Part 1 - How it used to be

When I bought the great game last year, I immediately registered it on The Sims website and downloaded everything that I could find as part of the SimDay Section. I logged on every Thursday to find what that SimDay offering would be. Sadly, these did not always be what I wanted.

In the early days, new skins (especially the meshes) were eagerly anticipated. Also, the MTV Set added a lot of extra sparkle to the lives of my Sims in their neighbourhoods. It also gave the skinners out there more meshes to work with.

The Houses helped flesh out the default neighbourhood and gave me further ideas on house design. Even the White House was downloaded and used in one of my neighbourhoods.

The Utility Programs - as I call them - namely Facelift, SimShow, Homecrafter & The Sims Art Studio, have been essential programs to create skins and decoration.

The objects, though, have been my favourite. I know these come as standard with "Living Large", but there have been some things that did not make the cut that I choose to use often. Some of the objects that made the cut included wall lamps, a cuckoo clock, the moose head, topiaries and coped flower beds. I miss the Flamingo Lamp, although I have not missed the trash pack.

SimDays seemed to drop about but then underwent a revival following the issue of "Living Large" came out, there have been other useful objects. The plate of Christmas Cookies has been my favourite as it has also added a seasonal element to gameplay. I'm not going to spoil it for people who haven't downloaded it.

There have been other adaptions to the gameplay that have come on SimDays. The ability for Sims to now just telephone people up for a chat rather than having to invite them to come over was appreciated and came from a Sim Day download. There were also the Clown Catchers, SimCity's own MIB to come and get rid of those clowns for you ... at a price.

Competitions are not my favourite item for SimDay. The last one was a b*mmer in that it was only open to Americans (excluding Floridians who must have been too busy recounting votes).

Also, chats with the staff sometimes do not seem to give out much pertinent information and have basically been "The Sims Online is coming", "there will be a Sims 2 but we cannot say when", "we have nothing to do with SimsVille".

Before the Expansion came out, Sim Day went very quiet indeed. All there seemed to be was short items on what was coming that most of us knew anyway. What a cop out!

Maxis have covered themselves to say that Sim Day events do not necessarily mean items. We can forgive them for this for having been so good to us in the early days but we would rather have something worthwhile for our game and for online time.

Well, there are many things I would like to see on Simdays to improve our gameplay and some of what is already out there ... and these are in my next articles.

If anybody has any ideas on what they would like to see, please do not hesitate in contacting me by clicking here and your ideas - if they are good - will be acknowledged.

Please be quick as Part 2 - Utility Programs is almost complete.

Part 3 - Objects is well underway here ....

but you'll just have to wait a little while.

Dag dag!

Written at 14:26 on Sunday 7 January 2001 by Andy.