kelli

But.

The Consumers won’t buy into (Or return to) the game until EA adds more content.

But.

Ea won’t put more money and manpower into adding more features to the game until the subscribership is signifigantly larger.

But.

The Consumers won’t buy into (Or return to) the game until EA adds more content.

But.

Ea won’t put more money and manpower into adding more features to the game until the subscribership is signifigantly larger.

But.

Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

Catch 22.
Koiyashi Maru.

No Win Situation.
And the Inevitable end result, No More TSO.
UNLESS, Someone in EA eventually thinks outside the corporate box, and Puts TSO Developement back on track.

Maria.

I am guessing they dropped it due to the budget cuts, more than likely they also moved some of their programmers over to Sims 2, everyone asked about it on the stratics board and have not recieved an answer, it’s not listed on the upcoming content either, if they do finally say it was dropped it will probably be for “technical reasons” same with blackjack and video poker, and they will refuse to elaborate what “technical reasons”.

If Blackjack and Video Poker is too daunting for their programmers, custom content will probably seem like trying to build a cold fusion device.

I wonder if anyone can comment on just what prohibited Maxis from allowing in custom content. They had elaborate plans for it, there were even some advanced players who were preparing lots to sell the customized wallpaper from some kind of machines/devices. I was told by some of these savvy players who claimed to have insider knowledge of Maxis (who knows) that Maxis was afraid that the customized items would introduce exploits, that people would immediately use T-MOG or a version of it to make $0 versions of the pianos or the Egyptian sculptures or whatever the highest-end items were, and that would mean corruption would enter the game. Well, I hardly think *that* should have been a concern of makers whose game is already flooded with map bots, third-party cheats, ebay simoleons, pet frenzy, etc. etc. Maybe $0 ugly Maxis statues would appear, but they’d be accompanied by interesting original custom items made by players who would have their custom articles cost more and introduce that kind of motivation to earn money in the game that we’re all supposed to have. I don’t get the real technical or philosophical arguments against the custom content, but I was always told that they existed.

“TSO players are, i think, feeling left out, forgotten, or worst of all cheated, as developement of the Offline game skyrockets, and we are left with crumbs.”

You said that exactly right, Maria. I personally feel the suits absolutely doomed the game themselves, starting around December of 2002. That was a point when – had I been running the show – I would have thrown all kinds of money at advertising the game and putting new things in it. I really expected them to do that. They didn’t.

Instead, they seem to have always been continually stingy with it, at that and at other points where an infusion of funds would have done a world of good. So maybe they arrived at the decision, in their suit-like wisdom, that the game was not performing well enough to give it enough funds even as long ago as directly after its release and the Christmas rush.

Maybe they were spoiled, in a 100-ton gorilla way, and expected a huge rush to a game that had already received bad press from being released too early. And when they didn’t get it, they just turned away like spoiled brats.

The new content and updates were slow – WAY slow – in coming. Later on, we got a bunch of new stuff (albeit little of we had asked for or expected from the original game design) for New and Improved, and everyone said, “Ok, great, now advertise the heck out of it!” Of course, they did the opposite and didn’t advertise it at all.

If they had worked a little harder and put in more money and stuck with the game and given things to the game, I think it would have had far more subscribers than it does now. Instead, they look like they gave up on it way too early.

It’s that sort of half-way effort this whole time that has kept subscription rates low. I mean, if you are going to do something, why not do it right? I know from my own activities in life that yes, you can do just a little, but that will not be a hit. Given a good idea, if you pull out the stops, do the work, and spend the money, you will have a guaranteed hit. If you are stingy with it or your effort it, at best you will just strangle it slowly, even if you have an audience eager to enjoy it.

Even worse, I feel EA’s corporate attitude has always clearly been that the subscribers are a nuisance, that they (EA) always know best, and that they are above communicating with their subscribers. This attitude – an unwillingness to give even the appearance of caring about the subscribers – along with their cutting of funds to the game way too early means I don’t have much hope for much improvement either.

But – we will see. And I know, too, that Sims Online is just the beginning of what is possible in virtual environments, and in the next twenty or fifty years we will be able to do amazing things in virtual homes, on virtual streets, and in virtual neighborhoods. Somebody will come along and do this right, even if EA drops the ball. The beauty and the humor of the Sims and their environment, however, may never be equaled again.

coco

It would be nice if they allowed custom items, even just the tiles and the wallpapers and skins, but I could even do without that, in terms of telling a narrative, if they would make entertainment lots truly be places where you didn’t have to green, or at least so often, and if they fixed the problem of blinking and annoying balloons that make it hard to read the player’ captions especially if more than 2 people are talking on a lot.

people playing TSO are inside the box. they set up a community and create relationships within that community. EA does not appear experience the TSO community as a community of persons. EA appears to experience the TSO community as a product: it stands outside the community and tries to exert control over a product that is, in reality, an event that appears to be essentially outside the realm of control because of the large number of possible variables (80,000 potential players who are persons, rather than collections of line commands, is a lot of variables).

because players experience TSO as a community of persons as opposed to a product, there appears to be an assumption of the part of the players that ordinary human rights experienced in RL will be extended to sims, such as the right to freely express themselves, the right to freely assemble, etc. EA, on the other hand, experiences TSO as a product. products & product parts do not ordinarily have human rights extended to them by mgmt.

i say this because i think this is where EA appears to have made an error: the TSO product invoked the element of human relationship, but apparently EA either discounted the power of human connectivity or didn’t do its homework in the human factors area. that people would scream when EA stomped on human rights to free expression and free assembly could have been predicted.

that speaks to a larger failure re handling of TSO by EA.