2668 results found.
Displaying results 1641 to 1650

<< Previous | 160 | 161 | 162 | 163 | 164 | 165 | 166 | 167 | 168 | 169 | Next >>

1641. New Artwork

Written on Saturday 3 April 2004 at 22:26 by ChEeTaH - 5 comments.

Maxis has sent us another e-mail this week (and this time it's real), with some small pieces of news. It's mainly about the move though. As we know Luc has left Maxis, but apparantly he is just one floor up from the rest of Maxis, "and is almost certain to put in a cameo appearance every now and then.". His new position at EA was totally unknown until now. His new role is that of "VP, Technology Fellow for EA" as Lucy tells us. Meanwhile Maxis has settled in their new place ("The Llama has landed"), and after a couple of days off they're back to working full-time on The Sims 2 again. The offices are being decorated with decorations, artwork and rhinos. Included was a concept art of the new digs of Maxis, which you can see below (click the thumbnail for a larger version). Finally, click "Read More" (or just read on if you're there already) to read the complete e-mail from Lucy.

Read More!

1642. Chat Transcript

Written on Friday 2 April 2004 at 11:35 by ChEeTaH - 4 comments.

The chat with Lucy was quite a success, and gave some interesting info. The transcript has been posted, and here are some quotes:

GoldenGirl: "hey i have a question why did you guys cut out 3d?"
MaxisLucy: "Wondering if you got a chance to look at the calendar today?"

Farmfancy: "Do men get pregnanat from being abducted?"
MaxisLucy: "They sure can....felt like a great opportunity to have men share in that aspect of life:) Fun part is that this can introduce some alien genetics into the mix"

98568: "When willThe Sims 2 Body Shop be released?"
MaxisLucy: "We're closing in on Beta...so soon."

soccerbabe86: "is there going to be some kind of neighborhood index that allows you to just click to the neighborhood you want to go to? So you don't have to scroll through each neighborhood and go through the agonizing waits.. :)"
MaxisLucy: "Yes, you can select from a catalog of neighborhoods, each with a picture and a blurb about them."

SimLovers: "Will different Sims have different weights/heights? For example, there are 2 sims of the same age and one is taller than the other...is that possible?"
MaxisLucy: "They do get fit, thin or fat, they get old and they can get pregnant. The height is age based but within an age they are of one height....we wanted to do more with this but there's lots to consider in terms of the interactions."

Little Blondie: "How long will the toddler stage be?"
MaxisLucy: "It is pretty short, we're still tuning this but right now we let them grow up to Children in about 5 sim days"

Elisir: "can you have mutiple roofstyles in on house and will the roof be autogenerated like in the sims 1?"
MaxisLucy: "Yeah, we made an auto-roof feature because it can be tricky to learn how to do this...there are lots of styles, tile, shingle and dormers and peak etc. Also chimneys"

TheSidDog: "Have basements been added?"
MaxisLucy: "we made a cellar in a house in one of the neighborhoods we are playing with, it is cool"

sims baby gurl: "can old people marry young people?"
MaxisLucy: "Elders can marry adults"

Andy: "Do sims still have the same Charlie-Brown-talking-on-the-phone-voice?"
MaxisLucy: "Simlish is big"

emz96: "LU-CY! Please Answer! Luc said that there was a glitch with weather b4, has it been fixed yet?"
MaxisLucy: "It is a big, tough problem....we have not ruled it out but we're figuring out if we can come up with a simple implementation plan for now..."

QueenKamisha: "Still adding stuff or just polishing?"
MaxisLucy: "we're still adding, about 1/2 team is on polish and bug fix and then we have some specail stuff we are adding for flaire in other places"

Many, many more questions have been answered as well. If you'd like to know more, read the transcript.

1643. Body Shop in May

Written on Thursday 1 April 2004 at 23:09 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

We already published earlier that The Body Shop will be released 10 May. However Maxis has never officially confirmed that date. On the official UK site there is a bit of confirmation though. A news post about the Body Shop posted a couple of days ago, starts with "When May comes around you'll all be getting a taste of The Sims 2...". Time will tell if the program will really come out on 10 May, but it is a possibility that's now more confirmed. For the whole post on the UK site, click here.

1644. SimDay: Makin' Mischief / No 3D [Update]

Written on Thursday 1 April 2004 at 22:40 by ChEeTaH - 7 comments.

This SimDay is a little small. However, there's big news about an eighth expansion pack for The Sims. Makin' Mischief will add more fun to the Sims 1:

"In the game, players try to play pranks on other Sims. Previous versions of the Sims have all involved managing your Sims in a way that keeps them happy and healthy, but Makin' Mischief turns this game-play on it's head, where players are rewarded for the bad behavior they can successfully heap on their Sim characters."

By anticipating to the needs of your Sims you can pull pranks on them like glueing them to the toilet seat. Exactly a year ago Maxis also announced the "PC Gamer Reviewer" expansion pack, which never saw daylight... Read the complete press release for more information.

[Update 22:15] Another press release is on the Sims 2 site. Maxis says they'll be removing 3D from The Sims 2 because "80's nostalgia is in really hot right now, and it's here to stay." Maxis wants to "explore that avenue a bit more, but from a technical standpoint." The Sims Blocky Shop will create your brand new Sims. Creating a 3D game is too hard for Maxis. Read the press release for more information.

1645. Body Shop now "Sim Duplicator"

Written on Thursday 1 April 2004 at 03:04 by ChEeTaH - 4 comments.

We have just received the news that "The Sims 2 Body Shop", the tool to create Sims for The Sims 2 with formerly known as CaSIE, has gone through another name change. It's now called the "Sim Duplicator". Maxis has decided to change the name again, because the features simply wouldn't live up to the name. "The Body Shop was plagued by bugs and simply wouldn't work together with The Sims 2. We've tried our best, but can't do any better now. We've disabled most of the features of the tool now, unfortunately," says Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer of The Sims 2. The only feature the Sim Duplicator has now, is copying Sims. "It's still pretty good. You can mix heads with different bodies, and so still make very unique Sims". The reactions from the community about this news aren't very positive. Many people are complaining Maxis has promised a great tool to create Sims, and that even after delays of months (admittedly caused also by the move to a new location of Maxis), all they can release is a "crappy" tool with hardly any features. The team that worked on the former "Body Shop" has been cut down and is now only half as big as before. They are still working on fixing all the bugs that occured before, and hope to be able to release a proper Body Shop in the last quarter of 2004, so after the expected release of The Sims 2. However, sceptics are already saying that this will cause even more delays to both the game and the real Body Shop. We'll keep you updated. For now, make sure you read the "Read More" part for the complete e-mail from Lucy, because it contains quite a bit of extra (and important) info. Read More!

1646. New Poll

Written on Thursday 1 April 2004 at 02:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As usual we've posted a new poll again this week. The previous one was all about Superstar. You've voted and Musician is the most popular, followed by Fashion Model on second place. Actor is the least popular career which helps your Sims' fame, although it's all pretty close. Although some people like to be the Obsessed Fan. See this page for all results. The new one is about The Body Shop from The Sims 2. Its name recently changed from CaSIE to the Body Shop, but we want to know which one's your favourite. Vote on the right or on the latest poll page.

1647. Sims 2 Chat with Lucy

Written on Wednesday 31 March 2004 at 18:29 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Lucy Bradshaw will be joining the fortnightly chat tomorrow on the official site to talk about The Sims 2. Lucy is the executive producer of The Sims 2, and it looks like she will also take over the chatting from Luc now he's left Maxis. The chat will be held at 3pm PST, and due to Daylight Savings, it's an hour later as usual in Europe where the clock's been set forward an hour last weekend. That means it'll be midnight in the UK when the chat starts, and 1am in most of Europe. If you have anything to ask her, make sure you'll be there. You can login from the homepage of the site.

1648. Wright wins Fake Roses

Written on Tuesday 30 March 2004 at 00:27 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The Sims is all about story telling - at least it's one of the main parts of the game. On the Game Developer's Conference 2004 Will Wright (creator of The Sims and SimCity), Warren Spector from Ion Storm (visionary behind Deus Ex and Thief), and Raph Koster the Creative Director of Sony Online Entertainment (who was instrumental in creating Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies) were put together, and they had to make a love story. It's of course not hard to imagine Will won. The prize: a dozen of fake red roses. If you want to know exactly how it all happened, make sure you read the whole article. Don't miss out on the included pictures!

1649. 2 Million Visitors!

Written on Monday 29 March 2004 at 18:37 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

After 2 years and 2 months since we started counting our visitors, The Sims Zone has reached another milestone. The counter just got to 2,000,000 unique visitors during the almost 775 days that were counted. Time for some statistics: since the launch on 17 November 2001, over 1300 newsposts were written. Almost 700 comments were made to newsposts since we launched the members area in February 2002. In the same time, over 7,300 member accounts were created, and about 900 of them have logged in in the past month. There have been more than 110 community news posts since July 2002, when we opened the community section. Members have posted about their updated sites about 230 times, while there are currently 100 links to sites by members. The 25 links on our Links page got close to 39,000 hits altogether from The Sims Zone, while our Affiliates do a little bit better. Our current affiliates are good for over a massive 70,000 (!) hits. We also started our popular Sim Brother in January 2002. Currently we're 3 series later, and during those 3 series Andy has written 244 daily reports and specials. During the history of The Sims Zone, we have posted more than 580 files, of which some also come from TheSimsFusion, the site this was before it became TSZ. When it comes to polls, we've also achieved quite a bit. Almost every week we post a new poll, and currently number 116 is running. Together they're worth close to 700 answers. In total, about 28,000 people have voted in all those polls. Finally, our most recently launched feature, the Knowledge base, has proven to be very popular. The more than 550 questions have resulted in a staggering 1150+ answers. In total, there are already almost 100,000(!) views to the questions in total. There are also more than 500 subscriptions to questions. Nice note is that there are the most questions in the Sims 2 section: it contains over 50% of all the questions! Most of the questions have been answered, but members are posting new questions and answers every day. That concludes this round of statistics. As time progresses The Sims Zone will continue to grow, and we're definitely ready for another 2 Million visitors. Keep visiting!

1650. Luc Leaves Maxis (and gives some info away...)

Written on Thursday 25 March 2004 at 12:50 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

In his latest weekly e-mail, Luc Barthelet has told us that he's leaving Maxis. The company that made The Sims is moving to a new location this week, and as it happens Luc is "also personally moving to new endeavors". It's still going to be within EA though, but it will be a while until we'll hear from Luc again: "I can say is that it will take a few years to come out and it will probably involve the Sims and other EA properties in a completely new way." Also, he announced a bit for the next E3 in May 2004. Luc says there's going to be another console version of The Sims this fall, which will be announced just before the E3. During the E3, you will be able to see it. The Sims 2 will be there for a second time too, but this time it's possible to play the latest Sims game. The E3 is the biggest gaming exposition in the world, held on 11-14 May in Los Angeles. A lot of games press will be around checking out all the latest games. If Luc will be there too is unsure, but Neil Young, who produced EA hit 'Return of the King' before, probably will be. He's taking over as General Manager at Maxis, doing what Barthelet has been doing since 1997. GameSpot has written an article about that move too. Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer of The Sims 2, will now be sending several websites the latest and greatest of the Sims 2 every week. In the "Read More" bit, I've copied Luc's complete e-mail, for the fans... Read More!