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The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

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Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#41

Post by DonHopkins »

Nition wrote: post #39
smcl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so many interesting bits of info and here, I've fav'd it. Thanks :D > I'm actually quite happy with the way that Patrick programmed The Sims to not actually model sexual preference in the character's personality data in any way at all, so instead of reducing it down into a stark numeric property, it's purely dynamically defined by what you do, and your relationships with other people, which can change over ti…

Yeah, super interesting post. In case we're going to get answers, I'd love one on this too: > In fact SimCopter even had some officially sanctioned cannibalistic behaviors I own Sim Copter (bought it in the 90s) and I certainly never noticed this, and can't see it mentioned anywhere else on the Internet.

I think it happens if you kill somebody, and after a while other characters will eventually kneel down by them and eat their corpse.

It's just something dark and funny I remember hearing Will mention in passing once, but I never saw it documented anywhere or tried it out myself. Maybe he was joking, but that's just the kind of easter egg he would lay.

Determining if it's true would be a fun software archeology task! ;) You could disassemble the behavior tree code (it used a predecessor to the SimAntics visual programming language in The Sims, which is well documented online), or you could just go around killing people and watching what happened.

And as you probably discovered, the easiest way to kill someone was with your helicopter blades. And then the game rewards you by paying you to bring their mangled bodies to the hospital.

That was especially problematic when the himbo easter egg was active, since there were so many hundreds of himbos swarming around your helicopter, it was practically impossible not to slaughter many of them.

SimCopter Swarming Himbos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozL3LtSsYd8

Here's where you can download SimCopterX and SimStreetsX, which run on Windows 10:

http://alekasm.com/

http://alekasm.com/scx.html

http://alekasm.com/ssx.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbf9cEWZZZs

>SimCopterX - Windows 10 + High Resolution (26 May 2019): SimCopterX is a standalone program which patches SimCopter (various versions supported) so it can run natively on Windows 10 and prior. Additionally you can run SimCopter in higher resolutions and modern aspect ratios such as 16:9 and 16:10, the original "vanilla" game is still supported. SimCopterX is NOT a CPU Killer or an emulator of any sort. This video just shows off some of my actual gameplay using SimCopterX Version 3 on SimCopter Classics edition.

Cutting Room Floor: SimCopter Content:

https://tcrf.net/SimCopter

Cutting Room Floor: Streets of SimCity Content:

https://tcrf.net/Streets_of_SimCity

And on the topic of easter eggs, cut, pre-release testing, and unreleased content, here's a long illustrated thread on "Sims 1 Beta discussion/Pre-Release Sims Footage Pics" (4 pages):

https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=615258&c=1&ht=&page...

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#42

Post by PebblesRox »

DonHopkins wrote: post #40
anonymousiam wrote: post #22

How many of you remember the original SimCity, and the "secret" keys that you could type (as Mayor) to dramatically increase your cash on hand? The word was "BRIBE", and you could get away with it (typically) twice. Around the third time your city would be devastated by a massive earthquake.

I once asked Will Wright where the SimCity 2000 cheat codes "PORN" "TIPS" "GUZZ" "ARDO" came from. He said they were four-letter halves of eight-letter silly names he saw in the phone book! Mr. Porntips, and Mrs. Guzzardo. And of course "CASS" is the name of his daughter, Cassidy. So yeah, the dude spends some of his time looking through phone books for silly names, what's the big deal? Who among us can't say they ha…

After The Sims came out, silly names were a hot commodity in our house!

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#44

Post by raxxorrax »

hekec wrote: post #43

I still hope some indie dev will build something similar to Spore. Probably my favorite videogame as a kid.

With consolidation of studios in larger companies, you would expect them to be able to take on more risk. Sadly I don't believe that will be the case and we will see something similar we see in Hollywood. Predictable movies mean predictable success.

It is the indie devs that might change up the #23 installment drag, hopefully.

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#46

Post by rosmax_1337 »

Aloha wrote: post #3

This language dates the article, and (as a queer person) amuses me. "A homosexual programmer at Maxis objected to the use of female characters as objects of affection in SimCopter. So, he decided to protest by putting what he termed "muscle boys in swim trunks" into the game. During the game, these characters would mysteriously appear and kiss each other, but only on very rare occasions. At least, that was the idea.…

In my opinion, that really does go beyond being an "easter egg" and into being "personal activism", which has no place in a professional studio.

Flip some narratives on the of the personal activism and you can easily see how it was incredibly unprofessional behaviour. That his activism is more accepted nowadays doesn't make it less unprofessional back then. It was good that he was fired for adding this to the game.

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#47

Post by mikojan »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #46
Aloha wrote: post #3

This language dates the article, and (as a queer person) amuses me. "A homosexual programmer at Maxis objected to the use of female characters as objects of affection in SimCopter. So, he decided to protest by putting what he termed "muscle boys in swim trunks" into the game. During the game, these characters would mysteriously appear and kiss each other, but only on very rare occasions. At least, that was the idea.…

In my opinion, that really does go beyond being an "easter egg" and into being "personal activism", which has no place in a professional studio. Flip some narratives on the of the personal activism and you can easily see how it was incredibly unprofessional behaviour. That his activism is more accepted nowadays doesn't make it less unprofessional back then. It was good that he was fired for adding this to the game.

You only consider it "personal activism" because it was politically transgressive at the time. And unjustifiably so. If it hadn't been it would've obviously just been an easter egg. And now that we are all on the right side of history (thanks to people like him), we can recognize it as such.

Great guy!

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#48

Post by ramesh31 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #34
Aloha wrote: post #3

This language dates the article, and (as a queer person) amuses me. "A homosexual programmer at Maxis objected to the use of female characters as objects of affection in SimCopter. So, he decided to protest by putting what he termed "muscle boys in swim trunks" into the game. During the game, these characters would mysteriously appear and kiss each other, but only on very rare occasions. At least, that was the idea.…

Jacques Severn is the "homosexual programmer at Maxis" who was responsible for the easter egg. The term he used for the buff dudes in speedos was "himbos" (male bimbos). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Servin Jacques was actually dismissed for inserting unapproved content into the game, not because there was a bug in the code, nor because he was gay. One consequence of the bug was that it delayed the release of…

Just wanted to say your work was an integral part of my childhood. Thank you.

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#49

Post by krallja »

anonymousiam wrote: post #27
jharger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do this at the beginning of a game as a kid, because the earthquakes were pretty harmless without buildings to knock down. You'd just load up on cash, then start building!

Possibly the first ever "cheat code" in a game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_video_games#Histor...

Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

#50

Post by gavinray »

DonHopkins wrote: post #34
Aloha wrote: post #3

This language dates the article, and (as a queer person) amuses me. "A homosexual programmer at Maxis objected to the use of female characters as objects of affection in SimCopter. So, he decided to protest by putting what he termed "muscle boys in swim trunks" into the game. During the game, these characters would mysteriously appear and kiss each other, but only on very rare occasions. At least, that was the idea.…

Jacques Severn is the "homosexual programmer at Maxis" who was responsible for the easter egg. The term he used for the buff dudes in speedos was "himbos" (male bimbos). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Servin Jacques was actually dismissed for inserting unapproved content into the game, not because there was a bug in the code, nor because he was gay. One consequence of the bug was that it delayed the release of…

Wasn't expecting to read something this good this morning.
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