Free Content Changes & Updates.
The Sims community is constantly changing, and TSR tries to adapt accordingly. To be able to provide the size of site and level of service that we do, we have made some pretty drastic changes in the past, and today sees another!
As Sims 1 becomes a retro game for many of us, many more new players are appearing, thanks to the recently released Sims 1 Ultimate Collection at budget price. Christmas at TSR has come early for these players!
Why the change?
Although many people have their own opinions on subscription sites, TSR has always tried to provide as much free content as possible, while maintaining a delicate balance with keeping the site running with fast, stable servers and great community features for anyone playing the game. We were way behind other sites going to subscription models because we had more traffic, but the internet advertising market crashed and forced our hands somewhat.
Now that things are picking up in that area, we feel more confident that we can provide more for free users that generate their contribution to the site through viewing ads.
Sims 1 Free Content Changes
Sims 1 content is now all free, and will hopefully remain that way forever! We will continue to update with regular submissions from our Featured Artists as well as the Sim1 community, so that area of the site will become a great future resource for retro-gamers or new players picking up the "Sims 1 Ultimate Collection" this Winter.
If you have a Sim 1 site that is growing old or likely to close soon, why not move your content to TSR and feature it all from your own Mini Site. It will join the rest of our archive of over 91,000 free files, which dates back to creations publish long before the game released!
Sims 2 Free Content Changes
Sims 2 content also sees a major change, with all user submitted content becoming free! Featured Artist content will remain exclusive to Subscribers, as will the Download Basket and Wizard, but with today's numbers, around 173,000 Sims 2 files will be free to use.
If you have creations on your own site (or others), why not submit it to TSR so that it joins our long-standing archive and remains available for free download for many years to come? It will build up your profile or Mini Site and will earn you Kudos too!
Incentive Days
Many members have been earning Incentive Days from having their creations downloaded by Subscribers. These were implemented to allow submitters to share their work with their peers, fellow content creators. Due to the change to free for all of their content, the need to earn Incentive Days has been made redundant, especially as free subscriber days can be earned through Kudos.
To balance this, submitting creations will now earn a little more Kudos than before for most creators. Any existing Incentive Days earned by our members will remain valid, so you can still use them when you like.
Already Subscribed?
Our current subscribers will continue to have full access to all of the files at the site including those from Featured Artists, as well as the Download Basket and Install Wizard. If you feel that TSR provides you with a great experience we would encourage you to continue to subscribe, not just to get all the great FA content, but to support us in what we do and help us keep TSR running for many years to come. We will not be adding a so called �donation system� to get exclusive content, but we hope to introduce one time payments for content at the site. These, along with a one-off 2 month subscription would not only help us greatly, but will provide you with a lot of top quality content for your money (still far more than any other Sims site can offer).
If you have subscribed for Sims 1 content only, then your situation is a little different. Although we have made the content free from today, we continue to provide the service which you have paid for, but we are prepared to compensate where necessary.
If you have subscribed within the past 4 weeks from today (19/10/2006) then we will be prepared to compensate you with one half of your subscription (only if you downloaded only Sims 1 content during this time). If you wish to make this claim, please use the Support System and explain your situation clearly. We will then check your download history, and if you have used your subscription for Sims 1 downloads only we will process it.
That said, if you are happy with your experience of TSR and wish to continue supporting us, we would gratefully accept your donation and any continued support that you can offer.
And for our current Subscribers...
We value your continued support greatly, as you have kept TSR running for the entire community for many years. Our current Subscribers are being credited with a free week to compensate them for the downtime and problems that have been experienced while we have been updating the servers and systems at the site. We know, it got quite ugly!
Subscribers now get access to their own dedicated servers for the downloads and images, so they should now experience a faster, smother web experience all 'round.
Forums upgrade next week
We have upgraded the forums to vBulletin Version 3.6.2 but got delayed on its release because of all the server changes this week. Now that we have this launch behind us we will continue to add some extra features to them before launching the new forums next week. Stay tuned for an update.
We hope that you all enjoy the new and improved TSR!
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