#lonngnggg post

[rockethorse]

Someone mentioned here the other day about how TS2 lots these days tend to be mostly CC-free, which I’d pretty much agree with; and how interesting that is to compare with how CC-heavy lots used to be, and how that was often viewed as a good thing - something I’d also agree with. And it got me thinking, about the shifting state of the Sims 2 community, and of the Internet & fandom spaces in general, so, I thought I’d muse with the rest of us oldbies.

Years and years ago, I felt that CC-free lot which utilised a bunch of different EP/SPs were less useful than basegame-compatible lots filled with CC, because if I wanted the CC-free lot exactly as it appeared, then all I had to do was download the CC*. Conversely, requiring me to own a bunch of expensive EP/SPs to play the lot felt way less accessible.

(*Listen, let’s just ignore the paid-CC issue for now, lol. Ignoring how I feel about either of them, paid CC is a different conversation to pirated DLC.)

But nowadays, most people have all the EPs/SPs, one way or another- whether that’s because you just slowly collected them all on disc over the years (like me), because you got the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection when it was made free, or because it became easier to teach yourself how to access them via other means. So using multiple EP/SPs is no longer the barrier it used to be.

At the same time, decent CC used to be quite rare. The post I saw mentioned that downloading lots was often something we relied on to find new CC in the first place, and I definitely remember that era - being so excited to get a house full of shiny new goodies you’d never seen anywhere else before. But now, with the advent of Sims communities on social media with a faster, more accessible, and more personal turnover rate than the old Sims forums, it’s become easier than ever to discover, share, hunt down, and catalogue old Sims 2 CC. In addition, as the community still dedicated to the Sims 2 grows a bit older and wiser, we’ve learned how to make the new CC we’ve always dreamed of - TS3 and TS4 provided/are providing us with a constant stream of new material via conversions, more people are learning to make new content by piecing together existing TS2 meshes and textures, and some are branching out into making completely new meshes from scratch.

So not only do most of us have access to all TS2 EPs/SPs these days, but CC no longer feels as scarce as it used to. Random CC packaged with a lot no longer feels like the jackpot it used to.

With all that in mind - I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally, when I make my lots CC-free, it’s not because I presume other people don’t want to download custom content. In fact, it’s almost the opposite - I know most people’s downloads folders are already bursting at the seams, and I don’t want to contribute more CC to that, or force people to go through and remove/replace a million ming vases either.

I think all of us have curated our own personal preferences and standards for the CC we use in our game, and I think we enjoy personalising the lots we download like this, whether they’re CC-free or not. So if we all do it anyway - swapping out certain items for the bespoke alternatives we prefer - I think it’s easier on people to download a CC-free lot and only replace the objects that jump out at them, happily leaving everything else EAxis or letting default replacements handle the rest, than having to comb through a lot for every instance of missing CC.

And it’s interesting how even though my attitude towards CC in Sims 2 lots has flipped, I find myself in the exact same position I was in years ago now with TS4 instead. While I enjoy building in TS4, I don’t find myself coming back to it for the gameplay, so I don’t really want to spend money on any DLC for it since I won’t get my money’s worth. So while I make my own TS4 lots CC-free so I can put them on the gallery, I’m back in the position of preferring people would just use CC that I have the option to hunt down and download for myself than to require I own a bunch of overpriced EPs and SPs to play their lot.

Time is a flat circle, I guess!