Archive for 'Miscellaneous'
Mike Sellers: EA didn’t Anticipate TSO Problems with Griefers
In an interesting article in Reason Magazine Online (entitled “Hobbes in Cyberspace”), Mike Sellers, former lead designer on the Sims 2 develpment team and now Chief Alchemist with Online Alchemy offered that EA didn’t understand key differences between offline and online versions of the Sims, and hence never expected the problems with griefers that have [...]
Full StoryOn Running Multiple Accounts on One Computer
by The Phantom It happened again just the other day. There was an innocent question on Sims Stratics, asked by a customer who wanted to know why mere discussion of running multiple accounts on one computer were banned from Stratics, even though the actual practice is not obviously against the rules (or he couldn’t see [...]
Full StoryMore Promises Promises Promises Promises Promises….
Following are some more promises and declarations of the urgency of introducing custom content, and in general “putting as much creativity as possible in the player’s hands.” Indeed, there were even plans to allow custom content to be pulled into the game through the workbench (e.g. someone could skill at your place and get some [...]
Full StoryEvolve: The Game Developer’s Conference
Hey, thanks to our reporter Atlantis, for posting this report from the Gave Dev Conference in San Jose. There are also blog entries listed on Terra Nova, Including Mia Consalvo (memorycard.blogs.com), Ian Bogost (www.watercoolergames.org), Gonzalo Frasca (www.ludology.org), David Thomas (www.buzzcut.com); Jurie Horneman (www.intelligent-artifice.com/2004/03/live_from_gdc_2.html) and GameDevNet (www.gamedev.net/columns/events/gdc2004). –Uri
Full StoryDiscussion: on the Ethics of Pizza-bot Simoleans etc
This is a topic for me and Coco to argue about stuff without derailing every other topic in the blog. Here are some of the points at issue. 1) Is there a difference between being violating the TOS and violating the rules?2) If yes, is running your own Pizza Bot against The Rules?3) Either way, [...]
Full StoryDiary of a Newbie #5: wallswallswallswalls…
By Montserrat Tovar one day i said to uri: i want to make a house. i want to do that. so uri took me to a lot in another city and said: here. build a house. i said: uri, help me. he said no and then sat down to watch action movies in front of [...]
Full StoryMeet the Candidates #5: Seth Galloway for President
Seth Galloway and his running mate Marcus Forlourne will meet Ashley Richardson and Loxee in the second round of primary elections on this Saturday, March 13. We understand that the election will again take place on the Alphaville Government web site ? anyone with an avatar in alphaville may vote. There are also plans to [...]
Full StoryDiscussion: The Joy of Cybersex or a recipe for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
I was just rereading the following classic description of cybersex by Julian Dibbell: “Netsex, tinysex, virtual sex — however you name it, in real-life reality it’s nothing more than a 900-line encounter stripped of even the vestigial physicality of the voice. And yet, as many a wide-eyed newbie can tell you, it’s possibly the headiest [...]
Full StoryDon Hopkins on TSO’s failure: Maxis Lost Will’s Vision
In a recent blog entry, Don Hopkins, formerly of the original Sims development team, comments on how the lack of custom content in TSO not only is responsible for the failure of TSO, but is also at odds with Will Wright’s creative vision for the sims franchise. He writes: “Will Wright’s original vision was enabling [...]
Full StoryEvangeline Terminated: Maxis Moves Against Other Griefers at Free Money for Newbies
By Deep Max In a move that residents of Alphaville have been pleading for for several weeks, Maxis has moved against several accounts associated with The Free Money For Newbies property. Most of the terminated accounts will be familiar to the readers of the Alphaville Herald. Among the accounts terminated or suspended are two of [...]
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