User feedback is a major focus when it comes to running FreeSO… except when the feedback is just bad. However, last month our community unexpectedly united over one single complaint. After suffering for 8,823 days, our users had finally had enough with Sims’ blue pee. It just doesn’t make any sense, looks way too drinkable and it’s aesthetically unpleasing. Goodness knows how the rest of the Sims community has been putting up with this if the TSO community was the one to snap. You’d think someone would have modded it by now…
Seeing feedback that wasn’t just “disable motives” or “remove interactions” caught us by surprise, so we absolutely had to act upon it. After a greulling development cycle, we think we have something that everyone will be happy with. No more blue pee.
Please take a moment to watch the video we’ve prepared for the reveal of this much requested feature. By YouTube standards, three minutes is a blink of the eye, so it should be a breeze to watch.
Watched the video? Good. You may notice that pools are yet again filled with these same plastic balls. Please take a short moment to ponder the implications, and quickly move onto thinking about the next Jam money object day.
To make this experience even more immersive, we have also enabled 1st person control to allow users to get up close and personal with the new puddles. You’ll finally be able to experience exactly where pee is stored first hand. Just keep them away from fire.
The Sims Online is all about escapism, living your life as someone else and enjoying experiences you never would in real life, like dying without consequence and property ownership. Despite the allure of this premise, the game hasn’t garnered the millions of players it deserves. Why?
We played GTA Online for five seconds and immediately understood the problem. You can’t feel like you’re committing hundreds of crimes a minute from a third person view. “Be somebody. Else.”? More like, watch somebody else enjoy a ball pit hot tub in an extravagant mcmansion. That should be YOU!!!
Starting TODAY, you can control your sims directly. No need for pesky “go here” interactions, taking boring fast straight lines to where you want to go. Take the longest path you want, run in circles, this is TRUE freedom. Everyone else will be able to see EXACTLY what you are looking at, with 32-bit floating point precision. Tell them how you feel to their (virtual) face. It’s like you’re living a Second Life, and it’s never been done before.
Instructions:
Press TAB to switch into first person view. Use WASD or the arrow keys to move, and the mouse to look around. Click on objects as usual to open the pie menu. Hold shift to sprint. Press backspace to cancel the active interaction. Press Escape to release the mouse, though opening a pie menu, dialog or chat will also do this. Click on the game to refocus mouse controls.
Note: You must use 3D mode to experience First Person Direct Control. Otherwise, you will just see everyone else having fun.
Soon, you might be WSAD’ing cars off the sheer drops around your flattened lots. You will be fighting to the death in a city spanning battle royale. You will be purchasing so many hats and gun skins that reality will lose its meaning, and you’ll be left living a cold husk of a life kept afloat by images generated by an unfeeling machine. Who knows where the future may take us?
Today marks 20 years since The Sims Online was officially released.
On release, The Sims Online was pitched with the potential to become the biggest MMO in the world, right off of the massive success of The Sims. The deep simulation and interactions of the original, combined with the creativity of millions of players around the world. What the world expected was another smash hit success – video gaming taken by storm by the most ambitious entry in the series yet… but The Sims Online was not The Sims. The same base simulation, but a completely different game, it simply couldn’t capture the same audience. It was hard enough to understand why The Sims worked so well in the first place.
After just under 6 years, and an incredibly awkward attempt at a reboot, all cities were closed for good. Despite this, years of communities devoted to the game kept interest alive for almost a decade. That kind of following is hard to come by. I remember personally checking the http://niotso.org blog religiously for months. After almost a decade of spinoff games trying to recapture the feeling, and many failed restoration projects, we finally emerged with something resebling the original game. Now, it’s scary to think that FreeSO’s servers have now been running for more days than it.
I don’t think the experience and feeling that this game provides has ever been replicated by another game, and I’m starting to think that it won’t ever be. Second Life never had the depth of interaction. Habbo Hotel never had the sense of reality. It’s a product of its time, a piece of history that deserves to be preserved for as long as possible. FreeSO is our attempt at doing that, though it has its limits as a reimplementation. While adding new things lets us envision a future TSO never had, it’s limited by our own interpretation of the original formula. Maybe one day, there should be a decompilation project to ensure that the true original is preserved too.
For me, FreeSO was an opportunity to fully explore a game that I never had the opportunity to play during its heyday. My only experience with The Sims Online was downloading the trial when I was too young to play, then eventually rediscovering and binging it weeks before the announcement of its shutdown. Its lasting impression was strong enough to drive me to dedicate years to the project, which I don’t think any other piece of media could have managed. Thanks to The Sims Online, I’ve had the opportunity to learn how my favourite game series works behind the scenes, and I love every piece of it.
While I never got to experience the “core gameplay” with FreeSO, I got something a lot better. I hung out on lot servers hosted by friends between developing new features before we even launched, messing around on a half-broken game. I looked forward to events with brand new objects created by the most talented people I know. Each and every time, I remember it as if I were there in person. No wonder the community lay dormant for 10 years, if moments in the game were this unforgettable.
I hope that we’ve been able to rekindle some of that spirit for you, too. Thanks for making the game the best it can be. If you log in from any point from now until the end of the year, you’ll receive a Simmy to celebrate.
This year the Grim Reaper is facing off against the ghost of the great pirate Captain Green Beard to settle an age old feud. Which is the best way to celebrate Halloween; Tricks? Or Treats?
You can reach the event lot; The Isle of Ghostly Terrors, through the pay phone at the front of a lot. There you can declare your loyalty to Team Tricks, lead by the Grim Reaper themself. Or Team Treats, lead by Captain Green Beard. Determine who the winner is by collecting as much candy as your little sim mittens will let you carry and deposit it at Mr. Tickles’ Well in the center of the lot. Or spend it all at the Prize Booth at City Hall. Decisions, decisions…
The event lot, made by the amazing Amoreena, also features a few mazes to traverse, each with prizes at the end for all who are lucky enough to make it through. The first team to reach milestones will receive special prizes, for more information consult Leonard, the Grim Reaper’s loyal (though not necessarily by choice) intern.
This update also brings about quite a few brand new objects made by amazingly skilled and talented members of the FreeSO community and staff. We have some lovely decor to get festive for the Halloween season, barrels upon barrels upon barrels, a functional wood chopping station complete with axe, and so much more!
The candy has been streaming in since last night, and both teams have quickly surpassed 10000. Team Treat were the winners of our first milestone to get a “hot tub” dedicated to them on the event property, but now it’s time to get serious.
The first milestone for an object prize has been set at 20000, and the first team to reach it will win the prize! What will it be? Ask Leonard on the property for more information, and remember to check back often for the results… and more milestones! We’ll also be keeping you up to date on our Discord server.
We hope everyone enjoys the event. It ends on November 6th. So better get candy collecting!
Well folks, the day is finally here. April 16th. I hope you remembered!
What, do you think that the last post wasn’t being serious? It’s not called “April Lies Day”, is it? All of our April 1st news posts have always contained 100% real and reliable information. AmongSO was REAL, and nobody else can tell me otherwise.
Log on any time today to experience all the usual shenanigans… and maybe some more that you might not have anticipated? It’s anyone’s guess?? Just make sure you put away any valuables you don’t want to be on fire.
However, there seems to be a problem… One of our experimental updates for controller support has been pushed to the server alongside our usual April Fools “treats”, and something odd seems to have merged with the FreeSO codebase. I don’t know what “Here we go!” means, but it sounds like some kind of threat.
I repeat: DO NOT PLUG A CONTROLLER INTO YOUR COMPUTER WHEN FREESO IS RUNNING. Only bad things will happen, and everyone else on the property will surely also suffer as a result.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Anyways, thank you so much-a for-to playing my game.
