IGN.com Gets The Scoop On Nightlife

IGN.com intereviews Tim and Rod from the Nightlife Expansion Pack team.

Get The Scoop About Nightlife

Sims 2: Nightlife Interview

Rod Humble and Tim LeTourneau give us the scoop.

Although there is a vocal group of gamers who turn their noses at the idea of yet another Sims expansion pack, there's no denying that this is popular stuff. And as we learned below, the Sims appeal is even more broad than you might expect. Don't be surprised if your neighbor or roommate, who was just poo-pooing The Sims the day before, sneaks home with a copy. In light of the recent announcement of Nightlife we were able to sit down with Rod Humble, new to Maxis but not to gaming, and Tim LeTourneau, who's working on Nightlife and also did Hot Date for the original The Sims. So read on for the scoop, with a topping of hot nuggets.

IGNPC: So, tell me about yourself. What were you doing before you went over to Maxis?

Rod Humble: Well, before here, I was running Studio One, Sony Online, which is the EverQuest studio, which did EverQuest Online Adventures, EverQuest II, and we incorporated PlanetSide towards the tail-end, as well.

IGNPC: And how long had you been over there?

Rod Humble: I was there for--let me see--five years. And before then, I was at Virgin, where I made Subspace. And before that at Game Tech, where I worked on lots of Wheel of Fortune games.

IGNPC: So what made you decide to go over to Maxis? Besides a fat paycheck or something like that.

Rod Humble: [Laughs] Actually--I figured out that about half of my career, ever since Subspace, working exclusively on online games…I wanted to get back to games that were more about a single-user experience.

IGNPC: What was your reasoning behind that?

Just in terms of spreading creative wings, and not wanting to lose touch with--without sounding too wanky--the full repertoire of creative thought processes. You know, there's a big difference between making a game for one person on the other side of the keyboard who maybe wants to play and have fun for twenty minutes, versus an online world where you have to support the population of a city, constantly. And, you know, nothing wrong with that sort of game--I'm really glad to see Sony still doing really, really well, I love those guys…For me, it was just a chance to do something different.

IGNPC: But it was an amicable departure?

Rod Humble: Oh, gosh yes.

IGNPC: So, what attracted you to the Sims 2 franchise in particular?

Rod Humble: To me, it's because it's such an exciting user creativity tool. I think one of the exceptional things about the Sims product it's a game where you play 50% of it in your head, and 50% of it on the monitor, so you can tell your own stories. I find that to be a really interesting vein that we can explore. So, for example, the Sims I'm playing at the moment: A secret agent has come to spy on the servant, who lives in a shack at the end of town, and he joined the police department to get an inside track to work his way up inside the organization to spy on them. And in my head, I have a secret radio in the bookshelf.

Then he meets a girl at the police department who's in the SWAT team, marries her, falls in love, and wants to do paintings of her, and maybe is changing his mind--that's really not the sort of gameplay you get in other products. Some of it, of course, is not part of the game--that's stuff that's going on in my head. What I'd like to do is, going ahead, for each expansion pack to have extra signposts and stakes in the ground that allow users to have more of those stories going on in their heads, and encourage it.

IGNPC: That's one of the things I noticed about Sims 2, when Dan [Adams] did that series on the family--he created the IGN editors as a family--and he was just able to go off, explaining all these things that were going on. It was absolutely hilarious.

Rod Humble: And 90% of it, like I say, is just the user telling stories, but that's kind of the point.

IGNPC: The situations create themselves, and you just write about them. So what part of the franchise in particular are you working on right now?

Rod Humble: I'm coming up to speed, and I'm enjoying working with the team and Tim [LeTourneau], focused on Nightlife, and, going forward, working on what kind of experiences we're going to be able to bring to our customers.

IGNPC: And what can you tell us about Nightlife right now?

Rod Humble: Well, we just announced it last week. So, we're doing the usual routine of telling you the stuff we know for sure we're going to be able to build, and then later on, our "surprise features" will be things we can actually get done on time.

IGNPC: What can you tell us about the game right now?

Rod Humble: Well, it's an attempt to enhance and deepen the community lots from the original Sims 2 products. There are things to do outside your home, and the ability to create new stories out there--going to nightclubs, and casinos, and going out and meeting people. First of all, you'll be able to make new friends, and start off new relationships and stories. And secondly, obviously, you can date and find more compatible mates out there for your Sims and see how that affects your home life.

IGNPC: So it's more about filling a niche that you felt was missing from the original Sims 2?

Rod Humble: Right. There really isn't a good place to meet friends currently. Sims 2 University did that for the younger-age Sims, but when you get past that level… There are places to go and socialize, and community lots right now tend to be where you go to shop, so in Nightlife, these locations are going to be about socialization and meeting people.

IGNPC: So, would it be fair to call Nightlife the Sims 2 version of Hot Date?

Rod Humble: I think it's fair, I think there are going to be people who are going to say that, so we may as well embrace it. But I hope that, as with University, we can add a whole bunch of new, deeper gameplay experiences, where people will say, "Hey, they really were a bit more bold with that." Actually, Tim, go ahead and say--I've got Tim right here, over my shoulder…

Tim LeTourneau: So, the other thing I was going to say is that one of the things that we've added… Specifically, because we don't want--You draw comparisons to Hot Date, and as the producer of Hot Date, I can't complain too much about drawing comparisons, because it actually was one of the very most successful expansion packs. One of the things we did is…We want this to be a Sims 2 experience, so we've added a new Aspiration to the game that's going to be part of Nightlife, which is the Pleasure Seeker. And it ties into a lot of the gameplay that we're adding and a part of Nightlife. It's about the Sims going out, it's about the Sims seeking fun, having fun. And the wants and fears that that [Pleasure Seeker] Sim is going to have are really going to relate to that idea of seeking pleasure in life.

So, obviously, there's a lot of comparison to Hot Date, because it's about dating and going out, but it's not solely about that. It really is… For every expansion pack, you want to do something that adds gameplay and really brings people back into it, reinvigorates that gameplay, and allows them to tell stories. And Nightlife is really about telling a community story: getting them out, having them interacting with people from throughout the neighborhood, and then, with these others veins, like the Pleasure Seeker Aspiration added to it.

IGNPC: So if somebody wanted to buy the expansion pack just to get things like new furniture, new objects, maybe new jobs, would they be satisfied with Nightlife, or is this oriented toward this new model you described?

Tim LeTourneau: I would say that it's always our goal, as we design expansion packs, to support all the different play styles that our players have. And we recognize that there are some players, that the only reason they're going to buy the expansion pack is to get the new objects to decorate their houses. So it's absolutely incumbent upon us as designers and game makers to support that style of gameplay. There are going to be people who just want to see what new building tools there are to allow them to build different or more dynamic houses. So as we design expansion packs, we always have to think of all of those different play styles.

Rod Humble: It's really interesting--As part of my "coming up to speed" process with the franchise, I was taken aback at just how broad the player base is--from hardcore gamers to young people at home who just want to do social experimentation--and the different constituencies, the amount of thought this team puts in to serving each constituency, is pretty impressive. As you said, there are a whole bunch of people who will regard [Sims] expansion packs as, "Well, I only buy them for the objects." And they will get objects. There's also an equally large group who will only buy it for the gameplay, and an equally large group who buy it for meeting new Sims, or new locations. And I just found it interesting that it was that broad. I haven't experienced a product like that before.

Tim LeTourneau: Yeah, I would say that… One of the things that you have to think about when you think about [developing] The Sims is that it's our job to add depth, even though some players may never experience it. And the best example I can give of that is Create-A-Sim in Sims 2. It's an incredibly deep tool. And I could, as a player, spend ten hours using it to create a Sim. At the same time, I can push a button and say "Random," and just take the Sim that it makes, and be out of Create-A-Sim in ten seconds. So for us, we always have to invest that effort in ensuring that every area of the game is that deep, even with the recognition that some people will never use that particular feature.

IGNPC: One other question I wanted to ask you--Is this going to be on a CD or a DVD? I've noticed that you guys are starting to gravitate more towards DVDs.

Rod Humble: That's a really good question.

Tim LeTourneau: With University--University is on two CDs. We didn't do it as a DVD release. It's mostly just a space thing. It depends on how much space it's going to take. The CDs are still, right now, for us, the preferred method of delivery, because it means that everybody can use it. There's still a lot of people out there who don't have DVD drives. But any premium releases, I think you're going to see them come out on both CD and DVD. And I would say, over the course of the next year to two years, you're going to see everything come out exclusively as DVD.

Rod Humble: What's your feedback been like, with games? My hunch is that, for software now, the split is about 70% that want DVDs and 30% don't--would you say that's true?

IGNPC: Yeah, I would say between 65 and 75 percent.

Rod Humble: Because it's all I want, I agree. But there's a lot of machines out there that don't have DVD drives.

Tim LeTourneau: Well, I would also say that, with The Sims, the thing that we have, is that we have a much broader demographic than a lot of the games that are coming out. Not only do we have a broader demographic, a lot of that demographic is not terribly computer-savvy. You know, they bought their system at Costco or Best Buy, and they just bought it and stuck it on a desk, and they don't really even know what their equipment is. So, what you don't want the user experience to be is that they buy something and not be able to use it. We had that with Sims 2, where there were a lot of people who bought the DVD version, got it home, and couldn't use it in their system, because they thought that it just meant it had a DVD that went on their DVD players.

IGNPC: I noticed that on the new boxes, EA is printing, in very bold letters, "DVD" and "CD."

Tim LeTourneau: And that partially came from The Sims 2, of us going back and going, "Wow, our users are not as educated we even thought that they were, as to what they have on their desktop." Along that line, I suspect that in a year's time, it won't be an issue. But it's still somewhat experimental.

IGNPC: The sooner the better, I think.

Rod Humble: I'm with you.

Tim LeTourneau: The problem is that you still have to fill up that DVD with content.

IGNPC: So have you guys slated a release date? Is this going to be a Fall thing?

Barbara Gamlen (EA PR): It's Fall, yeah--we don't have a firm release date yet.