The Sims 2 support line disappearing has me feeling nostalgic about the good ol’ days of playing the original Sims games. The Sims has been a successful franchise in the simulation department of video games for being able to simulate the basic concepts of life. You’d move into a new place, build your career and bank account, and potentially start a family. A lot of good skills can be learned from this game alone, which is a good thing to do when a game about simulating life turned its focus to making an MMO. They tried it in 2007 when World of Warcraft was releasing its first expansion pack. However, I believe they released it too early, causing the problems that ultimately lead to its closure.
The graphical limitations were relevant as far as how the game play would operate, but The Sims was widely praised for its gameplay, even winning a couple of awards. Although, seven years ago seems like a short amount of time to consider the drastic changes in how we view graphics. MMO’s were fairly new at the time. There wasn’t a heck of a lot to expect, but the key difference in all of these was the demographic. We as a gaming audience were stretched out to a game that wasn’t in the fantasy genre (although the Sims is pretty close). We had a simulation game that everyone could interact with, create communities on, and… well, live life. It seemed like a realistic game. Unfortunately the support was low, the sales were low, and the game wasn’t all it was cooked up to be. This is because the time period was too early.
The Sims OnlineThe Sims has evolved into something more than a basic life simulator. Now owners can have pets, take vacations, go to university, and run their own businesses. These are even only a few things that can happen. With each new expansion comes a new intricate form of life that wasn’t previously in the game. The possibilities are endless considering life is always rapidly changing, which is exactly why the Sims should try becoming an MMO again.
Most games nowadays are pushing for the multiplayer aspects of games. There are games specifically built for a co-operative main story, such as Army of Two, Gears of War, and Borderlands 2. Even some of the best single player games like Bioshock, Last of Us, and Assassin’s Creed have incorporated multiplayer into one of their games, because people like to play games with other people. Not to say that playing a single player game isn’t fun, but being able to share the experience of games is that much greater. But these aren’t the same as the Sims. To best compare the Sims, we have to look at the success of Minecraft.
Minecraft is one of those games that had an extremely simple, if not non-existent storyline. The point of Minecraft is to survive with the settings given, which includes building a house, finding food, and expanding your wealth via minerals and supplies. Sound familiar? The Sims expands on that by making the storyline more suburban terms. Not only could you co-operate with people, you could expand on the neighborhood you were living in and keep it central to just that neighborhood. With multiple neighborhoods, much like minecraft, you would only be playing in certain locations as opposed to one giant map. However, like Minecraft, that wouldn’t restrict it to only that one location. You can travel to other locations. With public transportation and the use of cars in the Sims, it would be an easy transition to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood.
Needless to say, there are many pro’s and con’s to making a game that big again. With the amount of people online and people jumping in and out, there could be problems with terrorizing the neighborhoods. One of the main uses of The Sims seems to be for people to kill their Sims or terrorize a Sim’s life. It would be hard for the intended purpose of the game to be carried out with that kind of destruction happening in the servers, but it seems it could be fixed by making specific servers for terrorizing or even expanding into PvP. I’m sure the Sims will go the hunting route at some point in the franchise, considering it’s an outdoors activity.
This may be asking too much, but I think the Sims could really take off as an MMO with these features in mind. Keeping it simple is what the audience likes, whether they know it or not. Like Minecraft, we won’t know what we want until it goes out there and I think Sims has the opportunity to expand into something bigger. I realize that I haven’t included much of the Sims Social/Facebook version, but I don’t consider that the MMO I’m referring to. I’m talking about the full-fledge PC version. Until that time, The Sims fans will be excited for The Sims 4 and its emotions.
What do you all think? Should The Sims become an MMO again or would be as dismal as the past try?
Here’s the Sims 4 E3 Gameplay presentation for some more Sims hype!
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