posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Feb 1

From: MaxisLuc <MaxisLuc@maxis.com>
Date: Jan 31, 2008 10:30 PM
Subject: EA-Land
To: Former Members of The Sims Online

Dear Former Member of The Sims OnlineI 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 this letter please go to http://ea-land.ea.com)

We have played The Sims Online together, my avatar is MaxisLuc (yes, I work for Maxis/EA.) 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 just downloading the game (here: http://ea-land.ea.com/register/freeTrial.php). If you do so before March 2008, you can get your earned privileges back (gifts, skill locks etc.), but most importantly, you can re-join the game before the rush of new users.

EA-Land will host all of The Sims Online cities.

The Sims Online was made of 12 different cities (AlphaVille, Blazing Falls, etc..) and we are moving all of those cities inside 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.

RE-designed with Smart Users

We have a blog (http://www.tso-e.com ) where 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 simoleans directly from Maxis. While there is no need for users to do so in the game (we give subscribers simoleans every week), it can help new users build their dream house faster with a simple paypal transaction secured by us.

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”

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Jan 28

I just had to re-install The Sims Online onto a new machine and discovered the procedure changed slightly from the last time. 

Simply visit https://ea-land.ea.com/register/freetrial.php and at the bottom you’ll see the DOWNLOAD option.. you don’t even have to log in at that point.  Also, if you have a slow connection… it’s a HUGE download.. for $5 (U.S. via Paypal) they’ll send it to you on DVD.  Sweet!

Now we all hold our breaths for the merge to happen and to see what will eventually happen with their graphics upgrade.  Out of three machines, only one of mine has been able to launch “Test Center 3 - Test” without error, and even then performance was poor. 

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Dec 16

This seems to work for a lot of people who are caught in the “verifying update” loop.

At the initial sign in screen, choose “Test Center 3″ and press login.  It’s okay if you don’t play in TC3, you just need to get to the screen where it shows the three sims.  Once you’re there, log out.

Now try logging back in under “The Sims Online” - the game will repatch and with any luck at all you’ll be back in the production cities.

My theory is the TC3 (ie: EA Land) servers have priority on the bandwidth and that’s why the update is failing for production city players.

Or you could start the rumor that they’re trying to get everyone into TC3 and doing evil tricks to get them there.

Hope that works for those of you that still can’t get in and if you discover any other tricks, please post them here or let me know so I can post them.

Happy Simming!

p.s. - Thank you Nichole for putting the fire under my tush to publish this!

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Nov 27

.

When you get this bad.

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Nov 4

Okay kids, for those of you that missed it.  There’s a new procedure for installing The Sims Online and is where tech support will direct you should you have and problems that require a re-install to resolve.

The full article is here: http://tso-e.com/blog/?p=372

If your one of the brave, you can dive right into the installation here: http://www.ea-land.com/EALand/setup.htm

NOTE: I have found this procdure sometimes fails under FireFox.  Try Internet Explorer if you have troubles.

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Oct 31

 Merge Merge Merge

Well, we survived merge-mania and now we’re all just kind of laying-low waiting for it to happen.  I know many of you are very discouraged and at times even bored right now.  It’s really hard to keep motivated knowing there will be a huge change in the not-so-distant future.  A few tips that I hope help…

Skill Skill Skill

We may be losing our money, but we won’t be losing our skills.  Rumor has it that we may even have more skilling options down the road.  Now is a great time to maximize your skills as far as you can take them.  My strategy is to have each of my sims max out at least one skill in hopes that it will be my future source of income.  (in-game that is!)

Friends Friends Friends

Post merge we’ll essentially be in one gigantic city.  Now is  a great time to rekindle those old relationships as well as seek out some new friends.  Once the merge comes to fruition, teamwork will become very important.  Don’t just learn about your friends socially.  Learn what there skills are.. .are they a potential pizza or code partner?  What type of house do they run? 

Build Build Build

If you have any homeless sims why not give them a big old property and house?  We can’t take our money with us but it appears our property and posentions will move.  Even if you have a sim in a city you don’t frequent you should do this! 

We won’t be able to sell-back anything after the merge so don’t just stock up on expensive items, put together a functional house of your chosen category.

Comment Comment Comment

Anymore tips and suggestions?  Comment away!  We’ve been getting tons of new registered users here lately so I know the game is not dead.  I think the most exciting days are yet to come and we should all be excited to be at ground zero of this new sim revolution. 

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Oct 18

Jess, Mana, Maggs, Marie and Buddha Paul walking on water! 

Want to learn a new trick?  Visit Jess’ house The Hangout in Mount Fuji and have roomie Maggs teach you how to dance ON WATER!!  Sync dancing lessons available too!  Come join the fun!!!

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Oct 18

C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims Online\TSOPatch\TSO.exe

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem

If you get this error after a Sims Online update that occured on 10/17/07 then the solution is to down the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) which installs runtime components of Visual C++ Libraries required to run applications developed with Visual C++ on a computer that does not have Visual C++ 2005 installed. (Something that the patch itself should have installed).

You can download this file from Microsoft.  Installation is painless.

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Oct 6

EA Land - Test Centers - Real Money - and Crap

I was totally shocked the other night to come across an old time player in Interhogen that had no idea what was going on with the future of TSO. So, just as an additional method of spreading the news.. here’s a link to a great FAQ on the merge that consolodates evertying quite nicely and from a reliable source.

Once you go through the official accounting of what will be happening, I’d love to hear what if anything , you are doing in preperation for this merge?

Since we will not be bringing our money with us, it seems the hardest thing to do in EA Land to get started is creating a lot.  So I have made sure that all my homeless sims now have their own lots that serve some sort of  function that will benefit my little simmy family, like a skill lot that will let my own sims achieve their goals and a store lot that will hopefully allow me to sell wholesale to my friends and family. 

I imagine many have already thought of this strategy and once the merge starts falling into place, we’ll see an overabundance of general skill and money lots.  So if you’re ultimate goal is to run the busiest and most popular lot you may want to think of what niche you want to specialize in.

 I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

And PLEASE - I know this is a very sensitive topic and many of you (including myself) have some very strong opinions.  Let’s leave the complaining over on the stratics board and here we can just deal with it as just something we’re going to have to live with.    If you’re of the mindset to get all upset and threaten vocally to leave the game, please.. just leave.. don’t let it hit you on the way out.

CLICK HERE FOR OFFICIAL NEWS

posted by Buddha Paul (Admin) on Jul 27

Yea..  you’ll need to keep your favorite simmy for 6 years before you can compleatly max out your abilities and retire from skilling completely.  Of course odds are that TSO-e will change all that when the times comes, but happy skilling none the less!

Locks by Year

Interactions by Difficulty

Tip….. right click the image and “print” so you can tape this handy chart to your wall.  Print one for each sim and check off your progress as you go along.

Also, these charts are also available as a permanent page.. see sidebar on right or by saving this shortcut.