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Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 2:25 AM
Default startup background
found the picture in the ui file (ui.package).
from what I checked, base game's neighborhoods/neighborhood-templates do not match it.

was it from a pre-shipped neighborhood?
and/or has any neighborhood/template been made from it by either Maxis/EA or any player?
Screenshots
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 2:37 AM
Riverside!

IIRC, Mark realized while making Riverside that a screenshot of the original, pre-server-fire premade neighborhood was used for the background there, one of the few traces remaining of it. So if you look at his Riverside, you should get a match.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#3 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 6:35 AM
Pre-server-fire?

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#4 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 7:05 AM
There was an office fire that occurred before sims 2 was released.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
#5 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 12:17 PM
It's probably why TS2 is so buggy, because they had to rebuild it in a hurry.
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#6 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 6:11 PM
But .... but .... no river

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Alchemist
Original Poster
#7 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 9:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
Riverside!

IIRC, Mark realized while making Riverside that a screenshot of the original, pre-server-fire premade neighborhood was used for the background there, one of the few traces remaining of it. So if you look at his Riverside, you should get a match.
could you provide a link?
Mad Poster
#8 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 9:46 PM
Goodness, you really have no google-fu at all, do you? It's right here on the site: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=503756

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Alchemist
Original Poster
#9 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 11:29 PM
actually did search; with this site's search function. was not sure which it was.
had seen that page while searching.

close but not exact.
I recognize the template; the one game names "Pleasantview".
Mad Poster
#10 Old 12th Oct 2016 at 11:33 PM
@mdsb759 - If the site search function fails, go to Google and type in:

Code:
site:modthesims.info riverside


Most times you'll have to add "sims 2" (in quotes) to the search or it'll bring up Sims 3-4 results. Sometimes it brings up Sims 3 results even when you do it, which is annoying. Still, I usually have better luck with this than the site search.


I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Mad Poster
#11 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 1:07 PM
I thought the server fire was a myth, and they just scrapped some of the earliest developed stuff because they changed direction, etc. There is still some Sims 1 code in Sims 2, so it doesn't make sense that they lost all of their work and started it entirely from scratch. I think it's much more likely that the missing parts were either unfinished and abandoned because other ideas were better, or considered too similar to other things which were then developed further, etc. This is pretty common in game development.

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
Theorist
#12 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 2:28 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simsfreq
I thought the server fire was a myth, and they just scrapped some of the earliest developed stuff because they changed direction, etc. There is still some Sims 1 code in Sims 2, so it doesn't make sense that they lost all of their work and started it entirely from scratch. I think it's much more likely that the missing parts were either unfinished and abandoned because other ideas were better, or considered too similar to other things which were then developed further, etc. This is pretty common in game development.


I heard both that it is a myth and that it is true, since a lot of the original development team aren't available anymore it will likely be impossible to find out for sure.

The earliest version of Sims 2 (we are talking pre-Riverview, the time when they still were trying to get weather into the basegame and when you couldn't see the neighbourhood from the lot, but instead had it surrounded by grey nothingness like in Sims 1) actually used the Busting Out Engine and a lot of assets (especially hair) from the Console Versions and Sims Online. I you look back it looks pretty awful and clunky and the few assets that are left from this earliest period (the basegame mullet and those dotted cartoon dresses)reflect how awful it wuld have looked and I'm stumped as to why they left those in)
The demo version of the Body shop even still had some hairs with clunkier models and low-ress textures in it that got reworked for the proper release.

If you look at development screens however you can see a lot of continuity, more than you would expect if they had suddenly tarted from scratch, they really just changed the art style (refined it) and the lighting is worse than on the pre-release screens (because they had to tone it down so it would run on computers from the early 2000s or even mid-late 1990s)

I agree the missing things were just stuff they couldn't finish in time, decided they wouldn't go with the refined art style or decided against. There's even still life score code in the game despite them scrapping that early on. If they had to rebuild, why would they have put code they didn't need anymore back in?

The pre-release neighborhoods were, I think, just never meant to be released and they didn't expect people to actually want them. I do think at some point they decided to continue the story of neighborhood 1 from Sims 1 and reworked some earlier things to fit it (I'm pretty sure the family with the twins from pre-release became the Pleasants, Don Baxter and Dina 1.0 became Don Lothario and Dina Caliente etc.)
Mad Poster
#13 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 2:59 PM
I'm sorry if that was irritating, mdsb. I didn't mean I thought you didn't search. "Google fu," as I understand it, refers to the ease and skill with which you use search engines. A lot depends on what you find intuitive. If the designers of the engine think in an entirely different way than you, I find there's not much you can do with it - you're never going to get great results even if you memorize every dodge you're taught. My husband has much better google fu than I do. And I thought you hadn't been able to find Riverside at all, since Mark discusses the history in his upload post, but I see I was wrong on that score.

As far as the server fire goes, it's easy enough to spin a story in which older versions of the game were used to cobble together the final product in time after a server fire. Though it's unlikely a ship as tight as Maxis let anybody take code home to fiddle with, there may well have been old external backups at individual workstations hanging around after a fire destroyed the secure server, and these would have all been called into service to get the product out on time.

Maybe somebody'll write a corporate history of the company or the game someday and do the investigative reporting necessary to find out.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#14 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 3:29 PM
Quote: Originally posted by mdsb759
actually did search; with this site's search function. was not sure which it was.
had seen that page while searching.


Never use this site's search function. It is the suckiest search in the world. Just use Google.
Field Researcher
#15 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 3:52 PM
Quote: Originally posted by mdsb759
actually did search; with this site's search function. was not sure which it was.
had seen that page while searching.

close but not exact.
I recognize the template; the one game names "Pleasantview".


I see what you're saying, the pictures don't actually match up with Riverside as the pic OP posted has streets that look like two intersecting rectangles, which I don't see in Riverside. Some researching of my own led me to believe the first pic is actually Waterside?

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Unreleased_neighborhoods

(Scroll down to Waterside)
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#16 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 6:12 PM
Quote: Originally posted by frogz2007
There was a posebox which has a death animation which looks really creepy, and much more dark than what we got. It had something to do with a Sim falling through the ground basically, like they fall into the "pit of hell". Among these animations (in the same posebox) are some ambulance animations, with Sims getting on the stretcher and such. This is obviously correct, since Chris Hatch had made a mod which pretty much restores this feature.

It's going to depend on how complete the code is. The hospital code, I think, according to Chris, was already more or less complete (though I don't recall his mod having a stretcher and associated event and animation?). For the rest, it's going to depend on how much is there. The manager scenario has long been known but no-ne's been able to ressurect it. The power outage scenario, OTOH, has been extracted.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Mad Poster
#17 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 8:59 PM
"Strangeville" sounds just wrong.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#18 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 9:25 PM
Quote: Originally posted by frogz2007
Do you mean the boss scenario? If so, then Chris did happen to get that one, along with the even more incomplete engagement and grandchild scenarios working in his 2 unofficial expansions (Family friendly and Adult). I think you right click on the mailbox, and the option to trigger them appears in a submenu. He was even nice enough to make a base-game compatible mod for me, but the mod itself will royally screw up the game if you use it on anything newer than the base game. And, tbh, the boss scenario plays out nearly the same as the Headmaster one, and for some reason, the boss NPC is scripted to flirt with people in the house and can cause ruckus. It has no indication as to if you'll win or not, and even then it's super easy to win. I can totally see why it was cut: It's just an unneeded extra. As for the engagement and grandchild ones; I'm very happy those weren't included, since it would get annoying to play through them every time you get engaged, or get pregnant.

tbh - that's not the boss scenario I remember but whatever. I may not remember it right. Are you sure the flirt wasn't added by Chris (though he's more likely to add something stronger anyway)? I don't know much about the engagement and pregnancy ones except vague memories but that sort of thing might work well if you added BHavs to bring in an element of chance and/or dependency on the sim's character and aspiration (family sims far more likely to want a pregnancy than any other), or make it optional. There's so much you could do with the game if you really wanted to dig into it.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Scholar
#19 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 10:58 PM
@marka93 did a remake, if I remember correctly

The drop off has been made. You've been warned.
Mad Poster
#20 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 11:14 PM
You know, this thread inspired me to watch some old videos from pre-release and in the 2004 (2003 maybe though the game looked very similar the final release) E3 video for TS2, there was a scenario where Don Baxter cheats on his wife, her sister witnesses, relays this to the wife via gossip, the wife cries and then *doesn't* slap her husband (as they do in the released version when witnessing cheating).

Then Don has the option to "apologise" - I don't remember if this was in the base game, or added with furiousness in Nightlife? Maybe they took it out. Because what happened next was that the other woman kisses Don again, his wife goes into aspiration failure, and her sister attacks the other woman. This was fascinating to me, because as far as I know, the gossip relaying events is not as reliable as that in the game, and I've never ever seen a relative of a sim attack another on their relative's behalf. Now, I know all this was likely scripted and set up for the video, but it was really suggested that this was the kind of autonomous action which would happen in the game, and that intrigued me, if they had a kind of jealousy and furiousness system set up in the pre-release base game, but perhaps they had to scrap it as it was too sensitive or didn't set off in the right scenarios, or other things like that. But I do remember them making a big thing about this gossip feature in particular and also the fact that sims would react to each other based on their relationships, in a way that, really, I don't think they've actually achieved even in the newer instalments of the game.

And a random related thought - I remember in TS1, if you had a good relationship with two sims who didn't like each other, it would change the relationship description to say something about how they aren't sure about this relationship with it being implied that the other sim disapproved.

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#21 Old 13th Oct 2016 at 11:57 PM
Relatives of sims do react though. It took me ages to get Philippa Cox and Clarissa Sororah to rebuild their best-friendship after Philippa witnessed Clarissa kissing Ethan Redhouse. Clarissa was involved with Philippa's brother Horace at the time (and Ethan was Clarissa's sister's fiance). I had to invent Tobias Durant and send him to Victoria Hall (where Clarissa and Philippa were living) in order to distract Philippa from attempting revenge on Clarissa on a daily basis (it worked).

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Mad Poster
#22 Old 14th Oct 2016 at 12:08 AM
I have seen lots and lots of sims attack cheaters on their relatives' behalfs! I have some serious long-running enmities based on this, in fact - it's a lot easier to make up with a lover or spouse than with an in-law!

The passed-on gossip does not have as strong or reliable effect, alas.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#23 Old 14th Oct 2016 at 12:12 AM
Quote: Originally posted by mdsb759
found the picture in the ui file (ui.package).
from what I checked, base game's neighborhoods/neighborhood-templates do not match it.

was it from a pre-shipped neighborhood?
and/or has any neighborhood/template been made from it by either Maxis/EA or any player?


This template was never found or remade for Sims 2, it was lost when Maxis either had a fire or hardware problems before Sims 2 base game was even finish.

It is neither Waterside or Riverside but a hood that one of the developers made and never shared, it was used in one of the preview though.
The one in the preview did not have but 7 lots and not this one with all those lots.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Mad Poster
#24 Old 14th Oct 2016 at 12:19 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simsfreq
I thought the server fire was a myth, and they just scrapped some of the earliest developed stuff because they changed direction, etc. There is still some Sims 1 code in Sims 2, so it doesn't make sense that they lost all of their work and started it entirely from scratch. I think it's much more likely that the missing parts were either unfinished and abandoned because other ideas were better, or considered too similar to other things which were then developed further, etc. This is pretty common in game development.


They did not lose all of there work for each work group still have most of the game on there computers but it was all separated so no one group could steal it and claim it for themselves.
They kept all the finish stuff on the server they lost and had to rebuild the main program to bring all the parts together.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Mad Poster
#25 Old 14th Oct 2016 at 12:27 AM
Yes this is a triple post but hey its info.

Quote:
In 2001 Maxis began development of a successor to The Sims, due to the massive success of the game. The game had 2 development versions. Not many people know, but according to many users on “Mod The Sims” forums, almost all the games development data was lost during a small office server room fire, that resulted in most of the game being developed again from scratch (In addition to this, Maxis also at the time revealed that source codes for many other titles were also lost, such as the console games for example). Many things that were planned were cut due to that reason, such as weather in the base game, and scenarios (an early trailer actually shows that during a storm, the power can go out and you must fix it by pulling a breaker). Additionally, the beta basements were originally intended, but lost during the re-development.

The graphics in the original version look more like graphics seen in “The Urbz” and “The Sims Bustin Out”, which makes it possible the early version may of been using the same engine as those 2 titles, as they were pretty advanced for being console games.

Although the game went into redevelopment, alot of features from the lost build was restored, such as most of the furniture shown in the images and videos of the lost build, music and sounds. Additionally, Weather features like rain, was present in the lost build, but not in the final build. This feature was later restored in The Sims 2 Seasons.

The game was initially confirmed to release in early 2004. But due to the redevelopment the date was delayed until September 2004, which ea called “Final Touches”.

https://www.unseen64.net/tag/maxis/

I am glade they lost the first one because the Urbz and Bustin Out while they looked good at the time the new Sims 2 was way better.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
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