Official Survey: They're going to sell individual downloads!?WTF?!

[Elfen Lied]

See my explanation two posts above your last one.

Sorry. I don't know how I overlooked that. I've been one sleepy-but-can't-sleep pirate all week. 

*offers moar rum*

[glasscigarette]

No worries. I understand insomnia all too well. 

CaptainChris is right. I don't know how EA manages to rake in the billions when they don't even test to see if their shit works. 

[Souvenirs]

What I want to know is who EA hires to make this stuff.  You'd think they'd hire people who are experienced/talented with 3D meshing and good with texturing, but a lot of the things they crank out look like they were made by someone who'd never meshed/textured/whatever before.  Their clothing textures have gotten a lot better, but a lot of the hair meshes and things look like the stuff made by fans in 2005.

They're probably a lot like TSR where they don't give the creators enough time to fill a quota, and the work turns out looking like crap because they don't have time to finish or test it.  But a lot of the stuff was ugly to begin with (like the furniture and a couple of the hair meshes) and should have had to pass through some kind of quality control before they, you know, decided that it was worth paying for.   Greed at its finest, I guess.

[glasscigarette]

Quite frankly, it's not just the quality of the work that appalls me, although that ought to be paramount. To a lesser degree, I am also intensely frustrated by the overall lack of style that they so obviously exhibit. Of course, that's all a matter of personal taste, and the work quality is of immensely greater importance. Still, I want to know why EAxis can't open a design magazine or two and make something that more of their customers might actually find tasteful and visually appealing.

I agree, Souvenirs: if they want to get on the good side of their customers, hiring a few more talented artists might be a good start. Many of the free creators out there spend more time and energy on their own creations than EAxis obviously spends on theirs, and they do so out of nothing but a desire to make high-quality items for fellow fans to enjoy. Instead, EAxis churns out a few shitty items and slaps a pricetag on them before they've even been tested, and we're supposed to be grateful and whip out our credit card. Not gonna happen.

In a nutshell, they want to sell us functionally sub-par items, most of which wouldn't look good even if they weren't borked? Yeah, I'm going to have to go with "epic fail."

[Captain Berg]

Meh, I think they do it on purpose. They hate EA too and want to ruin their credibility by not giving shit about their job, and make sure it shows. Don't you deliberately try to discredit your employer when they treat you like shit? I do  But never in such an obvious fashion as the EAxian drones, of course.

[Astonished lemons]

Meh, I think they do it on purpose. They hate EA too and want to ruin their credibility by not giving shit about their job, and make sure it shows. Don't you deliberately try to discredit your employer when they treat you like shit? I do  But never in such an obvious fashion as the EAxian drones, of course.

I hadnt thought of it that way, but that is a definate possibility.

 

[mando]

There are loads of talented artists that work at EA (and on the Sims games too), but keep in mind that there is already an established style and art mandate that they have to follow for the Sims games in order to make sure the games follow a certain direction and look (whether it looks like shit or not).

The stuff they are selling is likely b-list crap that they didn't include in the stuff packs or eps because it either didn't fit, didn't have space (or as is more likely, knowing ea, time ), or wasn't good enough to add. I'm with Berg, though (especially knowing what I know of the way that the company treats its employees), I wouldn't exactly be busting my ass to make beautiful stuff for a company that makes me work long hours with no overtime, and with no time to adequately test or create work.

[Kragey]

The stuff they are selling is likely b-list crap that they didn't include in the stuff packs or eps because it either didn't fit, didn't have space (or as is more likely, knowing ea, time ), or wasn't good enough to add. I'm with Berg, though (especially knowing what I know of the way that the company treats its employees), I wouldn't exactly be busting my ass to make beautiful stuff for a company that makes me work long hours with no overtime, and with no time to adequately test or create work.

I agree. I think it's just leftover crap, and honestly, if EA is as horrible to its employees as I've heard, I wouldn't feel like creating anything brand-spankin' new and awesome, either. I used to really enjoy EA's games, but now I have difficulty seeing beyond the stupid shit they've started doing in the past few years.

[deelink]

Wow. Just Wow.
Being a rabid downloader like most of us here, lurkers and pirates alike. I can understand the economic temptation of EA to make a paysite. But to do it in this fashion?

EA: Who was the brains behind your store? You need to fire this person ASAP. There are so many things wrong with it, I don't even know where to start.
First of all, you ignore the customers, yet again, who demand value for money, an non-intrusive download manager (or no manager at all, who the hell are you? Big Brother? Fuck off) and QUALITY.
People who invest themselves in this game are people who understand, fully, the borkage and imperfections of third party items, and will NOT let you get away for selling sub par shit.
And again you ignore the pirates, thinking that our policies of copyright were going to make us go to your side. Perhaps in an out-war with your competition: Other Paysites.
But I believe that you are foolish for thinking that this tactic was going to protect you from anyone's wrath. I can't support a company that refuses, time and time again to not give a crap about their customers.

YOU DO NOT CARE. So who the hell is going to care about you?
You've released this game, albeit with a few crinkles, the community threads together and fixes it for you, and you expect them to do this forever while paying you for the priveledge? I guess that is why you want to intrude and abolish privacy on everyone's computer. Keep tabs on all of content. Ppft. Yeah right, the internet is anarchy, good luck with that.

EA. Sucks Ass. Major EPIC PHAIL.

[CaptainChris]

I've seen more remarkable things by CC makers on MTS2.

By default MTS2 is superior because:
1 - It's free
2 - It doesn't come with some horrid flavour of Suck-u-rom.

[silver]

Hmmm .... after making sure on MATY that items downloaded without the EA Downloader didn't contain nasties, I looked through the items on the EA paysite, and found perhaps four EA special items of even vaguest interest to me. Those were mostly decorative items and hair. Most of the EA Store stuff is chunky and unattractive, in my opinion. If I want nice, historically-influenced clothing, MTS2 or All About Style does the trick. If I want non-modern furniture, Avalon and Tarox furnishings are far superior to anything in that store, plus they're free.

One of the four items was that hair with the ultra-high forehead that HP modified. HP did her best, and her version looks far better than the Maxis original. But the original is so  messed up that it will take more than an extensive makeover to fix it. That thing needs an entire overhauling. The style is flat, the bottom looks strange to me, and and the style is not even animated the way most of the other Maxis hair is animated. Problem is, would a creator even bother trying to fix it at all? If I paid for this, I would be awfully pissed off.

So now I'm down to three items, and to be honest, none of them are making me swoon with anticipation, and I probably won't bother with them in my game. I did download the items to test them out, and was surprised that the Clean Installer marked the objects as hacks. Someone must have really had to fiddle wtih the coding to try to get those items to work properly. Either that, or EA is doing something weird with its downloads . THAT certainly wouldn't surprise me. This IS EA we are talking about.

To get me to purchase the stuff ... and I wouldn't entirely be adverse to doing it ... EA would have to get rid of Securom first. Period. Next, the items need a bit more financial enticement to get me to open my wallet. For instance, they could do a buy two, get 100 points free special. But last, and not least, the items would have to look a lot better than that. The quality would have to be outstanding. I don't see where you folks here think that!

But it seems that enough people are buying the items to make EA happy. I guess they don't need my money.

[scrappysim]

As far as them showing up as hacks with clean installer, someone at MATY said that all of the Maxis/Maxiod objects show up red.  They phail alot

[Anouk]

fail

[SoggyFox]

Yeah, I noticed that - as someone with naturally curly hair, I was hopeful, but that curly hair sucks.  I'll just stick with those lovely hairs of Nouk's.  I rarely even touch the base hairstyles anymore.  I just hope thiis is not a sign that modding will go the way of the dodo with 3 - I was actually kind of excited about it.

[alia]

Yeah, I noticed that - as someone with naturally curly hair, I was hopeful, but that curly hair sucks.  I'll just stick with those lovely hairs of Nouk's.  I rarely even touch the base hairstyles anymore.  I just hope thiis is not a sign that modding will go the way of the dodo with 3 - I was actually kind of excited about it.

 
OMG, SoggyFox! Long time no see!

Oh, and just to get back to topic: EA = Phail!