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411. OfB Designer Walkthrough Video

Written on Saturday 4 February 2006 at 15:47 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Maxis has created a new walkthrough video for the Sims 2 Open for Business. This time Hunter Howe takes you through the new expansion pack in over 7 minutes time. He shows a toy store, which has a crafting room to start with. A Sim with a gold talent badge for toy making allows him to create all kinds of toys, customizing them slightly. Uploading the lot to the exchange will include the customised objects in the download, so whoever downloads a lot gets your objects in it. You can also put the objects or anything else from the catalog for sale, setting the price as well.

Next Hunter shows a store that's opening up, and the first customer of the day browsing around a bit. Andy brings the buy bar of the customer down a bit, by failing miserably at trying to sell something. Sims looking around confused need some help from your salesmen. Good salesmen, with the golden sales talent badge, are able to use the dazzle interaction, making customers enthousiastic and buy stuff they might not really need. The customers buying stuff are likely to give you some loyalty stars which rank up your business. You can also buy perks with them, and Hunter shows the motivational speech interaction, which is one of the perks. He also shows setting the price for all items that are for sale. Still Andy is failing to succeed, so he's fired.

Finally, on another lot, Hunter shows some of the new build and buy mode features. From mascots to elevators, the salon chair and crafted toys. You can also spot some awnings and new roof shapes along the way. You can download the movie from the official movies page, or from the Open for Business trailers page, where it's named "Official Movie 1."

412. New OfB Podcast

Written on Saturday 4 February 2006 at 14:58 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

After a bit of silence when it comes to podcasts, Maxoid Dano has created a new one, which can now be found on the official site. This time senior producers Tim LeTourneau and Don Laabs tell about the game. Tim reveals that he's passing on his job as senior producer to Don. Tim will still be active in the Sims community, though he doesn't say what it'll be. Now when it comes to Open for Business, they answer a few of almost 1,000 questions that Maxis received. The first one is about robots, and Tim and Don give away five of them, supposedly the full list: Munchie bot (which probably serves food), Hydro bot (which waters plants), Sentry bot (which protects homes and businesses), a toy robot and Servo, the alternative life form for this expansion pack. Servo become controllable as soon as you activate it, like any other Sim in the family.

Next they tell that the existing skills help getting the talent badges a bit faster. At University you are able to build up a few skills and build up a network, but otherwise going to college has no advantage for starting a business. There are 7 talents in total, each with three badges (Bronze, Silver and Gold). You start off with no badge at all. The seven talents are for flower arranging, robot making, toy making, sales, restocking, the register and cosmetology.

To download and listen to the podcast, check out the news page for links. You can also listen to previous podcasts.

413. Tim LeTourneau Interviewed

Written on Wednesday 1 February 2006 at 23:36 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Tim LeTourneau was recently in Europe, and while he was there he also gave an interview to a local Dutch paper. Fansite SnootySims has translated the interview from the "Brabants Dagblad" to English. In the interview Tim tells how University didn't score that well in Europe because of the American style it was in. Maxis has learned from the experience, and from the active Sims community. He also gives a little hint as to something that might appear in the next expansion pack: thousands of players have requested the ability for Sims to grow their own vegetables (says the original Dutch text), and Tim says it's natural that Maxis adds in the option in an official expansion pack. The topic of gardening also appeared in previous surveys, in combination with farming, which shows that Maxis is probably seriously considering this for the future. So far this is all still speculation though, without any official confirmation.

Furthermore in the interview, Tim also says that the Sims is an idealistic world, which is very optimistic. Without war, or a long-term memory, players are able to connect to the virtual characters. In the real world, Sims probably wouldn't be able to survive. For more details, read the full interview.

414. First Shopping Packs in sight

Written on Wednesday 1 February 2006 at 23:27 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Several names have appeared in surveys for new, small, expansion packs: it started with "Booster Packs," followed by "Shopping Packs," and recently they were called "Sims 2 Stuff." The Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack is what could be considered such a pack, but now the next two of the Shopping packs (which seems to be the final name) have made an appearance. Expected on 26 April is the pack called "Family Fun Shopping Pack," followed by the "Glamour Shopping Pack" at 24 June. If this is the start of a trend, two shopping packs can be expected between every two expansion packs, making an annual total of 2 expansion packs and 4 shopping packs - something new every 2 months. Both themes weren't specifically mentioned in the last survey.

The packs are now listed at at least two Australian shops, dStore and GameHead, for roughly $30 Australian each (about $22 US, or £12). The amount of objects in the pack is unsure. It started off with 125 objects in the first survey, down to 75 in the second and roughly 60 in the latest. The definite answer will probably be given by EA in the future. As more details arrive in the future, we'll let you know in this news section. Thanks to SnootySims for posting the links.

415. 9 Open for Business Screenshots

Written on Wednesday 1 February 2006 at 23:13 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

German website PCGames.de has recently published a couple of screenshots, nine in total, of the Sims 2 Open for Business. The magazine has received a test copy of the game, with which they made the screenshots. They were posted with a small preview in which the first impressions of PCGames are mentioned. For all nine screenshots head over to their gallery.

416. German OfB Preview with Screens

Written on Wednesday 1 February 2006 at 23:04 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Forgotten earlier is one of the reports made from Tim LeTourneau's presentation in Germany almost two weeks ago. Fansite TheSims.de has posted its first impressions of the new expansion pack. Along with the preview, in German, they have posted several screenshots and videos of the game. You can find all the material in their OfB Special.

417. Open for Business Wallpaper

Written on Saturday 28 January 2006 at 14:30 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

On the official site, which recently got a new intro to promote Open for Business, a new wallpaper of the expansion pack has been posted. As usual it comes in four resolutions, 1680x1050, 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600, suitable for any computer desktop. To put it on your computer's background, go to the official Wallpaper page. You can see a small example below.

418. EA Decided against Product Placement in OfB

Written on Saturday 28 January 2006 at 14:21 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Although it was apparantly considered, BusinessWeek reports that there will not be any product placement - i.e. advertising - in the Sims 2 Open for Business. Because the Sims is a fantasy world, ad and design staffs working on the expansion, decided to not put real-life brands in the Sims world. This despite McDonalds and Intel making an appearance in The Sims Online, and later as download for the Sims 1, as well as an Alienware Computer download from the Sims 2 Exchange. EA was already working on placing some brands in the storylines for Open for Business, but those have now been removed. The full article discusses product placement in other games as well.

419. OfB Previews

Written on Saturday 28 January 2006 at 14:08 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

In the past week three new previews of Open for Business were posted. Naturally that has resulted in bits of new information about the expansion pack, as well as screenshots and videos. GameSpot, IGN and 1Up have taken a look at the game and give their first impressions. Read on for the exact details from these previews. Read More!

420. New Artworks

Written on Saturday 28 January 2006 at 00:57 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Recently the arsenal of Open for Business graphics was expanded by three artworks, found by L'Universims at Europe2.fr. The brand new artworks show three shopkeepers making their own business. They may look somewhat familiar, from small icons, but they haven't appeared as full artworks before yet. You can check them out by clicking the thumbnails below.