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TS2: Build mode
Still from San Francisco, I'm going to give you some more information about TS2. Like yesterday I'll be writing a bit about the game. It's only a small bit though, as we did receive too much information to write about here. You can still expect the special to be put up later this week. Read more to find out about the new building options in TS2...

After you loaded an empty lot, you'll often see the typical mailbox and trashcan again. They've been redesigned a bit, and they're looking a lot better now. As told yesterday, you can change the terrain as you like. Since it's a simple tool, you'll be able to have parts of grass, and parts of desert.

After changing the terrain, which of course can be edited at any time, it's time to build the foundation of your house. That foundation allows you to build on hills easier, which is now possible as well. You can place some modular stairs so you can let your Sims walk up too. Railings are added separately, so you can add railings or one side, both sides, or neither sides. It's also possible to place diagonal blocks of foundations at once, instead of having to do it all manually.

Once the foundation's done, you should build some walls. Again, you can place them pretty much any way you like. You don't necessarily need a foundation to build on, but it's useful if your terrain isn't even. Another new thing is that you can make sharp corners in the walls, which looks a bit like this: |\ (yes, it's hard to explain in words...) All this building you want to do can be done using a brand new top-down view, but also from the regular camera angles. Top-down does give you a good overview of your house though.

Placing floors and walls - especially walls - still works pretty much the same as in The Sims 1. There are some new options when it comes to floors though. For instance, if you have a big floor texture (1024x1024 pixels), it'll stretch over several tiles. That'll allow you to get a less symmetric floor with more ease.

Finally, the roof: when it comes to textures, there's still a lack of them in the version that we saw. There were 8 textures, and in a huge neighborhood you'll miss some variation. However, you can now actually create the news yourself in a much better way. You can choose what you want your roof to look like, and so gable-end roofs, as shown in the original introduction movie of The Sims 1, will now also be available for you. Of course you can also have flat roofs. On the roofs, you can place some objects like chimneys (out of which you'll see some smoke if the fireplace is on).

For now, that's the information I'm giving. There's a lot more I got to tell, including more about those building options. The version that we've seen of The Sims 2 is pre-alpha, and there was obviously still a lot to be done. It'll probably take another few months before the game's released, but there's no definite date yet. Expect a lot of more new info in the special that's coming up soon.
Written at 05:18 on Sunday, 16 November 2003 by ChEeTaH.

9 Comments
These comments express the view and/or opinion of our visitors and not The Sims Zone. It's not necessarily The Sims Zone's or any of its staff members' opinion. The Sims Zone cannot be held responsible for what's said in these comments. Abusers of this service will be blocked. We have filters installed to filter explicit words, but we cannot guarantee that they filter all explicit words.

Written at 18:47 on Sunday, 16 November 2003 by alex (alexisnumber1)
Thank you so much for doing this! I was getting bummed out by the lack of new information but now I can look forward to new stuff. Thanks again!
*Alex* ;-10 ;-10

Written at 22:33 on Sunday, 16 November 2003 by agatha (cutesimsgirl)
hi
i`we read somewere that the neighbourhoods
would have 50 lots each, but you were saying that the neigbourhoods looked like the sims 1
so i need to know. how many lots was it and how did the neigbourhoods look??

Written at 03:23 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by Jendea (TSZ) (Jendea)
Woohoo! Sounds like they really expanded the possibilites. Gables are really, really good news - lol.

Written at 20:20 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by Pluto10
Hmmm... Great, The plane ticket must of cost a bomb!

Written at 23:35 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by ChEeTaH (TSZ Webmaster) (ChEeTaH)
Bombs on planes? Don't think they'd like that :-D

About the neighborhoods: they absolutely don't look like in TS1. What I meant in the previous post ("When you start the game, you’ll immediately see the neighborhood like in The Sims 1.") is that in both TS1 and TS2 you get to see the neighborhood when you load the game.

As far as the limit of 50: I'm not 100% sure about that but I believe that you can have as many as you like. The only limit is the size of the neighborhood.
C-yAh,

ChEeTaH

*************
Webmaster of this site
The Neighborhood Handler: http://www.thesimszone.co.uk/tnhh
*************

Written at 23:39 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by MICHAEL FARRAR (MICHAEL)
im confused with all this infomation, what is fact and what is opinion ???
sims are soooooo cool !!!

Written at 23:49 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by Jendea (TSZ) (Jendea)
So then you could have some large lots or many small lots? Can you do it all yourself? I mean without importing from SC4?

Written at 23:51 on Monday, 17 November 2003 by MICHAEL FARRAR (MICHAEL)
hope so !!!
sims are soooooo cool !!!

Written at 00:49 on Tuesday, 18 November 2003 by ChEeTaH (TSZ Webmaster) (ChEeTaH)
You can choose between several lot sizes when creating a new lot. The only thing I'm not completely sure of is the limit, because I heard the limit of 50 as well before. But since you can place the lots wherever you want on the neighborhood, I can imagine that there's no real limit as SimsZone.de posted. The rest of the articles are all facts... but for instance the plopping of items in a neighborhood as described in the previous article isn't definitely going to be in the game, Maxis still has to decide about that.
C-yAh,

ChEeTaH

*************
Webmaster of this site
The Neighborhood Handler: http://www.thesimszone.co.uk/tnhh
*************


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