Conference at Electronic Arts Redwood Shores Part 2 Yes I am back at the headquartered city of WorldSims and Im still recovering from Travel shock. Somewhat. Anyhow, it has been quite an eventful weekend and Im still drifting down memory lane remembering all the good times I spent with all the Maxis folks and other webmasters at Electronic Arts. Anyhow, in this installment, we are highlighting The Sims 2 general gameplay and what new functionality is included in The Sims 2. Whats new? The Sims 2 has been completely redesigned from the ground up with downloads and expansion packs in mind. No longer will it be a pain trying to add an custom content creations. Maxis has completely revised the core of The Sims 2 to handle massive quantities of downloads and future expansion packs. No longer will we have unstable games and extremely long load times. The core system has been designed with an active file structure that allows users to add files even with the game running. Furthermore, the core has been designed to load massive quantities of downloads in shorter periods of time. Though adding more custom content and expansion packs will increase load time, the load time will not be as great as before. No longer will we need to wait one hour or more for our Sims game to load. We are probably looking at even shorter timeframes (we dont have an accurate load time at the moment since the game is not even in alpha stage). What about neighborhoods? Neighborhoods are all customizable. Using SimCity 4, you can design your own neighborhood. You can import terrain, mountains, rivers, cliffs, and multiple textures. Simple straight roads can be imported. Even more interesting is how you can create a very simple bridge and have it imported directly into the game. At the conference, Rush Hour support wasnt available, however is planned in the near future. In game play, a new function allows you to design the neighborhood to your hearts desire. No longer are lots fixed. You are able to select from the available lot sizes and set various lot sizes at various parts of the neighborhood. There are also two types of lots. When setting the lot sizes, you have the option of selecting residential lots ore community lots. Terrains can be customized in all fashions. From mountains to valleys to even plop down objects like waterfalls, hot air balloons, sailboats, rainbows, rocks and even buoys! We are also looking at even beach terrain with real moving water that strikes the shore. The graphics are superb Ill tell you right now with even beautiful reflections in the water. Terrain definitions have improved greatly with new touches to the ground where you can spray paint (figure of speech) new textures like grass, sand, and various elements. Does this happen to you? When you are in the game, and you are trying to find a certain object yet you can never find it? No longer is that a problem. We are able to create custom content folders that allows us place items of our choice in special folders which special icons (which we can even design). Further more we are able to sort by Item or Type These folders serve an additional purpose which I will highlight in a future issue. Remember the fireplace? It isnt a fireplace anymore. Its a chimney and fireplace all built into one. It even emits smoke when our Sims light a fire. To finish this issue off today, Im listing some of the functionality available in CaSIE. -Able to manipulate any facial region (eyes, brows, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, etc.) -Able to manipulate new hair styles and faces (even during gameplay) -Modify various details on the sim (clothes, shoes/pants) -Able to modify facial parameters (make a nose longer shorter, bigger eyes, smaller eyes, etc.) -Change the default skin -New Attraction Feature (which allows your sim to have first loves) -New Textures -LODs -Genetic Sets -Able to set family relationship parameters (son, father, mother, brother, friend, etc.) -New Family Friends -Genetic Find. Part 3 is coming soon! (I hope to do another installment tommorow)
