The Sims 2 University Review

12 of the top fan sites were invited to EA to attend The Sims 2 University where they were treated to a day with The Sims 2 production team. Find out what they learned about!

Enter The Sims 2 University.

The Sims 2 University

On November 14th, webmasters the world over converged on Electronic Arts' Worldwide headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, to be a part of The Sims 2 University and get a rare, hands-on demonstration of The Sims 2.

Webmasters from The Sims Resource, Sims Zone, The Sims Zone, The Well Dressed Sim, Sim Freaks, Secret Sims, Sim Programs/8th Deadly Sim/7 Deadly Sims, SimSational, World Sims, The Sims 2 Resource, Sim Stuff, Die Sims, Killer Sims were all in attendance.*

The Welcome Table

We kicked off the day at 9 AM with a welcome breakfast where all of the attendees were able to meet each other face-to-face - most for the first time. From there, everyone moved to the presentation theater to watch a demo of the game with Lucy Bradshaw where she showed lots of the new home building tools. Lucy and Producer Tim LeTourneau demonstrated walls being built on diagonals and roofing tools that include gables. They also demonstrated how items in "buy mode" will be customizable and come in any color.

Lucy showing off The Sims 2

Following a short break, Maxis General Manager and international hearthrob Luc Barthelet talked about how valuable the community has been to The Sims franchise and challenged everyone to take things to the next level. Next up, were Art Directors Charles London and Dave Patch, who demonstrated how asset could be created by the community, and provided examples.

Programmer Mike Lawson and Designer Patrick Barrett took the floor next to show off the programming language behind The Sims 2. They gave a demonstration on how to program a Sim to move through an obstacle course. At first, the Sim moved through flawlessly but Mike soon changed that. With just a few keystrokes, the Sim was stumbling over logs and unsuccessfully trying to climb a wall, and was eventually reduced to tears. We then adjourned for a much needed lunch break and some hands-on time with the game.

Lunch Time

Josh gets some hands-on time with The Sims 2.

After lunch, Producer Darren Futa took the floor to demonstrate the custom content tool for creating Sims (CaSIE). Darren showed everyone how a Sim is constructed, as well as a variety of customizations a user can make to a Sim. Once he was done creating a Sim, he demonstrated how a user could dress that Sim in custom designer duds. Darren opened a shirt in Photoshop and made some quick changes and then saved the file. The new shirt showed up in CaSIE on the Sim he had created and we could instantly see how it looked. You can see a review of these tool functions at The Sims Resource and at World Sims.

After Darren's demo, Web Manager Caryl Shaw addressed how Maxis Web Hosting is going to function. Caryl explained how the new system would alleviate webmasters from the sometimes crippling bandwidth costs that come from running successful websites, by allowing Maxis to host their site. This would allow smallers sites to continue to create great work without having to deal with the headache of bandwidth costs associated with people downloading their work.

After Caryl was done, it was time for the Trivia Contest! Can you name all The Sims Expansion Packs in order? What pet name in Unleashed was spelled wrong? It took a while but eventually Josh won the contest!

The trivia contest - Congrat's to Josh who won!

Group photo of all the webmasters with Will.

After a short Q&A with the team it was time to have some fun with Will Wright and the team. We took our leave to an EA play room where everyone got to play with The Sims 2 a little bit more, have a drink and eat some yummy food. Finally it was time to say good bye! See you next year!