you don't install with administrator rights. Anyway, it worked fine with me, so give some more informations and we can probably work it out.

Actually I have both systems installed on seperate drives. Vista isn't as demanding as everybody claims. Actually I have the Sims installed under Vista and the performance seems to be better than under XP.

That's one of the standard answers you get when adressing problems with any game company. It's always your computer being at fault, even though you can run other applications without any problems.