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1251. Urbz/Sims 2 Competition

Written on Saturday 20 November 2004 at 13:59 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Maxis has launched a new competition which combines both the Urbz and the Sims 2. The task: recreate one of the Urbz characters using the Sims 2 in-game tools. You can win the Urbz, along with some promotional items of the Sims. Two runner-ups will get just the Urbz game. As usual it's open to citizens of the United States and Canada only, except Quebec. You have to be at least 13 years of age and must have owned the Sims 2 at least 7 days before the start of the contest, which was 13 November. You can participate until 30 November 11.59pm PST. As with earlier contests, your entry must be submitted through your MySim page followed by an email to Maxis. See the contest page for more details.

1252. SimDay

Written on Friday 19 November 2004 at 00:41 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The official site has been updated again this simday, for example with a new intro promoting the exchange and the Sims 2 instead of the Urbz. Real news however, is an interview with the guys behind the Strangerhood, Rooster Teeth Productions. GameSpy follows the colleagues of IGN who had an interview with Matt Hullum from Rooster Teeth a month ago. GameSpy talked to him, as well as Gustavo Sorola and Geoff Fink for this interview. It's 6 pages long and full of interesting (and less interesting) information:

"I refuse to recognize the difficulty to pronounce the word "machinima." I say let's work together and re-brand this type of movie making "rendervision." See? Doesn't that sound much better? Plus you don't have to constantly ask people if you're saying it properly. Rendervision... it just rolls off the tongue."

Read the entire interview if you need to know more. Furthermore, The Sims 2 got nominated for two video game awards at SpikeTV's Video Game Awards. The game has been nominated in the Best PC Game and Most Addictive Game categories. The awards will be hosted at 19 December by Snoop Dogg. You can see all the nominations and vote for your favourites at the VGA 2004 site.

1253. UrbzDay

Written on Friday 19 November 2004 at 00:22 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

This week's UrbzDay really comes with just a new Comic and descriptions of the pets. The latter can be found in the crew section, where you'll meet the bulldog, the cat and the monkey (consoles), or the chicken, some dogs, a lizzard and a pet dragon for the GBA. No descriptions for these guys, just pictures (and sketches) are to be viewed. The comic takes us to Skyline Beach this time. It's written by Jim Mahfood, and can be found through the Comix section along with the rest of them.

Finally, the official site now has the city guide that GameSpot posted earlier. Check it out on the city guide section of the official site to tour through the city. That's all from Maxis this week. We'll soon put up a review index as usual for this game, and we'll have our own review a bit later. Stay tuned for those.

1254. The Sims Zone turns 3!

Written on Wednesday 17 November 2004 at 20:29 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

It's been 3 years already since we started as The Sims Zone. Although this site existed before as TheSimsFusion, and SimsZone before that, we've been running under the current name since 17 November 2001. Besides the several moves between servers (like last weekend), we've been keeping you up-to-date with the latest news and info about the Sims continuously, which has resulted in well over 3.6 million unique visitors to the Sims Zone so far. We've also introduced several new features since our launch, including our members section (have you registered yet?), SimBrother (have you watched the 3 series?), and our knowledge base (have you posted your questions there?). Of course we won't stop in the following year(s) - expect more news, info, articles, reviews, polls, and a lot of other things from the team behind the Sims Zone right on this site - of course all about the Sims franchise. I want to thank the entire team, including former team members, especially Matt and Matthew, former webmasters of SimsZone and TheSimsFusion, for the effort they've put in this site the past years. Let's hope it'll never stop, just like the Sims!

1255. New Server Running [Update]

Written on Saturday 13 November 2004 at 13:37 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As you read this, we're running on a new, faster server, with a lot more bandwidth too. You may have experienced a few hours downtime but we're back and running now. The new server has far less sites running on it, as it's almost dedicated. Unfortunately, we are experiencing a few DNS-related problems which cause thesimszone.com to be offline at the moment, as well as thesimszone.co.uk without www (all other subdomains work fine). We hope to solve these problems as soon as possible, until then please just use www.thesimszone.co.uk or the subdomains there. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to have everything back soon.

[Update 15:15] The entire thesimszone.co.uk is now functional, even if you don't use "www." now. TheSimsZone.com should be back within the next few hours, that's a matter of waiting.

1256. EA Employees sue Company [Update]

Written on Friday 12 November 2004 at 19:42 by ChEeTaH - 6 comments.

Some employees of Electronic Arts, including members of the Sims 2 team, have filed a lawsuit against the company. The employees have had to work overtime during crunch-times (rushes before the major deadlines), which meant working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with occasionally the Saturday evening off. The group of employees claims they didn't get paid for the extra hours they worked, nor did they get extra hours off, or extra vacation days in return. EA's attitude towards this is said to be "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." The details are revealed by the spouse of an EA worker, in a blog post. "This company is not strapped for cash; their labor practices are inexcusable." The spouse claims EA's actions to make employees work too long - almost 90 hours a week - is "unethical" and "illegal." Another part says the turnover rate in engineering at EA is approximately 50%, which means a lot of people leave the company constantly, and new ones join.

GameSpot further investigated this issue, and brought up that Attorney Robert C. Schubert, partner at San Francisco law firm Schubert & Reed LLP, has "initiated legal proceedings to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of EA employees." EA claims the employees fell under the Californian exemption law, Senate Bill 88, which does not apply to the entertainment industry and only to specialty employees earning at least $90,000 annually. The claim "Jamie Kerschenbaum vs. Electronic Arts, Inc." was filed 29 July of this year. Jamie was part of the Sims 2 design team, although his current employment status is unknown. "EA will not retaliate against employees for exercising legal rights, including by participating in the proposed class action." More about this can be read in the GameSpot newspost or the EA Spouse blog.

[Update 22:20] More posts by former EA employees have been published. See the read more area (or read on below) for the details about those. Read More!

1257. First Expansion: University? [Update]

Written on Friday 12 November 2004 at 18:29 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Sims have been made smarter with the upgrade from the Sims 1 to the Sims 2. But could it be the first expansion pack will take it even a step further? Over at GameStop a title has appeared on CD-Rom, that's called "The Sims 2: University". Its release is set to 1 May 2005, but that's likely to change as EA's CEO Larry Probst had already stated it would be released in the first quarter of the next year. Any more details are not yet revealed but we'll keep you updated. Also see GameStop's product details for more. Thanks to James Magenta for the link.

[Update 18 November 2004, 23:25] With thanks to James for the new link, GameStop has removed and put back the product details for the pack. Remarkable is its price tag, of $39.99 ($10 more than Sims 1 expansion packs), but also the new release date which matches what EA CEO Larry Probst told earlier: it's now set for 21 March according to GameStop. We'll keep you updated!

1258. SimDay: The Strangerhood [Update]

Written on Thursday 11 November 2004 at 13:43 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

This week's SimDay is more like a StrangerhoodDay. But first, MaxoidKane has sent out a private message to all registered members. Maxis will be cleaning out the exchange, by removing unpopular files from the database. That way, Maxis hopes to make it easier for people to find what they're looking for. Anything that was posted "in the last 21 days, featured items, frequently downloaded items, and rated content" will be kept, anything else will be removed. It's recommended to make a local back-up copy if you fear your content will be deleted, so you can always reupload it:

"Our creative and talented Sims 2 community has been growing at a fantastic rate and in turn the Exchange has been growing at a rapid rate. We've found it has become difficult for users to wade through the incredible amounts of content. We think that regularly removing unused content from the system provides a benefit to users looking for quality content.

"Beginning next week, we'll be pruning the Exchange database on a regular basis in order to help users trying to locate quality content and to provide space for more content in the future. Content added in the last 21 days, featured items, frequently downloaded items, and rated content will be retained. Content that does not meet this criteria will be removed. Rest assured, we have adjusted the criteria for the length of time the content has been on the exchange. If you're worried about your content being removed, please back up a copy of your content locally. We'll conduct regular cleanings of the Exchange following this criteria from now on."

Furthermore, there's some Strangerhood news. Tonight at 3pm PST (11pm GMT, midnight in Europe) a chat will be held with two creators of the series, Burnie and Matt from Rooster Teeth Productions. You can join the chat to ask them questions about writing scripts or creating the movies. The auditorium will open approximately 10 minutes before the chat starts. You can find it on the chat page. Rooster Teeth has also made a second episode of the series, titled "The one with the Premise". It's just under 5 minutes and comes in DivX, Windows Media and QuickTime format. You can download it from the Strangerhood Archive.

[Update 12 November, 1:45am] The chat transcript has been posted. If you want to know more about the series or the guys behind it, you might want to read it. Episode 2 of the series is now also available for download on the official Sims 2 site, which you can use if the Strangerhood one is slow for you. Finally, something that was posted late this simday, is a new object. The Greek "Touch of Autumn" Cornucopia can function as decoration in any Sims 2 house. You can download it from this page on the Exchange.

1259. UrbzDay: Comic and Cheats

Written on Thursday 11 November 2004 at 13:29 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

It's Urbzday again, and now the game has been released Maxis has already published the cheats for the game. You can already find out how to reveal the gnome, get all power socials, skills and more by visiting our cheat overview. If you'd rather see the official overview check out the cheats for PlayStation 2, GameCube or XBox. And as the past few weeks, Maxis has posted a new comic. This week Jay Stephens takes Jayde to Kicktail Park. Find out what happens there by reading the Kicktail Park Comic now.

1260. The Urbz Officially Released

Written on Wednesday 10 November 2004 at 15:26 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The Urbz: Sims in the City has officially been released in the US today. Europe and other parts of the world will follow tomorrow or friday. The Urbz is the latest title in the Sims franchise for consoles (PlayStation 2, GameCube and X-Box) and handhelds (GBA and DS). The first 700.000 copies of the game contain with a download card with which you can download 4 exclusive Black Eyed Peas tracks from Apple's iTunes. Along with the launch of the game itself, EA has also teamed up with Atomic Toys, which has made toys based on characters in the handheld version of the game. Toys based on the console game will follow later this year. You can expect a complete review from us soon, but until then there's a preview written almost a month ago, which you can read. Of course you can also buy the game on the platform of your choice, or the official strategy guide from our shop.