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"Is The Sims 2 worth buying?"

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This thread has been linked to the game 'The Sims 2'.
Tue 23/11/04 at 19:30
Regular
"smile, it's free"
Posts: 6,460
Now, before everyone says "No, it's crap, it's the sims", hold it a sec.

If you're the sort of person who hated the original game, don't bother posting in here. I suspect your opinion will be highly predictble, and of little value to anyone. After all, I'm kind enough not to post in your FPS threads preaching about the brainless banality of them all. So you can return the favour.

Now that I've insulted almost everyone, back to the topic.

Is the Sims 2 any good? I played the orignial for ages, along with a few of the expansion packs too. Eventually however, I did tire of it. So for those of you who've played the latest installment, what's the good, bad, and ugly about The Sims 2?
Sat 04/12/04 at 19:42
Regular
"Devil in disguise"
Posts: 3,151
VenomByte wrote:
> Delaying by three months to inlcude the worthwhile stuff would've been
> perfectly ok.
>
> Much of the time delay in the creation of the expansion packs is due
> to making them compatible with each other. It's not as nice and
> modular as just spending a few months on content and bolting it on.
> In the original, the main reason they stopped producing expansions
> was simply because by the time you get to seven, you've got to test
> every one of about 700 possible combinations. Just too many. Imagine
> how much time & effort would be saved if they'd all been
> integrated into the game instead.
>
> The realisty is that if the concept had been designed with the
> expansions in mind, the increase in development time wouldn't have
> made it unfeasable.
>
> Incremental expansions are an extremely inefficient way of adding
> content to a game. And who pays for that inefficiency? That's right.
> Us, the consumers.

Little point in replying to any of that. Not even sure what you were trying to say.

If you don't think something is worth the money, then you don't buy it.
Thats your choice as a consumer. Your original assertion was they should have included all the sims expansion content in the new version. No matter how you want to look at it, it was never going to happen and thinking it should is quite idealistic.
Sat 04/12/04 at 18:42
Regular
"gsybe you!"
Posts: 18,825
As far as I can see, it's Sims with tarted up graphics, some new interactive feautres, and no Sims extras.

So you'll be looking at Sims 2: Houseparty, Sims 2: Vacation etc.
Sat 04/12/04 at 18:35
Regular
"smile, it's free"
Posts: 6,460
Delaying by three months to inlcude the worthwhile stuff would've been perfectly ok.

Much of the time delay in the creation of the expansion packs is due to making them compatible with each other. It's not as nice and modular as just spending a few months on content and bolting it on. In the original, the main reason they stopped producing expansions was simply because by the time you get to seven, you've got to test every one of about 700 possible combinations. Just too many. Imagine how much time & effort would be saved if they'd all been integrated into the game instead.

The realisty is that if the concept had been designed with the expansions in mind, the increase in development time wouldn't have made it unfeasable.

Incremental expansions are an extremely inefficient way of adding content to a game. And who pays for that inefficiency? That's right. Us, the consumers.
Fri 03/12/04 at 14:51
Regular
"Devil in disguise"
Posts: 3,151
VenomByte wrote:
> Okay, so how would you feel if the makers of half life released one
> level and weapon at a time in successive expansion packs?

Hardly a fair comparison. A good level designer can probably produce a half decent level in 3-4 days, perhaps a week if you included new textures as well. Now if you want to believe thats all the sims expansions took then thats your choice. Sadly, you'd be quite far from reality.

My original statement stands, creating content costs money, and releasing it as a product has numerous fixed costs associated with it. Its totally unrealistic to expect them to add probably 12-18 months to development time of the sims 2 just to include all the stuff from the expansions the original game had. Btw, the announced sims 2 expansion is something that wasn't offered in the original (or the expansions)? So not like they're trying to charge you for the same content again.

Just for the record, don't like the sims (or EA) so I'm not particularly defending it. All the same, we should try to live in reality, games publishers are here to make money, not to provide us with a public service. Thats equally applicable to Valve (creator of Half Life) as it is to EA.
Fri 03/12/04 at 13:55
Regular
"smile, it's free"
Posts: 6,460
Okay, so how would you feel if the makers of half life released one level and weapon at a time in successive expansion packs?
Fri 03/12/04 at 13:46
Regular
"Devil in disguise"
Posts: 3,151
VenomByte wrote:
> I was willing to forgive them on the basis that all these ideas came
> to them afterwards... but there is no excuse for not including
> everything in the Sims 2 straight away.

I'm sure we'd all like to live in a world where creating content for a game doesn't cost time or money but it does. ;-)
Fri 03/12/04 at 13:33
Regular
"smile, it's free"
Posts: 6,460
crossbob wrote:
> a load of my mates have said it is good but some of my of mates have
> took it back because they said he was rubbish my one mate snapped it
> in half

Snapped the bloody thing in half? A mate with an IQ that low should stick to games with big guns for shooting baddies.


I suspect I won't bother buying it... since EA/Maxis have now announced the first expansion pack for it. Now the original Sims was a great game, but I'd never have actually *paid* for all those expansions.

I was willing to forgive them on the basis that all these ideas came to them afterwards... but there is no excuse for not including everything in the Sims 2 straight away.

As cipro mentioned, it has none of the nice additions the expansions for the original game provied either. I can't work out if that's greedy or lazy.


I'll refuse to buy it on principal.
Sat 27/11/04 at 16:57
Regular
Posts: 2,781
lcarus wrote:
> It was a typo.

And yet it still hasn't been edited! :0D
Sat 27/11/04 at 15:39
Regular
Posts: 16,558
Erm what an a** he should have returned it or sold it on ebay.
Sat 27/11/04 at 15:20
Regular
"Catch it!"
Posts: 6,840
a load of my mates have said it is good but some of my of mates have took it back because they said he was rubbish my one mate snapped it in half

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