It's been a while since Don Laabs got the job of Senior Producer for PC expansion packs of the Sims 2. Thursday he posted a letter on the official site, in which he talks about several topics the community has been talking about lately. First of all he mentions the next expansion pack will be revealed through an official announcement in several weeks. Meanwhile there have been a few sneak peeks (from Hunter and Shannon) of features in the new EP. In other news, he also announces that sims creator HappyMoonBelly has joined Maxis in the video capture department as full-time employee. There are also three new QA testers from the community, and Nick K. (Limbo1n), who won the USC / Sims 2 University Contest last year has been an intern for Maxis for about a month. He spent his time at the marketing department.

The second half of the letter is about hot topics on the forums. First of all he announces patches for Open for Business and Family Fun Stuff have arrived - more about that here later. Don also explains why making a patch takes so long - the Sims 2 is a very complex game, and everything needs to be tested in a high number of configurations, a number which is increasing with every product. Don also talks about Stuff packs - more will be released in the future. They're not available as downloads, to make people who don't visit the websites (official or fansites) get some extra items for their games anyway. Maxis acknowledges that they're not for everyone. When it comes to Tim LeTourneau, Don tells he's become Executive Producer, but he can't say whatfor yet. Finally, he explains how it should be "Live Mode" ("intransitive verb, rhymes with give") and not "Live mode" ("adjective, rhymes with jive"). For the complete explanations, details, etc, read Don's Letter.