The Sims 3 Online Play

Note: August 6, 2012, this has become the third most popular article on Zylblog.

EA is testing out a new technology developed by Gaikai with the Sims 3, allowing you to play The Sims 3 online, over the Internet, very similar to the way the regular installed version of the game works. You can check it out at www.thesims3.com/trial. Bear in mind, it is a trial, and it is in beta. You can not save your game. It does not have any expansion packs and is base-game only at this time, though I would expect this to change in the future.The trial is only for one hour.

Gaikai has very smooth remote processing. The game runs on their servers, not on your computer. I kind of expected it to be glitchy and choppy, however, it was quite smooth. I would not have guessed, had I not known what it was, that it was running on a computer elsewhere. The game starts fairly quickly, with very little time at the loading screen. This is my favorite part, since loading is mind-numbing and alone prevents me from playing many games. The graphics quality was good, and the sound quality was good as well. The screen resolution was slightly off, but this was only noticeable on the game interface (where there are circles and squares which make good flaw reference points). Full-screen mode did not fill my wide-screen display, and left black bars on the sides. I am guessing that this is simply a limitation of this technology at this time. The interface on my computer that the game ran in used Java

Create a Sim:
Being as there was a time restriction, I decided to go with an already created Sim. I went through some of the clothing options, accessories, etc and it all seemed to work. You can not, at this time at least, individually customize the personality traits. Upon creation of a Sim, you select a personality type, so to speak, that already contains your traits. I chose “Jock” (since it seemed to have the least negative traits) which included Brave, Loves Outdoors, Party Animal, Athletic, and Ambitious. I later found out that my Sim came with built-up skill levels, which I think were similar to the personality. 8/10 Athletic (from ‘athletic’), 5/10 Gardening (from ‘loves outdoors’), and 5/10 handiness (not sure where that came from..). I suspect that these skills were put in to accommodate for the one-hour limitation so one would not have to spend time building them up.

Playing:
After creating a Sim, you get to put them in a home. In the trial beta, my Sim started out with $58,000, yet I was only able to choose one of three houses. I thought this to be quite odd. I suspect this is another thing that is being worked on, and I believe the money was also to accommodate the one-hour time-frame.

When you get to playing, you must also choose a “track” to follow. You have, as I recall from memory: Beginner (for those who do not know how to play The Sims), Constructor (for those who want to build large properties), Storyline (my second choice), Experimental, and a story/experimental mix (which was my first choice). I did not quite get the purpose of Experimental as I played it, and later switched to Storyline. Switching tracks starts you over again, I lost all relationships, and for some reason I could not move back into the same house I started in (I did switch tracks while someone was inside, which may have been the problem.)

Storyline is like glorified opportunities. You receive opportunities that have multiple steps, and you receive a reward after you complete them. For example, there was a “secret” concert at the movie theater my Sim was to attend. He got there late, but the opportunity was not yet lost! My Sim (upon my telling him to do so) asked a Goth family member about the concert, and there appear the lead guitarist who I then asked if they wanted a photo-op. Upon agreement, I took a screenshot with my computer, got paid and receive the reward of free entertainment at the sports arena and the theater for life.

Buggy things:
Ultra-speed mode (for fast-forwarding) seemed slower on the online version of the game than the PC-installed version.
You can not disable the “Lessons” in the game which are useless if you already know how to play it.
My Sim could not go to work. This may have been a limitation set by the story track, I am not sure. You send your Sim to work, he goes in the building, and “pops” back out again. I tried the Professional Athletics career, and the Military career and neither worked.
This wasn’t bad, but it seemed my Sim’s needs declined slower (bladder, hygiene, energy, hunger, etc). This may be there for the purpose of testing, but frankly I’d rather the game be like that all the time. I also thought that my Sim learned faster, however this could have been an illusion from not using the bathroom three times a day.

Overall thoughts:
This is a very cool way to play games, especially if you have a slow computer with a fast connection speed. I am not sure what the minimum connection speed is, or how much bandwidth is transferred during typical game-play — this would be interesting to know.

The advantages over installing the game on your computer exists when you either:
Have limited computer resources (RAM, CPU, HDD)
Dislike loading times, but have a computer that could play the game.
Want higher graphics settings, but don’t have a card that can quite handle it.
Have a netbook or a “cloudbook”, as this would be a reasonable way to play games on it.

Check it out!
http://www.thesims3.com/trial < Play the Sims 3 live
http://www.gaikai.com/ < Find out more about Gaikai and Cloud Gaming

Related: Play The Sims 3 Online for Free (BETA/Trial) on winfix.zylblog.com