The Sims Online (May 9, 2002 prototype)
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An E3 pre-alpha build of The Sims Online for the PC.
Background
This is the earliest currently known dumped version of The Sims Online. Compiled on May 9th, 2002, this puts it just 2 weeks before the first day of E3 2002 (May 22–24, 2002 in Los Angeles, CA).
The Sims Online was shown off at E3 2002 with playable demos available for people to try the game out at the convention. By viewing the scarcely available videos of the game at E3, it is determined that this build is not the one shown to players of the game, but instead, it is an older build leading up to E3. This build was likely the one shown in videos of team members at Maxis talking about the game before E3.
In the game files, there is beta content in the form of UI Elements, Objects, Lots, Avatars, and more. Clothing for Avatars not seen in the final game is present as well. The protocol used for the online gameplay experience was heavily modified for the final release, but the groundwork has been laid out for nearly all mechanics present in the final game.
Using nio2so (see references) the game is nearly fully playable in an emulated server environment to experience the game as it were in 2002. Using nio2so, it was able to be discovered that the game has a fully-playable HouseSimServer in the game client. This means that lots are able to be hosted locally using the game application itself, allowing multiple clients to synchronize the same lot without the need to rebuild this component as well. Using this knowledge, elements of the pre-alpha game client, primarily objects and unique online functionality, can be studied for changes between this game and the final game.
This build shipped with a fully usable version of Edith, which is an application that integrates with the running game client application to offer object "SimAntics" script debugging, object creation, terrain manipulation, and more. The only other version of The Sims Online known at this time to ship with Edith is the final update to EA Land.
Notes
- See nio2so GitHub.