Not that I think you can, I read in the forums that one of the biggest things missing is a place or town to drive around in your car showing it off. But, I'm still curious about the game. It doesn't seem to have caught any Qt3 buzz. Are any of you reviewing it, or did anyone play the beta? Is Brian Reynolds playing it (I just like to see famous people participate here on the Qt3 boards)?

This is true, you can't just drive around and run into gas pumps. The place to hang out is the chat room, and you can race against up to three other measly guys in a variety of races (like drag, circuit, road, etc.) and a variety of prizes (pinkies, money, nothing, etc.). The most daunting aspect is car customization, where there are parts galore, and those without working knowledge of vehicle engines and construction may need to get Autorepair for Dummies. Having to bid for parts is kind of annoying too.

--- Alan

Races are limited to four players?

Those were the two most annoying things about the beta to me (besides the incredibly slow menu performance). The chat didn't have a nice wrapper where you could show off your car, and the car improvement stuff. You can buy like seven thousand parts, but you're mostly buying blind unless you know a lot about engines. In the garage, where you change around the parts you've purchased, you can easily see a comparison chart that shows what a part will do to your acceleration, weight, horsepower, etc. Why can't you see that before you buy something in the first place?

It looks like it's not much different in the final version. Sigh...

Looks like I'm going to skip this one, and maybe pick up DAOC.

I tried the beta, and deleted it after a day or so. It seemed like most other driving games, and inferior to GT3. Given the very minor role that interaction with other players has, I couldn't figure out why it had to be online except to transform me from "customer" into "revenue stream."

>I tried the beta, and deleted it after a day or so.

Same here. The upgrades are overwhelming to the point only a gearhead who actually races could get the most out of this game. Do we really need to be able to pick from fifty different spark plug wires? Not this gamer.

I made the mistake of selling my car's engine in the beta after I built up a little extra cash, with the idea of putting a larger engine under the hood. I buy the better engine, install it, and am shocked to see the long list of parts I need to buy to actually get the new engine to run. Shouldn't a new one come with basics like valves, spark plug wires, etc.? I answered that question five minutes later by uninstalling the game and going back to Porsche Unleashed.

I can see all this detail appealing to the people who buy Papyrus sims, but MCO looks like its aimed at the Need For Speed crowd.

Gotta love those old dashboards, though...

Man, it'll be fascinating to see if this finds a steady audience. I mean, between my family in Milwaukee and my in-laws in Detroit, I know plenty of gear heads who'd love this sort of game... but, you see, they don't own computers that can run it.

Hmmm.

But look at it this way, how many monthly accounts do they need for a profit? Would 25,000 do? There's probably 25,000 gear heads with computers who might play.

I hope they're advertising heavily in the auto mags.

-Andrew

Yes Mark, far as I've seen, races are limited to four players. Some have two, but the max is four.

I don't see how you can succeed in MCO without being a gearhead. Maybe if you're a Dick Dale song you'd like MCO if you sat around in the game lobby's listening to the different radio stations, but that's about it.

--- Alan

>I read in the forums that one of the biggest things missing is a place or town to drive around in your car showing it off.

This is my major disappointment with MCO. I pictured an enormous, GTA3-like city to tool around in, with places like drive-in movie theaters and restaurants where players would converge and challenge each other to races. Along with the fixed tracks routes could be easily set up throughout the city using checkpoints, with players racing through Motor City itself.

I'd rather be able to say "Meet me at Dead Man's Curve" after some scumball backs into my car at the drive-in than click buttons to race against random people at the same generic tracks over and over again.

All I can say is that The Sims Online can't arrive too soon for EA.com.

Almost everyone has a hobby... Many people's hobbies are combuter games, many others are souping up cars and learning everything there is to know about them. The cross over between the two hobbies has to be somewhere in the range of 12 people though.

EA.com: we know how to lose money, bar none.

I wonder how many people still tinker with cars? I think it's something of a lost art. The "guy thing" to do nowadays seems to be to tinker with computers.

Car engines are way more complicated now with the computers, anti-pollution stuff, etc.

I'm surprised at the level of complexity in the car building in MCO. I expected it to be simply a matter of buying a new engine, new tires, or new chassis, and that would be it.

Sounds like it could be a fun teaching tool for a high school auto shop class.

>Car engines are way more complicated now with the computers, anti-pollution stuff, etc.

But there's still plenty of tinkering to be done. You can install new headers, a dual exhaust, a turbo (or supercharger), mess with the engine timing, put in a nitrous system, rebore the engine, and do damn near anything the old school grease monkeys used to do. Granted, most of the guys I know who work on cars stick with the older stuff, but there's still plenty of crap you can fiddle with on a modern car. The basic principles are still the same, they're just much more refined.

That said, I buy driving games to drive, not to spend the majority of my time at parts auctions and installing parts in a virtual workshop.

"The "guy thing" to do nowadays seems to be to tinker with computers."

I'm starting to worry about St. Louis. You guys are getting soft over there.

"I'm starting to worry about St. Louis. You guys are getting soft over there."

And that's from Mr. Mom in Milwaukee. Got any good cookie recipes you want to share? :)

...
I prefer domestic goddess.

Oh, great, now I have this picture of Bub ironing a grilled cheese sandwhich in his flannel sihrt watching a soap opera.

Dammit Mark

A bit back on topic and yet not really: EA isn't giving me a lot of confidence in The Sims Online. They are canning their .com staff, putting out some rather crappy games, and in general are looking very unEAlike. Maybe they just don't have what it takes to put together massively multiplayer game.

Ah hell, who am I kidding? The Sims Online is as much of a sure thing as Harry Potter is. Even if it's below par it's going to pull in so many fans that it will be successful (Star Wars anyone?).

"Oh, great, now I have this picture of Bub ironing a grilled cheese sandwhich in his flannel shirt watching a soap opera."

Actually my wife says I'm more of a "House Daddy," because I'm pretty damn worthless when it comes to housework. (Marrying a perfectionist has it's benefits). And no soaps here. Just Sesame Street, and when that's on I'm working.

Yet I can sing almost every damn muppet song by heart.

-Andrew

Thing about Sims Online is that it isn't really The Sims. Now the Sim is simply your virtual avatar. My wife and kids dig all the little soap operas that the Sim families engage in -- who's in love with whom, etc. None of that will be in The Sims Online.

I think it will do well, but I wonder what kind of retention it will have once the players realize it isn't like the single player game?

Both Hasbro and EA have lost a bundle on their online ventures.

"Thing about Sims Online is that it isn't really The Sims. Now the Sim is simply your virtual avatar."

I didn't realize this... Sooo, it's just like a graphical chatroom? That is going to hurt them.

The Sims was like a very intelligent Tamagochi (sp?), except you also got to build a house and decorate it yourself. It was like playing with an interactive Barbi doll. Remove that aspect of the game and suddenly you lose your target audience.

Sure, they may buy the game, but are they going to pay $12 a month for it after that tryout period?

It's more than a graphical chatroom -- you can own a house, decorate it, work at a job with other players to get money, etc. There's going to be some kind of rating assigned to each player based on someting -- how popular the player's Sim is with other player's Sims or something like that. But the Sim doesn't have moods or do anything on its own. It will get hungry and will need to go to the bathroom still.

Still seems to me like they've stripped out the most interesting part of The Sims.

There's some depth modeled in terms of simple economics, for folks that get into that, and a pretty unprecidented level of self-expression for an online graphical game. The meat is, obviously, the social aspect. In some ways as a roleplayer I rather like the idea of a massively multiplayer game in which the goal isn't simply jacking up one's potential to kill stuff.

This might actually do well among the sorts of folks who like the Sims setting, customizable world with semi-real concerns filled with characters who comprise a living soap opera, but it would be for different reasons than they liked The Sims. One simply doesn't have control over the situation which to me is the magic of The Sims - AI characters also offer a comfortable remove from the action. Considering the level of adult insinuations in the solo game I also have to wonder what sorts of folks are going to be attracted to the online game in addition to the wide-eyed flock seeking innocent fun.

"I'm starting to worry about St. Louis. You guys are getting soft over there. "

Heh, must be all the finesse rubbing off from that football team of theirs :)

"Considering the level of adult insinuations in the solo game I also have to wonder what sorts of folks are going to be attracted to the online game in addition to the wide-eyed flock seeking innocent fun."

That's a very good point. Games like DAoC and EQ have enough problems with sexual harassment. The Sims just seems built for it. Curious how they're going to handle the potential problems that will stem from it.

In most MMOGs you have the game itself to play and the major socializing is a side note. When it comes to a game based 99% on the social aspect, stalking and harassment can't be far behind. Hopefully it will be a minor problem and not hurt the game any.

Having jobs, a home, etc... should keep people happy, but I agree that the lack of emotion from an independant Sim will detract from the game.

The other thing about The Sims Online is that a lot of the audience, casual gamers or non-gamers, may balk at a monthly fee.

My wife LOVES the Sims, but she's said from the beginning that there's no way she'd pay a monthly fee to play it online. I think that's really gonna hurt EA.

My guess is that most people would feel that way.

I was looking forward to seeing MCO, but
got trapped in the infernal
Escher-ants-on-a-Moebius-strip that is
EA.com beta reg/sign-in.

In the amount of time *that* took, I could have
disassembled and reassembled a
small-block V8.

"My wife LOVES the Sims, but she's said from the beginning that there's no way she'd pay a monthly fee to play it online. I think that's really gonna hurt EA."

This statement gets right to the heart of the problem EA will probably face. The Sims is most popular, from what I've seen, with non-gamers. Their audience are the families of gamers. Wives, children, little brothers and sister.

My sister is a huge fan of The Sims, but I can't see her plunking down $10+ a month to show off her house and talk to people. She had a hard enough time parting with $20 for Loopy Landscapes (she was a huge fan of Rollercoaster Tycoon also). I tried to get her into EQ billing it as a nice social game, but her response was "Why would I want to talk to these people? I don't even know them. I have enough friends in the real world".

"Both Hasbro and EA have lost a bundle on their online ventures."

Both are cases of:

A) Ignorant senior management believing they know more about the industry than people who have worked in it for years, and;

B) Senior management handing out critical jobs based on political reliability, not relevant experience or skill.

The sad part is, the EA senior managers still have jobs, while their incompetence and political infighting has lost some 800 people theirs in the last 18 months alone.