deadwoods

The nail's been hit on the head above; SC4 died 'cos it wasn't making enough money for EA. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't worked for a software company. If a product's not making it's revenue budget, the development team gets cut and the product slowly dies on the shelf. It happens all the time. Would there have been an EP3? Highly unlikely; only the folks who had the original would shell out for it and it would unlikely pull a larger consumer base. Given that The Sims was going gang-busters at the time the revenue stream from SC4 and thus the driver for continued development was very limited. I doubt (almost) anyone knows what conversations were had in the halls and conference rooms at EA, but it's not hard to figure it out (EA is a profit-making business after all). I think we've all played vanilla SC4, then SC4+RH and moved on to the current SC4RH+NAM+CAM+Gig's of custom content. I recall playing SC4 (not having played the predecessors) and loving it. Then RushHour came out and it got even better. After a spell away from the game I came back last year to find the leaps forward the community had made. I'm loving playing the game now; it's brilliant. So, "to each his own". It's like the old custom content and dependencies argument, if you don't like it don't download it, but don't slag off at those who do.

It's a while since I've been active here and can't recall what the last version of the STEX I used was. So the following comment may not relate to this latest upgrade.... I've noticed that we used to have two pictures for an upload, and the left (or first) one became the thumbnail view which you clicked on to see the download details. The thunbnail used to be the top (182 px from memory) of the left image. The new thumbnails seem to just take the middle 250x250 chunk of the left picture. In my case I used to put the lot picture on the top left, but often show custom queries in the lower left portion... The option to select either the middle or top, and which of the images would be nice. I can't see myself going through and updating 99 files.

I'm surprised this thread has re-appeared. It disappeared during one of the ST upgrades over the years. I'll have to go through it in detail at some stage, I understand the links have been lost over the various ST iterations. I expect some of the content would be out date after six years. I know BarbyW updated the content for her "Guide to the creation of custom content for sharing with the community" thread at SC4D. The thread wasn't really designed for specific "how do I do this", "this isn't working" or "where do I find this" type queries. There are heaps of other threads here and at SC4D covering these types of queries.

Yes. That's what I've done with the Bike Paths set on SC4D (and an upcoming BSC Parks plaza set).

Originally posted by: minizilla Seriously, why would any sane man want more than one wife, and so many kids? This is just me, but I have enough headaches in my life with ONE wife and ONE daughter...I don't need any more quote> Ha, a female Muslim colleague of mine made the same comment/joke a few years ago!

Originally posted by: crazyyaya ... Who, exactly was calling for a boycott of Chinese goods? ...quote> When I was working in the US late last year there was a Florida council that put a ban on Chinese goods. They were using the excuse of the lead paint in the toys, but it was really just fear bred through ignorance. The history of China is not all that different to the history of many western countries, particularly those in Europe; wealthy Emperors and their families living high on the hog, working classes oppressed and struggling under taxes to pay for those ruling to live the high life, some spirited individuals decide that it's wrong and overthrow the government. They chose communism rather than democracy, but other than that it's no different to France. There were many excesses by those that became the next ruling class (Mao) but modern China is far closer to many Western countries with their recent approach to commercialism. No one can excuse the human rights abuses, but I think many in the western world would be surprised at how western China is particularly in places like Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I'm proud to have a Prime Minister (Kevin Rudd) who has the balls to raise the Tibet issue with the Chinese. He addressed an audience, speaking in Mandarin, at the Peking Uni and raised the issue. The party was not happy and publicly told him to stay out of their "internal affairs" but atleast it's been raised.

Originally posted by: nthooze The right to bear arms primary purpose is about the peoples right to defend themselves from an oppressive government. The founding fathers were very deliberate in constructing the constitution to control the scope and power of government. An armed public is just one component of this construct. ... Less we not learn the lesions of history.quote> Ha, "Lesions of History", it was a painful subject in high school. I personally think that justification, which has been raised many times in this thread, is a crock and used by many as a rationalisation. How many times have Canada, England, Australia, or any other first-world democracies been taken over by an oppressive government in the last hundred years. It may have been valid when the US was founded, but doesn't really work in modern times.

Originally posted by: Duke87 ...In a perfect world, there would be no guns. This is not a perfect world, this is the real world. We can't exactly go back in time and prevent guns from being invented, nor can we uninvent them. Pandora's box was thrown wide open long ago on this one. There will always be guns whether they're legal or not, and as such we're better off learning to live with them rather than futilely attempting to eradicate them.I know people like to dream of a utopia where everyone lives in peace and there is no violence or reason for weapons, but that idea is, well, utopian. quote> But that's the thing, it's not utopian. Many first-world western countries do live without the high rate of gun ownership and gun deaths. Thus my example from the gang violence in Australia above. You (the US) could, if it wanted, be like Canada, Australia and much of Europe, but the American culture needs to change, and going by many of the comments in this thread, many do not want to. As has been mentioned, it's a bit like alocoholism, you can't fix the problem until you admit there is a problem, and many can't see that there is a problem (whilst many from outside can, so many hide behind the "oh it's those foreigners having a go at our way of life" excuse). It's kind of depressing knowing that this is the society being handed on to the next generation.

I still think the high-level of gun ownership, across the entire population, is bizarre. We had some gang-related violence in Sydney yesterday where five kids broke into a school (they weren't students) and were armed with baseball bats, machetes, and one had a Samurai sword (real?). There were some injuries but no fatalities. Now if this had happened in the US, all offenders would have been armed with weapons (possibly semi-automatic weapons) and there would have been multiple casualties. If some of the students had been armed as well, there probably would have been death or injury from collateral damage (shooting accurately/safely on a range does not equal shooting back when being shot at; I was in the military for 15yrs). Do I need to spell out the difference here? US = high gun ownership = many deaths in this type of situation. Australia = low gun ownership = no deaths in this situation. There are two differences here: 1. Guns aren't that easy to get; yes the serious crims can get them, but not you're average wannabe gang member 2. Using guns in crime is a very serious matter; serious enough to deter all except the hardened crims (like the underworld figures). You need to reduce the number of guns that people can easily get if you are serious about lowering the innocent deaths.

Can I suggest anyone wanting to take a tilt at scientifically disproving the Theory of Evolution take a read through Sam's posts in this thread. They are quite comprehensive.

Ummm Simlord, whilst your information may be valid (and posts above have countered your points), it would only disprove the Theory of Evolution. There is nothing in your post to scientifically prove Creationism. I'm not having a dig at you, just your reasoning that disproving Evolution = proving Creationism, which is false.

Originally posted by: wir3d Ok guys im not trying to take your rights away i was just quoting, ok? Why are there some many homosexuals here? Im not trying to be rude or anything but ST seems like it is a gay magnet. Like you go to other sites and really don't see a vast spread of homosexuals. Homosexuals don't take this has an offensive please.quote> Guess what, homosexuals are people too and many people still enjoy playing SimCity. I was thinking about why the whole Creationism vs. Evolution thing is an issue. It's not because it's what a small portion of the Christian community believes. It's because that small portion is pushing it out of faith/belief and into public schools as an accepted science in some parts of the US. Why is this so? You don't see aspects of the Jewish, Islamic, Hundi, Buddhist, Shinto etc. faiths trying to be portrayed as science in teaching the young. If it was just in the home or church it wouldn't be an issue. Is it just that those believing it as science are in concentrated pockets of the US ("Bible belt") and the whole States Rights vs. Federal Direction thing gives them enough voice? In most parts of the world, religious belief is taught at home, in church and at special religious schools. Public schools follow accepted curriculums and religion is kept to RE classes (which aren't compulsory in the public school system). If you want your kids to get the full benefit of your particular belief system, you send them to a school dedicated to it, you don't expect the public system to cater to your specific needs or impose your belief system on the entire community.

Originally posted by: krbe ...Before the Christian Bible was collected, the Jews used what is today the Old Testament as their Bible (which the continue to do today); however Greek Jews used a version a little different from the Hebrew Bible— Septuaginta has some books that the Hebrew Bible doesn't have, and Orthodox Christians uses this as their Old Testament, thereby differing from the Bible Western Christian uses. ...quote> This brings up an interesting point. Does Judaism believe in a strict interpretation of the Old Testament (their Bible) and thus Creationism?

Originally posted by: wir3d ... And those sabbath things are really outdated. God says NEVER to change want the bible says. It could really mess the meaning of the bible up. Yes i know there is different versions of the bible BUT, they all mean the same thing, just in different context. Thus anyone should never try to change a part in the bible.quote> And there's the challenge in the Bible... As you say in your first paragraph, some of the content is no longer relevant in the modern context. So some isn't relevant to modern society and should be ignored. But who gets to decide what's relevant? Certainly not God; there are no patches or fixpacks applied to the Bible directly from heaven. It's up to the priests, pastors etc. to interpret and decide what to apply. But in your second paragraph you say that the bible shouldn't be changed and that all the different versions say the same thing just in a different context. So this means it should be taken verbatim, that there's no interpretation allowed and the Sabbath stoning is still valid? As has been mentioned, the Bible is a book written by men based on their beliefs (and perhaps political expediency at the time if you take the cynical view). The New Testament is closest to the word of God as it was based on people who were with Jesus. The Old Testament is the stories handed down from generations. It is only a small faction of Christianity that takes the Old Testament verbatim. Most of Christianity is based on the great messages about living a good life in the New Testament, not on the Fire and Brimstone bedtime stories in the Old Testament.