Let's take it online! That's what Maxis and Electronic Arts decided to do with their best seller game, The Sims. Released in December, this highly advertised game did not meet expected sales but hasn't done nearly as badly as previously reported. With sales just recently reaching the 100,000 mark and reported player accounts totaling over 80,000, The Sims Online seems to be hanging in there. However, if you talk to the players, they want to know where the "reported" 80,000 players are. Logging into a city shows a fairly "dead" community. At one time, Alphaville was the largest city; now it is a shell of its former glory. When beta accounts were no longer accessible, the population for all cities dropped drastically. What was once a city map lit up with flashing red dots (showing occupied properties) is now but a sprinkling of red. Where did everyone go?

The Sims Online is an adaptation to the offline, single-player version that has sold millions of copies worldwide. Players log into the game and enter one of many cities available to them. Players can visit various homes, build their own home, learn skills, earn money playing various games, and most importantly, they can communicate and have fun with other Sims fans.

Players in The Sims Online try to vie for visitors to their properties by holding contests, parties or offer specific features that players need. They create their own environments and make their own fun. The game is considerably light on content, although some players have found ways around that. One player created a Sim-sized Monopoly board where visitors can play their favorite board game, complete with Chance and Community Chest cards. Another player set up a Starbucks Coffee Shop where players can "hang out" while discussing virtually any topic over a nice cup of cappuccino.

Players new to The Sims environment should not have any difficulty with the easy-to-understand interface. Players can use their mouse to hover over an icon and learn its function. Further, when hovering over a "need" such as "social" a screen will appear telling to players how to raise the need. There are a few minor negatives to the interface, such as the lack of a keyboard shortcut guide and the bug that occurs when you switch from "build mode" to "live mode." Otherwise, new players should have no difficulty learning how to function within the game. Additionally, "Welcome" category lots set up by veteran players specifically for new players offers new Sims a place where they can learn how to play the game.

More experienced Sims fans will recognize their favorite Sim objects and music from the original offline version. There are a few new tunes for the online game, as well as the ability to designate specific atmospheric sounds, such as birds chirping, machine gun fire, city sounds, barnyard effects, even rain and thunder. The environment sounds are a tad bugged; volume does not maintain its setting even when it is turned "off." Moving around the screen can usually fix this immediate problem.

As with any online game, The Sims Online is not without its share of bugs. For the most part, Maxis is quick to recognize and correct errors in the game. If a bug is something that could be damaging to the game or exploitable, Maxis will take the item offline until a fix can be patched into the system. Occasionally, lag is also an issue. One method Maxis utilized to reduce lag was to place limits on the number of items allowed on each property. Unfortunately, a bug that has created lag since the earliest days of beta testing, popularly called "doorbell lag," happens when players enter a property. The game utilizes a doorbell ring to notify everyone on the property that a new visitor has arrived. Players currently on the property experience several seconds of lag as a result of the doorbell.

Driven by the demands of the players, Maxis has recently released many long awaited features such as:

• Skill Locks - Lets a player lock one of their six skills without worrying about it decaying.
• Neighborhoods - Lets nearby homes band together under one neighborhood name; the more homes that join, the larger the neighborhood name shows on the city map
• Band Object: Four players can use various instruments and play specific notes that are generated by the game. The longer they can follow without pressing a wrong note the more money they earn
• Love Tub: A popular feature from the offline game, the love tub is a heart-shaped hot tub where players can cuddle with one another.

Maxis has also accepted corporate sponsorship, as evidenced by the addition of McDonald's kiosks. Players can purchase a food kiosk or a dessert kiosk and offer their visitors their favorite McDonald's treats, such as a Big Mac, Egg McMuffin, or ice cream sundae. A lesser-known corporate sponsor can be seen in the computers used for learning "logic" that display "Pentium Inside." Players have mixed feelings about the incorporation of sponsored items. Some players feel that they experience enough commercialism in "real-life" and they prefer to avoid it in the game; others are thrilled and beg for more.

Unfortunately, this is still not enough. Players are canceling subscriptions daily complaining that they are bored. The Sims Online lacks the same level of content that players have grown to love in the offline version of the game. Players expect more from the online version, as they are required to pay a monthly $9.95 subscription to play; at the very least, they expected the same number of objects in the game as in the offline series and its expansions. Sims fans were disappointed to see limited object choices and extremely bug-riddled items, including the famous and widely utilized buffet tables.

Online player support is virtually non-existent. When a player needs help, they are given two options:, report a player for harassment or enter a question and be directed to their online support guide. The guide itself is a decent compilation of questions and answers but does not appear to receive updates on a regular basis. Answers tend to be outdated or vague. Further, you may not find an answer to your question, or the answer in the guide may direct you to email Maxis' support directly. Regrettably, email support merely copies and pastes the exact answers given in the online guide that directed the player to them in the first place. Phone support is little better; online tech supports personelle are difficult to understand but they do offer a little more support. Level-two support, on the other hand, is excellent and generally able to correct any issues that may arise with your account.

Not everything is bad in the world of The Sims Online. In an effort to gather player ideas and listen to their concerns, Maxis maintains a message board system and also holds regular online chat sessions. Stratics sponsors a bi-weekly House of Commons chat with Maxis developers every other Wednesday. Some chat sessions allow the players to ask questions and the developers will answer them, other times Maxis asks questions and the players provide their thoughts and ideas. The online chat sessions with the developers is a fantastic way for developers to learn about new issues, discover what is most important to players at that moment, and show the players that they do care about them.

A majority of the players in The Sims Online are new to online games; they play the game and make judgments quickly, as they would for an offline game. What the players fail to realize is that The Sims Online is not a single player PC game but an ever-changing, ever-evolving online game. Not every feature the developers have planned can be published by the release date, some features must be held off in order to finish the project by its target date. The Sims Online was definitely released to early; however, the game is still in its early stages and will evolve fairly quickly. The biggest question remains: can Maxis integrate the custom content features they have promised before they lose the majority of their player base?

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