EA-Land launched!

Can this get more exciting? Well, we dont think so! The dramatic changes that we were looking forward to in years is finally happening! EA-Land opened its gates on exactly 2:18pm EST on the 18th of January, a day we will never forget. The new city will soon include all cities merged with it. These cities include the production cities, Dragon’s Cove and Betaville. To any new players, the production cities are: Blazing Falls, Alphaville, Interhogan, Dan’s Grove, Calvin’s Creek, Jolly Pines, East Jerome, Fancy Fields and Mount Fuji. It’s worth noting that Test Center and Test Center 3 won’t be merged with the rest of the cities since they will be only used for testing purposes (new features, codes…), as the name applies.

A surprise that we all felt happy about is the availability of many EA houses on an island (Isle EA) to help existing and new players around. The houses are: EA Town Hall, EA Store, EA slow skill, EA Roach Motel and EA Simolean Hut. However, these houses will soon be closed after the first few days of EA-Land, leaving only the EA Store.

According to Lee in EA Town Hall, this is the official and permanent release of EA Land and that is if nothing goes terribly wrong. Moreover, he admitted that EA Land is currently full of bugs that will be fixed soon, as the game still needs a lot of work.

As for the merge, it is more likely to take place in a week or two, ending up with 1 sim from EA Land, 3 from other cities and 4 from Betaville. Furthermore, Lee commented that the developers are not yet sure of which cities are going to get merged first where EA Land came second on the first day after Alphaville with about 169 sims online in the first 15 minutes. However, a few days later, the list has been published (shown below).

In the future, the ATM machine would be activated in EA Land (it is already in-game but not active), new objects would be introduced, plans to improve skilling, portals and owning more than 1 house per sim will be implemented.

Finally, to all of you who are wondering why the game is called EA Land … apparently (according to Lee), the name EA Land was kicked a long time ago as in a land of EA games.

The above picture is taken in the new EA Town Hall of MaxisLee answering a variety of questions from different people just a few minutes after the opening of EA Land.

Its worth noting that EA Land currently looks like Test Center 3 with nothing exactly new, however, its the start of something outstanding.
 

The order of the cities getting merged:

1. East Jerome
2. Dan’s Grove
3. Calvin’s Creek
4. Alphaville
5. Dragon’s Cove
6. Interhogan 
7. Fancey Fields
8. Jolly Pines
9. Blazing Falls
10. Mount Fuji
11. Betaville 

New year sounds promising!

A new year and new promises are being given by the developers for new features and more game development in 2008.  Such features include, new export tool for 3D Studio Max enabling new 3D objects to be created for the game. Moreover, the developers are working on enabling scripts in-game which will allow users to add programs and scripts to objects, making more complex objects with time. These features will improve week by week as Luc mentioned on his blog.

More improvement includes fixing the lag problems, introduction of ATM machines which Sarah and Laurent are currently working on and are having a great progress and fixing many bugs related to custom chairs.

More good news – we will be able to upload custom sculptures to the game in the near future and shockingly, cheats might also be enabled in the game, cheats such as “Rosebud”.  (yes, which gives money!).

Furthermore, the new team member, Vishwa, is currently working on “Edit a Sim” interface which is expected to take a few weeks which will dramatically change the appearance of avatars in the game.

Finally, more development will take place on web services, such as AvatarBook, allowing users to interact with their friends while not in game. Noting that AvatarBook is currently available on Facebook. Also, custom content is more likely to become more complex enabling user to use it on different objects.

The year 2008  seems full of exciting development for the game so make sure to contribute with all your ideas, suggestions and testing. Please dont forget to recommend the game to other people as free basic membership is introduced to the game.

Happy new year! 2008!

SimWorld Network and News wishes everyone a very happy new year. Hope everyone enjoyed it. May this year be filled with happiness and joy for everyone.

Best wishes,

Admins