Talk:The Sims 2: Bon Voyage

Wrong company infos !

Maxis is dead since they are in EA, since 2007 the Maxis logo was removed from The Sims franchise ! It's no longer Maxis but it's EA Games only. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.52.208.241 (talk) 13:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Needs more info

The page looks small compared to other expansion pack pages, can someone fix this by adding info or photos? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.131.130.181 (talk) 17:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Consistent covers

The reason I went around changing the box art for several pages was to make it consistent with the main The Sims 2 page and its expansion pack pages by using the US box art. As of now, a mix of UK and US box art is used and in some cases, they differ to significant degree (e.g. the US box art of University features a cheerleader and a toga-wearing guy holding pizza while the UK box art features a girl talking on a cell phone and a guy holding a guitar). Anyone else agree with the changes I'm making? --Funnykidrian 04:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps just feature the US box art in the main picture and any international editions can be included further in the article. I know that most of Asia gets the US box art so it is more of a 'global' design.

To whomever replied to my message, thank you. :) The reason I want to discuss this issue is because my edits to implement the US design is being constantly reverted. I want to get a consensus for this so we can settle on whether we should keep the box art consistent or leave the articles as they are. --Funnykidrian 01:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I think we should definitely use the US box art. Here in Australia we get the US box art version so I think it is more widely used than the UK version but I could be wrong. --Joelster 00:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank You

Glad someone has finally fixed this article, it was quite a mess. Thank you. (-Vlad 20:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC))

Official Announcements

Do we really need that section anymore? The game was announced in May, so I think we should just start adding information about the game. Who agrees?

Thanks, 24.1.93.182 01:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't, someone has added something new to it.

The Game section disappeared.

Hello what happened to the brand new game section that arrived on 01/09/07. It's gone. Not Happy 91.104.147.107 18:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Fish

Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. 'The Game' section has been removed because it's written like an ad for the game or a game guide. Remember, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. See here and here. However, any effort to make 'The Game' section more encyclopedic are welcome because this article definitely needs expanding. --Joelster 21:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

the announcement

The press release for the game is quoted in full, as far as I can tell, which is not fair use. I know the game just came out today, but this needs to be replaced with some free content ASAP. Natalie 03:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:005BonVoyage.jpg

Image:005BonVoyage.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 05:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Bugs

I've added a section on bugs, because this is very relevant and potentially damaging to customers. See the Sims 2 message boards for mroe info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.242.76 (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Initial problems

I have added a description of a particularly bad bug that plagues the expansion pack. The description is longish but will be reduced or removed once Maxis has successfully adressed this game-ruining bug. Sensemaker

Later: I'm OK with the clean-up but the text as it is might cause someone to remove character files which is a really bad idea. I'm adding a sentence to point this out. I'll remove that sentence as soon as a patch is out and information about this bug is less important. -Sensemaker

Even later: Some unnamed editor wanted to change "community lot" to "vacation lot". I changed this back since it is not what the thread says about this programming bug: "What this does is every time you visit a community, business, or vacation lot with NPCs, a new NPC spawns (creating a character file) instead of using an existing one. The Unsavory Charlatan can come on any lot. " The problem is thus certainly not limited to vacation lots and saying so might erroneously lead owners of Bon Voyage to think it is OK to play as long as they do not let their sims go on vacation. -Sensemaker

Someone seems to have removed the section "Initial problems" on the NPC spawning bug. As far as I know, there is no patch yet that solves this issue. Why has it been removed? Why didn't the person who did this explain himself in the discussion part. -Sensemaker

Later: It would seem that the person responsible for removing this entire section is a user named Crossmr who explained his behaviour with only this line: "- sorry, random forum postings by random users are not usable as citation". I disagree with this discription and also find it inappropriate wiki-behaviour to remove a large section without even attempting to discuss it. Crossmr's behaviour seems to blatantly contradict what he is saying in his self-description:

"I believe that discussion is necessary for growth of wikipedia. Discussion isn't leaving an opinion and walking away. It requires putting forth that opinion and discussing its place in the greater scheme of things."

It seems that at least on this occasion Crossmr has failed to follow his own good advice. -Sensemaker

WP:V Forums have never been considered reliable on wikipedia in terms of random user postings. the sole time that a forum is usable for citation is when a verifiable company representative makes a statement through them. That's not the case here, and there is a long history and consensus from countless articles on the issue. Also see the same policy under burden of proof. Any editor may remove any material at any time if its not properly cited. If you'd like to include that material provide a proper reliable source and it can be added to the article.--Crossmr 01:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see that you have eventually chosen to follow your own good advice. Late and after some prodding is better than not at all. I did believe that the threads I linked to included a company representative and was surprised when I noticed it did not. Perhaps it has been removed, perhaps my memory fails me, I suspect the former rather than the latter. I shall make an effort to see if I can find a Maxis comment on the NPC spawning bug. -Sensemaker

The only thing you can cite from those threads is what the company representative said. You can't cite what the users wrote, or draw conclusions from what they've written which is what was done. There is also an issue of notability where wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information WP:NOT. That means not every piece of trivial information about a subject is included in the article. --Crossmr 13:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This discussion on what to write about the NPC spawning bug has been rendered obsolete by recent events. A patch, claiming to address this bug has been made available. As noted above in this section of the discussion page I was planning to withdraw or at least reduce that part of the article as soon as such a patch appeared (that bug would no longer be important enough to mention in the article). Should the new patch fail to effectively address the problem I will be back on this issue. -Sensemaker

Anti-piracy software SecuRom

From the forum I have heard that Bon Voyage (and apparently no other expansion pack) contains the somewhat controversial anti-piracy software SecuRom. Does anyone have more information on this. -Sensemaker

It's illegal in other countries, and has been disabling MAJOR things in the computer such as: Printer, CD/DVD Burner, printer, flash drives, scanner, various programs, most of the time the only way to fix this is to reformat the computer. -Kalek —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.110.208.214 (talk) 17:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Kalek. Would you have a source to these facts? I notice you have signed yourself and when had Sinebot add an extra sinature for you. I presume that means that you, like me, seem to prefer signing by yourself. Do you know you can turn off the SineBot so it does not sign for you? A friendly fellow just informed me about this so now I am passing on the favour. -Sensemaker

<<off-topic discussion deleted as agreed by the main participants>>

SecuROM

There is a claim that most computers were not harmed by SecuRom - it cannot be verified in any way - please delete it or edit - it is not relevant to sims 2 game... 93.153.159.88 (talk) 11:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this securom thing really necessary? This article should be about the game only. I'm going to remove it, but if you don't agree, feel free to revert it.

Thanks, SimCrazed32 23:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Well in terms of notable information surrounding this incident, I would say so. Its caused EA to create an additional forum just for the discussion of this issue as well make several official statements regarding it. Whether it belongs here or on the main TS2 article might be up for debate but I feel EA's reaction to it makes it worth mentioning.--Crossmr 00:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. SecuROM's involvement has caused major controversy, and is therefore notable. --DearPrudence 00:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It's the dominant topic on the forum last time I looked. It's a good thing you try to discuss this and don't just delete it in a cavalier manner, SimCrazed32. -Sensemaker

I also agree that the SecuROM section is relevant to the article. Since it is included with Bon Voyage, I feel that it is appropriate to include it in this article. --Funnykidrian 21:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

So-called "References" in SecuROM section

In that section, a few of the sources cite information from various entries on the forums at The Sims 2's website. I do not believe that it is fair to use such things, as their content can be edited freely and even deleted by the entry's original author. Furthermore, there is little to no proof that the authors of the forum entries are even authorised to give official statements. Really, it amounts to naught but original research. -- SpinyMcSpleen (talk) 21:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The maxoids are identifiable company employees and have a long (7 years or so) history of addressing concern through the forums. I've removed the bits that talk about fans opinions though as you can't cite random user posts. --Crossmr (talk) 03:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Securom stuff is important, useful encyclopedia-proper information. This is the only source available as far as I know. Many companies adress problems like this through their fora and this practice is becoming increasingly common. To say that a company's own information about their own product on their own forum is not a valid source would deny encyclopedia users perfectly good, useful information, both in this case and in general. I know of no rule that states a company's own information of their own product on their own forum is not a valid source. -Sensemaker

That's correct, but anything else from the forums, including user replies to those threads are unusable to draw any conclusions about. We can only talk about what they've written in a factual manner.--Crossmr (talk) 14:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Sensemaker

I think the SecuROM section is extremely relevant to the game. Especially because of the controversy surrounding its inclusion and the problems as a result of its bugs.::

--81.156.118.224 (talk) 11:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Lightburst talk 03:54, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that a woman who bought The Sims 2: Bon Voyage sued its publisher? Source: Good, Owen (8 November 2008). "EA Hit with Two New Anti-DRM Class Action Suits". Kotaku. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Enshittification

Converted from a redirect by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 16:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/The Sims 2: Bon Voyage; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Epicgenius (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Sims 2: Bon Voyage/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Generalissima (talk · contribs) 17:59, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I intend to review this article. Should be able to get to it within the next week. Thank you for your patience, and great job improving content on the Sims series. --Generalissima (talk) 17:59, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

General Thoughts!

Oh, hey @Vaticidalprophet. A bit overdue, but here I go. It's a pretty good article! I've read through your other Sims articles and they're of a good quality, and this one seems pretty par for the course. Let's get cracking on what needs touching up.

Images

All is good to go here, as there is only one image and it is a Fair Use cover image for the product. Wish it could have a screenshot of gameplay in one of the vacation areas (a la in Pets) but I understand that it might be difficult to find a good image.

• I was thinking about this, and eventually managed to find one. BV is the one EP I've never really interacted with so I didn't want to load up my whole game and start playing vacations just to grab a screenshot, and a lot of available screenshots weren't particularly distinctive or looked like they were probably promotional rather than in-game, but I eventually managed to find a decent one. Vaticidalprophet 02:28, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Looks good :3 Thank you! Generalissima (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Sources

Quite an exhaustive quantity! Everything is cited correctly. I do not have access to The Sims 2 Bon Voyage: Prima Official Game Guide, so I am accepting on good faith.

Looking through the various review sites, all seems pretty reputable. I wasn't 100% sure about All Around Gaming Hub but it appears decently reputable as far as late 2000s gaming news sites go, and it isn't being used more than once anyhow. From the sources I have access to, I don't see any COPYVIO or close paraphrasing issues. The article is in general well sourced; I don't see any claims made without sources. All good to go in this department. :3

Prose

Let us take this section by section (as I tend to do these things.)

Lede

A little short for an article this size, no? I'd expand it a little bit with information about gameplay features. Does the expression '"mountain" region' fall under WP:SCAREQUOTES? Other that, seems good.

• I've managed to expand this one a little (still one of the shorter in this series, but it's a trickier one to compress). Vaticidalprophet 02:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Good job, looks good-to-go. Generalissima (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Background and development

As always, you're pretty good at cooking up a background section. All is good to go here. You could probally get away with adding a note after the "final expansion released for Mac" clarifying that FreeTime and Apartment Life not being released, cause that'd be a fun tidbit that would save me SECONDS of time looking over on the main Sims 2 page to discover.

• Mmm, maybe. I think the navbox makes it reasonably clear, though? Vaticidalprophet 02:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  • OH yeah, navbox would obvs clear that up. Generalissima (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Gameplay

I can only imagine that The Sims 2 Bon Voyage: Prima Official Game Guide is an enthralling read. In all seriousness, this is a pretty well put together section. You did a good job distiling down the (vaguely underwhelming) gameplay features. Really vibing with the blue link on 'woohoo', as well as the clarification that Bigfoot cannot be romanced. All's good.

Soundtrack

They got Damian Marley for this? Dang, that is really interesting. Might be worth putting in the lede!

• In the new, expanded lead :P Vaticidalprophet 02:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Good! Generalissima (talk) 04:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Reception and legacy

Okay, this is a good section but I really don't see what that block quote has to do with the rest of the section. I am not here to read about this woman's boyfriend being stingrayed. I am here to learn about a poorly-recieved Sims 2 expansion. I like block quotes as much as the next editor, but I think it'd be best to use a more focused review for that spot.

Otherwise good distiliation of reviews, good explanation of the SecuROM controversy. Side note though, do you know what the first EA game to use SecuROM was? That might be worth mentioning, because my partner and I were reading through this thing as we were reviewing and neither of us were able to discern if this was the first EA game to use this or not.

• I'll take a look at that question. And I guess a look at the quotebox (pls allow quotebox). Vaticidalprophet 02:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  • This is a weirdly difficult question for something that should have a simple answer. Attempts to find it are dominated by the Spore controversy, despite that very obviously being the wrong answer (for one, BV came out before Spore). I think BV looks to be one of the earlier major EA releases with it, possibly the earliest, but past "earliest in the Sims series" I can't pin down any sort of timeline here. In all likelihood, the actual-first is something where it wasn't particularly commented on and no one cared yet. Vaticidalprophet 08:17, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

See Also, Notes, etc.

Great use of See Also, for how many times EA does this exact expansion pack concept. Also thank you for including the average hard drive capacity from back in the day, that's actually really good context.

• I was actually thinking about that one -- I was wondering if someone was going to challenge the note, but I was reading the review and thinking "wow, 20gb is pretty insane for a single game's mods in 2007, isn't it?". This was surprisingly hard information to find -- consumer-focused websites tend to upsell larger storage than the average person has, and it's not been the subject of much focused academic study, so "what was the average person likely using in the mid-late 2000s" took a while. Vaticidalprophet 02:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Closing thoughts

Yeah, that's a good article! Just a couple little things to clean up and then I think we will be good to go. Apologies if there are any parts that are incoherent, I have been up a while. - Generalissima (talk) 06:15, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you for your changes! It looks like all is in working order now.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

• thank you for your work! :3 Generalissima (talk) 17:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.