E3 2004

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:The Sims 2 (Windows).

The Sims 2 was shown again at E3 2004, except that coverage was behind closed doors, thus not having much prerelease information revealed until later on. The game also has a new logo and a confirmed September 17 release date.

The Waterside neighborhood was shown off for this build, with the Baxter family as playable Sims.

Videos#

Official#

Gaming Fansites#

Images from the Panel#

General Differences#

• The loading cursor used a placeholder design, from the Windows 98 loading cursor.

Create-A-Sim#

Now starting to take the shape of the final, except for some differences.

• The Life Stage icons were much more simplistic.
• After creating a Sim in the Household and selecting to create another one, the camera originally panned to the main part as opposed to instantly cutting to it in the final.
• Personality Points were represented as a gauge than segmented bars.
• The sky color now matches the final.

Neighborhood View#

• The loading screen was a lot more barebones, just showing the household and icon itself in a black screen. THe text also said "Welcome to (Neighborhood Name)" than "Now loading: (Neighborhood Name)" in the final.

Waterside#

Waterside was a neighborhood used for previews of The Sims 2. According to development notes inside thumbnails_family.txt, it was intended to ship with the game alongside the other three neighborhoods unlike what previews implied. lotSpeck.txt indicates that a Speck family were meant to also reside here, in a lot called "Little Charmer - 1BR 1BA"

It is home to the Baxter family, Virginia, Dina, Laura, and Tina. The neighborhood description entry for Waterside can still be found in NeighborhoodManager.package, though unlike Riverside, the text strings are missing. Several lots seen in Waterside were reused elsewhere in the game, such as in Pleasantview, and as pre-made lots in the Lots and Houses bin.

An edited aerial view picture of Waterside appears as the loading screen background when launching The Sims 2.

Images#

The images were posted much later on, but were confirmed to be part of the E3 2004 demo¹ Notably, there seems to be two different builds in the images, as evidenced by the change in the WooHoo Want and Get Caught Cheating Fear icons.

Earlier Build#

Later Build#

Live Mode#

General#

• Sims did not have last names when hovered over them.
• The unused firstGetCaughtWithLoverGold_tslocator_gmdc memory model is used in this build.
• This build marks the first appearance of the Therapist NPC.

HUD#

• There was a unique transition for hiding the Wants and Fears.
• The object descriptions in Buy/Build Mode had larger text.
• The WooHoo symbol had a different expression, where it had it's tongue sticking out rather than showing teeth. Also, there's two versions of the expression, one with black-and-white hypno eyes and regular white eyes, where the latter would carry to the final. It was likely changed to tone down the suggestiveness. The same symbol can be found in the trailer above.
• Wants and Fears did not have "+500 Aspiration", only saying "(+500)".
• The Family and Friends Motives are now scrapped.
• The Talk with (Sim Name) icon depicted a speech bubble without a computer arrow next to it, like with the "Teach (Sim Name) to Talk" Want.
• There is are two Fears, depicting a symbol of a heart impaled with a dagger, with and without an effect around it. They are likely early versions of the "Get Caught Cheating" and "Get Caught Having an Affair" icons. It was changed from a heart to broken joined rings likely to avoid any borderline grotesque implications.
• The Age Transition Cinematic plays regardless if the Sim has a Platinum Aspiration or not unlike the final.
• There is a scrapped Fear relating to Death of (Sim Name) associated with Toddler and Child Sims. They were cut later on², likely for being too dark.

References#