Stories, Freetime and other nonsense
Okay, so I was planning on having Lana’s story wrapped up by now, but as you can see, February is nearly over and I still haven’t taken any more pics, so it looks like it’s been postponed once again. And don’t even ASK me to start on part 7 of Jasmine’s story, cos it ain’t gonna happen!
At least not for a very long time.
So the latest update is that there will be no update. You know what? I’ve actually started playing Sims 2 again, as opposed to just using it as a screenshot tool. But it’s started to get a little bit repetitive, again.
FreeTime still hasn’t been released here, not that I give a damn since I have no desire to purchase anything with that Suck-u-ROM on it, but here is something funny for you to look at, a screenshot of the Freetime BodyShop, by Calalily:
Yup, possibly the best screenshot of the lot. But will it stop paysites?
Will it hell!
The Maxis of Evil
No, my problem isn’t really with Maxis, but that beyond-a-joke publisher, EA. The last TS2 expansion pack, Freetime, is released soon here in the UK, and EA have seen fit to bundle that SecuROM malware with that too, despite the thousands of complaints they’ve received on the matter. What a joke.
Why can’t EA get it into their heads that they can stick all the Securoms they want onto their discs, it will do absolutely feck all to stop people pirating the game? EA, you fools, by bundling malware with your games all you are going to do is alienate your genuine customers, and push them towards real piracy, because why should your customers hand over £17 so you can screw up their PCs? My computer was previously infected with SecuROM, after someone installed NeverWinter Nights (no warning on that game either). My CD-RW consequently lost the ability to burn CDs, and we had no idea why. It was only after we reinstalled Windows because of a soundcard problem that the CD-RW drive started working again. Why do games publishers feel they have the right to mess up our computers – and deny us the right to burn perfectly legal CDs – to ‘protect’ a game most people have no intention of copying and bandying around anyway?
Copy-protection does nothing to stop pirates – why does EA think they will succeed where everyone else has failed? Pirates will always find ways to get round copy-protection, downloading an illegal copy of Bon Voyage is as easy as easy!
In other words, you morons, you’ve shot yourselves in the foot.
Oh, Pescado, you’ve taken the words right out of my mouth:
Not only is it [copying/sharing CDs] unpopular as a method, but it is also the method most likely to actually generate sales! The “casual” disk sharer is most likely to buy his own at some point. The veteran e-pirate is not only unlikely to do so, but strongly discouraged from doing so by the superiority of the counterfeit product that he clearly knows how to acquire. A short-sighted move like this forces customers that run into problems to learn the ways of the pirate, and pretty soon they join the Dark Side in frustration. By taking that sale now, the company costs itself future sales, an incredibly short-sighted move. Better to lose a sale in the present for sales in the future than to permanently alienate customers while simultaneously teaching them to be pirates to make what they have bought work!
Consider: A user who borrows a disk from a friend, with no CD check, probably won’t buy the game NOW…but he might in the future, when he has to reinstall it, or buy the expansion pack now that he has the game, and is no better equipped to be a pirate later than he was before. A customer p***ed off by the game NOT WORKING that has to go find a crack has now learned some dangerous knowledge and has a hostile disposition. It is not a customer that is pleased with your product and likely to buy future products.
- Pescado, Booty King, from MATY
Complaining to EA about the crap they bundle with their software doesn’t work. The only – ONLY – way to get the message across is to vote with our wallets. If sales go down enough, EA will finally wake up to their customers’ demands. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, as many Sims players – especially the younger ones with their ‘pester-power’ – simply don’t care what rubbish EA fobs us off with – because they just have to have the latest EP. It’s quite a sad state of affairs, really. But EA have definitely lost me as a customer.
Paysite Hypocrisy
The real theft
No doubt Thoma$$ et al @ TSR consider me to be a thief because I put their pay stuff up on the torrents. They call this violation of copyright and the artists’ TOS. But how about this?
I want you to take a look at these two pay items, one by Gelydh and one by Aikea Guinea, both Featured Artists at TSR at the time of writing. Both of these items are subscriber-only. Let’s start with Gelydh. Here is a skirt she made. Have a look at the tooltip in BodyShop and you’ll see it says © Gelydh at TSR.
Now look at these two Maxis items. Anything look familiar?
So what Gelydh’s done is simply rip Maxis meshes, tweak them a little, then paste Maxis’s textures onto that modified Maxis mesh. Nothing wrong with that, though, isn’t that why Maxis gave us BodyShop? Of course. But then Gelydh then has the nerve to assert copyright over and charge money for something that is not even her intellectual property! So how dare she or anyone at TSR attack those of us who fileshare pay content?
Let’s have a look at Aikea Guinea’s work next. Here is one of her jeans.
Very nice. Now let’s look at a pair of Maxis jeans. These came with Nightlife for adult males.
Wow! What a surprise! The jeans’ textures are exactly the same! Yet if you ask Thoma$$ who owns the copyright, I wonder what answer he’ll give..?
I’m sure you can find plenty more examples of pay artists stealing Maxis work, pasting on a big copyright sign and then charging you money for it. Now just ask yourself, who are the real thieves?
Lana’s Star
This is Lana’s star from part one of Halfway Across…
My astronomy is SO off! Sirius isn’t really blue, though it does look kinda blue in the sky. It is in fact a white star and you can see Sirius in the evening this time of the year. It’s very bright, you can’t miss it. Have a look at this map to find it.
Good news on the story front anyway, part 3 of Lana’s story has been written, as I mentioned on the home page, I do have quite a few screenshots to take now, but I plan on getting it done by the end of the month. But we’ll see.
Neeyaaaaaah
Someone fancies himself as an air guitarist…
“Wyld Stallyns rule!!!!”
