Happy 22nd Birthday!!!
I was a "bit" late to TS1. I started playing after I bought it the day I also pre-ordered my SimCity4. (I'd been playing versions of SimCity since it came out on the Amiga platform. The version on Amiga was *much* better than the one they released at the same time for PC.)
I'd actually avoided TS1 since it had come out because all the promos showed people doing things that I would never want to do. I thought it was all about finding excuses to hit people. It was the sales clerk who was helping me with the SC4 pre-order who suggested TS1. When I explained that I wasn't interested and why, he told me that I didn't have to play like that. He told me about the other things that I *was* interested in so I bought it. Although I later picked up my SC4, I played TS1 obsessively (in part because SC4 was so buggy it was unplayable until *months* later when we finally got an update. Simmers complaining about TS4's lags in getting updates have no concept of what it was like before we could get online downloads instead of having to wait for a disc to come out!)
I played TS1 so much (and was on the forum so much) that I had to learn how to build desktop computers so that I had a computer that could handle TS2. I also helped others either build or at least choose appropriate computer components. That's why, starting the day that TS2 came out, I was selected to be a SimMaster (who were the moderators on the forums in those days.) SimMasterAnubis was my name.
I loved playing TS2 and talking about it on the official forum although as a SimMaster I had to be more cautious about how I talked about it. While I could be negative if it was warranted, I had to be cautious about how I phrased discussions because, like with "GameChangers", people thought we had more "insider" information than we did. I loved uploading builds to the "Exchange" and making custom content (which were included in my builds.)
I also played TS3. In fact, I played TS3 until around the time that TS4's Discover University came out. (My computer's video card crashed TS4 so even though I owned it, I couldn't play it until I got a new video card.) I wasn't as active on the forums though (because, frankly, being a SimMaster had burned me out a bit. I was *sooo* glad when they stopped the SimMaster program in favor of having paid "moderators." I still remember at one point asking the community manager if I was the only SM still working. I still have the emails from that.)
Once I got that new video card, I started playing TS4. Although I get nostalgic about TS3, the times that I decide to go back and play it again make me so thankful for TS4, which I like much better. So many of the frustrations of TS3 (especially things like routing issues, constant crashing and lag) are gone. TS4 isn't perfect but I really do enjoy it more than I did TS3. (I do miss Create a Style though. Hence my big mods folder.)
Community Manager
