What made TSO so successful?

XandWacky

XandWacky

Active Member
I want to do a TSO/FSO review eventually (hopefully that's allowed) and I wanted to get the opinion of you all.
What made TSO a success to some and how can it make FSO successful to others?
 
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Offredo95 said:
Hum... actually, TSO was not really a true success, that a bit the reason why the servers have been shut down...
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My predictions told me that someone would point that out. Okay, how about successful to other people? Work with me.
 
The best thing about TSO was that it took my favorite game and put into a very social environment. The offline sims games are very, very much a solitude experience, shared only by you and your sims. Technology these days has helped sims players to share their own experiences via screenshots and video, but the game is still a very one-sided affair. I've live-streamed my sims games, and yes it can be fun to get input from viewers, but again, it's still your own world with your own sims. TSO created a world for many people to play together. In TSO, sharing is everything. You share your house for a category, you share you sim to help with skill speeds or money boosts, you share you intelligence/cooperation to work the group machines-- but most importantly, you share yourself. TSO, at it's bare bones, was a virtual chat room. This is why so many people either loved it or hated it. The game play was slow--no, very slow.

Your sim could sit for hours and hours just skilling, with the exception of getting up to fill the need bars, and then go right back at it. Most people went afk for skilling, but not me. I'd spend that time chatting. I'd be making mundane conversation, or joining in on a conversation already happening. I'd try to bring humor in whenever I could, hoping to break someone out of their keyboard lull to type out an "lol", which would then get them revved up to talk some more. This was how friends were made.

The success of this game was entirely what you made of it. If you weren't willing to talk and be social, you probably wouldn't last super long. It was truly an experience, not a so much a game.

If you make a review, please post a link so I can see it. I think I've watched every single TSO video on YouTube, and would love to see some more. Well, assuming your review will be a video at all :)
 
fruitchew87 said:
The best thing about TSO was that it took my favorite game and put into a very social environment. The offline sims games are very, very much a solitude experience, shared only by you and your sims. Technology these days has helped sims players to share their own experiences via screenshots and video, but the game is still a very one-sided affair. I've live-streamed my sims games, and yes it can be fun to get input from viewers, but again, it's still your own world with your own sims. TSO created a world for many people to play together. In TSO, sharing is everything. You share your house for a category, you share you sim to help with skill speeds or money boosts, you share you intelligence/cooperation to work the group machines-- but most importantly, you share yourself. TSO, at it's bare bones, was a virtual chat room. This is why so many people either loved it or hated it. The game play was slow--no, very slow.

Your sim could sit for hours and hours just skilling, with the exception of getting up to fill the need bars, and then go right back at it. Most people went afk for skilling, but not me. I'd spend that time chatting. I'd be making mundane conversation, or joining in on a conversation already happening. I'd try to bring humor in whenever I could, hoping to break someone out of their keyboard lull to type out an "lol", which would then get them revved up to talk some more. This was how friends were made.

The success of this game was entirely what you made of it. If you weren't willing to talk and be social, you probably wouldn't last super long. It was truly an experience, not a so much a game.

If you make a review, please post a link so I can see it. I think I've watched every single TSO video on YouTube, and would love to see some more. Well, assuming your review will be a video at all :)
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There will be a video :D (other part of the reply will come shortly)
 
You don't have to be positive about TSO, you can in fact point out why it didn't work, and how FreeSO attempts to fix those issues. Also mention the dreaded EA-Land and their failed attempt at reviving the declining popularity of TSO.
 
TheMarshmallowBear said:
Also mention the dreaded EA-Land and their failed attempt at reviving the declining popularity of TSO.
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You know... renaming TSO -> EA-Land was done to "cushion the fall" to limit the public damages on the license of Sims more than anything else
 
Offredo95 said:
You know... renamed TSO -> EA-Land was especially for "cushion the fall" to limit the public damages on the license of Sims in fact.
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It was the darkest era of TSO which ultimately led it to it's downfall.

But TSo was NOT successful, at it's prime/end before EA-Land (shortly after Betaville/The extremely buggy version with household concept was added) most lots were eerie empty, housing players who really just wasted their time as often went AFK.

I'm hoping FreeSo won't fall and that people will try to be more Roleplay about it.

Another dark areas were the supposed "solitication" in-game. Whore Houses (I'm not actually kidding) and Stripper Clubs (hell I even tried building one) were often happening.

I don't know exact details since I joined around 2006/2007. But the game was in a rather bad shape.

TSO came at an interesting time as it was around the time that MMO were popular, but it also came at a time before they were there. Most people still I think had dial up (I mean look how long it takes for the TSO downloaded to acctually download regardless of your internet speed).

I don't know why EAxis actually abandoned TSO but the past is the past.
 
From what I saw... and I had friends who were involved in this ... so I was in the circle. When they took away the interactions that the Mafias used in their fights, and started banning people who kept the Mafias going ... that's when a lot of people left the game. There was a big drop in players when that all happened. So a big drop in revenue ..... Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong :p
 
RainCloud said:
From what I saw... and I had friends who were involved in this ... so I was in the circle. When they took away the interactions that the Mafias used in their fights, and started banning people who kept the Mafias going ... that's when a lot of people left the game. There was a big drop in players when that all happened. So a big drop in revenue ..... Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong :p
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I never understood "Mafias"... what interaction did they take away may I ask?
 
TheMarshmallowBear said:
It was the darkest era of TSO which ultimately led it to it's downfall.

But TSo was NOT successful, at it's prime/end before EA-Land (shortly after Betaville/The extremely buggy version with household concept was added) most lots were eerie empty, housing players who really just wasted their time as often went AFK.

I'm hoping FreeSo won't fall and that people will try to be more Roleplay about it.

Another dark areas were the supposed "solitication" in-game. Whore Houses (I'm not actually kidding) and Stripper Clubs (hell I even tried building one) were often happening.

I don't know exact details since I joined around 2006/2007. But the game was in a rather bad shape.

TSO came at an interesting time as it was around the time that MMO were popular, but it also came at a time before they were there. Most people still I think had dial up (I mean look how long it takes for the TSO downloaded to acctually download regardless of your internet speed).

I don't know why EAxis actually abandoned TSO but the past is the past.
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I think one of mistakes that EAxis has made was to not promote the game to a largest public...
indeed TSO has never been released in Europe or South American(out of UK and USA) and has not been sufficiently publicized, so the community of game couldn't really grow up.
 
Back then, nobody knew how to handle this kind of game, and they weren't prepared for the post launch investment which most other mmos (Final Fantasy XI, WOW are STILL going!) provided as part of the package. The press for the game all says the same thing - that they expected it to be done in one year, and that it got delayed multiple times for technical reasons. Despite having a very large team, they failed to come up with an innovative model that would attract and keep players interested for the steep fee they were charging.

TheMarshmallowBear said:
I never understood "Mafias"... what interaction did they take away may I ask?
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Mafias were pretty stupid, they're just confusing and out of place in a sims environment. The way they were handled was pretty bad - these things got out of hand until all the normal people left, then when Maxis finally got around to dealing with it the remaining players were the mafia ones.
 
RHY3756547 said:
Back then, nobody knew how to handle this kind of game, and they weren't prepared for the post launch investment which most other mmos (Final Fantasy XI, WOW are STILL going!) provided as part of the package. The press for the game all says the same thing - that they expected it to be done in one year, and that it got delayed multiple times for technical reasons. Despite having a very large team, they failed to come up with an innovative model that would attract and keep players interested for the steep fee they were charging.


Mafias were pretty stupid, they're just confusing and out of place in a sims environment. The way they were handled was pretty bad - these things got out of hand until all the normal people left, then when Maxis finally got around to dealing with it the remaining players were the mafia ones.
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Well, Mafias, Whore Hosues, Bad Economy just seemed to have been an anomaly created by the people who played the game.
 
Mafias... I have stories about those. I didn't see half of the horrible things that I heard about them, though. I was a part of a RP family in the end days, and I was accused of being in one just because the family was expanding quickly (the family was called Yummy... what a mafia name, no?) I would seriously like to do without mafias this time around, but people will be people.
 
Unfortunately, TSO was not successful and it only gained a cult following (us). All the founders say it's golden age was during the Play Test days. When I played from late 2003 to late 2004, it's population was at highest and dramatically the next year.

Mafias alienated me. Just watching their neighborhoods grow gave me nostalgia before they became big.
 
zc456 said:
Unfortunately, TSO was not successful and it only gained a cult following (us). All the founders say it's golden age was during the Play Test days. When I played from late 2003 to late 2004, it's population was at highest and dramatically the next year.

Mafias alienated me. Just watching their neighborhoods grow gave me nostalgia before they became big.
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How did mafias even work?
 
They would make neighborhoods really large and use to trash houses before Maxis introduced permissions.
 
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