The Sims Online / FreeSO / Sim Nation and the rest - Are you kiki?

[IrishGuy088]

Future Buffalo Bill in the making

Seriously. There is absolutely nothing good in the air around this person.

@Demon Mist give us some more info on this guy. He's probably worth putting in the OP.

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

Coming to the end. Here's another 20 for your viewing pleasure.


That third picture has some uncanny valley stuff going on. Guy is extremely obsessed with himself.


Dude what the fuck? Looks like he got blasted with a leaf blower.


Mornings are the worst. Almost as bad as your tv-static hoodie.


There is a darkness here. Impenetrable. Labyrinthine.


I think this is the third one where all I can say is "what the fuck are you doing here? go back to your real life."


Does this woman live in a bathroom? Or does she just hang around to have the toilet style her hair?


Fuck off and die. Lovely.


Has Shannen Doherty eyes.


There had to be better ways to lose 30 pounds than quitting meat. Maybe stop the binge drinking and drug abuse instead.


The guy needs to get a new haircut and the girl needs to lose about 50 pounds.

Severe mental illness.


This is the kind of woman that makes guys willingly choose to take it up the ass from other men.


Lives next to Disney? Pedophiles. Goddammit.


Candy... collector?? Imagine the smell.


... I actually like that sunflower shirt.


Keep trying. You'll nail it someday.


I have a feeling that turning 30 was the worst thing to happen in her entire life.

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Toolbag supreme.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

There is a darkness here. Impenetrable. Labyrinthine.

I wasn't sure what you meant with this one, but now that some time has passed... yeah, I kind of see what you mean.

Severe mental illness.

Is this a tranny?

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

Is this a tranny?

I think it is just a pickme with a strong jawline and glasses as a fashion accessory. The thought had crossed my mind though. Definitely a filter monster like most of the others. I give some credit to a few of the more busted women in these pictures, at least they aren't trying to use filters to fix god's errors.

 

[IrishGuy088]

View attachment 7492665


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This person reminds me of someone else... he's definitely trying to imitate someone.

 

[Demon Mist]

@Demon Mist give us some more info on this guy. He's probably worth putting in the OP.

That may take some time, but we can look into him a bit more closely. No promises on that one though.

Apologies for the radio silence; between a hard drive failure and some general illness the group has been largely busy with real life and other things and not playing The Sims Online. In the meantime, we've put together a more thorough analysis of Sim Nation's player counts. This one took a little work so thanks to all that helped!

---

As you know, Sim Nation allows for a thing called "multi-simming", which is a divisive issue in the TSO community. Usually people are only allowed to play one sim at a time. Each registered account allows a player to create up to three sims, so players can have alternates. But they cannot be played simultaneously and players are not supposed to create more than one account. Sim Nation's biggest differentiating factor compared to most other TSO clients is the ability to play as many sims as you want/can and to do so simultaneously. And this has led to some very interesting results.

Click to enlarge.​

Within the larger TSO community, most other servers balk at Sim Nation's numbers almost as much as they complain about Sim Nation's plainly illegal profit scheme. Pictured above is a snippet from the CoolSO Discord server from several months back. This server contains many of Sim Nation's biggest detractors and their complaints are not just idle speculation. What they are discussing are their general experiences with multi-simming and how Sim Nation's numbers feel inflated, despite being large. User Link mentions times when people playing several different sims literally interact with themselves, orchestrating situations and entire conversations; Gurra gets straight to the point and says that Sim Nation has a "false sense of activity" and that many people are using their accounts to farm resources toward their primary account. Chelsea raises doubts as to whether or not 50 people playing are actually 50 individuals.

​

Sim Nation, like almost every TSO client nowadays has what is called the Sim Tracker. You can find SN's Sim Tracker here (this is a direct link) and it is just a simple interface program that displays statistics from within the Sim Nation client. Pictured above are screenshots from the client's active users section. You can take a look at them to get the general idea about how this works. You have a sim's name, its age (aka: creation date) and their location within the game. On the left is the default setting for this list and on the right is the list sorted by sim age, which is to say that the list is sorted by the sim's creation date. And now we're going to have a little fun with spreadsheets.

​

Below this paragraph is a spoiler tag containing a table of all 307 active sims from Sim Nation. Remember: fans of Sim Nation regularly brag about its player counts and use it as a stick with which to beat down their competition. When you look through this list, be aware that it has been sorted by sim age/creation date. The names and locations of various sims reveal a bit of information, especially when it comes to lumping these individual sims into groups. The list has been color coded to draw attention to the various clusters of sims that very likely only represent one actual human player. Red and blue represent multi-sim groups; uncolored areas are not applicable to this exercise. There could be some error here, this isn't an exact science... but also consider that we aren't including groupings of sims smaller than three; this would mean that the total number of individual players we come up with at the end of this post is probably a bit larger than the actual number of individual human players in Sim Nation.

Spoiler: Large Image!

Of the 307 sims online in Sim Nation at the time of this snapshot, 234 of them are multi-sims being operated by 42 individuals. Over 75% of the players in Sim Nation are multi-simming. There are potentially 73 players online, not the 307 the Sim Tracker would lead you to believe; but remember, we aren't counting people that are only running two sims and you can clearly see several examples in this table of other people multi-simming with only two sims instead of three or more. But let's be generous and say that there are 73 people playing the game at this time. Of that 73, 42 of the players are multi-simming three or more sims which is going to severely divide their attention; therefore only 31 people in this sample are playing the game with a single sim or two sims at the same time.

And then consider the following: there is one player with 16 sims online. Another player has 18 sims online at once. There are two people out there with multiple instances of the game running simultaneously running over a dozen sims. How can they possibly hold a conversation with another player? How can they engage in social activity or even group activities to generate money? But it gets even worse. You look at the names and notice one of the blue groups and one of the red groups all use the names of famous clothing brands and each of those groups were created a week apart; this is very likely the same person and they are running 27 sims. TWENTY SEVEN SIMS AT ONCE. That's nine instances of the game running simultaneously.

​

But wait... it is still going to get even worse. We can see the creation dates of these sims in the list and easily group them together based upon that. From there you can reference the names of these sims and see many striking similarities to remove most doubt about these sims' associations with one another. But on the right is the "location" column and this is where things really raise some questions. Most of these groups are all located at the same lot with some variance, but that isn't entirely unexpected.

​

Pictured above is something you've probably seen a few times now on this table of names, ages and locations. What is "unknown" in terms of the Sim Tracker? It could be one of a few things, but none of them end up being good for Sim Nation. These sims could be on "job lots", which are instanced locations within TSO where players can engage in running a diner or being a DJ or assembling things at a factory, much like you would find in traditional Sims games. But it seems unlikely that someone could juggle these somewhat complex, timed missions with more than one sim. Maybe some can do it with two... but six sims? Eight sims? More than two dozen sims? Sims can also be set to "private" which means their location is hidden. And lastly these sims could be logged into the game and idling on the city map screen where they can remain for as long as they want.

Suddenly Sim Nation's number of active, attentive users that are capable of holding a conversation or playing a group money object falls so low that it is within striking distance of other popular TSO clients like DramaSO, LegacySO, Whispering Waters and XenoSO.

​

In fact, let's take a look at XenoSO which is squarely in the number two spot now. At the same time that this information was gathered on Sim Nation, XenoSO had 48 people playing. Furthermore, as you can see XSO does not allow multi-simming in any way, shape or form outside of simple transfers which is something that FreeSO allowed as well. Those of you following along with this post right now have probably already caught onto the fact that during the same period of time XenoSO has more active players than Sim Nation. How about that? Sim Nation is often assumed to be the number one TSO game client available, but much of that is a mirage propagated by some clever marketing that we'll talk about shortly.

Remember, that while SN potentially has 70 people playing, over 40 of those players are juggling multiple sims. If you're multi-simming, you're multi-simming and you are not talking or engaging in the social aspects of The Sims Online. Of the 30 remaining people on SN's server, at least ten of them are also multi-simming with two sims and you could presume that the remaining 20 players are running a single sim and playing the game as intended. Except that they're surrounded by literally hundreds of silent multi-sims that can't take time away from spinning two dozen plates to have a conversation with them about the weather.

One odd little wrinkle to add into all of this: there are some people that aren't multi-simming in the traditional sense of the word. But many of the most popular lot owners, people like AirRockStar, Meow and Patience will operate their lot in multiple clients at the same time. They aren't technically multi-simming, they're just playing DSO, SN and XSO simultaneously. Wrap your head around that and enjoy seeing the exact same lots in the top of each category in several different games.

​

XSO has 48 humans playing 48 sims. That's 48 people that can talk to one another, do activities with one another and otherwise enjoy The Sims Online together as a community. A community the likes of which Sim Nation cannot hope to achieve if over three quarters of its players are essentially unable to play. The question then becomes why. Why? Why does Sim Nation brag about its high user numbers when in reality it is a poorly kept secret that the game is largely silent and static? Think back to what Gurra said in the CoolSO chat. The "crowd effect", a good way to describe what is happening with Sim Nation. They disingenuously talk up these big numbers to appear to be the most popular and bank on the idea that people will be drawn to a game that has hundreds of active users at any given time. The Sim Tracker makes it simple enough to display those numbers far and wide. But maybe "bank" isn't the right word.

​

GRIFT! That's the word. It's a grift. First you build up Grift Nation as the successor to FreeSO. Next you allow and encourage judicious multi-simming and then implement the Sim Tracker to advertise the numbers. Lastly, you manipulate the system by having 234 multi-sims, 179 of which are floating about in the unknown, maybe playing but that seems unlikely. And then for good measure, you violate the core rule of running a custom TSO server and open up a Patreon, putting the entire custom TSO scene at risk. And when you live in Brazil, that American dollar goes a long way; you don't even really have to make new assets for the game either! You can just yank stuff out of The Sims and retrofit it to work in Grift Nation. What could go wrong? Henrique and Salem have hit upon the perfect money making scheme. Hopefully they haven't spent too much of the money, because it is going to take a long time to pay back all of those US Dollars in Brazilian Real.

Bem-vindo ao Brasil - Sem Reembolsos​

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

Below this paragraph is a spoiler tag containing a table of all 307 active sims from Sim Nation.

Woooow that list is fucked up. Very nice effort post. Sim Nation is 100% padding its numbers with sock accounts. I bet you a bunch of them are made by the game admins. I've seen things like this before in other games.

Here is another batch of faces to laugh at:


Very... pointy...


Clean room: Graphic tee: Complaining about age: Alone:


I didn't know that Kim Jong Un plays The Sims Online!


Mom's/House


Typical vinyl hipster. Brags about an inherited vinyl collection as if it was their own, but doesn't store them vertically. That entire collection will be fucked in a year or two. And I haven't even gotten to whatever the fuck is going on with her face.


Extremely bored and has the benzo stare.


What the fuck is this mess of a tattoo? Guy is pushing 50 and playing The Sims Online... California, never mind.


Just think, guys. All this could be yours for the low low price of a number 4 on the value menu!


Don't take pictures of yourself, Jesse. In fact maybe you shouldn't be allowed to own a camera.


Something happened between the picture on the left and the pictures on the right that made this girl decide she wanted to look busted.


Very few women can pull off wearing a choker and those women are men. This one is just really insecure.


I could take some easy shots at this guy. But he's got a sort of aesthetic going that kind of works. Go play fetch with your dog and be a barfly, Logan. Stay away from this awful place.


It is like watching the phases of a goofy nerd that thought he was going to be "the cigar guy" as he becomes what he was meant to be: the loser burnout that asks if he can bum a cig.


Insecure about her receding hairline and always anxious over nothing. Get some confidence, girl!


Haaaahhahahahahahahahah this guy is hopelessly autistic but I probably would want to see his train set because I bet you it is well done.


Looks like a cartoon character. Probably steals socks from his exes.


This chick smells.


My Chemical Romance shirt, red hair, giant glasses and about 40 extra pounds. It's the midlife crisis starter pack! Probably dates guys with kids.


You do have a face, Sid. And it isn't a good one. You should work on that.

The similarities are uncanny!!

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

And then consider the following: there is one player with 16 sims online. Another player has 18 sims online at once. There are two people out there with multiple instances of the game running simultaneously running over a dozen sims. How can they possibly hold a conversation with another player? How can they engage in social activity or even group activities to generate money?

A person playing that many characters in a game can't be having fun. What even is the goal at that point?

And then the person playing 27 characters?? It is my understanding that a lot of The Sims Online is idle activity. But with 27 characters even idle gaming has to be difficult.

This is extremely pathetic behavior. Either this game has some of the biggest losers on the planet playing it or the game developers are fabricating their user numbers which is somehow even sadder than playing 27 instances of a game at once. And isn't Sim Nation also the game that doesn't take care of its user data?

All of the bad behavior from Sim Nation's developers tracks for a giant implosion at some point in the future.

 

[IrishGuy088]

Just think, guys. All this could be yours for the low low price of a number 4 on the value menu!

She's good. Just saying. But so is the value menu.

 

[Thiletonomics]

A person playing that many characters in a game can't be having fun. What even is the goal at that point?

And then the person playing 27 characters?? It is my understanding that a lot of The Sims Online is idle activity. But with 27 characters even idle gaming has to be difficult.

This is extremely pathetic behavior. Either this game has some of the biggest losers on the planet playing it or the game developers are fabricating their user numbers which is somehow even sadder than playing 27 instances of a game at once. And isn't Sim Nation also the game that doesn't take care of its user data?

All of the bad behavior from Sim Nation's developers tracks for a giant implosion at some point in the future.

27 characters? And I though Multi-boxing in World of Warcraft was crazy as hell before Blizzard started cracking down on it...

 

[ToroidalBoat]

in early 90s: SimCity, SimEarth...

Current Year: The Sims Online

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

27 characters? And I though Multi-boxing in World of Warcraft was crazy as hell

I cannot figure out how one person can manage so many instances of a game at once. Maybe there is more than one person involved.

But even then, what is the point of having two dozen sims with maximum skills and lots of money? Is there anything to do with that stuff at that point? The one person is basically playing their own TSO inside TSO... they have more characters than most of the existing game clients have.

 

[neger psykolog]

Added to watch list. This shit looks super mega autistic and also with spicy gay slap fight drama too.

The OP looks like it'll take a solid few hours just to read

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Added to watch list. This shit looks super mega autistic and also with spicy gay slap fight drama too.

It is a tour of many different emotions. A underrated OP.

The bit @Demon Mist just posted about user numbers (scroll up) is one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen.

 

[Enward Cullen]

I cannot figure out how one person can manage so many instances of a game at once. Maybe there is more than one person involved.

But even then, what is the point of having two dozen sims with maximum skills and lots of money? Is there anything to do with that stuff at that point? The one person is basically playing their own TSO inside TSO... they have more characters than most of the existing game clients have.

First one is relatively simple, you usually set your character to go use a money object that takes a few minutes of idle work. You just tab between the clients whilst doing something else, the game itself is fairly lightweight. But the only potentially useful point of someone multiboxing that hard is to skip the insane grinds that the game has for the sake of meaningless server prestige from having rare items or a nice lot.

Every time I’ve tried this game out of slight nostalgia I get burned out within four days, multiboxing or not, because even with easy money and the ability to do neat builds you’re still dealing with a depressing Second Life-lite community on every one of these servers. When it had a popularity boost from major youtuber coverage around 2020 it was briefly alright, but that never lasted because all you have to retain players is a grindier version of The Sims 1 with a core community of overdramatic middle aged women and desperate cougar hunting men.

 

[IrishGuy088]

But the only potentially useful point of someone multiboxing that hard is to skip the insane grinds that the game has

At a certain point... say, multiplaying 9 characters at once, doesn't the grind come back with a vengeance? By the time you'd finish with character 9, you have to loop back around to character 1 and start the process all over again. You'd end up doing a different type of work so that you wouldn't have to do the default work. That sounds like a complete waste of time. Like, more than the game already appears to be.

Aren't people supposed to be talking and cyber sexing and having fun?

 

[Enward Cullen]

At a certain point... say, multiplaying 9 characters at once, doesn't the grind come back with a vengeance? By the time you'd finish with character 9, you have to loop back around to character 1 and start the process all over again. You'd end up doing a different type of work so that you wouldn't have to do the default work. That sounds like a complete waste of time. Like, more than the game already appears to be.

Aren't people supposed to be talking and cyber sexing and having fun?

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen someone having fun playing this game unless they’re fucking with the more sensitive players. The novelty of the gameplay lasts as long as a match, then you realize that you’re stuck in a chatroom with lonely alcoholics.

The original developers realized this, near the end of the game’s life they had a beta server that reintroduced significant mechanics from The Sims 1. Having a full family of sims under your control, fires and the like. It didn’t have the time to go anywhere but it would’ve made it more of a true ‘TS1 but multiplayer’ experience that anyone around for the gameplay had actually wanted.

 

[Demon Mist]

We did some moderate updates to the thread tonight.

Post One: updated the title image to include the newer clients. Otherwise this post is at the character limit and can't be changed.
Post Two: no changes.
Post Three: added a section for the newer custom clients LegacySO, NewSO, Whispering Waters and XenoSO. This post is at the character limit now and can no longer have any major additions. There will likely be more on one of these clients at a later date so we'll have to push that into the fourth post.
Post Four: added 15 more select-a-sim characters bringing our total to 170 (can't forget Air up in the title!) and we found Rough Rider for whoever was asking, re-added the history section that had originally been in the first post but was later removed to get everything in under the character limit. Check that stuff out it is really interesting, plus there is footage of the FreeSO iOS client that EA nearly sued them over. And the analysis of Sim Nation's player numbers has also been added with a minor change to reflect something neat we overlooked.

It turns out that most of the multi-sim players congregate in houses with the "admit list" rule toggled on, meaning you can't even get in unless you are on the list. More weirdness from that crowd.

Thanks for reading along! There's still more to come, but the pace is definitely slower now that the bulk of the project has been realized. We haven't forgotten about that one last snowball that has been rolling down the hill however. But as of right now there is no concrete date on when we'll get that all written up.

Also thanks to all of our friends at the TSO Tip Line.
You've added so much to this thread!​

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

It turns out that most of the multi-sim players congregate in houses with the "admit list" rule toggled on, meaning you can't even get in unless you are on the list. More weirdness from that crowd.

This is a thing I have seen in a lot of older games and especially ones running private servers. And I feel like not being worried about it is just optimism.

You have a private server and within it are instances people can join. Except a bunch are locked/password protected and the same few people always congregate there. Maybe they are playing the game... maybe they are sharing links and fucked up shit in a tiny corner of a place nobody will ever check.

Stuff like this is concerning.

 

[IrishGuy088]

added 15 more select-a-sim characters

Most of those are from months after this thread was posted. Don't these people look out for one another? You would think someone would have told people not to post their faces anymore.

Fish in a barrel.

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen someone having fun playing this game unless they’re fucking with the more sensitive players.

I fully believe this now.