Will Wright, creater of Sim...well...Simeverything, has done an
interview with
Feed. Great interview - Wright gives away a lot of info about Sims Online, which will be (duh) the Sims in a giant contiguous online world. He also talks about adaptive software and other goodies.
Slashdot Mirror
SimSurvivor. Put a bunch of Sims on an island and have them vote to eliminate one another until only one's left. Who goes on to star in SimProductEndorsement. It'd be kind of funny if the sims would use more inventive methods of eliminating one another, too. Whoops. SimCannabalism has broken out on the island...
SimTireMaker. Vie for contracts from Ford. May end up being popular with soon to be unemployed Firestone execs.
SimRealWorld. Simulate 5 college students living together on a bus. Include the hand from Dungeon Keeper so you can smack them on a regular basis.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The oversimplified version of what's up is this:
Windows to Mac ports often have to reinvent a decent amount of the wheel, since they will typically use the MS DirectX API's (DirectSound, DirectX, etc.). This can result in some inefficiency in the port.
Also, Windows does a somewhat better job of swapping out RAM as needed - the kernel has a smaller footprint, despite the OS' bloat overall. Apple's monolithic MacOS needs about 32MB of RAM just to boot nowadays - all their newer systems ship with 64MB or more in the base config. My iBook, with VM off, uses 42.2MB of RAM for the OS! Thank heavens I have 160MB in it! With VM on, the RAM usage drops to 27MB for the OS, but performance drops noticeably. The MacOS VM model is fundamentally broken, and will remain so until the end of time (at least in the Classic OS). OS X will reduce memory needs, though Classic apps will continue to be pigs.
They also copy a ton o' stuff off the CD - but I think you can skip a lot of it and run a lite install.
It plays quite nicely on our iMac DV-450, and pretty well, though occasionally a little sluggish on my iBook-300. The gameplay is actually a little snappier on the iMac than it is on my Athlon 700 - indicating to me that the folks who ported it did a really nice job, and concentrated on speed over size.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
After reading the interview and thinking a bit about what it would be like to play the sims online, for some reason i started thinking that there could be a real social value to this game.
I'm not a shrink, but wouldn't this kind of interaction help the rehabilitation of inmates or similar? I mean, put some computers in correctional centers, for example, and have the inmates socialize through somethink like simsonline, maybe that could be a safe way to learn some values? I know it sounds crazy and far fetched, but if you think about it, maybe it could help develop interest in being part of a community.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
In a way I suppose the trend towards interactive online games that describe an entire world for players to interact in is kind of scary - it's taking the need for real world social interactions out of the loop. But, at the same time it can be seen as a very good thing indeed for people who either have trouble getting out and meeting people or those that aren't self-confident enough to do so.
But games like this new version of The Sims have an even stronger pull in that they are like real life in a way - characters interact in an idealised version of this world, in situations that they encounter in everyday life. Whereas you always know the difference between the real world and Brittania, the difference between the real world and the world of the Sims is a lot more hazy, and as the technology gets better it will get even hazier.
Eventually we can see a point where there is very little difference between these two worlds, and in that case what will happen? Will we see groups of people attempt to disassociate themselves from normal reality as much as possible, or will it just be another form of gaming? I suspect that there will be people for whom the lure of an idealised world will prove too much, and a new form of addiction will rise.
But in the end I don't think that these worlds will ever quite replace our own. No matter how good the programs get, nothing can ever quite match the real world, and people get bored of things quickly when the novelty wears off.
Ok, this may be a troll...
I got Sims for my gf, I think to make up for something stupid I did. I had read reviews in several places, and although I usually only find Sim* games interesting for about 15 minutes, I thought this would be cool.
So we get it home and install it, and I'm thinking, hey this is cool. But after about 15 minutes I'm like "this is it!?". Am I the only one who is bored out of his skull from making people make food, eat, crap, take out the trash and clean themselves? Hell, I don't even want to do that stuff in my *real* life. Now I have all these people that I have to do chores with? How *boring*. I think I'm like the only one who hates this game. Am I not "getting" it? Is there something "fun" about doing chores over and over and talking some babble to annoying neighbors who come uninvited, leave crap all over your house and don't know when to leave? And I wish I could shoot those damn babies. Wah! Wah! SHUT UP!.
This game would be a bit better if you could play, say, a FPS terrorist game and come in and assassinate all these boring people.
<rant>
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Don't forget about Birdz - your simulated girlfriend (screamingly funny, deeply un-PC)
Birdz part 1
Birdz part 2
Birdz part 3
Making an online version of The Sims. This is MUDding at it's finest. MUDding with much, much better graphics. Thank god I'm out of school...
--trb