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Will Wright Talks About Sims Online 85

Posted by Hemos from the baba-dola-whoo-nah-sla dept.
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.
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Will Wright Talks About Sims Online More

Will Wright Talks About Sims Online

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  • Great idea! Of course someone could make a new SimCity, and attract other Sims into migrating there too. And then you got SimEarth, where someone controls Gaia on which everyone lives :-)

    - Steeltoe
  • Sounds to me like they are going to be releasing a MMORPG. Sure it may be a generalized statement, but that's what I gather from the article.
    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.
  • Am I the only one who was disappointed with the arco's in Sim City 2000? The docs hinted that they may do something interesting, but they never seemed to - I was kind of hoping that the Launch Arco would, well, launch. Or something.

    D
  • 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.

    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.

    Really? How bizarre... :)
    Same planet, different worlds.
  • At least for me.

  • So, who wants to take bets on how long it'll take, once Sim Online is out, before someone creates the new "Serial Killer" profession?

    Your daily dose of "huh?"

    Beav

  • No dude you're not the only one. I bought it for my girlfriend too. She sits there for hours building houses and decorating them. I started to try that once, got the walls up and one room wallpapered and realized "I have no interest in this."

    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).

  • Gaming has been moving towards exclusive multiplayer for quite some time now. It won't be long until we see RTS games where you actually build up your base and then defend it from potentially thousands of other users, not just 8 or 16. Actually, I've read that there are already several games like this in the works.

    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?)


    --
  • Call it the street protocol, and you've got something right out of Neil Stephenson's fiction.

    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
  • If you're lucky, that is. I do agree that the arcos weren't nearly as interesting as they sounded, but the launch arco did, in the win95 version of the game (the DOS version didn't do this), launch. It was kind of funny actually, since the arcos were just replaced by smoke, in the same way as they'd burn down or be destroyed by an earthquake.

    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)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Maybe you could put together a SimDTD to describe the SimXML that you could use to make the data transactions between the various SimGames feasible. Your entire SimUniverse could work out to one XML tree...
  • My roomate has the sims and I love it. He also has Windows... I don't love that. Linux? Anyone. Help me out here Loki :)

    Never knock on Death's door:

  • Uh Oh... (Score:4)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @06:29AM (#778165) Homepage Journal
    From the sick and twisted mind of Greyfox...

    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.

  • "... and so I type CASH then the browser window goes small and starts gyrating across the screen in an uncontrolled rampage. "

    Is it possible you typed CRASH by mistake?

  • Anyone remember "Sandkings" (I think by George R. R. Martin). Basically the creatures in that were little "Sims" that learned - unfortunatly for the protaganist, they were also not virtual, and he came to bad end by teaching them the wrong things...

    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
  • 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

    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.

  • 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.

  • Course I think it's just my desire to smack people
    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
  • The basic codes are all there but the connecting code would be a pain in the donkey.

    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).

  • Hmm.. wonder if these little Sims having their own "planetary connection" could evolve into an uprising of computer intelligence against the human race.

    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.

  • this thing is gonna be entertaining, but mostly as a stepping stone. I agree that we need some serial killer and violent(just for fun) add-ons. i know that eventually, the concept will be recreated by a slashdotter, run in linux, and become it's own web. then people can buy virtual real estate just like in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. people will be able to buy this real estate the same way they buy web space now. they'll be able to develop their own little place as they like. and they'll be able to travel around the metaverse and cruise public real estate and talk to people. a prototype of this kind of thing was on display at the technology museum in San Jose. eventually, people will be able to work in this metaverse, and get credits put towards a real world debit card which can be used as actual money. wow, that would be cool. --i don't know about being crazy, but my pile of clay eyebrows is getting larger every day--

  • Offtopic?

    Morons

  • The Sim Game I'm Waiting For (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm really waiting for SimSim(tm), the Sim Game that puts you in charge of a software company that makes Sim Games. :D
  • One of the things that is briefly mentioned here in the interview is that Sims could learn behavior over time, but as suggested by the interview and my experience with the game is that this is currently not the case; you can tell your Sim for days on end to clean up the dishes after eating, but if you don't tell him, and assuming all other 'happiness' levels are sufficiently good, he won't do it himself. Rumor has it that there is something like this to the game, but I've not seen any strong evidence of it.

    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.

  • with their own messageboards etc... will there be an option to kick the messageboard trolls out of yourneighborhood and make them move into the simslums????
  • 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.

    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)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @03:29AM (#778179) Homepage Journal
    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
  • Yeah, it's great to interact with other humans in the Simcities or in The Sims - but wait till someone finds out how to PK...
  • A while back I pointed this out as a flaw of Ultima Online: I could work for hours at a tedious job in the real world for a meager salary. Why on earth would I want to go home and work for hours at a tedious job in their virtual world, for a meager salary?

    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)

    by Docrates ( 148350 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @04:41AM (#778182) Homepage
    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.
  • I dunno how much like the real world The Sims is. In reality, I avoid doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and cleaning up as long as possible. In The Sims, I make my people do it all the time, like little neat-freaks.

    --

  • What is it that makes me a karma whore? Are we not allowed to express our opinion on relevant topics any longer? What ever happened to the ideal of encouraging thought provoking conversation? Are we supposed to degrade ourselves into one liners merely to please the hoards? I know you probably meant very little by what you say, but what you say is a growing trend here, even the modifiers are getting in on it. I believe that the opinion you are backing is very diseased indeed.
  • Those are by far the most innovative of the Sim games, and really set the trend for future efforts. I love Sim-Ant, World, etc; but the best have to go to Will Wright.

  • well, then check out their next product, simsville [simsville.com]. it looks like they're trying to go one level up from the sims, and have a simulation of whole town starting from a simcity-like level down to micromanagement of individual households. if the web page is to be believed, it'll be released sometime within the next 5 years... :)
  • I have a couple friends that play everquest so much, they basically only work to make sure they have a home, computer and everquest account. The call it EverCrack and never stop playing. I envy them...
  • Read the article. In Sims Online it seems you will be controlling your avatar.

    Regards, Ralph.
  • 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.

    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 ;-)

  • Hmm, I wonder if you could play MUD with the other people in Sims Online?

    Regards, Ralph.
  • I think the game you're really after is Creatures... though I had a terrible time with Creatures, I somehow managed to breed critters so stupid they'd die because they were too stupid to eat. The Sims don't really seem to learn behavior so much as stick to their personality. If they're Neat, they'll clean everything up. If they're naturally Messy, it doesn't matter how often you tell them to do the dishes - they'll never do it by themselves.
  • (When you have a baby you don't even get to see your characters having sex!! wtf!)

    Nahhh... that's a different game -- SimVoyeur!
    --
    You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
  • I would never in a million years try to replace my real friends and social interactions with the kind of human flotsam you meet on a daily basis on the net. The danger, perhaps, is that people will not live their lives on the Net, but live their real lives as if they -were- on the Net - screaming at the top of their lungs, talking in gibberish run-on sentences, threatening those who disagree with them on minor points with viruses, "hacks" and death - sure, there's some people who do that on a daily basis now, but thankfully most of them are incarcerated.
  • Sounds a bit like Poe.
  • This is something that I've always thought would be cool. SimCity, but like Ultima Online or something. Intercity trade relations and things of that nature. I'd buy it and subscribe, anyway.
  • I have never been a fan of "Sim," games and have always found them to be quite annoying and boring. Network versions of these games (particularly The Sims) will add a human element that will be incredibly appealing to both hardcore Sim fans as well as people like me.

    - desi

  • 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.

    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.

  • I agree, if it doesnt degrade into a fight for power by a few who know how to exploit the system. If I could build a city, and the surrounding 4 cities were controlled by other players, then that would be neat. Trade items with them, build highways, sell them space in my landfills, etc...
  • Fuck you slashdot. I start talking about CASH and how much CASH i've got and so I type CASH then the browser window goes small and starts gyrating across the screen in an uncontrolled rampage.

    Bloody javascript.

  • Interactive games (Score:3)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @02:52AM (#778200)

    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.

  • I want sim-rapist.

    I want sim-psons.

    I want sim-ply the best by Tina Turner

  • Hmm.. wonder if these little Sims having their own "planetary connection" could evolve into an uprising of computer intelligence against the human race.

    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)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @05:06AM (#778203)
    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>

  • 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.

  • This sounds a little bit like ActiveWorlds [activeworlds.com].


    ...phil
  • Amen... If I tried to make those people live the way I did in colege, they'd revolt! I mean, they want to eat every day, they always get tired, and coffee has such a horrible energy/bladder ratio...
    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)

  • > I was kind of hoping that the Launch Arco would, well, launch. Or something.

    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)

  • Thank god - I thought I was the only one.

  • Ah, you'll be wanting my Quake Plug-in for The Sims (TM) ...

    Regards, Ralph.
  • Damn him!

    So many late nights because I put off papers to play Civ 2...

  • here's a bit on the sims' ai, from what i can remember from will wright's talk at the ai and computer games symposium [nwu.edu] this spring...

    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...

  • No, the geeks would just be looking for power armor and a way to shoot babies.

    Geeks don't want social interaction. What the hell are you talking about.

  • ...need to basically beef up my popularity so I can go after Brittany. She's the only one who's close to me in winning this game

    It sounds really sick. I can't wait.

    --
  • I'm not a shrink, but wouldn't this kind of interaction help the rehabilitation of inmates or similar?

    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.

  • I've seen this problem before. You typed "CRASH", not "CASH".

  • Potatoes [ucsd.edu] are esculent farinaceous tubers.

  • Hmmm...I wonder how long before the simulated characters decide that they're bored and run a virtual sim of their own...
    --
  • Now I know who is responsible for Windows still being on my home PC. The only reason I have it is to play SIM city 2000 and 3000. Once the full SIM City 3000 gets released by Loki I will finaly be able to get rid of Windows for good. Nice to hear from the man that has cost thousands of us hours upon hours of our lives to the SIM games.
  • Will Wright didn't make all the sim games. Not even close. Just Simcity, Simcity 2000, and the Sims.
  • Moderators, you know you are under my power completely. No matter how much you try to resist, you will be compelled to moderate this post down against your will. In fact, my control of your subconscious, and your subsequent lack of free will, is so complete that you believe that you want to moderate this down! Imagine your horror, if you were to be released from my control, and saw this brilliantly insightful comment that you moderated down! But do not fear, I have no plans to wake you from your trancelike state, for I relish power and dominance, even over weak willed fools. Now, I command you, my obedient slaves, loose your mod points on this post. I suggest the rating "Flamebait". On three ... One, Two,
  • My wife has been begging me to get this game for her. Her birthday is coming up so I went to order it and then saw the requirements. 64 MB RAM? 350 MB HD? Come on! She's got a hand-me-down Mac. The Win95 version only requires 32 MB RAM--so what's up?
    --
    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/

  • Re:sim tits, sim employment (Score:3)

    by Phat Phuck ( 233142 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @03:04AM (#778222)

    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]

  • > Will we see groups of people attempt to disassociate themselves from normal reality as much as possible,

    We ALREADY see that today. I would any type of addiction does that, be it games, alcholol, gambling, sex, etc.
  • Erh, how are 'The Sims' like a MUD? In a MUD, you interact with other people. In 'The Sims,' you just interact with your simulated people. If we ever had a large online world of it, chances are you'd only through a few layers of simulated people be able to communicate.

    That's not a MUD at all because you don't directly control your avatar.
    --

  • 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... :)

  • That's what's great about the Sims. All the game hints are hints your mother could have told you. "Don't have a baby unless you can afford it",etc.

    I still laugh from the screenshots of Sims pissing their pants as soon as they see a ghost, just standing there.
  • In my experience with the Sims (which has been extensive), they *do* learn some behaviours, like where to sleep, as has been mentioned. Also, if you give them the same "morning routine" day after day -- wake, pee, eat, bathe, go to work -- they will start to do things in this order on their own rather than according to their immediate needs. And they can definately be trained to flush and wash their hands after using the toilet, no matter what their "neat/messy" scores are. It makes one wonder what exactly goes into Human learning. Is it merely a product of having done something so many times that you gradaully begin to understand it? Or is it a detailed cognitive process whose subtler workings lie outside the realm of human comprehension? It is proven that humans learn through repetition. So do animals, and, now, Sims. In fact, as will wright said, the Sims are actually dumber than they could have been. If this is so, what separates us from our Sims? It makes one wonder who is dictating our "morning routines" to us...
  • This sounded like the windows model. Windows tries to limit the knowledge of the bugs, but sometimes they have no choice. In general Windows is not going to tell you about bugs, unless they are 'popularized'. Maybe this is good, but I guess it depends on who knows about these bugs. In the case of Open Source you need to reach the author(s).

    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!

  • There is such a thing, at least in the Radio Shock (A Dandy Corporation!) store in Space Quest IV. It's called "Sim Sim: The Simulator Simulator" and shows a picture of the original SimCity box art except in the simulator window is another game box, and in that one's simulator window is another game box, and so on. (Damn recursion!) Funny stuff.
  • Uh oh... then (like the movie Existenz) is this real??
  • Now that Maxis is owned by EA, and EA knows that an online Sims will be a huge moneymaker, I'm sure that they will have sufficient funding to provide fulltime customer support, a server response and patch team, and all that other good stuff. Maxis has always been known for researching every aspect of a game to great lengths (read about the Sim's language in that article!), so I'm sure they've studied the early problems with Ultima Online, Everquest, and all those and figured out how they'll avoid them.
  • Simcity always made me mad, because I would fill up that stupid tiny little city square, and then look enviously at the neighboring cities, which would only have like 1000 people. And then I would get a military base, but they wouldn't let me use it to conquor the neighboring cities! WTF!
    --
  • I actually bought The Sims for myself (I thought I'd try something different for a change). I played it most of the way through once -- got promoted in my job several times, got married, and had a baby. I was mainly interested in trying out different things and seeing what happened. After playing the game a few days, I'd seen just about all there is too see, so I deleted it. (When you have a baby you don't even get to see your characters having sex!! wtf!)

    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.

  • No, they are not even close to being the same.
  • Evidently you either didn't play long enough or there are versions that don't actually launch.

    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...)

  • I always sorta felt that they should do something like this but combine all the sim games together and get them to interact. Say for instance everyone starts out as a regular sim in an apartment. As you gain money/fame/whatever you could open up a SimTower for an office building or a Sim Theme Park. For those of us who liked it (I'm one of them, Yea I know the shame) You could set up a SimAnt colony in someone's backyard and have your problems all be real-time interlinked to that guys The Sims back yard. The basic codes are all there but the connecting code would be a pain in the donkey.

  • Now we know who's responsible... (Score:4)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Friday September 15, 2000 @03:20AM (#778237) Homepage
    I wonder, if this man hadn't come along, how many more people would have graduated college instead of failing out. I can name at least 2.

    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

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