Is it Just Me, or is this Community Stingy About Sharing?

Author: jfade

Dated: 2 Jan 2007

I was thinking about this a lot yesterday and have started thinking about it again today, and I'm wondering if this is just me thinking stupid thoughts or if this is true in general...

What I was pondering about was the seeming lack, or at least what I perceive as a lack, of tutorials and technical information that is freely shared and available in the community. Now I know there are some tutorials out there and there are some really great ones in various places, but there just seems to be a big lack of tutorials that go beyond the basics and into more detailed information and specific techniques.

For example, there are some basic modding (IE BHAV editing and the like), tutorials out there, but there don't seem to be any that go much deeper. In another example, I know there are some more advanced object creation tutorials out there, but some of these are very outdated or no longer correct/needed due to a new technique that was discovered.

But it's not like the techniques are simply not KNOWN, you can see certain creators using them all the time. Yet it just seems like no one wants to write tutorials explaining how these things work or at the very least write a brief thing that will lead people on the right track to get them to be able to use the same method. You may think “well can't you just open their file and see what they did?” That is partially true, but it may not always be apparent, and people, especially aspiring creators, shouldn't have to go digging around in other people's files to see what they did.

On top of that, there seems to also be a shortage of technical info. For example, the formats of the various resources sometimes change with new expansions, or have new things added, and ever since the original formats were figured out, it doesn't seem like the new formats have been explained anywhere. Of course, I could be wrong on that and may just be looking in the wrong places, but it seems like this is happening to me. However, I feel that if more programs and tools are going to be written, this info needs to be publicly available, not buried somewhere or hidden in a location that only certain people can get to.

Now I'm not saying there's a complete lack of info, but it seems to be so scattered and so sparse that it's difficult to track things down. This is not community friendly. If the community's creativity and ingenuity is to continue to grow, there needs to be a movement to make things happen from all creators. But what I want to know is this: Am I alone in feeling this way? Does anyone else think there needs to be a more open exchange of information? And if there is to be a more open exchange in a centrally located place, WHERE should it be done? At an existing site or at a totally new one? Or should we just try to repost everything in multiple places?

Of course, regardless of what you all say, I do intend to make an effort myself to make more tutorials and share what I know, but I want to know what you all think as far as how I (and I hope others) should go about it?

Thanks for any input you can give. :)

EA: All Your Monies Are Belong to Us!

Author: jfade

Dated: 20 Dec 2006

You know one of the things that has frustrated me lately about this GAME and not about the community itself (for once) is how greedy EA seems to have gotten. I mean, honestly, I've never looked upon them too highly, what with the Deluxe, Double Deluxe, and Complete Collection drama from the Sims 1 days, but lately it seems to have just gone continuously downhill.

What am I talking about? Well, in case you missed it, there was a survey that was up on the official site asking about the music in the game. "OK, fine," I think after hearing about it initially. "They probably just want to get opinions on the music considering they've been getting all kinds of real life artists to make Simlish versions of their songs. Simple enough."

But I was oh so wrong. They did want to know what we thought of the music. But they also wanted to know if we could be willing to buy the music. That's right. They want us to buy the music from the game that we already bought.

Now, I may be overreacting, but it seems to me that in a community with as many players as the Sims that has tons of available modding tools, someone would've figured out how to extract the music from the game [that we've all already bought].

And as a matter of fact, we HAVE figured out how to extract the music! Imagine that! Additionally, there is extra hidden music within Pets and Nightlife that is only available to certain locales unless you extract it and put it in the normal music folder. You can read more about all that jazz at this topic at More Awesome Than You.

So stick it to the man... err, EA! Use your copy of SimPE and extract those mp3 files for use in any way you see fit!

Don't like/can't use SimPE? Well this whole ridiculous mess has inspired me to make a simple little utility to extract the music from the game quickly and easily. Why you ask? Well, I've never made any programs before involving audio, and it's something I want to try. Secondly, it'll be relatively easy. :P

Anyhow, don't expect this tool anytime too soon, my "To-Do" list is rather large and this is pretty low priority. It is something I want to do, however, so I will get to it eventually! :)

Body Shop: How EA is Screwing Us All Over!

Author: jfade

Dated: 17 Nov 2006

We all know that when Pets came out, we were also going to get a new version of Body Shop. But what we didn't know was the sinister, evil plot that EA was about to unleash on the community...

Apparently, those big wigs at EA thought they'd try to pull the wool over our eyes, and change the way Body Shop worked. Kudos to them for being so subtle about it, but even bigger kudos to those oh so awesome simmers who discovered the dirty deed: Body Shop now includes meshes when you package your Sims up. That's right, it takes what most simmers would think is a logical step that it didn't take before.

But come on! Think of creator's rights here! I mean, how dare EA alter a tool that we use to make custom content for the community! That's just illogical, cruel, and may as well be illegal!

Naturally, this has caused some outrage at certain sites.

The other problem is that content made with the Pets version of Body Shop shows a naked, full body thumbnail in non-Pets versions of the game. Fortunately, this severely disgusting problem that was no doubt planned by EA has some workarounds developed by many people that have invested many hard working hours into finding solutions for already made content as well as for making new content with Pets installed.

All I can say is thank goodness for the infinitely awesome, intelligent, and god-like modders who go to such great lengths to save us from EAs evil schemes. And to EA, I say shame on you. SHAME ON YOU. How DARE you sully the good name of the Sims Community by altering the tool that YOU provided and causing all these problems.

Sure, sure, you (EA) may try to make excuses, saying that it's been this way for lot builders for ages, but this is INEXCUSABLE! We all know that skinner's meshes and skin recolors are FAR more important than any other content made by the community!

For all those other Simmers out there that are as outraged as I am, I say we all take action! Let's all uninstall our Pets expansions and refuse to play, download, or make content until EA issues a patch to fix this HORRIBLE problem that they've caused! Further, let's all send our games back to them and demand a refund!

Further still, lets make sure we tar and feather anyone who uploads anything to the exchange, whether they knew about the problem or not. Nay, let's not only punish those who upload Sims to the exchange, but anyone who uses the exchange at all. How dare they use a free tool provided by EA to share things they've made, because they may inadvertently share something that someone else made! And we all know that the exchange is an evil cess pool of corruption that EA made just to go against creators rights anyhow, because that's exactly the type of thing that EA does.

Finally, we need to take the most important step, and bombard EA with tons of emails, spam the BBS, and spread the word, demanding that a fix be made by EA. And we will continue to do so until all those who see a new post dread the contents of it, because they KNOW that it'll be from us!

Together, we can take down the evil empire that is EA!!!!!!!!111111oneoneelevetyone

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