Welcome to The Sims 2!

First let me thank you again for being such strong contributors to the Sims' community. As we did 4 years ago when we launched the original Sims, it is our intent here at Maxis to provide to the community with as much information as possible about The Sims 2 leading up to its launch. I am going to communicate directly with you between now and when the game ships and I welcome your honest feedback. Do not be afraid to email me.

I need your help in many domains to ensure that when we launch the new game, we have an even stronger community than we had with the original game. I am ready to do what it takes to get there, but I know I can't do it alone. My dream is to be able to provide more custom content for The Sims 2 at launch than we have now for the current Sims game.

Each of you has a unique strength and a valuable role in the Sims' community. Some of you are running custom content web sites, help sites, forums, email lists, and news sites. I am extremely interested in understanding how you see that role changing and evolving with regard to The Sims 2. The success of The Sims 2 is so interdependent on all of your efforts. All of them are crucial to us and this time around we are hoping to see even more in-depth specialization!

I would like to hear from you about any and all road blocks you might encounter that would prevent you from reaching your community goals. I want to help. For example, I am already working on providing a hosting solution through Maxis that might alleviate the cost of bandwidth for our webmasters.

That's all for now. I am excited about our upcoming challenges and believe that, as a combined team, we can make The Sims 2 bigger and better than ever.

Cheers,

Luc Barthelet

General Manager, Maxis