Home for the Holidays
by prokofy on 27/12/06 at 12:14 am
By Dyerbrook, Dept. of Family Holiday Fun
Yes, home is the place, where…when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Tired of lag, grey squares, missing textures, bots, bits, and bobs? There’s always The Sims Online, home for many of us who write, read, and comment on the Herald.
TSO is where the Herald got its start as the “Alphaville Herald” in fact. It’s a game many long left behind, but in fact, they occasionally sneak back just for the sure joy of having something reliably work, petting that rare dog in inventory that took months of culling to find, and checking the map. Your TSO account probably still works — they keep them forever — and it’s a bargain because they never charge tier there.
SimArts is still on the map; also on the map are those roof artists of the type we find now in SL in places like Jinsil with their giant PLEASE FIX SL; on the TSO map we can now see a neighbourhood called: UPDATEthis GAMEnow! Seems to speak to a lack of erm…content.
Checked my inventory — neither my 3rd OR 4th anniversary presents were there yet despite complaints. But there’s snow on the ground, a fire crackling, the pooltable beckons invitingly with balls that don’t go offworld, and jamming now garners a whopping $3000 simoleons at the best establishments!
Elsewhere in the news…scary to find friends like Jingle I had ages ago *still there* with the balloons still green and “995 days” written on them…wow!
And sad to see Will Wright’s secret alt now missing from the list of sims….: (
“Modeling agency” seems to be the new euphemism for hot-tubbing and “typing suggestive words” which is how Jeff Brown used to describe it–a modeling “show” costs $30,000. Too bad they weren’t online.
The “offbeat” category is so underused since we all left that you can still find Chrestomanci’s Coffee Shop on the list, and SimGallery *still* set to look like that interesting first “mixed-reality mash-up of its time — the Timex Gallery in Westport — a wierd kind of frozen moment, that, eh? Takes a lickin’ and…stops tickin’.
So…if you’re homesick for pet-culling parties over faux mulled cider in the punch bowl; if the desire to have interactions like “give gift” and “jitterbug” and “hot kiss” come for free instead of for $250 a pop, let’s set a time to go to the Old Sim Place and see if we can’t scare some pizza bots or something…
This is Dyerbrook reporting from Alphaville at the Flamingo Court Motel. Challenge Everything!
urizenus
Dec 27th, 2006
Wow, I’m gonna go pay a visit too, maybe. It’s astounding that some of those neighborhoods are still intact. Looking at that map was a total nostalgia attack for me. Makes me want to go life weights and then go home and jam.
So now that the secret alt is retired I guess I can out him. I assume you are talking about Captain Dirk? One of the many secrets locked away in the Herald vault of secrets.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 27th, 2006
No, that was only one of his alts — that alt wasn’t so secret, Uri, geez. And he was taken out long ago and replaced I think with Spiel Koenig was it? Who was also replaced. Nope, I’m not talking, he might want to renew the account.
Walker Spaight
Dec 27th, 2006
Very cool. Always excellent when we get reports from the greater metaversapolitan area. Thanks, Prok.
spong mc dong
Dec 27th, 2006
Prokofy. Quit computer games. You still dont get them.
Seriously.
urizenus
Dec 27th, 2006
Quit reading the Herald, Spong. You obviously don’t get *it*. Seriously.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 27th, 2006
>the greater metaversapolitan area
Hi, Walker! heheh love that term…I think that’s where Brooklyn is, right? hehe
Charlton Cline
Dec 28th, 2006
Aye, memories. After the debacle of the last update and the ongoing problems I gave all of the officers of my SL group (Sea Mist Association) a free activated membership back to TSO just so we could have a good time without the lag, disconnects, inventory issues, ect.
Even if TSO hasn’t been updated in over a year it was still such a nostalgic blast returning to it after two years, that our group pretty much sold all of its land tier holdings (some to Prok) and moved back to TSO full-time til SL stabilizes. That and we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop about LL’s plans for a mainland tier increase come February.
TSO isn’t SL, but in times like these, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Good article.
Urizenus
Dec 28th, 2006
Yeah I went back there yesterday and whiled away an afternoon at a tso strip club. It is like mainlining nostalgia, since they haven’t changed one thing. Not the objects, the textures, the animations, nor the music. It’s like a perpetual time capsule, right down to the Rose Thorn Gardens Gorean neighborhood and the Witches Circle. I’m just sorry that the Alphaville Herald Headquarters (better known as The Church of Mephistopheles) poofed about a year ago.