Many people are upset when the news reached us yesterday that Maxis has delayed the release of CaSIE (Create A Sim), and that a select group of fansites will get it before the rest. Here's a reply about that from MaxisLucky:

"Basically, we've been working with some fansites that had some The Sims 2 content pretty early on - some of these folks have had Sims 2 specific content up since E3 this past summer. Since the game isn't shipping until Spring, we've been starting slow and contacting both sites that have been around awhile as well as new sites that are starting to have features that focus on The Sims 2 (and we have included both pay and non-pay sites, btw).

"As we progress towards ship we will be adding more fansites and have been gathering names and keeping track via the fansite system on thesims2.com. The best way to be considered is to build a cool fansite and list it in the fansite system. If we don't know about you and how awesome your site is or what a great content creator you are - we can't contact you.

"We think that user created custom content is going to be a huge part of The Sims 2 experience. It's why we're working on stand alone tools like CaSIE in the first place. As for who gets to participate in the early release beta test and who has to wait until it's final, we haven't made that determination yet. We'll likely keep the test group small so that we can manage it - if you make beta tests too large you end up spending more of your time organizing the email reports that come in than finishing the application.

"So, if it seems like we're being picky about who we ask to participate in the beta test - it's because we are looking to some of the people that have been active in the various Maxis communities (Sims, SimCity, etc.) for awhile.

"Thanks - hope this helps at least some people understand what we've been up to."

If you want to follow - or even participate - in the discussions, I suggest you visit the official site's BBS.