Talk:The Sims 2: Pets (old)/Archive 1

Sims 2: Pets offically Released
I decided to update the sims p pets page with new information because it was offically launched today feel free to take down or edit information. I mostly go the infromation from the sims 2 chat that took place today.

Uhm why?
There is NO information beyond a teaser trailer. This was worth an article at this point why?

To save time later? Sqityl 23:30, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Which is not the point of wikipedia. There are plenty of things shown at E3 that don't see the light of day and an article shouldn't have been created until Maxis made an official press release with information--Crossmr 03:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed Sqityl 02:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Name
Has the name been proven to be the sims 2 pets? I have seen an image of a logo, but that probably doesn't count as official. Has there been anything other than the teaser trailer about it? Sqityl 03:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The teaser trailer wasn't even about the EP. People just assumed it was, but EA stated in a release somewhere that all that was announced at E3 was a theme for the sims like for the next little while, that includes, consoles, handhelds, cellphones, etc. --Crossmr 05:21, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Factual Accuracy
This wikipedia page is an article in an encyclopedia. This article isn't a fan site or a place for speculation. If this, and future EP/Stuff pack pages are to be created on here they need to be objective, and they need to be based on facts. While we may all feel we know what the next expansion pack is and Maxis has hinted at it, there still isn't a press release on the product or the name. For all we know in a month Maxis may announce The Sims 2: Four-legged Friends. Yes a few sites are listing products with this name, however they're only doing it on speculation. I know and have known people who've worked for companies that sell the games and they have no real inside information on the products. They certainly don't get it before the companies make official announcements. The same with release dates. Amazon changed their release date from Feb 2004 to Sept 2004 and half a dozen dates in between. Coming here every other day to update the release date because some gaming site changed their mind doesn't really serve anyone. --Crossmr 00:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you've turned this article into a mess. All it shows is your opinion (e.g. "Neither Maxis nor EA have given any official comment on what The Sims 2: Pets is.", and when you list what information we don't have (if we don't have the information yet, why include it in the Wikipedia article?)). I think that you should revert all the changes you've made, as they show your opinion too strongly, meaning that the neutrality of the article is put into question. It is obvious you don't think that there should be an article here, so why do you keep editting the page? 13756 12:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I haven't expressed any opinion at all. Calling The Sims 2 an expansion pack is expressing opinion as well. If you read the two sources I cited everything there is taken directly from those sources and reports the facts, it doesn't report any opinion. If you can point to one sentence there where I've expressed opinion and not written something based on the credible information we actually have, I'll happily change it. --Crossmr 17:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * and I'm sorry, how is this opinion: Neither Maxis nor EA have given any official comment on what The Sims 2: Pets is. If you can provide an official press release stating what The Sims 2: Pets is, or any comment from either Maxis or EA on it, please do so. The reason I listed what the video was not is because the article contained lots of opinion on that they thought the video meant. If you check the gamespot source, they also make a point of mentioning that. Since they're a credible gaming site that very often has a lot of Sims information ahead of time, if they're going to say that about the video, its a very valid point to make. And yes, until such a time that an actual official press release was released I didn't think this article should have remained. But enough people showed up and made statements expressing their opinion on what they felt the video meant and we couldn't reach a concensus to delete. So if we're going to keep the page, this is an encyclopedia, it needs to to report the facts and not guesses from fan pages.--Crossmr 17:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that the facts need to be reported, but why report the the fact that there are no facts in terms of: gameplay, platform, content, whether it was an expansion or stand-alone game? Surely this is irrelevant, as we do not have the information yet? In my opinion, when reding the article, I get a strong sense that the article should not be there. Why do you object to changing it back? 13756 11:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Because the way the article was written before it was purely speculative in nature but insistive that the game was an expansion pack under development which we have no evidence of other than fansite speculation. The fact that there is no information provided about gameplay, platform, content and whether it was an expansion or stand-alone game is important information.  Many people want to know what this is and I think a point needs to be made that we really don't know exactly what that video meant and means for the franchise. This is why gamespot felt the need to bring attention to that in the rumour control article. By including this information it also dissuades people from trying to fill the article with speculation about what it is. I also think there is much more to this upcoming expansion than just The Sims 2: Pets.  If that was all there was to it, I don't think EA would have removed the video from the trailer pack on their site. I also think Maxis would have been okay with acknowledging that if that is all it is.  Like I said in the deletion debate, EA stated that at E3 they showed off a theme for the franchise and the expansion pack would be announed at some point after E3.  They were very clear about the next EP not being shown at E3.  So while the EP will likely contain pets, I'm not even convinced it will be called Pets. I think you're going to see Sims games involving pets for all platforms, but you may find not a single one of them called "Pets". Yes amazon has this page up  but what is it? A screen cap of E3 and they don't actually have a product there. Just a chance to be e-mailed when and if it ever comes available. I've seen that dozens of times from different companies over the years.  Amazon, ebgames, etc get no notice of products before the general public. The page has been created purely on speculation.  When the EP is announced that page will just be changed to reflect the new name, and they'll e-mail everyone who signed up with the new product name.
 * Firstly, I personally believe that there will be an expansion pack called The Sims 2: Pets (The logo convinced me (as it looked enough like the other expansion pack logos (Open for Business, for example))). This, however, is just my opinion. You still have not convinced me that the 'no info' things should be up there. Also, speculation should be discouraged on Talk Pages, not wasting space in actual articles. But speculation can easily be avoided in the opening sentences, by clearly specifying that we don't know what it is yet, but not by saying everything which we don't know. If you're saying "We don't know any information about the gameplay yet", then that's just as relevant as saying "We don't know whether the game is going to transform into a magical pink elephant called Edward as soon as you buy the game". If you don't have the information, I can't see why it is being included (let's not forget what Wikipedia is supposed to be). With regards to the "Neither Maxis nor EA have given any official comment on what The Sims 2: Pets is" statement, it may be true, but I think that it has a harsh tone, and thus portrays an opinion. Possibly you could sum up all these problems in the first sentence, basically by saying something like: "we don't know what it is yet", but more formal. 13756 01:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And while you may believe there will be an expansion pack called The Sims 2: Pets, EA has specifically said in form letter reply to inquiries about this, that they did not show the EP at E3. So while it looks like an EP logo, if you go by the official word from them, we did not see the expansion pack.  I believe the next expansion pack will include pets, or be pet themed, but I don't believe that is going to be the name.  As for the information not provided, when games are shown at E3, this is the information typically given. You are shown a trailer and usually the company gives some indication as to platform, gameplay, and there is usually a clear indication as to whether or not the product is an expansion pack to an existing franchise or say part 2 of a franchise.  Its unusual for this information not to be presented in either the trailer or an accompanying statement about the game. As this is expected and not provided I think its pertinent to comment on the fact that the expected information was not provided.  I also think this goes hand in hand with what EA has said about them showing a theme for the franchise at E3 and not showing the expansion pack.  I think the abscence of this information is significant, especially because it also contradicts the way they usually handle expansion and stuff packs by promoting the heck out of it. Its usually slapped on the back of everything released prior to it, there are press releases, chats, sneak previews, etc well in advance.  Following release schedule they have just over 3 months until release and at this point we're usually flooded with information. Their behaviour of non-information and what they're not telling is very notable. --Crossmr 03:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I've reworded it slightly to take out the list but essentially say the same thing. Is this more in tune with what you were thinking? --Crossmr 03:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm probably just about satisfied with that. I'm glad we could find a compromise, as I feared that the game would actually be on shelves before we sorted this out. 13756 11:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * and already we've got people trying to use that Maxoidhunter post as proof this is the EP. --Crossmr 18:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

No update as of xx day
We do not need a running tally of whether or not there is information on a given day. This isn't a fan site. When and if information becomes available it will be added to the page. If nothing has been added, its safe to assume nothing has been confirmed. --Crossmr 19:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Added 'unconfirmed title'
I for one believe that (unconfirmed title) should be added in the first sentence as there is no proof to say what the Expansion pack is called. Especially in the recent news that 'Sims 2: Pets' may be called 'Sims 2: Animals & Co' --Taipan198 13:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The article should never have been created. Its been sitting here for months with nothing confirmed about this at all, but as I've said before we're stuck with it. There is a lot of speculation by various fan sites, none of which belong in the article. Unconfirmed works because its also in the template.--Crossmr 13:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Pixomatic Game Engine?
Why are we saying that the game engine for Pets is Pixomatic? In the infoboxes for all the other releases of TS2, the name of the engine is either not there or it is listed as custom. --Braindrain0000 12:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure, its not a change I made. It may have been made undetected with something else I reverted.--Crossmr 15:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Availability for pre-order
Um, I will make a similar comment to the one I made on the talk page for the main TS2 article. This is a general-purpose encyclopedia. It isn't intended to be a rumor mill or a news-ticker on the latest possible details, including which stores are showing pre-release and pre-order information. Such stuff really doesn't matter to Average Joe Wikipedian. There's a reason why snootysims is around. Keep content in this article limited to that which has been officially announced by EA itself, not some gaming website, including the fairly reputable gamespot. A release of the reported nature (PC and console simultaneously with the same or very similar product) is very different than the way Sims releases have usually operated, in my experience. So until something official comes down from EA, I strongly recommend against adding this fan-fluff. --Braindrain0000 06:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Not only is a general purpose encyclopedia, but game sites, online and retail stores, etc are notorious for not getting any information before the public gets it. This is actually a common complaint from workers and managers at many of my local game shops. People will come in to ask them about a game, but they'll have gotten nothing on it until there are press releases. Most of these pages are often put up on speculation, and will quietly disappear if the product never materializes (or is called something different). When The Sims 2 was gearing up for release, several sites changed their release information several times, but all on pure speculation. Maxis had never really given them any specific release dates, and as each one they'd arbitrarily picked came about, they bumped it back again. I know some sites changed the release date for TS2 upwards of 6 or 7 times between February 2004 and Sept 2004 until Maxis confirmed an actual date. Fan sites also have no more information that Joe Public and anything they put together is as well, pure speculation and random guessing. Knowing that, we can't use them as a source for anything.--Crossmr 01:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Nicely Done!
Nicely done with the update of the article and the new box image. This now should be a actual article. (Yippie! I started this article! Im glad) --Koolgiy 02:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

PC vs consoles
Since there are Pets titles available in EAs Onlineshop for PC, PS2, GC, NDS and GBA I think it is reasonable to mention all of these systems as it is done in this article. The console titles however won't be expansion packs but games. I think that difference should somehow be worked into the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.46.148 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 23 July 2006

I agree. I think there is enough proof to justify the existence of console games. However no information is yet known on The Sims 2: Pets for the Xbox or any of the next generation consoles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sillygostly (talk • contribs) 09:19, 26 July 2006

wikifying words
Only words which are not common place require linking. Words like puppy, kitten or skunk do not need linking.--Crossmr 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Features Info
Most info came from http://thesims2.ea.com/community/chat_07_27_06.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.28.82.34 (talk • contribs)