Out to Lunch

I wonder who’s so unpopular?

Ahh!!

Oh well, someone finds it funny, anyhow!

If you’re wondering what all this nonsense is, I’m just trying to get the hang of screenshotting again!

Whew! Well I’ve decided to resume writing, and I did promise myself that I wouldn’t even touch part 7 of Raindrops until I’d wrapped up Lana’s story. I mean, I’ve already written the first draft, all I gotta do is add the pics and tidy up the text. Shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?

Well, my game had other ideas. First blue-screen of the year, guys! I only took two pictures, the game was very slow to process them, I knew it was getting ready to throw a temper tantrum and it did. Pic #3 resulted in a blue-screen of death. Boo hiss!!!!

I decided that probably the reason was too many polys. After all, Fort Ra-Ra is a pretty big lot, so I emptied out all the rooms I’d finished shooting, and the game seemed much happier. I’ve shot up to page 41 now, and so I have 40 more, plus maybe a few pics to reshoot.

So why didn’t I just shoot the whole caboodle? Because… the game didn’t let me. I’ve sort of seen the back of blue-screens, but now I keep having to deal with the ‘The application has now crashed. The application will now terminate’ message (gee, thanks for telling me, I’d never have noticed).

I get them quite a lot these days. Ever since I installed Uni, really. The base game, Uni and NL have all been patched, so I’m guessing that either a bit of CC or a hack might be responsible. Two items that always ALWAYS give me problems: the Moroccan door - I can’t even select this, let alone place it, without an immediate crash. I haven’t a clue why. Second, the guitar. Any guitar, whether a Maxis one or a custom one. I removed Atavera’s guitar hack, didn’t make any difference (all that happens now is basses randomly get stuck to other instruments. In the last case, a gifted piano had a bass stuck to the chair, couldn’t remove it, had to sell the whole piano with moveobjects on). I’m quite peed off by this, the instruments were the things I was most looking forward to in Uni.

I think the only way to fix it is to remove all the hacks, then test them all individually. But do you think I can really bother my a*se to do that? No, I cannot. So I guess I’ll have to put up with a few more applications terminating.

… the torrents will stay up until T$R free-releases their work, but isn’t it strange, they’ve both decided to call it a day at the same time…


Sorry about the blurry pics, this danged theme is so frickin’ narrow. Now could they… could they really be one and the same person?!
Or perhaps they’re going to set up a free site together elsewhere… One can only hope…

Edit: It seems they are! From PMBD:

Fixed meshes from Aikea and Geyldh - hosting at their request while they get all of their content on their new site. Find these items under TSR/z-retiredartists/aikea/fixed_meshes_from_aikea and TSR/z-retiredartists/geyldh/fixed_meshes_from_geyldh.

Nice though, more departures from TSR - I bet Thoma$$ is weeping into his hanky. I’ve already removed two torrents, Juttaponath and Cloisonne, because they have both gone free! Gelydh and Aikea will make two more.

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Coming soon to Leah’s Corner

Meh, I finally did it. I installed TS1 and I’m not even joking, it took a whole hour just to install. Anyway, gameplay was kinda confusing at the beginning, because I’m used to TS2 gameplay, but I’ve got the hang of it now (kinda). The thing is because I installed all 7 EPs, before even playing the base game, there was so much to learn in one go. So right now I’ve decided to ignore most of the stuff and concentrate on just the Unleashed pack and the Superstar pack (which is the one I was mostly interested in anyway).

Two things that are annoying: the rotate/zoom! Argh! You can’t even zoom in that much and the rotate thing is so annoying I don’t even bother unless I really need it. The other thing, making friends seems so much harder than in TS2. Or is it just my imagination? So far my poor little Simmie has only made one friend.

Anyway, here are a few piccies. This is the only sim I’ve played so far, Catherine Star. She currently has a fame rating of 3. Tee hee hee.

Just like real life, Avril hasn’t time for the little people

Relaxing at the Oxygen Bar

Catherine and her dog, Billy

Catherine performing and gaining some star credentials

The Obsessed Fan. Please just leave me alone!

What the..? So FreeTime wasn’t the last after all. Apartment life, eh? Sounds weird. I thought the ability to live in flats is something that should have been present in the base game. That and terraced houses. I mean, come on, not that many people can afford to live in plush suburban detached houses. Ah well.

Looks like more and more people are seeing the light… I found this little gem today VitaSims torrent (it wasn’t me!!). I wonder who did it? Wouldn’t it be great to have every single pay artist’s work on the torrents? Here’s hoping we see a few more torrent queens (and kings!) emerging.

Huzzah!

I am so bored of Sims 2. There’s only so much you can do before you feel you’ve seen it all. So, umm, I’m actually feeling quite tempted now to install Sims 1, since I have the entire collection - which I’ve never even installed, let alone played.

Now, the only questions are, will I ever get that desperately bored? And can I actually summon the energy to install it?

Ha ha!! Ms Barrows has returned to FA status at TSR. This means her stuff will (eventually) end up in the booty. This is good news for me! I was contemplating re-registering to get my mitts on her stuff, but it looks like I won’t have to any more

Muahahahahaha!

Also, I took a quick peek at the price increase thread (www.thesimsresource.com/news.php?ID=2710). Oh what a little gem!

I couldn’t resist the cheap jibe, sorry. But really! These sheep continue to astound me with their sheepiness every day. What a real treasure! Good to know that some still have more than one brain cell to rub together though

Ah, maybe you can see where this is going now

The Elemita family, before the fall…

We know who dyed her hair pink, but who’s the mysterious stranger..?

Uh oh, I think it might be flashback time

Yes, that did say Sims 2!

All I can say about this is, WHAT A SCAM! I didn’t play the first Sims game, I remember wanting it when it first came out, but not enough to actually buy it. But I do feel really sorry for those who saw this official TS2 trailer and thought: WOW! Sims 2 is gonna be great.

That is an absolute swizz. NOTHING in that video is genuine TS2 footage, the game is NOTHING like anything in that video. Sims don’t swing on ceiling fans, kids don’t set fire to carpets, none of the clothes, furniture, nothing really at all in that video is available in the actual game. What did I say about EA earlier? That they are a joke.

You can be sure that any official trailers for TS3 will likewise be pure fiction (or at the very least a very sugar-coated version of the truth). EA, like T$R, don’t care about their paying customers. Just about hoodwinking you into handing over your precious money.

And no, I won’t be buying TS3 either. And not just because my CCLOCIC can’t handle it.

Couldn’t resist posting this…

By the way, she is also the Artist Manager

A lil something from PMBD. Check it out!

TheSimsResource.info

or the Clash of the Boyfriends (Saffron’s boyfriends, that is)

With our host, Ms Jasmine Elemita, Pirate Apprentice

Uh oh, the ex and current boyfriend seem to be having a disagreement.

KAPOW! But Jasmine doesn’t seem bothered at all.

‘Let’s take this one out back, buddy.’
‘Don’t call me “buddy”!’
DOH!

Johnny Bravo seems to be getting the worst of it, but overcomes poor lil Joe Milano in the end

Jasmine decides to step in. ‘Right, that’s it, buddy. Mess with my pal and you mess with me!’
‘Don’t call me “buddy”!’

Jasmine kicks Johnny’s butt, and they all live happily ever after. The end.

Members (and ex-members!) of T$R will be familiar with the kudos system they use on that site. Basically, it’s just a points system which allows you to buy various ‘upgrades’ (I use that term oh-so-loosely) and other site goodies (and I also use that term loosely). You can earn your K points by submitting creations, commenting on others’ work, and taking out a paid subscription. Anyway, one of the above-mentioned goodies is a monthly lottery, which costs, I think, 500 kudos points, and gives you the chance to win an expansion pack. Of course, this is very tempting to cash-strapped kiddies, but how many of these cash-strapped kiddies ever win?

Here is a little story written by Zayury, from The Anti-T$R Blog. Zayury isn’t making any outright allegations as such, rather, merely providing you with some info and letting you draw your own conclusions.

Click to read

The site seems to have been taken down I don’t know if this is because Zayury pulled it (why!?!) or if T$R had a hand in it.

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!

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? Copy-protection does nothing to stop pirates - why do you think you will succeed where everyone else has failed? Pirates will always find ways to get round all your 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.

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. 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?