This isn’t a complete
document; it is more a stream of consciousness type of thing. I’ve developed
somewhat more organized treatises on what I consider to be the main tenants of
successful "online games", from my warped perspective, but have not published
them, given the vain idea that my ideas might someday be marketable and in an
attempt to keep whatever valuable IP I might have concocted locked up inside my
brain. I’m probably not what you would call an expert, so please feel free to
argue with me all you like, but I am a seasoned complainer, and this is,
essentially, a complaint. It is a complaint about The Sims Online. I
looked forward to the unveiling of that game like you wouldn’t believe, sensing
enormous potential and hoping it might be similar in some ways to the model I
had envisioned a few years ago on Red Day in Los Angeles.
While I have found myself whiling away the hours in TSO, and considered myself
somewhat entertained at the time, I was always frustrated at the end of each
session and probably would not continue playing were I to have to pay for my
account. I’m still trying to figure out why, but here are the problems I’ve come
up with so far:
1- Oh, the Urbanity
I don’t like the Cities. Now, I am sure this is an artifact of user loading or whatever mumbo jumbo term Maxoids are prone to use, a convenient bucketing approach to diverting players onto different servers- but it is annoying. I always wonder if I picked the wrong City and if somewhere out there people are having “more fun that I am” or if people I know in real life are unable to find me because I just happen to have arbitrarily picked a different location than they did. Most people do not move to other Cities, because once you set up your account, all wealth and status tied to that character cannot move with you. If you do move, you essentially have to start over, losing even your founder status, which is just stupid. They do not allow travel to other Cities either, so if you want to see what someplace else is like, go through the steps of setting up a whole new character to do so. I personally think you should be able to move or travel. If you ask me, letting players transport their characters intact between Cities might also fix the 10K feature that has so many people rich in hours. I understand the need for wanting to allow alts for multiple personality types and can agree with the one character per City rule, but it is still annoying that once you finally get the hang of the game, and find yourself in a boring City, you have to start over if you want to move to one less boring. And how do you even know if you are in a boring City without travel? We never ever see the grass on the other side of the fence, let alone the color of it.
2- Lack of Alliances
I personally think the ability to associate (or not, as the case may be) with people who are like you is a strong community-building tool. There doesn’t seem to be a mechanism for this in TSO. It cannot be houses: there are too few roommates and concurrent visitors allowed and too many different houses to allow for recognizable alliances. What might be nice, since you are stuck with Cities, would be, again, to let people travel between Cities and let that be the alliance builder. Your community could be your City. Perhaps some attributes will emerge associated with each City, which would further reinforce that. Think of the glorious trash talking that could take place! Currently there does not seem to be any sort of patriotism or Esprit de Corps as a result of being associated with, well, anything, so what exactly do people find to have in common?
3- No Progression
I realize I am talking about a Maxis game, where the order of the day is to create toys where there is no winning or losing, only playing. This has been a successful venture since even before the days they acquired Mindscape, my old favorite developer, so I realize this complaint will probably be the least popular among Sims purists. But progression gives you something to DO, for chrissakes. I suppose people can build skills or make money, but most of the activities associated with those things are repetitive, often anti-social tasks, that seem fairly hollow and unfulfilling. If only your progression in the game (attaining rank, accumulating wealth, whatever) was tied to more social or adventurous pursuits, it might be worthwhile. What if you really did have to deliver pizzas? Think of all the folks you would meet, places you would see, etc? What if there was a central dispatch for cleaning or repairs that was a function built into the game? A homeowner who needed service could place an order and wealth-seeking journeymen could log onto the central job listings, accept a dispatch, and then make money depending on how fast a job they did. I’ve heard of informal things like this taking place, but why not just make it a real part of the game. I’ve also seen classified ads on web sites, etc, but why not make those things part of the TSO universe? Put them into the game. Why would you want your players running all over the web, when you could stick them inside the world and eliminate their reasons to leave?
4- Bad Chat
OK, so there are no alliances, and no progression- and let's pretend to think that none are needed since it is a purely social game. The heart of social interaction is chatting. But the chat mechanisms in TSO are difficult and annoying. You often miss what folks are saying, see bubbles from people who are off camera, which is confusing, and there is no log. NO LOG! I cannot imagine a good online game without a log. Where is the “cut and paste drama” that I consider a key aspect of online interactions? TSO needs a mechanism for gossip, archiving good/important/bad times, trading stories- all the things that make online life superior in some ways to real life. Hell, you cannot even see what somebody said a few seconds after they said it! I’ve heard the arguments that this is a simulation of “real life” so there are no chat logs. That’s preposterous- it is simply lazy programming. If they do not fix anything else, they need to come up with a chat log mechanism. A better chat tool altogether would be welcome because then all of the mini games played in IRC-type situations could also be played in TSO, giving players something to amuse themselves with as they mind-numbingly raise the banality of their stats.
5- Events
This, properly done, on its own, could be a saving grace of TSO. In my opinion, events are the #2 thing that keep folks coming on for more (#1 being social aspects). You can argue this point if you like, and I’ll grant you that events were my specialty when I worked on AOL games and with Interactive Broadcasting UK, so, of course I think they are important. I’ve seen attempts at things like contests and game-wide events, like New Years or Valentine’s Day on TSO, but it is impossible for them to truly be successful without better mechanisms built into the game. What about an in-game BBS where people could announce parties and events on the fly? You could charge Simoleans for the listing to prevent too much spamming and restrict the amount of posts per time period from each house. You could even have players pitch their idea to staff and get it approved for posting to narrow events to “only the best” or at least those with some advance planning and possibly maintain a black list for people who didn’t follow through, had bogus lotteries, etc.
What if there were better mechanisms in the game to have player-run events? Mechanisms that made things like lotteries more fair? Certified umpires? Arenas for fighting games or other phenomena that only took place during events? What if there was a mechanism for scavenger hunts or hide and seek? Players could travel to several different houses gathering objects or checking areas in the house to find the hidden message/person. Hints could be posted in different areas to narrow the search. This could be done cheaply with a game trunk object that allowed for hidden messages, gained with a password of some sort. It would be incredibly nifty if that object could be set to look like other normal objects so people would have to hunt around for it. Think of the possibilities of being able to add a tag to a desk or vase that when players clicked on it could reveal text. By creating objects that allow players to create puzzles in their houses, you could essentially let them turn their properties (or groups of properties) into mini adventure games. You could have a mechanism for people to win Simoleans upon solving the puzzle (combination safe object that spouts out a set amount of money when given the correct password?) to encourage players to take time out of their busy schedule of upping their stupid stats to PLAY.
Now I know that if people worked really hard, they could figure out ways to accomplish all of these things. Use the "IM" feature instead of chatting in-game, use outside web sites to announce jobs and form alliances. For puzzles, there are combo doors and message boards that could be used creatively, but it wouldn’t be as much fun as specific “adventure” objects, such as a dead body or manuscript that spouts a customizable message when examined. But I’ve yet to see anything along those lines that really stands out strong and personally have not had the gumption to do any of it myself. Hell, why would I want to try to accomplish all of that just to find out I am living in the wrong damn City (which I seriously suspect!).