ok nun hab ich mal eins gefunden.
es geht über 3 wochen und ist ganz interessant leider alles auf englisch.
da ich nicht wußte ob ich den link posten darf hab ich es per copy past reingestellt.
aber trotzdem waren da ganz lustige und auch interessante sachen drinn die auch einige fragen vielleicht beantworten.
ist aber ein extrem langer text, also viel zeit mitbringen.
September 30 2:33 pm (Central Time)
Day 1
Okay, so I booted up my system and I popped Play Disk #1 in to my cd rom drive. The auto run kicks in and the typical The Sims install screen pops up. In a few minutes I am going to be playing the best online game ever made. I agree to the license agreement, I have all of the system requirements including 1566 MB of hard drive space. The screens following this are a quick tutorial of how to play the game. It took around 11 minutes to install on my system. To put it in perspective of how it will work on your system let me give you the specs of my system: (by no means state of the art)
Windows ME
PIII 850
256 MB Ram
40 GB HDD
32 MB NVidia Gforce 256 graphics card
32xRead/8x CD/RW
56k Modem.
After installing the program from cd to hard disk a patch is
Required. The first patch was about 3.03 MB and took around 4 minutes to download with a 56k(really 49.3k) connection. That was kind of painless. After applying the first patch a second patch was required. An 11 MB patch. OUCH! Okay, maybe it was time for some lunch.
3:23 pm
Lunch was good. Tomato soup, salad and salami on rye. The patch was finished downloading and needed to apply itself. It looked like it was going to take a while. 18 minutes later it was finished and I was logging on. I could hardly contain myself. But wait... it wasn't connecting to the server. I went on the Play Test web site and found out the Play Test hours are from 2pm-9pm PDT. I was about to scream. I waited a freekin' hour and a half to install the thing only to find out that the hours are from 2-9. Okay, it's only 10 minutes or so. Take a breath.
4:03 pm
Finally I was able to log in. I go to the Create Your Character screen. It looks like you can create 3 characters but they have to be in different cities. In other words, you CANNOT own 2 properties in the same city. Right now there are only 2 cities: Alphaville and LTE Town. I tried creating a character in LTE Town because there were 327 people online playing, but it wouldn't let me. Okay, so Alphaville it is. There were 87 people online in there. I was able to create my female character, Aegon Spengler. Character creation is pretty much the same way you create one in The Sims. You select clothing, head, sex, and skin tone. It was really easy. I got a choice of where I wanted to put my lot. I want to be kind of where the action is, but not that active. I picked a corner lot on the mainland in a valley between the beach and mountains. In the beta, you start out with $4000. A lot cost $2000. So that means you have $2000 to decorate or do what ever you want with. After choosing my location, I had to name it. I named it Aegon's Smashing Crib.
I decided to start small. A small painted and carpeted house with a fridge, toilet, shower, and easel, and blow up couch left me with $120. Money goes fast in this game. In the middle of my decorating, I had a visitor by a guy named Noel. He was very polite, and asked me if I was just starting. He said good luck and said that he would see me around. I guess my house was boring to him. Time to try and increase funds. I was able to paint a picture which also increased my creativity skill. After finishing the painting, I was able to sell it for $1. Okay, time to look for another job outside the home.
Look out world here I come. I went to the World View and looked for the places that made the most money. Someone had to offer me a job. Pizza Ria's was number 1. I picked up the phone and I was on my way to success.
Pizza Ria's was bustling with people. Okay, there were 13 people in there. There was a pizza making table and a bunch of bookshelves and table that had radio transceiver and map on it. I thought if anyone were going to hire me, I would have to get some skills. I read a sign on the wall that said make your self at home, so I guess it was ok to use their books. On a table in the corner there was a tipping jar. I put $1in the jar. I figured they are being nice and letting me use their stuff. I began improving my cooking skills. It only took about 5 minutes to get one skill point. The cool thing about it is you can talk to people while you are doing things. As I was studying, I was talking to some guy WWJ who was in the same situation I was in. Hungry and destitute. Someone made lunch and invited everyone to have some. How nice. I just can't get over how nice everyone is. Maybe it's because we are all pretty much new, the oldest player I saw was 5 days old, but I never played a Strategy/RPG game where people actually want to help you out instead of trying kill or rob you.
I decided that since I had 1 skill point in cooking, I would try to make a pizza. You need 4 people to make a pizza, Two people with cooking skill, one person with charisma, and another with body skill. Three other people quickly joined me. YoJimbo, Monique, and WWJ. To make a pizza is hard work. You have to have the right size and amount of ingredients or else you get something that looks like the used coals in the bottom of your barbeque. To make a perfect pizza, each person contributes an ingredient. You randomly receive a small, medium or large dough, sauce, topping, or cheese. A perfect pizza consists of the same sized dough, sauce topping and cheese. So you really have to communicate with the other players to let them know what you have.
We were successful in making 3 medium pizzas (after many failures) and we each earned $45 for each pizza. It is really addictive. You want to play more and more so you can make more money. I was there for a while until someone told me to rest because I was tired. I borrowed the bed at Pizza Ria's house and quickly regenerated. I took a quick shower and went potty. I placed $5 in the tip jar for using the facilities. Okay back to making pizza. After a few more tries, I made some large pizza and had made a total of $400. Cool, I thought. I can now buy a bed to sleep in for my house. I left Pizza Ria's and went back to my house.
6:30 pm
I was looking through the catalog of things to buy with my money and I got another visitor. It was Monique from the pizza parlor. She said she liked my place and was looking for a roommate. I asked her where she lived and she said at My Humble Abode right down the street. She asked me to be her friend. I accepted and told her that I'd meet her at her house. I pushed Neighborhood View and tried to find her house. Then something wrong happened. The program crashed. My first error. YIKES!! "BUDDY HAS CAUSED AN ERROR". I closed the error box and tried to get back in the game but my system locked. No systray and no mouse movement... I had to cold boot. I was worried that Monique thought that I dissed her.
7:03 pm
I was able to log back on with out a hitch. I found Monique and messaged her through the MOMI. I told her what happened and was able to find her house. Monique was on for five days. When she started they were giving people $15000. Her house was nicely decorated and furnished. She asked me if I wanted to move in. I said sure. She also asked if Red Raven could move in. 3 hours in to the game, I had 2 friends and a nice place to live. All (5)of my belongings came with me along with $2000 for the lot. I wasn't reimbursed for the building materials (walls, paint, carpet..) but I was happy that I now had $2600 in my pocket and a pretty decent place to stay. She asked me to build an upstairs room and elevator. I did and was able to put a bed in. I sold my fridge, since Monique already had one. I put in a preserve and canning station to make money and improve my cooking skills and I still had $900 left over. Getting two roommates really improve your financial status a long with your popularity status. We soon had 7 people in our house. Dancing to the radio, eating our food and using our bathroom. We also had a guy named Spam Burglar who mooched off of us for most of the evening. He seemed like a nice guy, but I don't want a guy who is dressed like a burglar as a roommate. Monique said she had to go and Red Raven and I stuck around for a while. I created a garden area and was able to make $50 more canning jam. 11pm came too fast and I was booted off ending my game-playing day.
Game Issues I found So far
The game still needs a lot of work. Screen scrolling is really slooow. Every now and then people and objects become pixilated. Not all of the items from the game or expansion pack are in place yet. When you exit the game, you pretty much have to do a cold boot. I needed to do this about 3 times. I also found that the more expensive the bed you buy, the more time it takes to reenergize. I was able to get my energy back faster by sleeping on a $50 blowup couch than I was in an $800 bed. Uneaten food rots in about an hour.
Oh and it is really addictive. I mean really addictive. I could have played for about another 8 hours and wouldn't have noticed it. This game is going to rock when it is finished.
Day 2
I was able to log on at 3:45 today. I went to my home first to make sure my roommates did make a run with some of the goods that we bought. There seems to be a security breach in the house. If you buy a piece of furniture, anyone of your roommates can sell it back. I don't know if it is supposed to be that way or if they are going to fix it. But I accidentally sold back one of Monique’s lamps for much less than what it was worth and I had to buy it back for so it didn't look like I stole it.
Red Raven was there dancing with some guy. I felt like a third wheel. I made myself something to eat and took a shower and went out. My social was in the red. I also wanted to get out of the house. I went to the M.O.M.I. and searched for the most popular places.
First up: The Six AM club. This place was huge and gorgeous. The kitchen was about the size of our entire house. It took me forever to scroll through the whole place. I pleaded for a hug. I needed one badly. Some guy in a kilt came over and hugged me and asked me to join him in the hot tub. Since I only had a shower at my house a nice hot bath sounded swell. I should have asked him where it was because it took me 5 minutes to find the hot tub. We talked a bit and then he made him and his roommate some lunch. I already ate, so I didn't have any. There were only 3 of us in the house, but I had no idea where anyone else was. The centering option when you double click on a sim doesn't seem to work in TSO. I told them their house was huge and I could get lost in there. They said it really gets kind of cramped once a bunch of people show up. I thanked them for the bath and left. My social stats were in the red. I needed to find some good people and fast.
The Science Station had 2 people there. I arrived there and waited for an answer. Some one said "Come on in, I am about to make lunch." I told them I really need a hug. Just then a big hairy white polar bear came in. His name was Mr. Friendly Bear and I asked him for a bear hug. He gave me several. I was feeling a lot better. My social was now in the green. A bunch more people came in. The game performance became really slow. I couldn't scroll or anything. I tried walking towards the phone to get out of the house, but then my system crashed. "TSO Client error has occurred. Kernal32.dll. TSO Client will now close."
Well, that was it for my beta testing today. I had to go to work.
Today's Game issues
Screen Scrolling is horrible. I know my system isn't the fastest out there, but I feel like I am playing The Sims original on a 486.
The game performance gets really bad with more people in a house. I am not just talking poor. I am talking unplayable.
Still crashes on exit and sometimes if more than 6 people are in a house.
I think if you double click on a sim's icon in your people box, it should automatically center on them, much like the original Sims.
Day 3
12:35 pm.
I was surprised that I was able to log in and play 4 hours earlier than the play test hours. I once again went to my house first. It looks like I acquired 2 new roommates and My Humble Abode looks like it was upgraded to a night club with a dance floor, dance cage and juke box. It looks like they fixed the bug where you can sell your roommates furniture because I wanted to get rid of small radio and it didn't let me. The server crashed several times and Red Raven was mad because she said she lost about 3 hours of skill point gaining. As the sever went down, I was able to stay connected to get screen shots of some objects that allows you to earn skill points and make money. Click here to view items . There are many more items, but most of them are in The Sims or it’s expansion packs. I will try to get more new items tomorrow.
I also captured the city view and neighborhood view screens. I converted them into gif files so they lost some color and they might be kind of dark. I’ll try to improve them later.
Today's Game issues:
I found a faster way to scroll through screens. If you use the keyboard arrow keys, it moves a lot faster.
I now can predict when the server is gong to crash. Game performance gets really bad. One of the times I got stuck in a doorway and no one could get in and out of the house I was in at the time.
The message board for the play test site is incredibly slow to access. I would like to read or post some messages, but I can never seem to.
Day 4
1:30 pm.
Two patches were downloaded and applied today. One was 601kb and the other was 1.9MB. (Apparently there is another one that is 12MB also, but I am at work now.)
The new patch added a new feature. As soon as I walked in My Humble Abode a visitor bonus screen popped up saying that I made $476 Simoleans for the amount of visitors that came to my house. I checked the tip jar and there was $1056 in there. There must have been some party last night. I also acquired another roommate, Stony who is the web admin at www.thesimsworld.com. It’s a small world, even in The Sims.
Another thing I noticed the patch fixed was that the lights go on automatically when it’s dark outside. I tried looking for some exciting new items, but I couldn’t find any. I did get a screen shot description of how to used the Core Business Unit, which is another 4-person device to make money. My Sim’s energy was feeling low, so I went upstairs to take a nap.
As I was upstairs sleeping, I decided that we needed to redecorate. Or place was getting too small for 5 people to live in. I knocked down 2 walls in the kitchen and tried to expand it, but I got the ‘location out of bounds’ error. Okay, so maybe I just had to buy some more land around my house. I clicked on property and tried to expand the lot sized, but the button to do this was grayed out. I guess only property owners can expand the lot size. So I made the kitchen a little bigger and put the new dishwasher in.
After a nap and a bite to eat, I left the house. No one was in my house at the time but when I got the most popular places, it was saying there were 3 people in my house. I went to MAKE MONEY NOW. No, really that was the name of the house. It was huge and it said it only had 1 person in it, but there were really 6 or 7. A few new people were in there looking for a place to live. Since they dropped the amount of cash you get at startup from $15000 to $4000, there are a bunch of loiters, beggars and moochers running around. I can understand that they wanted to encourage socialization, but it seems like if you want to start your own business, house, or whatever, you are out of luck because $4000 doesn’t get you very far.
Well, after telling 3 people that I already have 4 roommates they left me alone.
I really didn’t get any thing productive done in the game today. I tried going to Pizza Ria’s again, but the place was once again thriving with people making pizza. I couldn’t make any money there, so I just went back to My Humble Abode and started canning apples.
Today’s Game Issues:
The patch still didn’t fix the kernal32.dll error up exiting.
There seems to be a rash of loiters that just come to your property and stand there without doing anything. There also seems to be a plaque of people begging to become your roommate because they ran out of cash or don’t think $4000 is enough to do anything with.
The people counter that tells you how many people are in the house is not accurate.
I have found that if your right click on a Sim’s picture, they become centered instead of double clicking. It makes finding people in a house a bit easier.
Day 5
Okay. I had such a hard time staying connected today. It seems like every 15 minutes I was booted off.
I thought it was since I had a dial-up connection and didn’t have call waiting turned off. I added the *70 to my phone number and I still had got booted off. The thing is, every time I got booted, I would have to reboot my system. Today was really unproductive. I really wanted to explore some more, but couldn’t really get off of my lot.
The only thing I could do today was buy a hat rack. Hat racks are cool. You can put on a scuba mask, a cheese hat, a sombrero, a cowboy hat and many others. Hats only stay on your head as long as you stay on the property, don’t take a shower or go to sleep.
Today’s Game Issues:
Connection longer than 15 minutes, is it possible?
Another faster way of scrolling is to right click on the screen and drag your mouse.
Day 6
OMFG!!!! And that’s putting it lightly. Last night probably was one of the worst technical experiences I had in about 2 years. I almost reformatted my hard drive and started from scratch.
3 am I got home from work. I noticed that the play test server was up, or so it seemed like it was up. I tried connecting and I got stuck at the Sims Online Version splash screen. Then my computer would freeze. I would have to cold boot my machine. Doing this, scandisk kicked in and said I had some lost files and I had to delete them. I must have done this about five times. I then noticed a reinstall option on The Sims Online startup screen. I pushed the button and began reinstalling. The reinstall kicked in and I got up to about 49 percent done and my system would lock up. So… I had to reboot again.
I double clicked on the CD to restart the installation; my CD ROM drive would just spin and spin. So I took the CD out thinking it was dirty. There was this icky gluey substance on it. I guess the drive over heated and made the glue that the label was stuck on with melt. So I cleaned the disk and tried again. The CD just buzzed and buzzed and just kept spinning. I couldn’t get the drive to stop. I had to use a paper clip to get the CD out. I tried another CD. Same problem. I think my CD ROM drive is dead. Okay, no big deal, I have plenty of spare computer parts. I grabbed an older 24x CDROM and stuck it in my computer. Tried the install again, it worked.
6 am Installation completed. I now tried to log on. It had to download the patches again. I would think that it would have saved the patches when clicking the reinstall button, but I was wrong. I started the download and decided to take a nap.
7:30 am I was awakened by the blaring Sims Online startup music coming from my computer. I was finally able to log in. I played for about 2 hours. I was half asleep while playing. In the process of playing, I stopped being Monique’s roommate, I gave my new roommate $800 and I am now destitute again. I don’t regret these things, but I still don’t know why I gave my new roommate $800.
I guess this can be a warning to people who think they will want to play without adequate amounts of sleep.
At around 9:30 I was thrown out of the game again. I try to login. When you log in, you get your character screen that has a picture of the city and your house. If it has these things are in color; that means your server is up. If they are grayed out, that means the server is down. They were in color. So I clicked on my house and I got to the Sims Online Version splash screen, then my system locked up again.
Now, with only 1 hour of sleep for the past 24 hours, I felt like chucking my computer out of my second floor window into my next-door neighbor’s pool. But I decide to restart my computer and run a defrag and a thorough scandisk and go to sleep.
5:34 pm I check on the TSO Test site message boards to see if it was just me who was having such a horrible day. I read that the server was down if though it looks like it is up. They are working on a fix. I am glad I checked the messages boards; I was about to reformat my hard drive.
Today’s Issues:
Please read above.
Day 7
2am
I finally got to log back on. I figured that I will only stay on for two hours. I checked my Sims message mail box and I got a letter from Monique wondering what happened to me being a roommate. I told her my story and she said she was happy to make me a roommate again the next time she was on.
I looked at my character and the social was way down in the red. I decided to go out and meet some people. Patty's Place looked to be the most popular at the time so I went there.
The minute I walked in the house my social bar began to rise. If you just walk in a room were people are, your social bar goes up. You don't have to talk, dance or do anything. Just being in the presence of others makes happy. Patty's Place was jamming with music. There were 7 guitars and most of them were being played. I took a seat, to listen to the music that was being played. Then some one asked me to play. I joined in. Now if you noticed in the picture, the creativity skill speed increase is 83 percent. This is not just because I was playing the guitar. This is because seven of us were playing at once. If someone stopped playing the skill speed would drop down to 63. If you play by yourself, the skill speed is 23 percent. Does this happen with all objects? The guitar was the only item I have found so far that if you use with a group, the faster your skill will increase.
I was jamming for a while. My creativity quickly went up to 5.23. Then about 5 or six people in the room decided to build a house together. I was getting kind of hungry, so I went back to my home Casa De Fun. Casa De Fun was everything but fun. I made some money telemarketing, but I was really bored. So were most of the visitors. They pretty much came in to use the bathroom and left. Without funds, I wasn't able to buy much fun stuff. Just one of those rinky dink black and white TV sets.
I decided to leave the house and went to Candies Corner on some remote island west of the mainland. I needed an island getaway.
Candies house was probably the saddest house I have have ever been in. Her story was even sadder. Apparently, she accidentally deleted her character which was 5 days old and had a lot of money. That wasn't the sad part, the sad part was that she couldn't leave. When she clicked on world view, her house was the only one in Alphaville. She was stuck in The Twilight Zone of The Sims Online. Her house looked like it was from The Twilight Zone too. I asked her if there were any walls or floors because if there were I couldn't see them. She said that she somehow lost her money and was now broke too. She started typing away at the keys of her typewriter.
I asked her if she logged off and rebooted her machine yet. She said she would try... Five minutes later low and behold when she came back in, she could go to other places. Ahh, the power of rebooting.
There was another guy there, who she just made her roommate. I recognized him from the jam session at Patty's Place. Apparently Candie Girl was there too... well her older character was. Soon, I asked her to become her roommate too. She agreed. Yes I know, I feel like a roommate slut. This was the 3rd time in one week that I switched roommates. But Candie Girl had dreams of being successful, and I wanted the same things she wanted.
So I moved my stuff in and I began decorating. I only had about $1000 from selling my fridge, chair and some other stuff, so I wasn't able to decorate much and found myself pounding on my own typewriter next to Candie to make money. Unfortunately the same effect with the guitars doesn't happen with typewriters. Typewriters are a comfortable way of making cash because you are sitting down. The only other sitting down job I found, was the telemarketer machine. At a 4.3 (my skills dropped it's a known bug) I am able to make $10 per story I write. It takes about one minute of typing to finish a story. Soon I was able to make enough to buy some walls and floors. But was quickly out of cash again.
A few people came in to our house. Some of them were new. I sent a message to Candie Girl to work her charm into having them become our roommates because we needed the cash. We weren't very successful.
Soon, we got a nibble. Some girl was new and used up all of her funds and was poor and hungry.... yeah, the same old story heard over and over again. She said she would delete her older character and create a new one and move in with us. That way she would be able to keep her $4000 to build and furnish stuff. This practice is done a lot. I think it would have been better if she sold her stuff back and then gave us the money then deleted her character. But it was getting late it was 6 am.
6am!!!! Yikes!!! I was only going to stay on for 2 hours. Okay time for bed. It was getting late.. well early.
Today’s Issues:
No undo button. You know in The Sims how when you are building a house and you accidentally put a wall where you didn't want one. You can press that undo button and it refunds your money and deletes you wall. That function doesn't exist in TSO... yet I hope.
October 8 (Central Time)
Day 8 12:03pm
Candy's Story
I log back in to my new home, Candy's Creative Corner. Candy Girl was in there, or at least it looked like she was there. Her Sim kept on begging for needs. She was standing in a puddle of her own urine and passing out every 5 seconds. Something happened... Matt, another roommate became the owner of the house. I felt bad for Candy; I walked around her body and into the house. I thought I could IM her, but she wasn’t on line. Matt got 5 new roommates. There were a total of 8. The house was looking pretty good. A lot of things to get creative with and ways to make money. I tried to sit down at a typewriter and write a story, but my Sim looked like it got a bad case of sunburn and I just began to float in mid-air. I couldn't move. I was stuck, floating... Everyone else said I looked goofy. I decided to log out and restart. When I came back in, my character was hungry. So were a lot of other people in the house. So I decided to make some food. I began cooking to what looked like an exceptional meal, and I was about to serve it. I put a plate down and still carried one in my hand. I couldn't sit and eat with it. I would just sit and carry it. I tried pointing to a counter and clicked on it a "serve" button appeared. I served the platter once more, only to carry a duplicate. Okay... maybe typing will get rid of it. So I went over to try and write another story and I was able to, but I was typing with one hand an in my other hand was the plate of food. I was literally, laughing out loud. Okay, maybe if I washed my hands, the plate would go away. I went to the sink and my plate finally disappeared out of my hands, but I had a sink that was full of bubbles and I couldn't use again. The sink was broke.
By now my Sim was starving. The hunger bar was in the red. I needed food like a player on Survivor. I tried to make some more, when I clicked on the fridge, a message came up object already in use. I decided to leave and find food at someone else’s house. I traveled to The Witches of Simsville and got myself a hot meal.
When I came back to Candy's Creative Corner Candy Girl was still dying on the front lawn. There was one of my roommates stuck on a wall and there was a new pool that the house leader made. I decided to dive in and take a swim. My Sim needed fun. I clicked on the diving board to jump in and my Sim landed on the pool. I was able to walk on water. I felt rather holy. Then, as I tried to get out of the pool, my character started swimming on the sand. Finally, after reaching the edge of the screen, I was able to walk on the sand again. I went to the typewriter once more and began typing away. After around 5 seconds, I began floating again. I decided just to float for a while. One of our roommates found a bug with selling back her bed. It gave her twice as much money as she bought it for. She took her money and bought some pretty expensive stuff that I tried to use, but I couldn't get out of the floating position. This was a very buggy night. I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to quit for the evening.
Today’s Issues
I tried using a lot of items... the chemistry set, the diving board, the sink, and the fridge. All of them said items are in use but no one was using them.
If the main character dies or restarts, the first person to be made a roommate gets the house. There has been a rash of Sims "dying" in houses. It looks like their Sim is still logged on when the user isn't logged in. >
Day 9
Well, we got a new patch today. It was a 9 MB file and took about 40 minutes to download at 56k dialup.
When I logged in and went to Candy's Creative Corner, I was almost dead...or dying. I kept falling to the ground like Candy was yesterday. I could barely walk to the couch with out passing out. I was glad that one of my roommates was in the house to fix me some food and placed it on the floor next to me. When I came around after sleeping on the floor for 2 minutes, I was able to take the plate and eat. It was a good meal. I then took a shower, and went to the potty. I was happy I didn't die off completely. I noticed all of the expensive stuff that my roommate had bought yesterday disappeared. I decided to try all of the stuff that was "broken" yesterday. They were all fixed.
After I got my health backup, I decided to try and make some more money by writing some more stories. When I did this, my skill points dropped instead of increased. I was at 4.15 for skills yesterday, but I am now at 3.18 and falling when I would type or practice the guitar. There was a guy named Nathan B who came into our house and started following Candy's footsteps. He was lying in a puddle of his own urine while passing out every 5 minutes. I felt bad for him. Poor guy... dying ever 5 minutes or so.
I tried kicking him off my property. I was successful in doing so. The only thing that was left of Nathan B was a puddle of urine, which I cleaned up. YUCK!!
About 10 minutes later Nathan B was back again. I checked to see if his user was online, but he wasn't. It looks like the bug where your Sim stays on even when you disconnect is still there. That is probably why I was near death when I came back in the game today. I don't think my Sim logged off yesterday.
Today’s Issues:
The patch still didn't fix the kernal.dll bug. I am afraid that when I go back into the game tomorrow, I will be near death again.
Day 10
Today was totally unproductive. When I dialed in there was two patches to download. One was 651 kb and the other was 6.81MB. That wasn’t what made it unproductive. After the game patched I was unable to connect to the Alphaville server. Apparently everyone else was having this problem too. I checked the official TSO Play test message boards to confirm it.
When I was able to login I only had 15 minutes to play since I had to go to work. I made the most amount of Simoleans ever for people being in my house yesterday. $2000. My jaw nearly dropped. Candy’s Creative Corner isn’t on any of the most popular lists. I can’t imagine how much the popular places are making. I logged into my house and I was happy to find out that I wasn’t near death like I was yesterday. There was a new object bought by one of my roommates that I had never seen before. It looked like a huge bong. It was actually multi-user bubble blower. I blew some bubbles for a while. Then I had to go.
Today’s Issues:
Many others and I weren’t able to connect for a few hours. There wasn’t an official announcement from any one on the message boards or in the news.
Day 11
4am
I found out yesterday at work that they were doing a server wipe today. All of our objects and items were erased. We got to keep our roommates friends and our land plus they gave each player $6000 to start up with.
Last night before the server wipe, I decided to log on one more time to look at my house. I had a visitor come in. She said she saw the web site and was impressed by it. She also said that it was sad about the wipe. I had one last jam session on my guitar before I would go to someone else’s house to look for some friends. I only had four friends. In order for me to make more friends, I had to have someone else declare me as their friend. There weren’t too many people logged on. I guess everyone was anticipating the Armageddon so they didn’t feel it was worth playing
I went to Krista’s Place. It looked pretty popular. Krista’s house had someone standing in the front yard with the “Candy Girl Syndrome”. Her Sim was on line, but her user wasn’t. I told Krista to kick her out because it was depressing seeing her pee herself. Krista eventually kicked her out. She thanked me for the suggestion. I cleaned up the girl’s puddle of urine she left on the front lawn.
Well time to make a new friend. There were about 10 people there. I noticed right away a girl with a Mohawk and a nice looking stud in the corner wearing a cowboy hat. I decided to go over to the guy, he was very spiffy looking and he was wearing a cowboy hat. His name was Ramon Palanca. I asked him to hustle and swing. After he accepted those dances he asked me to slow dance. Everyone in the room was talking about their new plans for the New Tomorrow. The room was filling with ideas of how to build a good house and what items help you build your skills faster. Someone mentioned the Pentium 4 computer. They said if you more than one computer being used in the room, it would increase your skill faster, like the guitars. All of this talk was fine and dandy, but I still wasn’t making any friends. I told everyone I was leaving. I went over to Ramon and gave him a kiss goodbye. I said it was nice meeting him. He then asked me to be his friend. I accepted and I made him my friend. I really liked Roman. He really seemed like a nice guy. I am sure I will meet him again. I logged off and went to bed, knowing that everything I built in the game last week wasn’t going to exist tomorrow.
2pm
I tried logging on. There was a new patch that I downloaded. It was 2.4MB. I had a little bit of a connection issue. I was in a continuous loop at the version screen. It kept asking me for my password. I guess the server wasn’t officially up yet.
I couldn’t wait to get started. I thought it was so cool that we got more money to spend, and now I know what to buy and how to make money. I was so excited.
When I got in the game Dyane and another one of my 7 roommates had already built a house and furnished it. I just had to add a few more items and paint the walls and enclose the upstairs.
Our house was a mob scene. We finally made it to one of the Most Popular Places. It was hard to walk anywhere, so I did some remodeling. I put the bathroom upstairs and moved the kitchen around a bit. So we had a little more breathing room. Then I noticed that there weren’t enough things to do in the house. People were fighting over objects. So I put down a computer, two more easels (there are 2 others), and a canning station. I was running out of money. The last object I could afford was a hat rack. Everyone likes the hat rack. I was out of money. The only thing I could do now was sit back and watch. I sent an instant message to Dyane “I wonder how much money we are making.” She IMed me back “Seriously!!”
I told her I had to go to work and she promised to stay on for a while longer.
Today’s issues
Invisible objects seem to be in our house making it hard to walk or sit down. I think this is because we deleted some walls and the game thinks they were still there.
Food items are still a bit buggy. I had a plate of food that was trying to serve. I wound up placing it on a chair. Then no one could sit on the chair or eat the food. I wasn’t able to clean it up until flies circled around it. I wound up washing the plate in the chair. It had bubbles and everything.
Day 12
4am
Today I am going to talk about the social aspects of TSO. If you read any of the old news articles in the Sims Online Gazette, you will see mention about the Habbo Hotel. The Habbo Hotel is an online chat room for teens where you can get your own hotel room and decorate it any way you like. It is much like TSO, but it is a program written for Macromedia, the graphics aren’t that great. Also, the place is filled with horny teenagers wanting to hook up with you and be your boyfriend/girlfriend. I don’t think that all teenagers are horny, but trying to find someone to have an intelligent conversation with in there is pretty hard.
In TSO, I have met so many people and actually talk to them on a regular basis. When I see them online, I send them a message or the send me one. People are very nice and helpful. The conversations are almost always pretty intelligent. There are a lot of younger players as well as old, but we all mix together and cannot tell who is who. I have talked to a few people who I could have sworn were adults, only to find out that they were under 18. I guess people who play The Sims are just smart or something.
Well, when I logged on this morning I found my house redecorated. Matt was on and expanded the land and there was a lot more stuff on the lot. As soon as I got in my house Ramon instant messaged me. It was if he was waiting form me to log in. I was kind of flattered. I asked him where he was and he said he was at his house and I told him I’d be right over. Ramon lives at Roommate Finder. He owns the house by himself and just started decorating it. There wasn’t any furniture, but it didn’t matter, we were just chatting away. We were really hitting it off. Then…and then… the server kicked me out.
AHHHH! I had to restart my system. I couldn’t get back in for ten minutes. I tried getting into my house I kept getting this AVATAR is already in this house error message. I guess my body was there. When I finally got in again, I instant messaged Roman and said I was going to grab a bite to eat at my house… but wait. My house looked completely different. All of Matt’s improvements from earlier were gone. We had a small lot again and it looked exactly like it did yesterday when I logged off. Boy, is Matt going to be pissed.
I went to the fridge and rustled up a meal, but I got An Error 32. Lost connection to server. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get back in to the game. I decided to give it up for the night.
3pm
I had some trouble logging. When trying to enter my house, it got up to 66 percent connection then would loop me back to my character screen. When I finally did get in, Dyane was there and asked me if I wanted to be her roommate with Matt when the real game started. I told her I would love to. I figured when the game comes out, we would have three characters to play with. This one is defiantly going to be my main character, but I think I will build my own house with one of my other Sim and be a totally different person with my last Sim.
I have been trying to get back into Monique’s house as a roommate for the past week, but I really became fond of my new home. Monique was my first official friend on TSO; I wanted to keep her as a friend. I emailed Monique telling her I no longer wanted to be here roommate but I would still frequent her house.
I got 2000 visitor bonus again today. I decided instead of buying more items to make money, I would buy some things just to test out what they do. The first thing I bought was a wicket ball kit.
I put them down in the lawn. I picked a green ball and put it on the grass. Then I selected the ball and hit it. It rolled across the lawn. Okay, so what’s the point? I go back into the buy screen and there is a wicket ball target. Oh, you are supposed to hit the wicket ball into the wicket ball target.
I put the target into the middle of the sand in the backyard. I tried tried hitting the ball into the target but I kept hitting it the wrong way. Finally, I walked up and put my ball into the target, expecting lights to flash or something. Nothing. Okay, so the wicket ball thing works, but it’s hard as heck to aim.
Dyane said she had to go and asked me if I would stay on for a while. We had about 12 people in our house. I told her that I’d love to stay, but I could only stay for a half hour more. She told me she would be back soon.
I went inside and made some food for everyone. It looked like there was a line for the bathroom so I put another toilet down. I think the next time I log in; I should have enough to buy a hot tub. That way people would stop fighting over the shower.
A half hour went by fast and I had to go to work, but Dyane was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want to kick anyone out but I had to go. Boy, what a social dilemma. I was just about to IM Dyane but then, by the power of the server gods, the server crashed. Hurray! I didn’t have to be rude and kick else off. The first time I was happy that the server crashed.
I went to check the status of the Alphaville server and it was officially down.
Off to work.
Today’s Issues:
There are a lot of games in TSO. Chess, cards, wicket ball…. I think it would be cool to actually be able to play the games instead of watching your Sim play.
Day 13
Roommate Politics
When I logged on tonight I got an instant message from Dyane that said one of our other roommates, Fawne was a freekin’ idiot. She wanted to kick her out. I asked her why and she said it was because she thinks other roommates are stealing her stuff. She said she tried explaining it to Fawne over and over again that it was a bug, but she didn’t believe her. She also said that she didn’t want anyone in here that are too stupid to read the message boards and find out what the bugs are. So she asked me if I minded if we kicked out Fawne. I said I didn’t care, but if she wanted to confuse Fawne more, then she should say that I was the one who stole her stuff. She laughed.
I really don’t care what goes on in the house. I am pretty much easy going. I never met Fawne before, so ousting her was no skin off my back. I was worried that if I did something wrong that they would kick me out too. I told Dyane if she ever had a problem with me to let me know, because I really liked living there. With a confirmation from Matt Simson, the house leader, Fawne was officially kicked out of the house.
I checked to see if anyone of my friends were online and I found that Ramon was online, too. I figured I’d try to surprise him and go to where he was and accidentally bump into him. He wasn’t in his home, so I tried doing a search on his name. I wasn’t successful in finding him. Okay, major dilemma here. I didn’t want look too interested in him but I still wanted to hang out with him. I instant message Dyane for advice. She thought it was the funniest thing. I guess it was kind of funny. Here I am in a virtual world and I am behaving like I have a schoolgirl crush on someone. But she told me just to instant message and ask him where he was. I agreed.
The message was sent. He was at ‘some UFO house’ playing the maze game. I invited him over and he said he would love to come over as soon as he is done playing the maze game. I am not going to try and explain the maze game to you because it took two times for someone to explain to me how to play before I got it. But it basically takes a real long time to complete and you can get $200 plus if you do it right.
I continued with my quest to try to buy stuff and see how they work. I bought a game piece set. When I test it out, you have to grab chess, or checker game pieces and place them on the lawn so you can have a huge virtual lawn chess or checkers. game going. This can take some time. You have to go and take each individual piece out of the box. So that’s 32 chess pieces and 24 checker pieces total. It took Matt, Dyane and me about ½ hour to set 2 boards up. By the time we were done we were pretty exhausted.
It was 6:30 in the morning and ready for sleep.
Today’s Issues:
It would be nice to click on your friends and enemies to find out where they are in the game so you can avoid them or go and hang with them.
The Weekend
Well, apparently Fawne didn't get kicked out. I think that the person has to be still online in order to kick them out. I met 2 other of my roommates, but it appears that most of them don't come on at all. It would be nice to be able to get rid of them so we could recruit some people who would like to play.
The hottest commodity in the game right now is the maze game. Everyone who comes to our house wants to play. Dyane emailed me to save my money so we can buy one. We are currently $3000 short of one. Dyane owns about ten typewriters. She could sell a few of them and get about 300 a piece for them and we could by the game now. Am I bitter? No, I just gave her about 900 yesterday and I could have sworn she only owned about 5 typewriters then. We only seem to be getting a $1000 visitor bonus and no extra for the people using our stuff, so I don't seem the point in having so many freakin' type writers.
Maxis opened a second server for us called Blazing Falls to play on. It's a brand new world, but it is subject to data wipes and constant crashes. I have created my second character, Juniper Breeze on there. While I was playing around exploring things that a house owner can do, I accidentally expanded my land leaving me with only 3000 to do anything with. I figured before I boob anything else up, I should go and explore this Brave New World. I wanted to do everything right on this server. I wanted to master in only one skill so I can obtain the maximum payout for that item. I enjoy typing and the creativity skill, so I decided that it will be my main focus. I found a house that had a guitar and a piano and started building up my skill. Even though there were more people in Blazing Falls than Alphaville, the server seemed much more stable and there were less bugs. In about an half hour I had it up to 3.54 and decided to go back to Alphaville.
When I am back in Alphaville, I get an instant message from Ramon asking me to be his roommate in Blazing Falls. I agreed to meet him there. Ramon and I talked about house ownership the night before. We both seemed to have the same ideas in mind. We wanted separate buildings for each roommate so we can keep to our individual styles. That way we could have a whole diversity of objects and keep Sims interested. Eventually, I would like to own a place of my own.
Finding Ramon on Blazing Falls was kind of difficult. I had forgotten to ask him what his house was called. He just said it was on the coastline. When I entered there were about 20 or 30 houses fitting this description. I looked for the houses that were glowing and showing people online. Finally I came across Room Mate Finder.
Duh! I felt dumb. He had the same name and same house name in both cities. I went in the house and there was another one of his roommates there. I was sure he wouldn't recognize me. I looked totally different and had a different name. After a few minutes, he finally caught on that it was me he invited me to be his roommate.
I gave him most of my money so he could decorate and bought myself a guitar and typewriter.
I seriously doubt any of our stuff is going to stay around for long on this server. I am not taking things too seriously as far as objects and building is concerned. I am predicting a server wipe soon.
Today's Issues:
They really need to make people and places more easier to find in the game. The search tool isn't the best.
Day 15
I can't believe I am entering week 3 of the beta test. Maxis expect to release the product a month from now. I don't see how. The past week I have noticed very few improvements on game play. They seemed to have fixed the Sim staying logged in even though the user is not online problem. A lot of the objects are still buggy. For example, when I take a shower or go to the bathroom, my Sim remains pixilated after using these items. I have a whole slew of bugs that I have encountered. I have witnessed others having the same problems that I have had. I personally think that they are allowing beta testing for everyone who purchases the beta because to either pacify the Sim fans who have been waiting for a while or they are playing the real game on the their test servers and we are just getting some crappy code. I might be sounding paranoid… Well, our house finally has the maze game. I have played a few of times and I have won anywhere from $39 to $250. The amount of time one game lasts varies too. I have played a game that only took around 5 minutes, and then I have played another that took around 25. I am not so sure about how your logic or charisma skill affects the payout or the way the map is set up. Sometimes the exit is really close other times it is on the other side of the map. I have played with both experienced and novice players and it doesn’t seem to matter. I think it’s a good way of making money, but it seems like you really have to depend on another person to get it for you. I prefer typing. I am guaranteed $12 for each story I write and it only takes about a minute and ½ to write. I really like my roommates on the Alpahville server. Dyana and Lmritchmtg are pretty enjoyable. They are very easy to get along with and we have fun with the game. Dyana keeps me informed with what is going on in the house and I usually pass it on to Lmrich. Everyone is easy going and pretty much gets along. I like spending time in the house, but every now and then I like to go out and explore. Others feel the same way. When someone wants to leave and explore, we usually just have to ask someone to come back to the house. I believe this is why we are so successful and popular. Everyone in our house communicates very well.
Today's Issues
I haven't seen the head of house Matt in a few days. I haven't seen a 4 of our roommates ever. I don't even think they play anymore. I wish there was an expiration date. If someone hasn't logged on for about a week or two, they will get booted from the house. There are so many other players like our guests who are there all of the time who would be much better roommates then some of the roomies in the house.
Day 16
My Alternate Identity
I barely had time to log on today. I just upgraded my Internet access from dialup to cable modem. I logged on for only about an hour and it wasn’t on the Alphaville server. I had to play on Blazing Falls. For the past couple of days, in Blazing Falls, I wasn’t having much fun. I was down to $75 and there wasn’t a visitor bonus. So every time I would get some money from typing, I would have to use it to restock the fridge or the buffet, leaving me with zilch. I was surprised to see the $2000 visitor bonus when I logged in. I went to Room Mate Finder, which is my home here. None of my roommates were here, but I noticed a few improvements.
It looked like the other members got their money too and it burned a hole in their pockets.
We had a new telescope and a few other costly items. The house owner Ramon (really my pimp because he demands money from me each time I see him) wants to buy a maze game. I think he would have had enough for one if he didn’t spend it on the telescope. A telescope costs about $3200. With my $2000 and the other roomies money, we would have had it… but it’s his money and house so he could do what ever he wanted with it.
My identity here in this world is completely different than Aegon Spengler’s. Aegon is a completely self-reliant non-dependent person in Alphaville. She can come and go as she pleases and is not really “tied” to any particular responsibilities, except for “house sitting” every now and then.
Juniper Breeze on the other hand is pretty much oppressed and dominated by the house owner, following his every order. It’s all just a game I play to get most of the houseguests to feel “sorry” for me.
For example, yesterday, when I was playing, Ramon went out advertising The Room Mate Finder and had me stay at home to explain to people who visited how to use the service. He got a few people to come to the house. One of them was some guy named DJ Surf who was looking for people to move into his pool house. He asked me what the charge was for the roommate finding service. I told him that we work on tips. Another girl who was also looking for roommates asked me where my tipping jar was. She said that I was doing a pretty good job and wanted to give me the tip. I told her to leave it in Ramon’s jar because all of the money goes to him anyway. Well this started a whole “I feel so bad for you” campaign. The three visitors that I had in the house at the time all instant messaged me offering me to go live with them if I was so unhappy here. I told them I was out of money and I couldn’t move out because I gave most of it to Ramon. A few of them offered me to come and stay with them anyway, but I said that it really didn’t matter because if they wiped the server, I would start clean with more money. I made about $300 on sympathy.
A few minutes later an unsuspecting Ramon came back to the house and he instant messaged me asking me if I book marked everyone so we could get in touch with them when we found a roommate match. I told him I did and he was happy with the “job” I did. He was a little upset that there wasn’t any money in the tipping jar. Oops! Next time, I would have to leave him some just to make it look like I asked. Well, DJ Surf was I guess a little too upset with the way Ramon had been treating me. He went over to Ramon and told him that he should appreciate me more. He said that he was sure a fine looking woman like my Sim must get offers everyday for people to move in with them. Just then DJ started kissing and seriously flirting with me. A few seconds later, I got an instant message from Ramon asking me, “What’s up his butt?” I was literally hysterical with the melodrama Sims Soap Opera that I created. Poor Ramon was totally confused and DJ was really trying hard to get me to shack up with him. I think Ramon probably was catching on to the fact that DJ was trying to recruit me to live with him. I have no intention of leaving The Room Mate Finder at the moment. I also love having Ramon as a roommate. I am thinking about asking him to become roomies when the real game starts.
Today's Issues
I couldn't get logged into Alphaville at all today. Every time, it looked like it was going to connect, but I just got the failure to connect error when trying to enter my house or anybody else's. I was only able to get as far as the Worldview screen and I was able to check my Sim email messages.
Day 17
I really couldn't get online much for the past couple of days. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I just had to cater to my real life. My husband and kids were seriously missing me. I needed to spend some “quality time” with them.
I could see some serious table turning with this game. Most of the players I have met are women. And a lot of these women are in the 18>30 age bracket. This is the first game I have ever played where the average player wasn’t a 15-year-old boy. My husband already fears that he will be a “TSO Widower” when the real game comes out. I just patted him on the back and told him that he should be happy because he would have total control of the television set.
The time I did get to play, I checked on both of my houses. I got a nice $2000 visitor bonus on Blazing Falls. I didn’t buy anything the day before, so I had $4000 total. I really didn’t know what else to buy in this house, so I just left $3000 in the tip jar for Ramon to hopefully buy something useful like a pizza maker.
In my house in Alphaville, I bought a hotdog cart. This and the ice-cream stand both have NPC’s. You don’t have to be there to run them and they are a pretty good cash cow when you are on line. The good thing is, is that you don’t have to keep refilling them like you would a buffet table. You also don’t have to cook for other people either. If someone in your house gets hungry, they can just walk up to a cart and buy some food. You get to set the price of the food and you make a profit off of the people who buy from you.
Today's Issues
We got a new patch. It was a 8MB download and it fixed a lot of issues. I no longer stay pixilated when I leave the shower or potty. I also noticed that the game seems to load faster.
Day 18
Mazing
There seems to be a big addiction in Alphaville and Blazing Falls. It’s not a corruptive addiction, but it can lead to ignoring and neglecting others. I call it “Mazing”. The maze game has probably become the most addictive part of TSO for some players. They just can’t get enough of it. What makes it so addictive is the amount of money you make if your logic and charisma skills are high. But, playing the game requires you to pay attention to the other player’s instructions. And since you are using an object, interactions with other people are pretty limited. Every house I go to, people are Mazing. If a maze game spot gets free, someone almost always is ready and willing to take the empty seat. I will not fall prey to this addictive game. I, from this day forward, am swearing off Mazing.
I was in The Roommate Finder, my house in Blazing Falls. Two of my roommates were there with some people looking for roommates. Soon, the traffic died down in the house and my social bar was getting kind of low. I need social interaction, but both of my roommates were Mazing.
I told them I was going out to play. Well, I was also kind of hungry so the first place I went to was a place called Blazing Fall’s Best Bistro. This place was on an island with a nice Hawaiian décor. Two guys the owners. I got nice warm welcome and they invited me to have a bite to eat. During the time I was there, they mainly talked about decorating the place. The normal roommate-to-roommate conversation was going on about how to decorate and what to buy. What I really needed was some social interaction and these guys weren’t giving it to me. I thanked them for their hospitality and left them a $10 tip in the jar.
My next place was called The Internet Café. There was a nice man in there that used our roommate finding service. I found out from him that the place really worked. He said got around 20 visitors asking him to be a roommate just because they read one of the ads placed at our house. I wasn't too sure if the service was actually working, but by some of the other Sims in the house said that used it too and it worked. Well the house owner was building up his logic skills; my guess was to play the maze game better. A guy named Chriz walked in started acting kind of rude. He wasn't too bad, but really annoyed the owner and the owner wound up banning him. We talked for a bit, but my social was still nearing the red. I needed to find a place that had a lot of people and willing to interact.
My last and final stop on my search for some social interaction was Zombie Island. When I got here, two of the house owners were there. One was a polar bear and the other was a robot. They quickly offered me a bite to eat and we were sitting down at a large dinner table. I sat down next to the robot. His name was Roy bot. He was telling me about some strange things happening in Blazing Falls. He saw boys kissing boys and some boy even went up to try and kiss him. Being a robot, he was confused with this behavior. I asked him how was he so sure that he was a boy robot and maybe the guys who tried to kiss him thought he was a girl robot. He said that his name was Roy I then asked him if he pees standing up or sitting down, and he said that he was an anatomically correct robot and peed standing up. I explained to him about my quest for interaction and how the maze game pretty much is turning everyone into junkies who neglect their friends. The polar bear was sympathetic to my story and came up and gave me hug.
Now, the bear and the Robot owned a maze game. Soon, a few more people came into the house and quickly ran toward it. Someone asked me to come join him.
“Stupid, stupid maze game.” I commented.
The bear and the robot asked me to join them on the dance floor. Soon my social bar was maxing out green. I never thought I’d be able to get so much love from an artificial life form or a polar bear. And they really did know how to party.
I figured that I'd go back home and tell my adventures to my roommates. I gave the robot and the bear a hug and went home. When I got there, my roommates were still Mazing. "Hey Juni," one of them said. Wow, I was surprised that they were even cognate to my existstence. I told them hello. I noticed that Chriz was here and placed an add. His behavior didn't really improve much since the last time I saw him. He tried to slap me and push me. I didn't accept these commands and tried to ignore him. I found out from Ramon that he placed a $100 roommate finding ad. I didn't care if he bought us a pizza machine, this guy was really rude. I was about to give him his money back and kick him out, but Ramon just said to ignore him. Well, the "ignoring and they'll go away theory" worked. Eventually he just left. Hopefully he learned his lesson about online etiquette, but I doubt it.
Today's Issues
Most people are flocking to Blazing Falls. Many others and I have found it very difficult to connect and stay connected to Alphaville.
I am beginning to like my Blazing Falls home more than Alphaville, but I would still like to talk with some of my Sim friends on Alphaville.
Weekend
This weekend was a mess. It was nearly impossible to stay connected with out getting the dreadful lost connection to server error. Any of you playing the beta are familiar with this screen. There is good news however. The Blue Screen Freeze is gone. I haven't encountered it all weekend. Just the horrid error 23. I would be able to connect for about 20 minutes, then it would throw me out to the character selection screen with my favorite error. I am not to sure if it has to do with the server being over loaded or if it is just another issue that was created by the new patch that we received before the weekend began.
The new patch fixed the The Blue Screen Freeze. I can honestly say that I didn't get the freeze on both servers. It also added a new option to most object menus. If your object is broken, you now have the option of fixing it. If you look closely, you'll see my roommate Matt has lightning bolts coming out of his hands. No, this isn't a magic trick, he is fixing the fridge. Repairing cost much less than replacing, but it uses up a lot of energy. Depending on the item, it can take up to 5 minutes to repair. I repaired most of my broken objects with ease.
A long with the connection issues, I couldn't get into my own house. It was either too populated or I would lose connection before I had a chance to enter. I had to go to a friends house to play the game while I instant messaged my roommate while she let me know when a space was available. When I was finally able to enter my house the lag was horrendous. I couldn't keep up with anyone's conversation because the bubbles were overlapping or they would disappear to quickly. There really needs to be a dialog history installed in the game. The only way I can effectively have a conversation with anyone is though instant messaging. Instant messaging has some limitations to it too. You can only have 3 instant message boxes up at one time. I am hoping that they upgrade the dialog options in the game.
My house was a noisy nightmare. I could barely move because of the lag and I was beginning to feel cramped. I wasn't the only person who felt this way. Gallander and his wife, Janise were looking for some peace and quiet too. They invited me to their house.
Gallander and Janise own the Chez Gallander, a nicely decorated coffee shop. They have it so only friends can enter their house. I was glad to be on their friends list. This house was a nice little retreat from the hustle and bustle of Candy's Creative Corner. I was able to eat a tasty meal and freshen up a bit in their old style bath tub. Afterwards I fed their fish. It was very relaxing. I finished off my serene evening at their house. I must admit that they are probably the most hospitable hosts in the game. If you ever have the chance to visit, check out their signs. They are a bit... unusual.
Today's Issues:
This error happens every time I exit the game: (click to enlarge)
Wednesday
A Patching Nightmare
Well, it was supposed to be a fun filled game playing 3 hours when I logged in. Instead it turned into a downloading nightmare. I logged in and got the message from MOMI about having to download a patch for each city. I entered Alphaville first, only to find out that a 12MB patch was required. I didn't mind, I now have a cable connection. 12MB should only take around 3 minutes. Well, 30 minutes later, I was still downloading and only 89% complete. 45 minutes later I was able to log in and play for about 20 minutes. Then the server booted me off. I restarted and it looked like Alphaville was off line. I then tried Blazing Falls. A 10.9MB patch was required. This one seemed to go rather quickly, it only took about 7 minutes. It brought me up to the character selection screen. Both servers were down. Or at least appeared to be that way. I took a visit to the Play Test site to see the server status. They were up.
I restarted TSO and got the patch screen. A message popped up that the patch didn't install correctly and I had to run the verification program that checks... I don't know what... but it took a good 20 minutes to verify that I needed another 6.9MB download. Another twenty minutes later, it looked like the patch completed. I was able to get on to the Blazing falls server. But by this time, I could only stay for 30 minutes because I had to go to work.
I understand that this is the beta and all... but Maxis should be so happy that I am as patient as I am. I think most people would be ripping their hair out by now.
Thursday Morning (early)
After work I decided to try and log on. Another patch was added. This was a 659k patch. It downloaded and completed in 5 minutes. I can't believe that I am spending $29. a month for high speed internet access only to download game patches at dialup speeds. It reboots and once again tells me that the patch didn't finish and I had to run the verification program again. Well, I wasn't ripping my hair out, but I was about to cry. All I wanted to do was play TSO. I had a bad day at work and my way to release my frustrations was to play. Instead it only made me more upset. Twenty minutes later, a blessing from the server gods came. I didn't need another patch. I was able to log in with out a hitch. I went on to Blazing Falls.
The patch(es) added a bunch of new features. There is now a new real estate infrastructure. If you own a property close to the water or high in the mountains, it is going to be worth more. If you want to buy this land, it is going to cost more than if you buy a more "undesirable" property.
When you interact with other Sims, there is a new pink color added to the options menu on certain interactions. I am not to sure if the color is pink because of your emotions or because of another player's emotions. I will have to experiment more.
I am trying to get out an explore the world more. I found a really cool place to go on Blazing Falls. It is called Brooklyn. It looks like a neighborhood right out of Brooklyn. Houses, parks and shops... it gives you that inner-city feeling. I'd recommend going there.
Also, don't just go to the top 100 sites. All of those blinking red dots on your screen are houses on line for you to visit. I found that some of the most interesting places in the game are occupied by a single owner.
October 28
After a horrible weekend of not being able to get connected to any server because they were too full. I was beginning to wonder if it were possible for me to continue writing my journal. Some major events happened this weekend with my Sim's life. I moved out of my home in Alphaville. I was not able to get into Candy's Creative Corner for over a week. I would either get the error 23 or I would get the house too full error message. I wasn't able to make any money except for the visitor bonus from the house. I needed to be in the house to get the kickback bonus for my objects that were being used. I owned very little money making objects because I could never get in the house to buy anymore objects. The house was just getting too big and popular. It was really frustrating.
I needed to find a new roommate, or buy a new lot. I had $10000 in cash and enough objects to just have to build walls, but I didn't want to start a home in Alphaville on my own. I took a visit to my friend Ramon's Roommate Finder. I am already his roommate in Blazing Falls with a house of the same name. Ramon was happy to see me and I was straight forward with asking him to become a roommate of his house. I told him about how I never was able to get into the house I was living in now because of its popularity. He said he would be happy to take me in.
I am now a member of The Roommate Finder on Alphaville and Blazing Falls. (He has a house on Interhogan called The Roommate Finder also.) Well, this morning Ramon and I did major renovations to this house. I apparently had more objects that I thought I had, so I was able to contributed a significant amount to his house. I asked him it was okay if I designed one side of the building to make it look like a classroom setting, He said he didn't have a problem with it. We have two maze games in our house. Our main goal is to buy a pizza maker. So, in order to save up... I know I swore it off but, I played the maze game with Ramon. We were able to make $3000 each in about an hour. We are now only about $10000 short but Ramon said that we would be able to get make the money tomorrow.
I created a new Sim on one of the new servers. I now have 3 Sims. The third Sim, is completely opposite of what I am like. I am also not going to get any roommates with this Sim. From the little time I spent developing this Sim, I was able to make enough money to furnish my home and make a decent living. I found it easy to make money by going around to other peoples houses and using their resources. I have also mooched a few meals off of owners. One owner I have encountered put a fee on entering and exiting the bathroom and the Pizza machine room. I thought that it was pretty ludicrous. I also found out that we have fees on our doors at The Roommate Finder in Blazing Falls. I am not too happy with that. I might have to make some doors that don't charge anything to enter and exit.
Today's Issues
The house in Blazing Falls has a serious problem with trash management. No one can throw trash out in the trashcan outside. There seems to be something blocking it, even though nothing is in the way. I have captured a humorous photo of a house visitor who was carrying a bag of our trash around the house with him. He is playing the guitar with a trash bag in his hand.
On My Own
November 7
My home in Blazing Falls is fun. I get a nice visitor bonus everyday, but I don't own the house. I decided to take all of the items I have on this and move out on my own. I found a nice lot for about $1000. I had about $8600 in cash and $9800 in objects, so I wasn't too concerned with how I would manage.
This seemed like a good idea, but as soon as I enter the lot, my Sim doesn't appear. I just see the lot. I don't have the option of building anything and my items are not in my inventory box.
I don't panic and I try and go into another house. My Sim did appear. I breathed a hefty sigh... but wait, still no items in my inventory. I try and walk around the persons lot. I couldn't. Everyone else seemed to have no problems moving. I was just stuck. I could type and receive messages, but I couldn't use any objects.
Okay... time to reboot.
I rebooted and logged on to the Blazing Falls server again. I tried entering my new plot of land. My Sim once again wasn't there. This is lousy. All of my worldly possessions are now gone. I know they are going to be wiped during the final server wipe, but I was hoping to own my own house for a while. Sad... and a little bit disgruntled, I logged off for the evening in hopes of a better tomorrow. Usually, my game play issues are fixed the next day. I am hoping that tomorrow everything will be fine.
Today's Issues
A patching loop occurs when ever I log in to the patching server on the initial game start. It says a 110k patch is required, patches, then restarts. After the restart I am able to log in. It's no big deal, but a little odd.
Annoying, redundant posts on the The Sims Online Play Test Message Boards. (you must be in the play test to read these) I think no matter what, 50% are going to like the game and 50% are going to hate it. That is with what everything in life. I happen to be in the 50% who like the game. Unfortunately, I have to read over and over again why people don't like it... I know everyone has a right to their opinion, but I get a little tired of reading the same reason why people hate it 50 times. Oh, incase you didn't know the main reason why they hate it is because it's buggy....duh it's the beta, it's supposed to be buggy.
November 9
Maxis Messes Up
Logged on today... or at least tried to. My account has been suspended due to a false message that my husband posted with the account Lord Hobbes. The other two Sims with this account Juniper Breeze and Aegon Spengler have never did any thing that was stated in the message. He merely was trying to warn people off from dirty activity that was described in the Diary of a Beta Tester on the official The Sims Online site. So Maxis Gordon sent our account off to customer service and got our account suspended. The thing that really gets my goat is they didn't even check the account. They just suspended it. If they did any research in the matter they would find out that the post was false.
According to Maxis, they said my account is still active. They just need to reactivate it. That can take... days... hours... weeks... who knows.
In the mean time, I am playing with the second CD they sent us to "give to a friend". And my husband... well, lets just say that he is in the dog house.
Today's Issues
Jumping from server to server requires you to download the patch for each version. It does not save any old patch information. I wish we had the option of executing the patch on our own.
November 12
Things I Don't Like About the Game
Okay, so far I have been pretty unbiased when it comes to what I feel about the Beta Test and game play. Maybe the mandatory 3 day suspension (if you do something wrong in the game or post a message on the message boards that Maxis doesn't like, they can suspend your account.) I got from Maxis left a bad taste in my mouth, but when I was able to log in with my original account, I quickly became aware of what I don't like about TSO. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the game and everything, but I am sure many other game testers feel like some things need to be changed. I am going to try and write an advantage and disadvantage view point to try and keep things unbiased as possible. But, just so you know, I really do not like these things.
1. It takes too long to complete a money making task:
Disadvantage: Okay, so I timed the amount of time it takes to actually complete a task. On most objects like the typewriter, easel, canning station or piñata, it takes 5 minutes of REAL LIFE time. So, that is 5 minutes of just staring at the screen or trying to socialize or what? What the hell am I supposed to do for 5 minutes?
Advantage: Click and go. Okay, so I can still play The Sims Online while doing other things in Real Life. I know it's going to take 5 minutes to type a story or bash a piñata. So I can go make myself a quick snack, go to the bathroom, or even put a load of laundry in the washing machine.
2.The game forces you to play with others:
Disadvantage: So, I finally made enough money so I can live on my own. I am tired of roommates and living by other people's standards and decorating sense. I have a Sim over $10000 in cash now. I build a house on a small lot. I decide to expand. It cost $4000 to expand. If I had a roommate, it would only cost $500. So, let me see, the more people I have living in my house the cheaper it is to expand? What if I can't find any roommates? I am forced to pay an outrageous price for lot size? This seems a bit unfair. It's not about lot size. It's that annoying little need "Social". I could stay in my house forever if it wasn't for that stupid social bar. After about 20 minutes, I am forced to find a crowded place to get my social needs up.
Advantages: I really don't see the advantages. I understand the "Online" part of The Sims Online. You can go out and meet other people.. yeah.. yeah.. yeah.. But like any other game, it's to compete against others. This game is more like a "Team" game rather than a single player vs. single player game. If you don't want to be a part of the "Team" you are screwed.
3 Keeping the social bar up is hard:
Disadvantage: Okay, so I leave my house in need to get that social bar up. I go and find a pretty decent place that is crowded. My bar goes up a little, but not fast enough. So I decide to go and hug someone. If my character is a girl Sim, hugging a guy Sim he thinks I am trying to hit on him. Now, in real life I am a woman. I do have a character that is a man. I have tried playing this character. I now know why guys aren't as good as women in the verbal sense. I am stumped most of the time on what to say and how to act. If I want to try and talk to a guy, I am afraid that he may think I am gay. If I try and talk to a woman, she might think I am hitting on her. So, I stay quiet most of the time when I play this guy. I don't have many friends with my guy character. My female character has a lot of friends though.
Advantage: Well, this is supposed to be an online game so again, I don't see the advantage of the social bar need. In real life can go days with out going out and meeting my friends. Also, in real life I can go to a crowded place by myself and feel utterly alone. As a matter of fact, I sometimes feel less social when I go to a crowded place.
4. Lack of Economy:
There really isn't an economy in The Sims Online. If I make pizza, can apples, paint a painting, there isn't an option for it go up for sale to other player. It disappears into Sim Land somewhere. As of now, you cannot sell anything to other players. The Sims Online Production Team are working on this pretty soon we will be able to sell items that we bought in the catalog to other players. Nothing so far is in development on things we can make and sell. I and many others think it would make the game more fun if we can actually sell the pizza that we make to someone else to actually eat. Or imagine being able to make food, furniture, and objects that we can sell it to other players or a "central store" for profit based on our skill levels. Right now, as the game stands (I know its still beta) I have to agree with some players opinions saying that the game is "just a glorified chat room with pretty little games to keep you busy and hooked."
5. More fun it you are poor, less if you are rich:
Okay, I know this sounds weird but when you are first starting out, the game is fun. You have to find and experiment with ways to make money. I recently started over with a new Sim. I was poor and my skill levels were down. It is fun to building the skills up and finding ways to make money. I even offered people who owned a lot on their own to be a temporary roommate to make money. I would charge them a small fee in order for them to expand their lots. I made some nice cash doing that. I have had people offer their mechanic skills to fix things in the house. They had fun going around making money.
Now, I have a character who lives in a house that makes $1000 a day visitor bonus. This character has $24000 in cash and doesn't need to buy anything because the other roommates already own enough stuff. So, I don't have to make money doing anything. As a matter of fact, I went around giving people just starting out cash so they could buy some stuff... like a bed or a shower. There really isn't anything for me to do anymore. I find myself going from house talking to people and role playing if I can find someone not making pizza or playing maze. I am not playing a game, I am now in a chat room.
dahinter.
