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| The Sims Online Stratics - 6/18/07 Official SIM Chat |
Sprite - Welcome to another great Stratics house of commons with the developers of The Sims Online! There is no specific topic for
tonight's chat, so all questions are welcome.
Sprite - Please send those questions to [QT]Destinova - to do so type /msg [QT]Destinova My question here. Please only send questions
to our QT's as those sent to myself or the developers will not make it into the lineup.
Sprite - The full logs will be posted on http://sims.stratics.com after the chat. We'll begin with a quick intro from our guests...now
would be a good time to send in those questions!
MaxisLuc - Hi Everyone!
SarahF - Hello All
Parizad - Hiya guys!
MaxisLuc - I am so happy to be working on TSO again!
SarahF - We're just getting the first questions now
MaxisLuc - The update is going about creating a new city
Sprite - *CLASHVMARTINELLI* yO IS THe update goinna be for the whole game or just one city
MaxisLuc - We will choose the landscape for test center 3. In fact "Larry" choosed his own landscape from 4 years ago..
Parizad - Yeah, Larry is like that.
Parizad - Kidding! Much <3 to Larry!
Sprite - *T-man* Will there be a 4th year gift?
MaxisLuc - Yes. This is a nice tradition. I am sorry we are so late
Parizad - A couple of weeks ago, someone (I believe Gracie Nito) had suggested a MaxisRandy doll as a 4th year gift, where if you treat
it well, it will fix bugs for you
Parizad - We all got a good chuckle out of that.
MaxisLuc - It might be ornamental only, like the pet statues though
Sprite - *Briteblueyes* hello...my question is are there ever going to be increases in the payouts slots give?
MaxisLuc - I guess you are a player and not a slot owner.
Parizad - A quick reminder: Guys, please send your questions via PM to [QT]Destinova
MaxisLuc - I am not sure we will have any slot machine in the new city though.
MaxisLuc - Online gambling is illegal in the US, I want to respect that.
Sprite - *Brendan* Will the TSO Team consider Server Merging, since there are many ghost towns?
MaxisLuc - I think we should close the cities when no one is there anymore.
MaxisLuc - But rather than force users to do it, I'd rather see the users do that themselves
SarahF - Thank you for starting the article at http://www.game-blueprints.com/webMathematica/wiki/wiki.jsp?pageName=Server_Merging_(AKA_
City_Merging), Brendan
MaxisLuc - Each city costs us a lot of money.
SarahF - It would be great to flesh it out more, given Luc's responses here
MaxisLuc - Who you rather see us spend the money in ghost cities or in new code development
MaxisLuc - I'd rather add new features.
Sprite - *Anjel* Why not close some unused cities like fancy fields, east jerome, dragons cove so our servers would work better.
MaxisLuc - could we get everyone to move to Alphaville and Blazing?
MaxisLuc - If someone is still there, I want to respect that.
SarahF - Anjel, you'll see this is related to Brendan's question. I know everyone cannot all respond to Luc's question there so get
your thoughts up on the deisgn wiki and ask questions now through [QT]Destinova to help set you in the right direction
Parizad - Please ask question about incomplete features ingame
MaxisLuc - Nice Parizad!
Parizad - I should've been born a blond!
MaxisLuc - hey. I am blond!
SarahF - (he wishes)
MaxisLuc - ok I am grey
Parizad - We're not drunk, I swear!! We're just n00bs tonight.
* Parizad grins *
SarahF - but in TSO you can be somebody else!
Sprite - *henrybjones* Luc, will any of the incomplete features in-game be completed? (Such as the lighting effects for your property,
and levelling terrain)
MaxisLuc - Gosh I am so excited you are asking about features I wrote myself!
* Parizad nods. *
MaxisLuc - but really I think we need to prioritize
Parizad - I can picture him bouncing around in his chair
MaxisLuc - How about custom content next?
MaxisLuc - and fixing the economy?
MaxisLuc - those are my top priorities
MaxisLuc - The wiki site has great designs we think are higher priorities too.
MaxisLuc - like auctions.
MaxisLuc - and even adding new objects
Parizad - Quick reminder, the wiki we keep speaking about is at www.game-blueprints.com
MaxisLuc - I have one request for the design web site:
MaxisLuc - The feature designed there could benefit from a series of implementations steps
MaxisLuc - we like to test the design in steps, A B C etc...
MaxisLuc - In step A we just implement the most minimum basics
MaxisLuc - for example when we were implementing the ability for users to trade objects
MaxisLuc - we first implemented Stores where one could sell objects at a price
MaxisLuc - then we implemented secure trading
MaxisLuc - now we are implementing secure trading of house deeds
Sprite - *T-man* Luc, are you thinking about making a eccomy that are full EA control, or like this one, where it is ran by the players?
MaxisLuc - I think of it as controlled by the players
MaxisLuc - EA sets the highest price that objects can be
MaxisLuc - but players can easily trade under that price
MaxisLuc - and custom content can be priced at whatever creators want
MaxisLuc - Custom content should feel like printing money
MaxisLuc - although there is still the paper cost :)
SarahF - (The idea of breaking a design down into implementation steps is something that we'll explain more in an article on the wiki
and as you can tell from what Luc has said above, it's very important and the more of it that you can do on your design pages, the
more readily we'll be able to bite off those chunks)
Sprite - *PJ* ok. i want to know will the new tso be 32 bit instead of 16 bit?
MaxisLuc - That thing annoys me so much!
MaxisLuc - we were not thinking right when we enforced this.
SarahF - YES -it will be 32 bit, eventually!
MaxisLuc - I will fix it ASAP
SarahF - (cough, cough, I should have said ASAP - everything is ASAP with Luc!)
Sprite - *Gracie* ON the TSO-e blog, you mentioned the removal of buy catalog and sell back features were being discussed. Has a final
decision been made to remove these from the new city? Will they be removed for TC3?
MaxisLuc - The first time we push (publish) to tc3 the code will be the same as alphaville or tC1
MaxisLuc - just because we are learning how to create a new city
MaxisLuc - and we do not want to change anything
MaxisLuc - the next publish to TC3 will only have very few changes
MaxisLuc - but quickly we will remove the catalog
MaxisLuc - hopefully items will be too expensive in the catalog
MaxisLuc - and you will want to buy them from a store
MaxisLuc - or sell them!
MaxisLuc - I will explain this in more details in a BLOG soon after TC3 is up
Sprite - For those of you just joining us, there is no specific topic for tonight, so all questions are welcome.
Sprite - Please send your questions to [QT]Destinova, questions sent to myself or the devs will not make it into the lineup.
Sprite - *Anjel* is there is anything we can do about all the mafias, scammers,
MaxisLuc - I think the mafias are gone to more profitable grounds
Parizad - Good riddance, too!
MaxisLuc - for the scammers, I have a few tricks in reserve
Parizad - However, unfortunately, there are a few people out there that are making it their hobby to grief other players.
Parizad - To them, I say, "Phooey to you! Get a life"
Parizad - If you feel like you are being griefed by someone, please use the "?" button to report them
Parizad - :)
Sprite - *PJ* Will we have to destroy an old sim to be part of the new TC3?
MaxisLuc - Please do not destory an old sim to do that
SarahF - Luc answered this in http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=162, post called "The steps to the new city"
SarahF - He said, "I do not want you to throw away a good avatar to make a slot for test center 3 and or the new city. So please, for
the first few hours when we open test center 3 to kick the tires, you only need to join if you have a slot available. Quickly we will
add that button for TSO-e like we have for betaville."
MaxisLuc - when we publish the new code we will enable a new button like betaville
Sprite - *Anon433* 1. will we have to pay for items with real money, such as houses, clthes, etc 2. will we have to delete our 4yr old
sims to play in the new city, worked so hard and long for my 99 locks
MaxisLuc - I think sarah types too fast. How many fingers do you have sarah?
* Parizad chuckles *
MaxisLuc - I like the locks.
MaxisLuc - I think we should have a "move" that enables users to go to the new city
MaxisLuc - but leaving the money behind
Sprite - *Darth* So many rumors and questions.For starters I guess, is there going to be a new city and if so what's it going to be
called?
SarahF - Darth, this question is answered above
Sprite - Sorry, thats already been answered. My bad.
Sprite - *Nathan7056* Do you believe the updates will focus more on giving players the tools to do what they wish with rather than
every aspect of the game being controlled by in-game systems? I like the idea of players being in charge of shaping there world and i
hope this is the route it takes?
SarahF - ABSOLUTELY
MaxisLuc - Yes absolutely.
MaxisLuc - man she is so fast
Parizad - I feel as if I should say "absolutely" also. :)
MaxisLuc - I need to move sarah to a slower internet connection
SarahF - Did you see Luc's blog re one example of this
SarahF - http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=150 was called "Quick progress report on custom content"
SarahF - imagine a picture of your dogs, etc in your home!
SarahF - The images that you see in that post were all given to Luc by users responding to the blog
Parizad - We have 15 minutes left, guys! :)
SarahF - See also: "New object for your bitmaps" http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=144
SarahF - and "Custom content submission details" http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=98 where people sent in those bitmaps
Sprite - *Mavric* 1. Will ongoing anniversary gift distribution be disabled in the new city 2013 i.e. will a sim about to turn 2
receive a mystic tree in the new city? (I'm thinking that this will greatly piss those off that have left mystic trees behind in the
other cities !).
MaxisLuc - I like the anniversary gifts
MaxisLuc - those might change though if they create an economy problem in the new city
MaxisLuc - everyone seem to agree that we want to fix the economy
MaxisLuc - Also we are moving to an account based system rather than Sims
MaxisLuc - so the gifts should appear for all avatars
Sprite - *Nathan7056* Will the way skills work be changed? I sincerly hope somethign that encourages people to stay at the keyboard,
the current system is a major turn off for new players and the communitys AFK frenzy with skilling has traditionally turned many away.
MaxisLuc - I understand there is a problem there
MaxisLuc - but if skilling requires a keyboard, when do you chat?
MaxisLuc - skilling is the #1 activity currently
MaxisLuc - we need to build competing activities
MaxisLuc - the economy could be one
MaxisLuc - custom content the other
Sprite - *Havocide* Is there any plan to redo the sims online graphics to bring it up to date with todays games?
SarahF - Yes, we will be upgrading to SIMS 2 graphics first
SarahF - and eventually bringing it fully up to the state of the art
MaxisLuc - Yes. After we do the economy fixes and the custom content we will work on Sims 2 graphics
MaxisLuc - Sarah has volonteered to do the coding...
SarahF - Very funny. You can all bug Uri about this, not me!
Sprite - *TroyKristoffer* I've been an avid player of TSO since beta, and was delighted when my roomate told me the new direction that
it seems to be taking. However, I don't want to get my hopes up too much: Can you give us an idea of what exactly is being done right
now, and how much resource EA is putting towards firing up development on the game again? What can we expect exactly?
SarahF - Troy, Luc gave a very detailed answer to this in http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=162
MaxisLuc - for 3 years, there was only Randy and Parizad part time
SarahF - a post on TSO-E called "The steps to the new city"
MaxisLuc - now we are 8
MaxisLuc - and growing
SarahF - (it's exciting)
MaxisLuc - I am keeping everyone informed on the blog
SarahF - (woohoo, Larry cheers from the sidelines!)
SarahF - and you all keep us fully supplied with future work through your designs on the wiki
Sprite - *Jenifer* Can you guys give us any jest of what the new city might look like?
MaxisLuc - For test center 3 we can ask larry to post a pic on the blog.
MaxisLuc - or better, get the thing fired up!
MaxisLuc - For the real city no decision has been made. lots of islands for sure!
Sprite - *aericwegiel* will the skill levels be increased? alot of people are going to be comming up on full locks. It would be nice to
add higher skill ranks. Maby for crafting only.
MaxisLuc - I am not planning changes on the skills
MaxisLuc - But I will get those people busy with the new objects and the economy
MaxisLuc - Strong TSO players will get rich in the new city
MaxisLuc - One more question
Sprite - *Dogsoffour* Will we ever get the old friendship webs back?
Parizad - This is the last question.
MaxisLuc - Tagging?
MaxisLuc - In the last 5 years, the world has changed
MaxisLuc - I'd rather see who is on the other network I belong to in TSO
MaxisLuc - I am on Facebook, MySpace, linkedIn etc... and I want to know whow else in the game is there
MaxisLuc - How come no one asked about YouTube videos in the game?
MaxisLuc - shoudl we support that?
Sprite - That will wrap it up for tonight. I'd like to thank the developers for coming! The log for tonight's chat will be up shortly
on http://sims.stratics.com
Sprite - Thank you all for joining us! You can join #sims-online to chat more about the game.
Parizad - Thank you all sooooooo very much for joining us tonight. It was definitely OUR pleasure in getting to chat with you. We
hope to do this more often than we have in the past. Thank you all for coming. We're hoping to put another one together in two weeks
Parizad - See you then!
* Parizad waves *
* MaxisLuc THANK YOU! *
* MaxisLuc See you in TSO! *
SarahF - Bye!
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