So you mean that if I get sims 2 and play vanilla, it will be as bad as playing Sims 1 vanilla?  And I will have to go into a DL frenzy for it, as well?  Oh, noes!

At least if I start doing that for Sims 2, I won't be such a noob that I think it is wise/right to pay for CC, the way I did for Sims 1 back in the day.  I know where the booty is, and where to get better-than-pay free stuff!

Many of our members play both games, but some of us have not played Sims 2.  I agree, it's hard to have an intelligent conversation comparing two things when you have no knowledge about one of them.

The first thing that I always put in a new install is the fruitcake.  Of course you have to do a little on-the-spot home remodeling every day to put it somewhere the damn maid won't be able to grab it and put it in the trash.  But if she can't get to it, she hangs around and won't leave, so she ends up costing as much as a new fruitcake every day.

I love those meeces to peeces!  Also the hideous songs in Superstar.  If I've been playing studio town a lot, they get stuck in my head - especially the country song.  Gaahh!

One of the main reasons I am interested in Sims 2 and may try it out is for the life cycle thing.  When you play a family for a long time in Sims 1, it can almost get boring when you realize that the kids will forever be 10 years old - so they will never leave the house unless they get shipped off to military school, then you never see them again.  Babies become kids, but it's an instant "bang" kind of thing, no stages of kidhood, which I understand is what happens in Sims 2.  There is a "grow-up" program for Sims 1, but it is notoriously buggy, and has some weird effects.

I would also enjoy getting to see my Simmies close-up.

The nicest thing about Sims 1 is that it plays very well on my low-end basic Dell inspiron 530, with nothing but an on-board graphics card.  Even with tons of CC, it loads at an acceptable speed.

I may get the base Sims 2 game just to try it out, but it sounds like I would need a much better machine than this to really get the full enjoyment of it.

We have some "Sims 1 vs. Sims 2" threads at CTO, and every time I mention that I want to try out Sims 2, the members threaten to tar-and-feather me - they call it "going over to the dark side"...

Yes, there are a LOT of programs still out there for Sims 1.  File Cop, the Maid, the SimEnhancer programs (which I couldn't live without), the many programs from Blueprint, etc.  The old standbys are still the best.  The ones from Maxis - they suck as much as they ever did.  Like the Sims creator (which lets you create new heads - when it doesn't crash).

Speaking of TSR, we have a "special situation" there.  In general, we don't have any files that are free and easily available on the web.  But TSR is the exception.  They have gobbled up so many old Sims 1 sites, and we know they are doing "something" to their files - it appears there are trackers, just as with their Sims 2 files.  When you download a file from TSR and look at the .iff files inside the .zips, lo and behold the .iffs are dated with the exact time and date you downloaded.  When you are getting a file that you know was created in 2002 but the file date is 7-27-08, you know there is something fishy going on.  Fortunately many of our members are contributing original files, so we don't have to mess with TSR-mutants.  Why the hell they bother doing it with files that they are giving away for free, I have no idea.  Just another example of their fantasy omnipotence, I guess.

Most of us seem to spend more time organizing and collecting files than we do actually playing.  Is that also true with Sims 2, or do you folks find more time to play the game?

Maybe the difference is that you don't feel the panicked need to grab whatever you can while it is still available...

We have some members who are running Sims 1 on Vista with no trouble.  But apparently some of the other related programs don't work so well...

I wouldn't touch Vista with a 10-foot pole, so I can't speak from personal experience.

Water balloons, now there's an idea!  We already have a hot tub in which one of our members is forever chasing down a chicken to throw on the barbie, so maybe she should just throw a few water balloons at it...

I think I'll stock up a few to throw at nasty paysite owners or weasels from forums that hate "sharing"!

Hello, all - I'm the owner of CTO Sims, and I appreciate the good words!  We welcome any like-minded Sims 1 pirates, and we have over 9000 files with more coming in every day, after only 5 months of existence.  We are trying to focus on providing the "unavailable" Sims 1 files - if it's not available for free on its original site, we either have it or we want it!  It's a very active site, with a lot of good fun along with the files to download.

We are all ready to start uploading Spiffy Sims as soon as they close, and it looks like we will have their entire collection.

Yes, we do make you jump through a minor hoop before you can access ALL the goodies, but I promise it's very small and no flames or water hazards are involved!  We just felt that we had to put a few restrictions on membership after suffering through two drama storms (started by other forums) in our first couple of months.  We are not as tough or battle scarred as the good folks at PMBD...