EALand Makes Sims Online Bigger, Webbier, Freer
After The Sims Online went stagnant in the early 2000s, part of EA's development team was set the job of trying to use the platform to create new massively multiplayer games. For now the team has been working on updating The Sims Online and getting it running again as EA-Land. In an email sent out earlier this month announcing the world, EA SVP Luc Barthelet explained that users could now join "a world that is free-to-play, and based on a re-engineered The Sims Online architecture."
The world is free--to a point. Following a typical free-to-play model of tiered subscriptions, paying members will see more perks.
Non-paying users will have the option of residing on Test Center 3, where they can access the full experience of EA Land with the sole exception of cashing out Simoleans for real currency, or playing in EA Land with the following restrictions: housing size limitations, earning money from the game (though users can still buy Simoleans or earn them from other users), leveling up skills, or cashing out.
Paying users will have access to the full world, which is now bigger than the original Sims Online (with 100 times more real estate land merged into TSO's original 12 cities) and more connected to the Web. It also allows user-generated content with an economic infrastructure for distributing content to other users, though it must first be approved by the development team.
The team has also made it possible to access your in-world data from almost anywhere on the Web with Google and Yahoo widgets as well as a Facebook connection to "see if your favorite lots or friends are online."
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