I think I said it best on the thread "Why Multiplayer Won't Work" on the franchise Forum:
"SimsLovinLycan;c-17433232" wrote:
...If you want a multi-player experience with your own created avatar where you can hang out with friends...there's MMORPG's. In fact, Mabinogi is probably very close to what you would have to have for an online Sims game (minus the combat and dungeon crawling, of course...so it would be Mabi minus 98% of the fun).
There would be quests for skills, jobs, and objects that would require you to team up with at least one other sim. You don't have to do it, but if you want to unlock that skill, get that promotion, or unlock that object for your house or CAS...you'd better force yourself to scrounge for another human to play with. And they're probably going to want to chat during the mission...or (more awkward still) want to hang out afterward. Sometimes you make a friend that way...mostly you just make that awkward acquaintance who always seems to message you when you're in the middle of something that requires your active attention.
Another social bother? Guilds. Oh, you know there would be guilds. Guilds thirsty for new players to bolster their ranks. You'd be getting random guild invites from random players who never even said two words to you before. You'll turn them down because you don't really want to be in a guild. It's awkward and kind of a pain. The same with random friend invites from players who never talked to you before. Awkward and weird and kind of annoying.
Oh, and the trolls. All the trolls. You know for a FACT that there will be trolls...And BOTTERS!! Yeah, botters. Spamming in the market, trying to sell you Simoleons for real money. Sure, they'll get banned...but they'll come back, like roaches. The botters and trolls shall be a plague amongst simmer kind.
The only thing that makes MMORPG's fun in spite of the awkward social situations is if--in spite of the awkward encounters, trolls, and botters--the core gameplay (the combat, the dungeon crawling, traversal, exploration, advancement, etc.) is fun, even when going solo (which I often do), and the majority of the community is friendly and chill. Most simmers are friendly and chill...but the gameplay in an online Sims game (especially in the modern era) would likely not be very much fun. Most of the fun in the sims is...well, making your own fun. Building your town up, creating your sims and bending their lives and world to your will, making and adding CC and mods for extra flavor, and really making the game your own.
The Sims is often (sometimes derisively) compared to virtual Barbies. Well, if that's so, then building, making sims, ruling over them and their world, and adding mods and CC is what we do after we bring the dolls home. We name them; change their clothes; cut their hair; add non-Barbie toys into the mix (some store-bought ; others crafted from odds and ends around the house) to enhance our stories; we buy off-brand fashion doll clothes and sew, knit, or crochet extra outfits for our dolls; we add stickers and marker marks of our own to official Barbie add-ons; and we make our Barbie experience our own based on our own interests, tastes, and personalities. It's the same with boys and their action figures, really. Kids never play with their toys exactly as the company that manufactured them would like, because they always, ALWAYS, add their own creations and imagination to them.
Forcing multi-player on the next Sims game would take all of the actual gameplay--the gameplay we make ourselves after we take Barbie and Optimus Prime out of their packaging--away. Instead, it would be that weird situation when your cousins come over for a cook-out and, as the night wares on, the adults decide to sit and talk outside while they send all the kids inside to play. Your cousins want to play dolls/Transformers/G.I. Joes, whatever, with you, and they go and grab your toys...but they don't play like you do. They try to dress your dolls in outfits that they don't belong in. They make Beastman Man-At-Arms' best friend when, in your world, they're bitter rivals, locked in an honor-bound feud that's lasted since they were in diapers. They use the wrong voice for EVERYONE. You get mad at your cousins. You argue, maybe it even comes to blows. You take your toys back and kick them out. You hate each other for years over it...THAT would be how an online Sims game in this day and age would end: tears and bitterness and broken friendships...because there would be no good gameplay to save it.
EA would not do an online
Sims game in a way that resembles
Stardew Valley's multiplayer. They would totally obliterate modding, which would take out a lot of the fun right there. Then, they would force players to play together in the same world in order to use social pressure to get people to buy a bunch of DLC junk, which will probably be mostly in loot boxes or cost you $5 for a single shirt, because microtransactions. Finally, because you've got all these people trying to play their sims together, you'll get the awkward and frustrating social drama that I described above. They might even pull a
Fallout 76 and offer a subscription-based upgrade on top of this full-price AAA game with microtransactions, just to pour salt in the wound. It would not be a good time.
