|
Playing The Sims Online A friend bought me a copy of The Sims Online as a Christmas gift. I was in Taiwan when the game was released, and probably could have played it from abroad (maybe with lag), but decided to wait until I was back in the United States before starting my 30-day trial subscription. Still, even after I returned to the States (at the beginning of May) I was hesitant to start playing after reading half a year's worth of mostly negative reviews from gamers as well as non-gamers. I finally started playing The Sims Online July 2003 out of a feeling of obligation -- that as a researcher interested in online communication and massively multiplayer games, I should experience TSO firsthand. I also felt obligated to the friend who had bought the game for me, who repeatedly asked whether I had started to play TSO yet. It was still summer, I didn't have school and I didn't have a job, so I figured I would be able to spend a lot of time playing and get my money's worth. *characters The first character I created was named Mickimoto, after a character I had played in AvatarMUD. I was very interested in food at the time, having watched quite a bit of The Food Network for the past couple months. Dissillusioned after reading too much invisibleadjunct.com, I was also playing around with the idea of abandoning the whole graduate school thing and pursuing culinary arts instead. So Mickimoto was made a female with shoulder-lengthed black and red hair, and her default outfit was a waitressing or food-service kind of outift. For the most part, her profile conformed to TSO's outline, which included turn-ons, turn-offs, fav. moves, fav. music. Some of her likes included yellow highlighters, cooking, and eating. Her dislikes: cargo pants and spiders. Favorite music: anything with a good beat. City selection was pretty much at random. (Actually, I don't even remember which neighborhoods each of my Sims lived in). I decided that with all this scholarship about gender bending in the CMC literature, I should make a male character as well. Among the male outfits available was a green Robin-hood type suit. I decided that Man in Tights would be a good name to go along with the outfit. As part of his profile, one of Man's turn-ons was women in distress. A major turn-off -- his merry men. Motto: "As you wish!" He spoke in dialogue littered with "aye" "nay" and "m'ladys. The third character I created (although these were not all created during one session) was also inspired by costume choices. I created Fuzzy, a girl wearing a bear suit. She was created in Test Center. A man with a beard invited her to be a roommate at his skill property (it happened to focus on cooking and charisma), but after playing one or two more times, I deleted Fuzzy out of disinterest. Fuzzy was later somewhat reincarnated when I created another bear character named Gummi. Likes: honey, salmon. Dislikes: poachers, bear skin rugs. Sort of similar to how designing houses became the most enjoyable aspect of playing The Sims (offline), character creation (through profile-writing and performative aspects) was probably my favorite part of TSO. *skilling and conversation Most of the time I played the game, I spent in various "skilling" properties - properties which were created as places where characters could get together and practice specific skills together. TSO is set up in such a way that the more characters are together in a particular location, the faster each character is able to acquire the skills they are training. For this reason, it's beneficial to "brand" one's property as a location to train particular skills. Many skill houses have the name of the skills they offer advertised in the property name. It's beneficial, therefore, to go to a property with several players already training a skill that one wants to practice. Skilling tended to be pretty boring. You click a command once and wait half an hour until your Sim gets hungry or tired. I tried to spark conversation with other players, but oftentimes the players were not actually present at their keyboard. They were either IAW (in another window, downloading mp3s, perhaps) or AFK (away from their keyboards -- homework? household chores?). Some players would announce when they were leaving their keyboards and would make another announcement when they had returned. Other players were completely silent, and it was impossible to tell whether they were not present at all or whether they were simply unconversational (some indicator of idleness, like some instant messaging applications have, might have been useful here). The mundane and repetitive activities of "skilling" -- watching one's Sim read a book or talk in front of a mirror -- was also unappealing. Critics of MMORPGs often marvel at players' willingness to engage in repetitive and seemingly boring activities. They also describe gameplay as lacking any elements of skill -- at least hand-eye coordination and fast-twitch skills. Even players observe that the process of ‘leveling' can be compared to a treadmill -- steady and predictable, with little change of scenery. Skilling on TSO, however, seemed even slower and more predictable. While MMORPGs incorporate some sort of fate mechanism -- an algorithm in the game that leaves a portion (even a very small portion) to chance, the TSO skill algorithm removes all uncertainty, making skill increases absolutely and directly proportionate to the amount of time spent training the skill. *work Towards the end of playing Mickimoto, I tried out the new occupation feature which had recently been implemented. [Before there were jobs in TSO, characters made money either by having lots of visitors to their property, or by making money through their skills. A couple examples -- with mechanical skills, one could charge money to fix things for people; individuals with high skill in cooking or body could get involved in making pizzas; logic and charisma offered other opportunities for earning income.] Mickimoto found a job (either in a newspaper or through the Internet with a computer), and a car came to pick her up from the property she was at. The car brought her to a restaurant, and she found several other characters standing outside of the establishment waiting to go inside. Ultimately, the job involved serving customers (non-player characters) who came into restaurant. This included: taking orders from customers after they seated themselves, communicating the orders to the chef (I believe this was done by taking their orders on a ticket to some machine near the entrance, although this may have been automated -- I can't remember exactly), serving the customers their entrees and yelling at the lazy busboy (also a non-player character). Additionally, the restaurant staff could interact more with customers (asking how they are doing, whether everything is ok, etc.) to try and improve customer mood and morale. Customer mood apparently was linked to the amount of tips given. At the end of the round of customers (I believe this lasted for ten or fifteen minutes), wages and tips were split evenly among the four players. Overall, it wasn't an unpleasant experience. A couple of the players who had worked in the restaurant before were a little bossy, but one was very helpful in explaining the process when I said I'd never worked before. The coordination and cooperation among players that was necessary to keep the customers happy actually required a little bit of thought or strategy. Nevertheless, since I didn't particularly need or want the income, one round of work was enough for me. *fees I continued to pay subscription fees ($9.95/mo) until the end of February, trying to log in on weekends but only playing two or three hours per month after the academic year began at the end of August. It seemed like a tremendous effort to play because of the amount of time necessary to load the game and download any necessary patches. I'm certain that this contributed to my playing infrequency. Finally I felt like I shouldn't spend any more money paying for TSO when I was only able to play for hour or two on weekends (at most!). And the online games study we had intended to do was no longer tied to TSO specifically. When I called to cancel my account, a woman who spoke in heavily-accented English took care of the cancellation process and told me access to my subscription would end in a couple weeks at the end of the billing cycle. The woman's accent sounded East Indian. Curious, I asked her where EA's call center was located. This one was in New Delhi. *the final session Curiously enough, the only time I ever really had fun playing the game was my final session playing. I decided to give it one more try. I was motivated by the fact that none of my three characters had purchased property or spent money on much besides the occasional ice cream cone. I thought it would be a shame to waste all of their Simoleans, particularly when some individuals are trying to sell the game currency on Ebay. So I decided that I should play one last time before my subscription ended. I would give all of my Sims' money away. I hadn't played the game enough to develop any meaningful relationships with other Sims players. The characters I had created were essentially loners. I hadn't run into any other characters I had interacted with in previous sessions playing the game; if I had met anyone more than once, I didn't remember it. Still to randomly distribute the Simoleans seemed rather meaningless, so I set out to find worthy recipients of my Sims' beneficence. Man in Tights was the first to give away all of his wealth. Playing (or roleplaying) with Man in Tights had actually entertained me in the past on occasion. When others played along with his Old King James-type dialogue and chivalrous manner, the experience was quite enjoyable. Sometimes they would just laugh, which was also fine. Several female characters commented on his tights (and how much they liked men who dressed in tights), and Man accepted all compliments graciously. The opportunity to give away Simoleans also fit into his Robin Hood characterization. A couple of the individuals who were recipients of Man in Tights' cash actually speculated aloud that the funds must have been stolen from the rich to give to the poor, Man in Tights played along, agreeing with their statements/queries. Another aspect of playing a final session was the opportunity to make fatalistic and foreboding statements about the future and the end of his journey. By dropping hints about a journey that would commence in several days, a journey with no specific destination, Man in Tights was able to take on the additional role of Man of Mystery. The gravity of his esoteric statements was further enhanced by his elegant and ornamented language. It was also amusing when other players played along by mimicking his dialect and speaking with flowery language, sirs, madams, thines and thous. Finally, the character who received the majority of Man in Tights' Simoleans was a female who was particularly inquisitive about Man's ominous statements. She seemed curious at first, then genuinely concerned. After more conversation, a game of billiards and a couple dances, Man in Tights gave the rest of his Simoleans to her, promised he would never forget her, and disappeared forever. I had only played the character Gummi (dressed as a bear) once before my final TSO session, and only briefly that once. I was surprised at how well other players received Gummi, how much they seemed to enjoy their interactions with her. Upon entering once "skilling" property, she was greeted with "Gummi bears! I love gummi bears!" and other such affirmative [exhortations]. Gummi attempted to be equally fatalistic, occasionally making statements about how her life would be over in a few more days. But she was less esoteric than Man in Tights. When other players asked why Gummi's existence would last only several more days, she explained that her account subscription was about to expire. Another player, also dressed as a bear, offered his sympathies, and said several times how he would have liked to share Electronic Arts accounts with her if he could. (I don't know how feasible the logistics of that would have been.) Gummi wandered into a property that called itself a police headquarters and had some fun disturbing the peace there (although I can't remember exactly what disturbing the peace involved.) Uniformed officials seemed angry that she was hanging out at the police department without actually having any claims she wanted to file. Gummi was less selective in her wealth distribution than Man in Tights had been. She doled out sums of money more or less to anyone who seemed like a friendly character - and most characters she encountered were. A couple players were hesitant to receive sums of cash, and after she gave them a sum of Simoleans, they attempted to give the money back. (Monetary transactions can easily be mistaken for action transactions such as a hug or a handshake -- both require the recipient to click an icon of consent.) One exchange resulted in a female Sim chasing Gummi around the property in an attempt to return the money she had been given. Other players also seemed to enjoy hugging Gummi, probably because she looked soft and squishy. Two players wanted to interact with Gummi at the same time, and one said to the other, "you can't hog the bear!" The property also had a pool. When Gummi went for a swim, however, she changed into a swimsuit. Rather than putting a swimsuit onto the bear body, her fur disappeared completely. Gummi appeared with a woman's body -- clad in a swimsuit -- and the head of a bear. She expressed shock at having her human body revealed. The bear costume also offered other opportunities for roleplaying. There were several pianos on the property, which could be used for increasing skill in creativity points. Gummi sat at a piano and attempted to play while lamenting the clumsiness of her large paws on the people hand-sized piano keys. Finally, after all of Gummi's Simoleans had been distributed, she said her goodbyes and disappeared forever. I felt satisfied after emptying Man in Tights and Gummi's bank accounts. Then I either had to do something else or didn't feel like playing anymore. Either way I didn't have a chance to play Mickimoto one more time, so she left with most of her original funds. *conclusions I think the main thing that I learned through the experience of playing TSO is that you
really can't be a casual player of an MMOG or persistent world. Well, I guess you can
(I did), but it's a rather fruitless exercise. I became a casual player for the sake of
familiarizing myself with the world, but I was only familiar with the visible or readily
apparent qualities of the game. I missed out on the experience of community and
relationship that is so integral to the virtual world experience. It probably would
have been a different experience to play a traditional MMORPG casually. If nothing
else, maybe character development through combat and quests would have been enjoyable.
But monthly subscription fees seem like a waste of money when other standalone RPGs such
as Diablo or Dungeon Seige provide RPG character development-type experiences and
include the possibility of playing with others via Battlenet-style servers, LAN or IP to
IP.
|