The Sims is the top-selling game franchise of all time.  In addition to the original game, there have been four expansion games to date, and countless player created objects, skins, and other enhancements to the game.  While a player's Sim is a very social animal, the game itself is ultimately a solitary experience as it only supports single-player play.  That will all change at the end of the year, though, as The Sims will go online, and will allow thousands of players to interact with each other in a dynamic and highly customizable world.

Probably a big part of The Sims appeal is the ability to completely customize your Sim's world, and The Sims Online will provide players with the opportunity to do so in a big way.  Not only will you be able to create and customize your own Sim's homestead, you'll be able to visit the locales created by other players as well.  This will lead to a dynamic world completely created by the players themselves.

You'll be free to set-up a home for your Sim to take care of his/her basic needs for sleep and cleanliness, or to save a little money by sharing a place with a roommate.  Even better, you can create a meeting place for other players to come and mingle - the type of meeting place is entirely up to you.  You can create a bar, a store, a video arcade ... even a hot dance spot complete with a cover charge.  The only limit is your imagination.  Don't worry, if you want to create a hot spot for Sims to meet, but are of the private type at home, you have nothing to worry about.  You can create code doors and block access to sections or entire floors of your place ensuring that no one will be using your stuff when you are gone. 

With over 50,000 properties per shard, and up to 8 Sims per property, you can imagine that the sheer number of locations to visit can be daunting.  To help players out, The Sims Online provides a number of tools for players.  The first is the popular and best places lists - you'll be able to see the top destinations and take your Sim there without having to randomly search through thousands of properties.  The next aid to players is that the properties are hyperlinked; you'll be able to browse through properties just as you can browse sites on the Internet.  Once you see one that interests you, you can click on it and your Sim will be whisked to the property.  How's that for high-speed transportation?

If you've played The Sims, you know that you don't get your money for nothing and your checks for free (cheat codes aside).  The same is true in The Sims Online, where you'll be given a starting bankroll, but will have to earn your own Simoleons after that.  To make money, you can create a happening nightspot, open a little boutique, or you can have your Sim interact with job objects.  Job objects are objects with which your Sim can interact, and will get paid for doing so.  For example, a workbench can be used to make trinkets or an easel to make paintings.  The amount of money your Sim will make depends on his or her skills - a high creativity skill would certainly help if you are going to try and paint pictures for a living.

A key part of The Sims is the interactions your Sim has with others around him or her.  The Sims Online adheres to this same philosophy and will give you even greater freedom when interacting with other players' Sims.  You'll have over 70 different ways of expressing yourself - some you'll recognize if you've played The Sims and its expansion Hot Date, but many more new ones have been created for The Sims Online.  Not all of these are actions such as hugs, kisses, and handshakes, you'll be able to take on different postures as well.  Is there an annoying Sim trying to talk his way into your dance club?  Assume an aloof pose and let your body language do the talking.

Once you have begun to make friends online, you'll be given several tools to help you keep up those friendships.  You'll be able to maintain a friends list, and quickly see who is currently online.  You'll also be able to send them messages without traveling to their current location for a a face to face chat.  If you receive any of these messages when you are offline, they will be queued up for you to read when you return.  It's almost like an in-game IM system that works like email when you are not there.

One final thing of note, if you're worried that your Simlish is a little shaky, you have nothing to fear.  Your Sim's speech balloon will display whatever you type instead of the iconic Simlish used by Sims in the other games.

The Sims can be very addicting when played by yourself, but adding a human element, and all of the creativity and surprises that come with it, makes The Sims Online look like it will be a big hit with Sims fans.  It takes the elements of the game that players enjoy and expands them to offer players even more freedom.  It will probably be almost as much fun to see what people come up with in the game as it is to play it yourself.