/me readies the one room house and clown painting.

So, is this game really fun?  I mean, Les and others, do you guys sit and play this for hours?

I’ve been tempted to buy this for me and the other-half, but have decided to wait on the decision till we finish StarOcean on the PS/2.

What exactly does one do in this game ?
- what are the primary activities ?
- goals ?
Is the Live/online version better ?

Me, i’m the mostly empire-economic simulation type of guy.  But, for some reason, i keep picking up this game and re-reading the box.  So… I’m just wonderwing what i might be missing.

I still like the original.

As far as I’m concerned, the most annoying problem with the original is all the micromanagement. Rather than setting some initial conditions and let the simulation rip, it required constant attention. The two pet peeves I remember most are that the Sims just can’t manage regular job or school attendance without a knout to their back and that they never fucking remember to pay their bills. By and large, you don’t have enough control about the simulation engine to really go to town.

Etan, you are an evil and sadistic man. I like that quality in a person.

Rob, is the game fun? Considering that you and I seem to have pretty opposing ideas of what constitutes “good” and “bad” I’m not sure I would be the best person to answer that question for you. Have you ever played the original? If you have and you liked it then you will probably like number 2 as well. It is, at it’s heart, the same game only with much needed improvements such as a reduction in the amount of micromanagement that Elwed mentioned. I plan to write a full review on it soon, but I’ll answer your two questions:

The primary activities are whatever you want them to be, really. It’s like a sandbox or doll house you can play with. With the original game my wife liked to spend her time building and furnishing homes without ever bothering to let the family she made to get the home actually do much of anything in it. She’s gonna love the fact that you can just start building on an empty lot in this game without having to have a family first. I’m partial to exploring all the different fucked up things you can get the Sims to do. My daughter uses the game as a means of story-telling. There isn’t much of anything that you HAVE to do in the game unless you want to.

Goal-wise when you assign an aspiration to the Sims the game then uses that to develop both long and short-term goals that will make your Sims really happy if you achieve them, but again you don’t HAVE to do that if you don’t want to. Given that Sims can breed, grow old, and die in this version the game is truly never-ending unless you end up with Sims that don’t ever produce offspring and the last one dies off. One of the cooler features of The Sims 2 is the abilityt to produce machinima with it. Check out The Strangerhood for an example of this in action.

As for The Sims Online, I was a beta tester for that and I can tell you that it’s a completely different game. Most folks who are fans of the stand-alone games don’t care much for TSO. It’s been negatively described as “the ultimate chat room” which I’d say is very apt. Last I had read about it TSO the most interesting aspect of it was the fact that people were finding ways to turn the game into one great big online Red Light District of sorts.

That is so ... cool.  And a little spooky, too.

most are that the Sims just can’t manage regular job or school attendance without a knout to their back and that they never fucking remember to pay their bills.

Lol. That strikes me as realistic for many people. I mean, I should be going to work now, instead I’m reading SEB.

people were finding ways to turn the game into one great big online Red Light District of sorts.

A Real-Life redlight activities district, Les?

Call Joooohn-Aaaa-schcroft!

I always think games such as this has the potential to become a great tool to examine economic issues. For example I recall the discussion about Ultima Online by some economists who stated that the world (at the point they are commenting) is facing deflation and recession. For there are huge amount of people trying to sell their rabit fur or rabit fur coat but no one seems to be buying at all. Then they were wondering whether is this rescession triggered by lack of liquidity and that if the government (game makers) were to introduce more money into the system, things might start moving. And there was also a commentry on how this shows that supply side economics is not all that crack up to be. Meaning just because you produce a rabit fur coat does not mean that demand would be created.

And given that recent reports have shown that the GDP of all online game community has just surpassed the economy of Namibia, I feel that games such as this could really be instructional with regards to economics and human behaviour.

All that is needed in my opinion is to modify The Sims to include work and the ability to generate products. Perhaps even an introduction of multiple currency and regions so as to explain trade.

PT, are you speaking of the standalone Sims game or the online one? The standalone games already have work and the ability to produce products in it and the online version has something akin to work in terms of producing product as well. The standalone games wouldn’t work well for simulating economies per se, but a number of the massively multiplayer games have been providing a surprising insight into economic theory that the developers hadn’t considered at first.

I’m pretty sure the changes you’re suggesting wouldn’t be difficult for the folks at The Sims Online to bring about. The problem is that the game isn’t interesting enough to generate the user base one would hope for in such an experiment.

That is so ... cool.  And a little spooky, too.

I was thinking the same thing as I was putting that together, ***Dave. Which is why I had to do it, of course.

Les, your character has your noggin on Robert’s body. It’s trippy.

I said it wasn’t perfect! Sheesh!

Hi all- I’m not sure this is the right thread to tack my two cents’ worth onto, but you’re flex, right?  First of all, sorry to deflate your noble ambitions, Les, but I’m afraid the Xians will not regard your proffered Sim as worthy of their attentions, because (at least the last I heard) they generally don’t believe that computer-generated similacra have immortal souls, and it’s only the winning of those that garners them Brownie Points.  Correct me if I’m wrong, oh enlightened fundies.
I read the Kent Hovind thread with great amusement and frustration, and was reminded of the time (don’t laugh; ok, laugh if you want to) when I used to play Q3 online (too much), and was continually confronted with cheaters of various sorts.  At first it puzzled me why anyone would cheat- sure, it was probably mostly (mental if not physical) fourteen year olds, but even at fourteen I wouldn’t have seen the point- what do you win?  An apt metaphor would be:  two people are playing chess, and a little kid comes by, knocks over the board, sending the pieces flying, and yells “I win!” A lot of the Xians posts were like that- trying for that shortcut to the top.  Come to think of it, the whole approach of religion to the truth is often of that nature- no logic, dualism, top-down rather than bottom-up ideas of meaning.  A good cure would be, say, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel Dennett, or just about anything by Richard Dawkins, but I won’t hold my breath.  The sad truth is that the world is a very complicated place, and it’s easier to believe simple stuff.
One more metaphor for your delectation: Scientists’ work is like picking up pebbles or beans (or whatever they delight in) from their chosen bit of ground, and trying to describe what they find as best they can.  Creationists look over their shoulders and say “You missed that one” or “How do you explain this one?”.  And the creationists’ bit of ground?  Completely covered with a threadbare Oriental carpet.  And they say triumphantly, “See! No problem here!”
Keep up the good work.  Cheers, Zilch (one of my polite Q3 names)

So Les, Which Neighborhood do you want to be in?

I’ve no preference really, though it seems to me that the Strangetown is probably the most probably place to find someone as… unique… as I am.

I got the shirts but for the sim I got this
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oh well no simLes for me