The official German site has recently had the opportunity to speak to Will Wright, Creator of the Sims, about The Sims 2 University. The interview does bring some new info including the news that Maxis is working on two expansion packs simultaneously. That's because creating an expansion pack for TS2 is up to 5 times more complex than it was for the Sims 1. Will has also noticed the community is technically a lot stronger than with the previous game, and modding tools have been released very quickly after the release. People also use the advanced features of the movie making tool more, and so come up with new creations. A new feature like the customisable neighborhoods take longer to be used by the community, so it seems.
In his spare time, Wright still plays the game a few times a week, but he also surfs around on the many fansites of the game, checking out new stuff people have created. When playing he's usually experimenting, watching what happens to Sims in certain situations, and building homes (and other things, including submarines) is also something he does a lot. Will also likes to tell stories with the game. You can find a few of his stories on the Sims 1 exchange...
Custom Content also plays a big role in the Sims games, and Will is astonished by what fans have already made with the Body Shop - lifelike Sims and (recent) situations are recreated in the Sims 2. He's happy to see such an active community which has grown fast and already brought a lot of mods - but it also caused the problem of hacks joining houses on the Sims 2 exchange. Maxis had to find a solution for that, so people who didn't want to use hacks could get rid of them anyway.In his spare time, Wright still plays the game a few times a week, but he also surfs around on the many fansites of the game, checking out new stuff people have created. When playing he's usually experimenting, watching what happens to Sims in certain situations, and building homes (and other things, including submarines) is also something he does a lot. Will also likes to tell stories with the game. You can find a few of his stories on the Sims 1 exchange...
In the future Maxis wants to enlarge the Sims world even further, by creating new neighborhoods, but also by enhancing the aspiration feature. The story-telling features, the photo-album and the movie creator, might also be improved. New tools are likely to be released at some point.
More tools will definitely be made by Maxis, but they will remain easy to use, like the Body Shop and HomeCrafter. More advanced tools will be released further in the future, while easier tools might be released earlier.
Finally SPORE, also known as SimUniverse is mentioned. The last name is quite specific, tells Will. He likes to create a new game that uses the important aspects of the Sims again. Freedom will again be important, and custom content made by fans will play a big role.
The entire interview can be found on this site - in German.
Written at 15:12 on Tuesday, 8 February 2005 by ChEeTaH.
