f13.net

Dear Former Member of The Sims Online

I would like to introduce you to EA-Land, an online world that is free-to-play, and based on a re-engineered The Sims Online architecture.  Yes, FREE.

(To see an HTML version of the information in this letter please go to http://www.ea-land.ea.com)

I wanted you to know that at the beginning of last year, I assembled a team to improve The Sims Online. After months of ongoing hard work, we can proudly say that we have been successful and we have made this game fun again! I am writing to you because I would like to invite you to rejoin us in the game. You can come back for free right now by REACTIVATING your old account at this page http://ea-land.ea.com/register/free.php and then by downloading the game from the same link. Most likely, your Sim is no more, but if you come back to the game this month, you will get your earned privileges back (gifts, skill locks etc... in EA-Land) when we run our amnesty program at the end of the month.

The Sims Online was made of 12 different cities (AlphaVille, Blazing Falls, etc..), which now all exist EA-Land (this is called 'the merge' by the users!). We have a huge new map: it is 100 times bigger than the previous size of any city. We had to add a whole new zoom level to let users see it. The internet is faster now, so we have been able to let each house have more simultaneous visitors.  A lot of new users are constantly joining us and we expect more. As you have played TSO before, I think that you ought to own your lot in this new land, and I want you to have the ability to grab the best location before we open the gates. As an EA-Land subscriber, you will be able to have several Sims in the same "city" unlike in TSO where you were limited to one Sim per city. Also, if you refer others to become subscribers we will give you extra money in-game each week per person referred. Read more about this at http://www.ea-land.ea.com/blog/?p=826


RE-designed with Smart Users

On our blog ( http://www.ea-land.ea.com/blog ) we explain all the things we are working on and the events we are running in the game. We also have a very active wiki web site (http://www.game-blueprints.com ) managed by the community where you can work with others to design the game. We have already implemented many features designed by the users! The stratics forum community continues to be very active. We have made some big changes to the game, and many more are coming over the next few months. It is difficult to say which of the recent changes are the most important as users have different reasons to play the game, but let me tell you about the changes that I particularly like:


Custom Content

Users now have the ability to upload custom content. Like in the original Sims game, the goal is to let you customize the game completely, but in EA-Land you can see and buy the customizations of the other players! Players have already uploaded several thousands pieces of custom content. I suspect that by some time this year, all of the content of the game will have been replaced many times over by custom content. We started with the ability to upload bitmaps (easiest for the new creative users), then moved on to chairs and sculptures. You can now make your own portraits in the game and "skin" objects like in Sims2 by using your own images. Because we are approving all of the content, this user content is safe to be viewed by everyone! We are working with the main user web sites that have been providing custom content to the Sims users for years (e.g. http://www.TheSimsResource.com) to make sure that their content will be made available in the game.


New Economy

We heard from the community that the economy was broken in TSO. That was true, too many users were billionaires, and the goal of the game was mostly about extracting money from Maxis. I can now say with satisfaction that we have fixed the economy on EA-Land. This took many features, from establishing a real estate market, where users can easily buy or sell lots to one another, and a dynamic object pricing market where the prices of objects purchased from Maxis is based on supply and demand, enabling stores and entrepreneurs to earn a living. We also enabled users to buy the in-game currency directly using secure PayPal transactions. While there is no need for users to do so in the game (we give subscribers money in-game every week), it can help new users build their dream house faster.


Web Services and Social Networks

The internet has changed so much since the launch of The Sims Online in December 2002, we had to change the way we think about online games. We have opened the access to most of the in game information to the internet through web services. For example this enables you to add Google or Yahoo widgets to your computer (or iPhone! ) and see if your favorite lots or friends are online. We are providing you with privacy settings so you can decide if or which of your avatars will broadcast what information to the internet. Sims User web sites are already using this feature to create some amazing community sites. We also built avatarbook, to show how that information can be seen and connected to social web sites like Facebook © (login to the "avatar book" application at http://apps.facebook.com/avatarbook where you can search for MaxisLuc's profile page)


And there's more to come! We are looking forward to seeing you back in the game and having fun with us again!

Sincerely

Luc Barthelet,
"MaxisLuc".

Maybe they will put some fun in this time...

No time...making pizzas...must...make...more...pizzas...

There's always that. Cmon. Get your face out of the pizza oven and shell out the greens.

No! I have the toppings for this pizza!

Crikey!  There is no way in hell that I can remember my original login/pass.  And I'm surely not using the same email any more.

I left after they nerfed pinatas.

It's april 1st in Australia... I'm not sure that I should believe this. (Especially with the name, EA-land.)

But then again, OS/2 launched on April 1st.

... and we're still laughing about that one.

Sounds like a 2D Second Life less the "Mature" stuff.

TSO had plenty of mature stuff including cyber child prostitution. Player didn't have the ability to make giant penises, though.

I think they still miss the fact that one of the things most loved about the offline version of Sims is the money cheat.

Just looking at that website is giving me a headache, too many bright colours.

Is already a TV comercial for this. I think I saw it during Saturday morning cartoons.

What a foolish day to announce something like this ;)

Before today I read about plans to refresh SO, with more ability to add player content and stuff.

It's not like they're adding bards (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/bard/bardclass.xml)...

"A post from your IP has already been made within the last 15 seconds"?

I sense shenanigans.

Not an April Fools. They've been talking about it for weeks, but since it was the Sims Online, nobody gave a shit.

Does it have pvp?

Sims 2 Online. Or just plain Sims 3.

Roll the expansion stuff into the monthly subscription, and give players ways to trade shit and items.

Fuck the actual online gameplay stuff. Sims fans want to share fucked up families and legacies and story scrapbooks.

Sheesh.

it's like a living interactive facebook. Perhaps Sims X Online will have a face-scanning technology that can render a webcam pic into a game character.



wow. rendering 'service' to my roommate gets me money to trade for real money?  :uhrr: this opens new possibilities.

I see they're even offering players amnesty, forgiving them for the horrible crime of quitting the game in the first place. That's really considerate of them.

Is that "Welcome to EA Land" header really in Comic Sans? *shudder*

EA knows no bounds when they drop to a whole new low.

The game used/uses that font so it makes sense to use it on the Web site.

In the sense of Player Vs Penis, I imagine they have lots of it.

I'm so there then!!!   :awesome_for_real:

<typographysnob>Yet another reason not to play.</typographysnob>

sonuvabitch, my lot and house is still there. I can't get in to my house, but it's still fucking there.

I was looking at this and wondering 'why the fuck would I ever want to invest time in this?'. Then I thought, dirty drunken hobo all liquored up on Old Crow, leering from a dark alleyway. I just might have to try to make an Aqualung toon and scare the kiddies.

Stolen from Raph's Blog (http://www.ea-land.com/blog/?p=1156)

And back in the grave it goes! (http://www.ea-land.ea.com/blog/?p=1156)

Lead Dev Luc Barthelet makes his goodbye blog post. (http://www.ea-land.ea.com/blog/?p=1151)

I can't imagine how it lasted so long. I'm guessing there might have been some Will Wright pride involved...

So they announce a shut it down two months after renaming it?  Odd.

Its pretty cut throat in EA Land

Wow, an MMOG really CAN die.

I think its better to say that an EA run MMO can die they are about the only company that I know has closed some down that still had players.

AC2
AA

They ARE the biggest one with the most closed ones.

Earth and Beyond

Asheron's call 2 was shutdown due to the turbine/MS billing change making it literally unsustainable. In the same vein auto assault was such an abject commercial failure that it too was literally unsustainable, even in maintenance mode. I'd have to assume the TSO was rowing the same boat.

We need to amend the rule to say "MMOs don't die unless they can't even afford to keep the lights on."

Uhhh....  Look up!

My favourite post from that blog:


Now that's some good timing!

Nice, they renamed it to EA Land just to close it 30 days later without damaging the Sims IP by having headlines like "SIMS GAMES CLOSES FAILURE OMGOMGOMG!".

Figures they called it EA Land, the brand "EA" probably can't be damaged beyong what they've done to it over the last 10 years or so.

I'm not sure if you were joking when you wrote this, but you're probably right. It all makes perfect sense now, kind of like George Bush denying the US is in recession by calling it a period of slow growth.

Same school of thought.

Oh, and I wasn't joking, EA just keeps impressing me with their spins again and again. You never know how deep the rabbit hole really goes.

This sounds like an older user bullshitting, but the point made is valid: if it can be demonstrated, perhaps thruogh a process of discovery, that EA actually intended to shut down the service after only a month but held it out as a service they intended to continue at teh time of the re-launch then I'd suggest that the RMT element leaves them open to proceedings.


If you think the US is in recession then you don't know what recession means.  Come back when you have two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP.  Yesterday's figures confirm (very) slow growth.  I don't give a fuck about GWB one way or the other, btw.  I just get bored of people using words they don't understand.

Not to derail this thread further, but that's incorrect. Historically economists have been able to call recessions only six months after they began. So we definitely weren't in one on 11/07, but we might be right now. Consumer confidence is low, the stock market dropped 10% off its peak of 14200, unemployment is up, spending is down, hyperinflation is here, the media is full of doom and gloom, etc.

Off topic: That may be the technical definition, but my recollection of discussions of this topic in various books and business shows (as well as past recessions) is that periods of very slow growth are often relabelled as recession after the fact. There is no way that a period of (a) such high mortgage defaults, and (b) signficantly slowing economy (just read in MSNBC today about car sales plummetting), won't be called a recession.

You can define a recession as whatever you like, but if you want to use it correctly, you can't apply it to periods of positive growth, however disappointing you may find them.

And Sam, i don't think you read what I said.  Two quarters is six months.  Added to which your llist of criteria are not those which define recession, just things which often happen during them.

I'll say it again: two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

As a matter of interest, i believe that half a dozen individual states in the US are officially in recession...

Off topic: I don't think it's as clear-cut as that. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession), for example, lists two definitions, the one you give, and "A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough." The article goes on to say that whether the US is in recession or not is disputed, some economists saying so, blah blah blah.

Anyhow, back to the original George Bush comment (which ties into EA's renaming of The Sims Online). Bush has proven many times that he's not a stickler for dictionary word definitions, liberally fine-tuning the meanings of "terrorism" and "national security" to meet his needs. The point was that he was avoiding the "R" word with intent to decieve/mislead, like EA. Wikipedia has a great quote where the Commerce Department says the US is "stuck in a rut" - trying to avoid the "R" word. Or even if you don't want to use the "R" word because of the definition, I believe a technical economic term for 0.6% growth is "stagnant economy", more appropriate and "scarrier" then "stuck in a rut".

Oh well, deception/spin are common in the game industry, and not just to EA. I just saw a blurb about some Chinese MMO claiming that 16:9 screen support was a novel and unique feature on their behalf: http://pw.mmosite.com/highlight/widescreen.shtml

The last mousemat I bought (about ten years ago) had a star-flash on the front of the packaging proclaiming that it was compatible with both PCs and Macs.

I wonder if there are tax reasons to close it.  Close it for good to claim it as a loss rather let it limp on.

The latter definition, which is useless in that a move from stellar growth to moderately strong growth is a recession (ie it apparently judges on the second derivative), is compromised here since the NBER has not stated the US to be in recession, either.  Nor would it for half a year or so.