Are there any Sims 2-related projects planned? :)

[H907J]

I was going to ask about this in the Sims 2 Online thread, but it hadn't been posted in for a while and I didn't want to bump it.

My question to you absolutely brilliant / talented people is this: Would it be feasible to make a re-implementation of Sims 2? What benefits would come from it? I'm sure it'd be extremely difficult due to the very complex nature of the game, but I've seen (and experienced) how bad the corruption issues are with the game due to some poorly implemented things (deleting families / moving them to other neighborhoods, moving in the Grim Reaper / many other NPC's)

I was also wondering: Did they REALLY scrap everything aside from the core SimAntics language for Sims 2 and they re-implemented everything from the ground up (around it)? If so, that's remarkable!

 

[zero35]

I was also wondering: Did they REALLY scrap everything aside from the core SimAntics language for Sims 2 and they re-implemented everything from the ground up (around it)? If so, that's remarkable!

no,Sims2 still base on SimAntics

 

[H907J]

no,Sims2 still base on SimAntics

It's quite logical for them to have done that since obviously the developers were probably already well-versed in programming in that language, so, "If it ain't broke; Don't fix it".

I wonder how hard it would be to do something like this. I can imagine it wouldn't be easy by any meaning of the word, but seeing how you got Sims 1 to where it's at now, it makes you wonder what could be done with Sims 2... Maybe even have it use the Ultimate Collection's files / have it be a requirement (lots of people have it)? That, or make the players need to have at least the base game and then if they have the EP's then those features get enabled... Hmm. This makes me brainstorm. haha

 

[Rhys]

The core SimAntics language was heavily modified (uses int size variables instead of short, longer opcodes), though most of the primitives and variable scopes remained exactly the same. This is perhaps the most telling thing about the engine - since many of these things remained the same, the core of the game was expanded upon rather than completely rewritten. Everything about the renderer seems to have been rewritten - I haven't looked enough into The Sims Bustin Out's formats to see if TS2 is an extended reuse of those or anything (since that game also had object animations)

Likely the largest differences are the rewrite for terrain, addition of object animations, variable height floors (foundation), revamped routing with reactions, and facial animation system.

...though this is still a lot of work to go through. Largely due to the move to 3D and a larger development process, there are a large number of additional file formats that we'd need to work out and use. This is all in a new DBPF content system instead of *.far too, so it would likely need an entirely different content project. (unlike TS1/TSO, which are very similar)

I think it would take way too long and not be worth any improvements we could bring. Unlike The Sims 1, The Sims 2's expansions did add a large number of extra engine features, so we'd really be trying to catch up on half of a decade of work. That's not to say it's impossible, it's just not a job I want to do.

 

[H907J]

Well thanks for your honesty. I am not a programmer by any means so I didn't know how much work it'd entail, but I kinda speculated that it'd be an unfeasible amount of work.

When you mentioned how 2's expansions added more features: You'd be right.
As far as I know, Nightlife added a new renderer (replaces the old one) and obviously this added the (somewhat buggy) Downtown adding feature (Maxis probably forked and reworked the University adder).
Somewhere along the line they added LUA support (not sure on why they did this. I want to say Seasons added it, but don't quote me on that).