November 2007 News Archive - The Sims Online Mania

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Wednesday November 28, 2007
Version 2.1517.0.0, Test Center 3

Source: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=461

Hi,

So this is a big week and lots of changes.

Free Trial Players: From now on, free trial players will be able to have only one avatar in TC3. If you already have more than one avatar and are a free trial player you can continue using all of your characters. If you delete characters, however, you can not create another until you have zero left on TC3.
Name Changes: Fixed in TC3.
Roof View: Fixed in TC3.
Reduced Prices: Food (see Sarah’s blog Cost of Food) , Crafting, and Objects (Including Clothes).
Subscription Bonus: Will start tomorrow 11/29/2007. This will be §100 to free players and §500 to paying players. Because of this, starting funds will go to zero on TC3. Not everyone gets paid the same day of the week. It is based upon the day of the week you created your first avatar on the associated account. For now, you will get a in-game email once your bonus has been paid to your oldest character (later we’ll credit a shared account that any of your characters can access through the ATM). Please don’t panic until a week passes and you have not been paid. NOTE: §100 for free players may be temporary in TC3 and will not be provided to free players in EALand.
Property Thumbnails: Every time a lot is saved, a thumbnail of the lot is created. From now on those thumbnails will have proper transparency. This means that lots visited after today’s publish will look great on AvatarBook!
Facebook: New features added to AvatarBook (See release notes from Michael here. If you missed it, see the introduction to this app
New bright, colorful logo: (See New EA-Land Logo)
Additional Land Section Opened: See New buildable area on TC3 map!
Moves: To and from Test Center to any place other than TC3 are now and forever more disabled. And by “forever”, we meean “never to occur again”. This means that as of now you can move from TC to TC3 but no place else ever. As noted before, these moves are lot-less and simolean-less. So, if you want to keep your lot you should wait for the merge. (See Info About Moves)
Catalogue: More items moved to stores.
Custom Content: You can now “re-order” copies of custom content items - just click on them to see - no need to ever upload the same image twice. Also, the price you are quoted for the cost of upload is the price you will be charged (before there was small fee added).
Graphics Updates: Support enabled for video cards that lack multiple render targets. Speed optimizations. Graphics glitchs fixed.

COMING SOON:

Subscribers-Only Cities: One week from today (12/5), free trial player will be restricted to entering TC3 and, when it opens, EALand. This means free trial players will not be allowed into Alphaville, Blazing Falls, Test Center, Calvins Creek, Dan’s Grove, East Jerome, Fancey Fields, Betaville, Interhogan, Jolly Pines, Dragon’s Cove, or Mount Fuji. The cities will be marked as Frontier Mode but only Dragon’s Cove is “hardcore”, as always.

Merge Slot Info: When we merge TC to TC3 you will need to make room for your TC character next week. This means you will need to make available one of your 6 TC3 slots. If you do not one of you avatars will slide out of view from the Select a Sim screen. Which avatar gets hidden is dependent on avatar creation date.

Cheers,

Lee

Posted by: Matt

Tuesday November 13, 2007
November 14, 2007- Update to Test Center 3

Source: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=420

Hi Everyone,

There is a lot to communicate this release and tons about future events so I figured this was one of those times when I would post before we update tomorrow (11/14/2007).

Custom Content: See Luc’s blog http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=418
Entitlement: This information is now contained on Your Sim Page. (See Luc’s blog http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=418)
Graphics Update: Improved support for cards that don’t have hardware vertex shader 2.0. More cards should start working.
Avatar Book: A very cool Facebook application goes into first release. Nice work! (Details on this will be posted in separate blog)
User Agreement: Updated with new information about game data outside the game and account transfers.
Registration: We have started fixing the registration process. (Details on this will be in a separate blog)
- The first step was to re-enable a quick turn-around on the registration key for the free trial. (The free trial will shortly become permanent free play but for the time being it remains as a free trial.)
- The auto generation of registration keys brings about the ability to take advantage of the free accounts. We are fast tracking removal of these advantages. What??? This means:
  - Top 100 bonus: Is now set to zero.
  - Free Play: In the next few days free play will only be allowed in Test Center 3
  - Start Up Funds: Will go to zero and we will implement the paying player bonus instead.

COMMING SOON - UPDATED

TC to TC3 Moves: Next Tuesday (11/20/2007) we will be stopping all moves to and from Test Center (I repeat Test Center not to be confused with Test center 3 which you can’t move out of or into anyway, ever.) If you want to keep your lot please do not read the rest of this: (Instead jump to the bold bullet.) Next Wednesday (11/28/2007) we are hoping to open moves from Test Center to Test Center 3.
- These are moves WITHOUT Simoleans and WITHOUT Lots.
- These moves will not include simoleans or lots.
- This means that simoleans and lots will not be transferred in these LOT-less and SIMOLEAN-less moves. This is an OPTIONAL move - if you want to keep your lot do NOT do this LOT-less and SIMOLEAN-less move. Instead wait for the merge to TC3.

Merge TC to TC3: Wednesday 12/05/2007 we hoping to perform the full city Test Center to Test Center 3 merge.
- This merge will bring everything except Simoleans.
- Before this merge can happen another section of the far, far, far, far zoom will be made available. For those currently in tc3 you will be able to purchase lots there. Please test this so we see if the new map sections actually behave as we expect them to.

I think that about covers everything. See you tomorrow (11/14/2007) when I update the city.

Cheers,

Lee

Posted by: Matt

Monday November 12, 2007
Sims-On Job Giant

JobGiant

Are you a workaholic who grinds away at the robot factory, restaurant, or nightclub at all hours of the day? Well Sims-On has a solution for keeping track of all your rounds so you always know how far away you are from a promotion. The Sims-On JobGiant will display the promotion chart and friend requirements for your selected job, and allows you to input rounds as you complete them giving you a countdown to your next promotion. Coupled with our Job Guides and Job Countdown Clock, all your TSO job needs are fulfilled.

Download the Sims-On JobGiant here.

Posted by: Matt

Thursday November 8, 2007
Upload Custom Content Today

Source: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=414

Custom Painting

Parizad has posted on the dev blog that the uploading/creation of custom content will be enabled for everyone from 2:00 to 3:00 PM PST (5:00-6:00 PM EST) in Test Center 3. For full instructions on how to get your custom content in the game, see this dev blog post.

Posted by: Matt

Wednesday November 7, 2007
Version 2.1484.0.0 in Test Center 3

Source: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=406

Hi Everyone,

Time again for the Wednesday update and to keep you on your toes I am posting this first then I will do the update.

Test Center 3 - Test: We have added a new choice to the login in screen as Uri blogged about yesterday. This will test if you can run with DX9. If you see the splash screen you can run DX9. If you don’t see the new splash screen and get an error or nothing then:
- You can install DirectX9 directly off of Microsoft’s website by following this link: www.microsoft.com/directx, or
- Your card may not support DX 9 so in that case patch back to Test Center 3.
Top 100 Bonus: We have lowered them and can now limit payouts to paying subscribers only. In addition we are starting rolling these down to zero over the next few days. All the money will be migrating to jobs and/or job objects.
Jobs: DJ and Dancer now pay 30% more.
Easel: Disabled on everything but Money Lots.
Spotlight: Reduced cost of purchase and refill to 1/10th of former prices.
Prices: Reduced by another 25%
Crafting Workbench: Won’t charge for failures
Custom Content: We can now toggle on Custom Content for the community with out city restarts. It is currently still off as approval process gets more work.

So fun changes and the team is making great progress, see you after the patch.

Cheers,

Lee

Posted by: Matt

Monday November 5, 2007
The Clock Is Ticking!

Those hungry customers are going to arrive soon, so you'd better get back to work!

That's right! By popular demand, we have brought back the popup window version of our job countdown clock. You can still view the clock and change job tracks from any page on TSO Mania, but now, you can also open the countdown clock in a smaller, more convenient window.

Additionally, the popup version of the job countdown clock will advise you when to green up for work, as well as provide you with helpful tips to improve your job performance.

Enjoy, everyone! And stay out of the way of those robots!

Posted by: Indigo

Thursday November 1, 2007
Version 2.1461.0.0 in Test Center 3

Source: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=370

Hi,

Better late than never and as usual lots for me to do.

Custom Content: We finally think we chipped away at what was keeping custom content from working. As many of you may have seen last night we have enabled custom content for the development team only. This is a big milestone and Cort worked long and hard. So even though you can’t make it yet BIG THANKS to Cort! We want to let this change sit just with the development team for a little while longer for two reasons:
- To make sure we have resolved the zombie issue
- We have no way yet to remove Custom Content that should not be in the game.
Object prices: Reduced
Crafting costs: Reduced
Clothing costs: Reduced
Far Zoom Map: Got a face lift
EALand: More prep work for brining this online. (Internal Only)
Improved Graphics: Back end work to allow for improved graphics. (Internal Only)

I will be working on getting those of you who can’t login instructions. Keep watch here for a post.

Cheers,

Lee

Posted by: Matt

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