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.
Re:Fantasy Sim Game (Score:1)
- Steeltoe
Is Maxis prepared for an MMORPG? (Score:1)
They're going to need an entire real-time customer service team (think GM's in everquest) and "live" team that fixes bugs. All sorts of stuff.
I wonder if they are totally prepared for this or are they expecting:
Ok! Servers up! Go at it!
Hah. Within 48 hours they'd be up to their knees in customers wondering "Why can I walk through my neighbors wall" and such.
Well, just a tought.
Arcologies (Score:1)
D
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
Hardly. The real world definitely offers more, but the limiting factor is the possibility to get at it.
Of course, the Real World offers, say, jumping off helicopters to ski down the face of glaciers in Mount McKinley, Alaska, but for all the good it does me, that possibility might as well not exist.
On the other hand, within the self-contained reality of an online game, I can fight a dragon or conquer a galaxy. As long as your brain collaborates on sustaining the illusion, the thrill is there, and is all that matters.
The point is, it's more fun to fight a virtual, polygonal dragon than to work 8 hours behind a real desk shuffling real paperwork for real arseholes you couldn't give a toss about.
Same planet, different worlds....Sid Meyer (Score:1)
How long until... (Score:1)
Your daily dose of "huh?"
Beav
Re:Sims is BORING (Score:1)
I just emailed her the link to the interview above and now she's all excited about playing it online.
I can't imagine anything more horrid. It's just way too much like real life. Why do that when I can play TFC and shoot people in the head?
Maybe we should start a SimsWidower's support group...
Nah. Maxis would probably sue us for infringing on their IP as no doubt support groups will be part of the game in the near future. (That's a joke).
Massive multiplayer... (Score:2)
The scary part is when you jump into a game like Asherons Call or Everquest and see people displaying patterns of behavior as if the world was real: rioting, stealing, etc. It takes the whole 'online identitiy' one step further by allowing people not only to voice their opinions anonymously (like /.) but also act them out with an avatar. ie: I'm not really evil in real life, but I can be in this game or I'm not really a leader in real life, but I am in this game.
Just wait until the cults start to form...(hillpeople?)
--
A moment in Sci-Fi has come to pass (Score:2)
Or maybe plenty of other authors. All you gotta do is hook it up to something like PayPal and people WILL live in this world.
-Ben
Well, it does... (Score:1)
There was a rather unfortunate problem though with the SC2K design, which was that the population limit was around 9.1M, no matter how many arcos you had. After 9.1M people, the arcos and any other buildings would just say None under all the categories. (Okay, this is poor planning on their behalf, but they could have forseen people building 1022 launch arcos to have a multi-billion people population
But back to your point, I agree that the arcos in general weren't overly interesting, save for increasing density by a ridiculous amount.
Hmm (Score:2)
Someone has to ask ... (Score:1)
Never knock on Death's door:
Uh Oh... (Score:4)
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.
Re:Fuck you slashdot. (Score:1)
Is it possible you typed CRASH by mistake?
(virtual) Sandkings (Score:1)
This whole concept kind of scares me because eventually somebody will link Sims-type software and physical robots, and the next thing you know, they all turn on us!
paul
Re:Interactive games (Score:2)
Ah yes, like the real-world social interaction of Mother Theressa kissing some guy she meets on the street in order to destroy Brittney's popularity.
the difference between the real world and the world of the Sims is a lot more hazy
Agreed. Just the other day I thought to myself, "Boy, I've sure made a lot of friends from building that roller coaster and comedy club. Then I remembered that I had only done that virtually. Egad, real life so mimics the tasks encountered in the Sims Online game.
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
Not until a computer can hug you.
That story really worries me (Score:1)
Is a game where your driving goal is to be popular what we really need? Mark my words, some real-world "loser" (I've been one of these - and might be still!) who is not terribly well-adjusted is going to off themself when their popularity plummets.
Bear with me a moment longer and picture this scenario (And before you start taunting, no, this ain't based on me. Somewhere in the middle of my High School life I grew some cojones and stopping being such a little bitch.) Some depressed dude (or chick) in their mid twenties who has problems making friends gets the idea to buy the massively multiplayer persistent Sims game. And after a month or so, when they're not popular in real life OR in a game, they're going to start thinking there's something wrong with them for real. All along they've suspected they were a waste of CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) and now they have confirmation.
Here we are in a marvelous age of technology virtually indistinguishable from magic (We can fly, we can kill at amazing distances, we can make things light up (or cook food) without fire, et cetera) and we still haven't gotten past this pitiful popularity rat-race where it's not who you are, but who you appear to be? Sim* games were once about accomplishing meaningful goals. You built a city and made it prosperous, free of traffic and crime problems, persevered through disasters (natural and otherwise) -- In short, you made a city which was a great place to live. Or in simant, you were just doing your best to perpetuate the species. Even in The Sims (the normal game) you're trying to live a pleasant life. But in this new game, your mission in life is to form a clique and make everyone think you're the ultimate socialite?
I think I have to go vomit now.
I like the idea of sims/dungeon keeper ! (Score:1)
about.
Little Imp Iain is hungry! *SMACK!*
(I put the fridge there for a reason)
Sim Fight Club !
Sim Economy = Sim Casino = Sim Vegas
Alot could be done. There are many massive multiplayer software engines in the making.
All it takes really is people to administrate the
services.
cookie babbles
Re:Fantasy Sim Game (Score:2)
I have some programming experience, and I think what you suggest would be more than a pain: it would be easier to start from scratch. You'd need to make loads of fundamental changes to, for example, SimAnt, in order to get it to interoperate with anything. It was designed to be run on its own, draws directly to the screen, doesn't have an architecture that can be implemented over a network, etc.
Although it's conceptually possible to imagine such a mesh, the codebases just weren't designed with that in mind, so you can't just grab them and make them work with each other :(.
This kind of problem is why object-oriented programming and related paradigms are so popular. Good OO code diminishes, though of course doesn't eliminate, this sort of problem (i.e. getting code to do things it conceptually could do, even if that's not what it was written for at first).
Re:Judgement Day (Score:1)
As a precautionary measure, Will made all the Sims wimps. All you have to do to squash a revolution is take away their potted plants.
metaverse (Score:1)
Re:sim tits, sim employment (Score:1)
Offtopic?
Morons
The Sim Game I'm Waiting For (Score:1)
What I'd really like to see from the Sims is... (Score:2)
It would be interesting that if the Sims Online could be built sufficiently open-ended (see the discussion a few days ago on the 'death of puzzle games') such that you can have a Sim that you teach to do rather complex tasks, and then take the sim online (or if already there) and 'show off' to others. However, I doubt we'll see that anytime soon, but it's an interesting idea.
So if there will be neighborhoods... (Score:1)
Re:Interactive games (Score:2)
Essentially it will all leverage upon several facets of society. If these facets tip the the write way, it will work, if they tip the wrong way, this alternative world you suggest (as others have suggested many times before you) would become a negative asset.
At what point does an alternative reality become real enough to dispense with a prior reality?
The Matrix, to use an overused analogy, described a world in which that alternative reality became so indectectably ingrained, that the only reason you would not call it reality is because the plot of the story was centered around entrapped humans. The Thirteenth Floor did a better job of depicting this "world-within-world" philosophy.
If the inevitable end of online gaming and virtual reality results in a world that is as rich as ours, yet with the added bonus of being able to escape the types of problems that plague our intelligence-oriented society, what could be wrong with a migration?
The obvious answer to that, would be the fact that our bodies and the machines keeping them alive would still be rooted in this reality, and thus our lives within the alternative reality would be anchored in the safety of these machines, and our flesh body. If there was nobody on the "look out" anything could happen and nobody would know it had happened until they snapped out of their world and found their body trapped in a tomb of ice and machinery.
So then, what about a society based upon balance? Instead of one alternative reality, why not many? Why not have them all be built to serve individual goals in their chaotic structure, like a function produces mathematical order, and have these massive functions increasing the value of the planet, as well as the other societies within societies?
I know, I know, this is all rather far fetched to say the least. My point is to make clear that the concept of dissasociation might very well need to be discarded here, bringing the whole topic to be viewed in a different manner.
Re:The Sims (Score:4)
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
Re:This is great. (Score:1)
Kind of like Ultima Online? (Score:2)
I don't think an interesting world is beyond the capabilities of most game creators, but it's something you have to put a lot of thought and design in to from the beginning.
Call me crazy....please do! (Score:3)
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.
Re:Interactive games (Score:2)
--
Re:Not exactly. According to Kant. (OT) (Score:1)
But those are the best... (Score:1)
check out simsville (was: Re:Fantasy Sim Game) (Score:1)
friends (Score:1)
Re:Now we know who's responsible... (Score:1)
Regards, Ralph.
Re:Judgement Day (Score:1)
Weird: I have rather nice running "family" of three sim-men in my neighborhood. They seem to get along quite well. Of course I don't know what they do when I leave my desk to fetch coffee ;-)
Damn Recursion (Score:1)
Regards, Ralph.
Re:What I'd really like to see from the Sims is... (Score:1)
Re:Sims is BORING (Score:1)
Nahhh... that's a different game -- SimVoyeur!
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
Re:How long until... (Score:2)
Online SIMing (Score:1)
This is great. (Score:1)
- desi
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
Funny, that's exactly what happened to the real world... the novelty wore off. Hence the popularity of online games.
I know people for whom an hour inside EverQuest is a lot more fulfilling socially than an hour in a smoky nightclub with loud techno music pounding their eardrums and brains into a pulp.
Re:This is great. (Score:2)
Fuck you slashdot. (Score:2)
Bloody javascript.
Interactive games (Score:3)
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.
Re:This is great. (Score:2)
I want sim-psons.
I want sim-ply the best by Tina Turner
Judgement Day (Score:1)
However, the resolution is to simply put all the men together in the same house and eventually watch the tombstones appear on the front lawn since the men in The Sims don't know how to take care of themselves.
Whatever. I shouldn't post before I have my morning coffee..
--
Sims is BORING (Score:3)
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>
Fragmentation problems (Score:2)
Personally, I do not see this inevitable, and it is inevitable, coupling between artificial worlds and the one we currently consume as a wrong or bad thing. In fact, it could be argued that an eventual migration to such technologies could be beneficial, rather than degenerative.
No, I'm not saying that this process will be a bad thing, merely that for some people it will be, in much the same way that for some people alcohol or drugs are used solely as a means of escaping a world they hate. I'm sure that for many these new worlds will be of great benefit, for recreational, educational and scientific purposes.
If the inevitable end of online gaming and virtual reality results in a world that is as rich as ours, yet with the added bonus of being able to escape the types of problems that plague our intelligence-oriented society, what could be wrong with a migration?
What do you mean? Surely the problems that plauge our "intelligence-orientated" society (could you clarify that?) mainly arise from the people that live in it. Moving from the real world to a virtual one won't change human nature, that's something that will happen slowly.
The obvious answer to that, would be the fact that our bodies and the machines keeping them alive would still be rooted in this reality, and thus our lives within the alternative reality would be anchored in the safety of these machines, and our flesh body. If there was nobody on the "look out" anything could happen and nobody would know it had happened until they snapped out of their world and found their body trapped in a tomb of ice and machinery.
I think you're assuming some kind of permanent migration, which is something I think will never happen. After all, the technology will always be limited by processing power, and the Universe cannot contain the necessary processing power to model itself after all. There won't be any true frontiers in a virtual world, and its underpinnings will always reflect the knowledge its creators had when they built it.
So then, what about a society based upon balance? Instead of one alternative reality, why not many? Why not have them all be built to serve individual goals in their chaotic structure, like a function produces mathematical order, and have these massive functions increasing the value of the planet, as well as the other societies within societies?
It depends whether or not the societies are linked or not. If they aren't, then you basically have a huge fragmentation of human resources, and this will likely lead to stagnation of a lot of these groups. You'd assume that like-minded individuals would form each society, and in that case you'd lose out on the strengths that interactions between opposing viewpoints gives humanity.
If these societies were separate but interacting then you have the problem of nationalism all over again, but based upon the aims and beliefs of these groups. Just think about the conflicts that have occured over the different ideas of God, even between groups were the beliefs were remarkably similar.
I know, I know, this is all rather far fetched to say the least. My point is to make clear that the concept of dissasociation might very well need to be discarded here, bringing the whole topic to be viewed in a different manner.
I don't think it's too far fetched to be unworthy of discussion. But at the same time, its hard to see exactly how it'll turn out in the end. But judging from the polarisation of beliefs that occurs on communities like /. I tend to think fragmentation would cause more conflicts than it would solve.
Sounds like... (Score:2)
...phil
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
What they need is a college student career track, for a sim who's a lot less demanding. (Of course, their salary would be negligable)
Re:Arcologies (Score:1)
Evidently you either didn't play long enough or there are versions that don't actually launch.
Mine usually launched at a very high number(they like mass exodus), but I can't remember exactly how many since I'm at work.(Boss, I'm just waiting for the compiler, I swear)
Re:Sims is BORING (Score:1)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:1)
Regards, Ralph.
Re:...Sid Meyer (Score:1)
So many late nights because I put off papers to play Civ 2...
learning and ai in the sims (Score:1)
basically, when it comes to everyday actions (taking out trash, eating, etc), the sims are pretty much slaves to their drives - for instance, they eat when hungry, but won't eat in anticipation that they'll be going to work soon and will be hungry afterwards. i don't think the timing of their behaviors ever actually changes from that model.
the targets of their behaviors, on the other hand, definitely get learned. sims form object associations easily - get used to the beds they sleep in, appliances that supply them with food, and so on. it's actually a very cool simulation of getting into a habit of doing things - after sleeping every day in the master bedroom, a sim will only reluctantly sleep on the couch.
the implementation is also pretty interesting. the way the sims know where to go for things (how to make food, etc.) is because all active objects in the world 'advertise' what they can do - fridge sends out messages saying "hi, i offer +8 in energy!", easel announces "i offer +2 in fun and art skill!", and so on.
the strength of the message also decays with distance, so a hungry sim will feel the fridge's message very strongly when he's nearby, and weakly if he's far away. this in effect looks like a hill-climbing algorithm - a fridge may put up a 'food' hill of height 8, a grill will produce a hill of height 6, and so on, and the hunger variable in the sim controls how much he's inclined to climb to the 'top' of the food hill, as opposed to doing other things...
Re:interesting (Score:1)
Geeks don't want social interaction. What the hell are you talking about.
Mother Theresa? (Score:2)
It sounds really sick. I can't wait.
--
Re:Call me crazy....please do! (Score:1)
While I can see how it could work as a role-playing exercise (in the shrink sense, rather than the D&D sense), if there's one thing I've learned from interaction in the Sims, it's that life is silly and tedious. For a few days after a long Sim session, I'll tend to look at everything in life as just attempting to raise/lower my own version of the personal attribute bars that the Sims have. It's rather disenchanting.
Check your spelling (Score:1)
They aren't. (Score:1)
Potatoes [ucsd.edu] are esculent farinaceous tubers.
Re:Online SIMing (Score:1)
--
Now I know (Score:1)
Not really... (Score:1)
Nothing to see, exercising subliminal mod control (Score:1)
The Sims (Score:1)
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
Re:sim tits, sim employment (Score:3)
Don't forget about Birdz - your simulated girlfriend (screamingly funny, deeply un-PC)
Birdz part 1 [lightman.co.uk]
Birdz part 2 [lightman.co.uk]
Birdz part 3 [lightman.co.uk]
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
We ALREADY see that today. I would any type of addiction does that, be it games, alcholol, gambling, sex, etc.
Re:Now we know who's responsible... (Score:2)
That's not a MUD at all because you don't directly control your avatar.
--
Re:Interactive games (Score:1)
Funny, that's exactly what happened to the real world... the novelty wore off. Hence the popularity of online games.
Yeah, but at the end of the day the real world offers more than any virtual world ever can, simply due to the available processing power within the Universe.
I know people for whom an hour inside EverQuest is a lot more fulfilling socially than an hour in a smoky nightclub with loud techno music pounding their eardrums and brains into a pulp.
Really? How bizarre... :)
The Sims hints (Score:2)
I still laugh from the screenshots of Sims pissing their pants as soon as they see a ghost, just standing there.
Re:learning and ai in the sims (Score:1)
windows model (Score:2)
On a side note I am kind of amazed at how many articles there are, appearing on slashdot lately, about security. I think it is good, but I also wonder if this is a little overdone? Earlier this week I read three articles on securing your Linux box. Well I'd ahve to say, mine is not as secure as the authors, but it is close. Most of my services in inet are turned off like he said. I unfortunately do use ftp adn telnet althoguth I am moving to ssh soon. I have a window box that I frequently transfer files between th etwo and until I find a windows GUI replacement for wxftp I'll have to have ftp (not for me for the windows users). I do have other services but most are not running through inetd. Except Linux conf. I do need to change that default port though.
Well I think it is good to know about how to secure your machine, shoudl some of these vendors start 'closing up ' the machines and set up some kind of GUIs to make it easy to open these services when people want. Here is what I propose to the vendors. Stop shipping the machines with inetd, or at least give people the option at install to install inetd. (some do some don't). Offere an alternative like the author of one of the articles I read earlier this week did tcp that is more configurable than inetd. Ship the distros with ssh and scp and have these as the default installs rather than telnet and ftp. (This goes for windows also as there is a new windows bus in telnet). WE need to get on the software makers to make it there priorities to make the distributions securer. THis goes for ALL software makers including M$, Linux distros, and Mac etc.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Re:The Sim Game I'm Waiting For (Score:1)
Re:The Sim Game I'm Waiting For (Score:1)
Re:Is Maxis prepared for an MMORPG? (Score:1)
Re:Online SIMing (Score:2)
--
Re:Sims is BORING (Score:1)
It's true, most of the "SimX" games are 'play once, delete', but this one was probably the worst since it is boring most of the time.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:1)
Re:Arcologies (Score:1)
I guess I didn't play for long enough then :-) My old computer got so bogged down once you filled up the whole map that it was a little unplayable (and there's only so long that you can carry on playing - I belive I used to have a life or something back then...)
Fantasy Sim Game (Score:2)
Now we know who's responsible... (Score:4)
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