EPs and Rants

EPs and Rants

I'm beginning to wonder, computer-wise, if another two EPs down the road will mean that no one with a good (!) computer can play the Sims2 anymore. I have a high-end computer with a whooping 3 Gigabyte of RAM and a 3 Gigaherz CPU, which I need for graphic programs, and this computer has issues when it comes to, for example, driving your own car downtown and exiting at a club. No, it doesn't crash, and the game runs fairly smooth once the transition between Home > Downtown > Getting out of car has been finished, but I think it's not a very smart move of Maxis to bring out EPs that use more and more computer resources. Not many people have high-end computers and not many people have the money to continually upgrade their computers to, let's face it, just play a game. Any other game out there that requires that much RAM/graphic memory/etc, I can play without a single hiccup.

Marketing-wise? Call me surprised. I'd figured, what with the popularity of the Sims1 pets EP, pets would be the next thing on their plate. I must say that between Uni, NL and this new EP, 'business' is the one that sounds just straight-out boring. I'm a sheep, of course I'll buy it, and I'll reserve final judgement until I hold it in my hands and have played it, but so far? Not impressed.

I've come to be somewhat disappointed in Maxis' promises of 'new objects' as well. I could do without another fifty clothes or fifty paintings. What is starting to really bug me is that we're still stuck with the same dressers and beds, and let's not get into the whole kitchen/stove/electronics. More colour choices without having to download user-made fixes or packs would be great. And that Christmas EP? A rip-off, if there ever was one.

Whoever is responsible for colours at Maxis also needs a basic lecture in Colours That Drive You Neurotic 101. I realize Maxis wants to go for funky and fresh, but anyone who ever spent more than 10 minutes in a room painted neon or red will know what I'm talking about.

 

Actually, it's not just games. Every time we have to upgrade software for the company we have to upgrade computers and that's very expensive. The old server will start to have problems, the old software will start to implode under the accumulation of data. Parts are no longer available for the old server. The software company has moved into the 21st century and longer supports the old software. The old software was happy to print to dot matrix printers, the software upgrade doesn't know what you're talking about unless you use laserjet. The upgrade only works with the latest version of Windows XP, and so on ad nauseam. Pretty soon, your little company is in debt and will get it paid off just in time get more new computers and software upgrades.

My husband's company, which has more money than the company I work for, budgets for a complete change of computers (servers, laptops, printers, everything) every three years. They also have a computer geek on the payroll whose job is to keep it all running. We rely on a geek who's always in a big hurry to be somewhere else.

The hardware/software industry just takes this all for granted.

P.S. I know a lot of people had problems with the Christmas pack. I happened to be one of the lucky ones who did not. And I keep stumbling across things in the buy/build mode that were included with the pack. I liked the package. It has occurred to me that perhaps there were conflicts between stuff included with the pack and nonmaxis downloads (e.g., houses) that some others here had in their game that I, by chance, did not have in mine.

 

I reinstalled my game just to get rid of the Xmas pack. Peein' Claus is not for me, and my game started to act funny right after I installed it. Pescado tells me it's a random Uni bug but I can't help thinking it was in part caused by the stupid waste of money Xmas pack.

Santa's just not that important to me, and none of the other items were that thrilling either. I think for half the price of a full EP they could have thrown in snow, snowball fights, Christmas carolers, and trick or treaters. The Halloween stuff is lame, and who wants an enormous lawn sculpture? I wish they came in a variety of sizes, or something.

It makes me not want to buy any more EPs if that's all the care they put into this one. It was very disappointing to have Santa and his prostate problems ruin my little sim Christmas.

And would it have killed them to add a "give presents" feature? Maybe it would have been problematic, I don't know, but being able to give presents from one sim to another would have made it all worth it.

 

True, it was a completely unnecessary "joke" by the maxis boys to include that.

I think they managed gift giving in Sims1. Sims2 has inventory now so it should be possible. Also, isn't there a "take baby from..." action? Never actually works in my game but the sims are always trying to do it. So "take gift from..." doesn't seem far removed.

Yeah, I think they rushed the package to the shelves without thinking it all the way through.

My computer has more than 1000 MB of ram and a 228 GB hard drive, less than half of which is in use. The Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz (2 CPUs). All this power may be the real reason why I have less trouble with my game--so far.

Man, I'm late for work again, as usual. I'll just cough alot when I get there.

 

My computer is 3 years old, as of this month. When we bought it, it was top of the line, had all the high-end hardware. We just paid the thing off last summer!! And the 1st thing that Hubby and I started doing was talking about upgrading or replacing this one. We have put it off so far because of finances. We did upgrade the video card when UNI came out. The 1st time I had a special event movie come on, I was in Heaven! But, when we got NL, I had to lower some of my settings, and my game still runs slow. I had to stop running larger lots, and I do not allow more than 5 or 6 residents on the lot at a time because of slowdowns and jerky gameplay.

My computer is still not a bad computer. For surfing the net, playing music (Hubby bought a SURROUND SOUND SYSTEM with the computer!!! I didn't know such a thing existed at the time!) and for working, it is better than my machine at work. It loads graphic pages quickly. It has a 40 gig hard drive that is not even 1/2 full, (even with my downloading CC Addiction!) We paid $1,500 for this computer 3 years ago. I am sick to think that very soon we will have to invest another $1,500 so that I can play my game.

Oh, and hubby is wanting Quake 4 and Silent Hill 2 for Christmas. I haven't looked at the specs for those games yet, but if you're saying that all the new games have these higher requirements, Kat, then I'll bet we'll be spending that money sooner than later.

Oh, well, the teenager needs his own 'puter so he can stop borrowing my work laptop.

 

That was the case with mine, too. Six months to a year later I think it's at the bottom end. So I worry about the Sims business EP. I take a lot of the pretty graphics for granted now that I'll probably have to tone down, including cleaning out the neighborhood decorations. I've got just about everything in my neighborhood, including telephone poles, road signs, fire hydrants, trees. I stopped short of the animated stuff like clouds, birds, balloons. Still, I so enjoy looking at the neighborhood when I start the game. I'll miss it.

 

I think with todays technology, there has got to be some way of satisfying every customer.I think most wouldn't mind if a little feature here of there was missing. I mean, what they wouldn't know wouldn't kill, would it? Who here honestly thinks that they would be so unhappy with an EP to moan if it didn't include slanted swimming pools?

I didn't buy the Xmas pack. I didn't see the point. The Business EP will be interesting but I'm sorry. I just can't wait for my Sim to go Downtown in half an hour. I now sit and read for more time than I'm playing. I'll be okay with NL and Uni. Not great, but okay.

 

Then they should have charged less. It's a ripoff.