If it really was a beta, their PR department would fill pages and bombard the mags and papers with press releases. That once sentence line really says a lot.

On a side note, can you point me anywhere near these mentioned goodies? In all my years of CC collecting I never ran across these. Usually I don't want to blow away my sims, but it would be a good remedy for the occasional harrassing townie spawning in my hood.

And you're exactly right with your evaluation. I'm pretty sure it's mostly about the 18+ content. They have to sell in America after all and have their pants full to the waist when thinking about all the different pressure groups.

On the other hand, as an adult (maybe as a dirty bastard) I don't want my game to be a childs game. So that's one of the main reasons why TS3 fails to interest.

Renault 12, 1971. That was back in 81 and it didn't last very long. A drunken road companion shot it when trying to overtake me.

That's not necesarilly true. Most virus protection apps are paid by the industry to indentify no cd patches or serial generators as infected.

It's latin and Italian for good.

However, it always amazes me, that people flog to the producer for custom content. It can't be the kids, since they probably know more about the internet than their parents. And it amazes me more if it's indeed adults looking for that kind of stuff. The vanilla sims are a kids game after all. Yes, I played the vanilla TS2 for some weeks and had a good laugh, but looking for custom content was always on my mind. The original game would have bored me pretty soon.

Sure, that might be a problem. Photoshop automatically saves in the same format as the original, unless you added layers.

Could you be a little bit more specific about your paint programm?

I'm running Vista 64 on my rig and I'm using photoshop and haven't run into these kinds of problems. It works as it should.

But to add a question of my own: How are you able to change the sleeve lenghts in bodyshop? The mesh would still be there and visible.

Have you read the comments there? They make me shake my head in amazement. "I may buy...", "not tons, but..."

As long as this is the mainstream it's no wonder EA wanders that path. They're selling items that could have been included in the base game and charge up to an amount that's again half of the game's prize and people say thank you dear company.

To all the other critical comments I might add: Don't think for a minute, that EA or any other game company are your friends. I always get the impression, that some people go on a crusade to defend "their" company as if they were part of the PR department or if they had just another beer with their buddies from over there.

Would you do the same for your telephone company? Or closer to home, would you do it for Microsoft, probably supplying the system of your rig? And even more so, would you do it, if they delivered a product, that needs several revisions and paid upgrades to make it useable?

But why should it be possible? We're dealing with real life here - real business life that is. EA isn't your benevolent big brother. They, as any other gaming company, are out for your wallet. And they, like any other gaming company, sell a quality on initial release that would earn, let's say, a car vendor a court appointment. They expect you to pay for the patches they provide sooner or later. You pay by buying something half baked, bug ridden with limited rights.

And by introducing their so called copyright protection, they walk a very fine legal line. As I said before, that copyright protection tools are nothing but a bad joke. Cracked within hours by people who know their stuff. But they're a pain in the hindparts of every honest buyer and these nice tools also reverse the pillars of our society: Innocent until proven guilty. For them you are the perpetrator and deserve to be treated as such until you have proven you have the right to fire up their crap. If that is impossible on your rig, because their software conflicts with some of your other installments, well bugger off. They already have your 50+ Euros or Dollars and that's all that matters.

And last but not least, they are the ones determining how you want to use your purchase. They want you to open your wallet once again for stuff you don't really need and close the door on those fellows providing that same stuff and much more for free.

How's that for a deal? And all in one shiny package. Doesn't matter if the contence of said package is very similiar to what my dog drops on a regular basis.

Because you can put everything you like in that download folder. As long as its not in the right format, it wouldn't work. They want to control what's there and make a nice little coin by the way.

If I remember correctly, even Hillary jumped the waggon when the hot coffee nonsense was boiling. And that's why I still claim they have their pants full. Not only EA. Better to produce ugly throwaway games with serious limitations than to be harrassed by some zealous pressure groups. EA will make their dough, even with ugly clay models, paid content and the no modding policy.

That may be the point. But I can only repeat the lowest common denominator thing I said in a different thread. The vanilla game has to be fit for 8+ years. If that's enough to keep you entertained for months or even years, it's perfectly OK. Modding added at least some of the more adult aspects of Sims lives and polished out the most serious glitches and annoying habits.

Probably not. Out of several reasons. One of them is the fear factor that has been introduced by the cold coffee debate some years ago. Since then companys have gotten cold feet when it came to modding and more and more games have been made next to impossible to mod. And I'm talking about RPG like games in general.

The other reason is the additional dime to be made by selling custom content.

Well, originally I have been looking forward to that release. But things have changed. I'm not convinced by the screenshots and I'm apalled by the modding policy. If things are to change there's still time enough to purchase it at a later date.

When something like that happens, it amuses me to no end. It's actually the best advertisment against copy protection. It also shows what I always have been saying. Copy protection is only there to annoy paying customers. The pirates shrug it off and have a good laugh.

And it's even more amusing when that thing obviously comes from the company's own doorstep.