60 Second Preview of…

The Sims Online at E3 2001

The Specs

In The Sims Online players will be able to create and customize up to three Sims. Players can build a home or place of business, such as a casino, for example. Buildings can be shared and players will create a network of friends. The Sims that players control will have a wide choice of animated gestures and actions. The game is open-ended without any real goals, although the network of friends a player builds can enhance his or her power, wealth, reputation and social standing.

The Speculation

Mark's Comments: Bah. This isn't The Sims. This game is a graphical chat room. In a rather amazing turn of events, Maxis stripped The Sims Online of the interesting gameplay elements found in The Sims, namely the constant soap opera the player had to attend to in order to keep his or her Sims happy. In The Sims Online the player's Sim doesn't have a happiness or sadness rating anymore. It's really just an avatar for the player, though for some reason Maxis decided to leave in a couple of the most tedious aspects of The Sims — they'll still get hungry and still need to use the restroom. Is that dumb or what? Instead of nurturing a Sims family in a multiplayer, virtual world, all The Sims Online looks to be is a competition to see which player's Sim can become the most popular, build the nicest house, and collect the most interesting objects. Maxis may know what they're doing, but the track they're on is much less interesting to me now.

Tom's Comments: I never got around to using IRC channels or AOL chat. The concept of random people chatting is weird enough. But I gotta say: setting up The Sims as a graphical interface for someone to ask someone else what she's wearing is the cleverest way to not go broke since P.T. Barnum put a bunch of clowns and elephants in tent. You guys have fun, all several million or so of you who buy into this thing. I'll be over here shooting aliens or something. Playing The Sims gave me the creeps. Playing The Sims online, with other people, would probably just make my skin crawl off my body.

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May 22, 2001