rebecah from MTS2 now at TSR

[Fran]

True enough-and probably all the modders that left did so because perhaps they felt that they had reached their technical skill limit. But others on the adult sites did go past a bit more..to the joy of those who enjoy such antics.

It's too bad EA locked up (from what I've heard) the animation stuff in Sims 3-that's probably why the modders aren't doing more creative stuff for Sims 3, and possibly why so many players are constantly bitching about it.

It's sheer laziness on EA's part to do that. They just don't want to bother to please anyone, except their shareholders.

Nothing wrong with furniture-it just doesn't add to the gameplay, what little there is of it. Eventually players will demand more of EA's developers and make them actually create a good working animation set.

That day might come, or it might not. But furniture and pretty dresses only cover up so much of the flaws in the game.

To each their own. If Rebekah finds fulfillment remaking the same stuff over and over again, let her.

[Paden]

Thing is, her stuff isn't pay, at least not yet it isn't. Still, going over to the enemy is a bad way to get moar recognition and adulation. There are plenty of us out here where the mods and such are free, and I will say that the creativity and imagination shown by the people that I work with has a much higher quality shown on any paysite so far. While all I can do is recolour (as of yet), I never tire of working with certain meshes and seeing what I can put on them. (Looks in the direction of Sailfindragon, MLC, dstar, Adele and Paleoanth, among others.) When you have such good stuff to start with, why would you recolour junk like the slop they churn out at TSR?? It doesn't make sense to me, it just doesn't.

[Echo]

Sims 2 never had as much creative CC stuff as sims 1 had (IIRC ballet, skiing, karate, all kind of breeding pets, etc all made by modders, not EA's) because the community was already fighting like hellish cats and no informations was shared.

I've heard that sorts of thing from a few different sources now, and it confuses me a bit. Certainly you are right, there was already in-fighting by the time TS2 started, but as far as I know no TS2 modders have ever deliberately withheld information. In fact, most of the people who discovered new techniques were free creators who were more than happy to share the 'how to' when asked - Numenor, RGiles, Inge, Pescado, Delphy, Miche, Atavera, Wes, Twojeffs, Squinge, JWoods... And I know I've forgotten a whole lot of people. You just need to look in the Modding Discussion or Object Modding fora at MTS to see just how much information is out there and available to anyone who wants it. You just have to do a bit of wading through to get to the gems.

I think the only reason there are fewer advanced mods for TS2 than for TS1 is that getting something exciting to happen in a TS2 object was a whole lot harder. TS1 objects were flat images, and animating them was a matter of switching between flat images, like making an animated gif. For most non-technical modders, simply learning to mesh/texture an object for TS2 was pushing the boundaries of their understanding. It's little wonder that most TS2 BHAV modders and the like were capable mainstream computer programmers as well.

All that aside, if anyone has made it through the standard TS2 modding tutorials and wants to know any existing mod was done (and how to use that technique in their own project), they just need to ask the question on MTS. There are still several TS2 modders answering questions, and while I'm not actively creating any more I'm definitely still teaching. There will be no information hoarding if it can be helped!

True enough-and probably all the modders that left did so because perhaps they felt that they had reached their technical skill limit. [...]
It's too bad EA locked up (from what I've heard) the animation stuff in Sims 3-that's probably why the modders aren't doing more creative stuff for Sims 3, and possibly why so many players are constantly bitching about it.

Actually, most modders left because they either got bored, or the game had reached its limit, not because the modders reached their limit. There weren't many unsolved mysteries left in TS2 by the time TS3 came out. Most of it was decoded and understood, it's just that the amount of work required to take advantage of those discoveries was just too huge.

Also, EA hasn't really locked down animation any more than they did with TS2. In fact, they're using formats much closer to industry standards now (Granny3D), when in the past they used an invented format which had to be decoded painstakingly by (Wes_h's) hand over a very long time.

[Moune]

Sims 2 never had as much creative CC stuff as sims 1 had (IIRC ballet, skiing, karate, all kind of breeding pets, etc all made by modders, not EA's) because the community was already fighting like hellish cats and no informations was shared.

I've heard that sorts of thing from a few different sources now, and it confuses me a bit. [snip]

Yeah, I remember it the other way around, too. I didn't create anything for Sims 1, but it wasn't either something you just got into like that. There was no MTS where you could just go and pick up any tutorial you might need and get all the help you can imagine if your first recolor didn't want to work out properly. Starting out help for the Sims 1 were more given on a person-to-person basis, and there were creators around who weren't all that happy to share their knowledge. It was a time where creators and site owners were oftentimes put on piedestals and admired like demi-gods. Hence also why some of them got away with charging ludicrous amounts for their shitty creations.

I definitely prefer the openness and sharing mentality that surrounds creating for Sims 2.

[Dr House]

Meh, I was only thinking of an old post by Pescado. *searches for very old historical facts*
http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/index.php/topic,1595.msg72278.html#msg72278

The stigma is only there because of creators going apepoop over someone using their stuff. Now if you avoid these suckers and ask another one of those other creators that DOES allow it, where is the problem?

The stigma is that it contaminates the entire community when this attitude becomes the GENERAL perception rather than the diva-esque rantings of a few nutjobs that people simply ignore. Because the crazed ramblings of these people are tolerated and even accepted, the entire community is affected: Even those who don't subscribe to this feel the chilling effects of "never post anything derived from someone else's work". Trust me. It's there.

Why is it such a problem... Sims 2 is about to die, we have probably gotten all the stuff we want out of it... now if this were a totally new game,  I would agree with you much more. But right now the result of forcing people into stuff they really don't want doesn't have any benefit.

Well, I figure we still have another year, but look at the results: When Sims 1 was at this point, we had animations. In Sims 2? Nada. Animations remain an obscure thing utterly unheard of, and this is largely because at this point, no one is willing to share or derive. As for Sims 2 "dying", don't fool yourself: Even Sim 1 is still apparently alive, and you're delusional if you think the attitudes that pervade TS2 weren't carried over from TS1. How do you think paysites got off to a running start even before we *HAD* modding?

Well in all honesty: the stuff really isn't untouchable at all. You can grab it and edit it any day. But people do not want to disrespect or harm a stranger, even if the butthurt is in their minds only and they are being completely unreasonable.

That is exactly the point: Because very few people are assholes who are willing to cause some butthurt to get results, the chilling effect of this is felt through ALL works in the community: There is the perception that you cannot take someone else's work and try to build on it. Even if this is totally unfounded, and even openly permitted by the creator, the moment you post something like that, people who don't KNOW this will attack like a swarm of screeching banshees. It takes my kind of firm stomach to hold out against that. Most people don't have this, so they just cave, and the work never get posted. The techniques pioneered are thus never refined, and the same thing thus has to be reinvented over and over because no one is willing to share derivative works.

Well Oops me, It started with Sims 1 in fact but only got worse with the beginning of Sims 2. It later faded a lot as now open TOS are more and more common, so hurray!

[Moune]

I've got to say that I'm firmly with Pes on this one - especially the last paragraph in that quote. When I first started out creating for Sims 2 I was shit scared to even just open up another creator's mesh or recolor to see how they had done things. How ridiculous is that? 

[SoggyFox]

Late to the party, been sort of taking a sims break, and still haven't reinstalled anything yet.  But actualy near the end of sims 1, there was some basic tutorials for Transmog and there was another tool as well, though can't think of it now for anything.

Problem is, sims 1 didn't start with pay anything.  People made stuff and they shared it - then bandwidth issues started up, and a lot of popular sites went pay, not just sims but other things, like kiss dolls and the like.

Thing is, none of these sites stopped charging, even once bandwidth became a lot cheaper....which is where it starts to stink.

[Sigmund]

Problem is, sims 1 didn't start with pay anything.  People made stuff and they shared it - then bandwidth issues started up, and a lot of popular sites went pay, not just sims but other things, like kiss dolls and the like.

As someone who's been playing ever since TS1 days (I may be dating myself slightly here), I can still remember the initial shock I felt at the emergence of paysites. I was astounded-- after all, I had already paid for the game and the EPs. Up until that point, the majority of the community was free, and it was pretty much a given that only the massively huge sites had "donation" items. Unfortunately, by TS2 and TS3 days, it's become much more widespread, which is ironic since many of the sites are fairly small and, as SoggyFox points out, bandwidth has actually gotten cheaper.

[redisenchanted]

Popping back in (computer issues, too busy, blah, blah, blah) just to say how disappointed I am in Rebecah. I stood up for her on many occasions, I loved that she was always trying new things. It really sucks.

I bet there's a thread somewhere about it too, but Fresh Prince has also joined the dark side.

[mustluvcatz]

Yeah, there is a thread about FP at Black Pearl Sims. He posted in it saying that it was an April Fool's joke. (I didn't go to his site to check anything out however.)

[Moune]

The April Fool's joke was only about closing his site. He still has five Sims 3 cars at TSR. They might be free at the moment, but I'm still really not impressed with him uploading there. 

[Fran]

When you go to FP's site, you can still get free cars. Even though he's probably got a "donate to the cause" button somewhere on that site, it's not required.
Guess he just wants a bigger audience, even though he's famous for his cars. I mean, he made most of the meshes for the cars one sees-and if he didn't, Vovillia helped a lot, as well.