People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
There are several ways that a game can be multiplayer:
1. It can be an MMO game where there is an online game server which everybody is connected to.
2. It can be multiplayer in the same way that was used in the old days - often in clubs where everybody brought their own computer and connected them with cables. Some games only had support for two connected games while other games could allow up to 8 computers to be connected.
3. There is nothing in the way for using the internet to allow people to connect only to a couple of friends in the same way as they did in the old days by using cables. If this was done for a game like TS4 then maybe only two players could play with eachother via the internet. An advantage for EA by doing it that way would be that the game could be multiplayer without needing EA to set up a gameserver.
We don't know which way EA maybe can have considered before dropping the multiplayer idea completely.
What game past 2009 has "local multiplayer" honestly? That's just so ridic.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
There are several ways that a game can be multiplayer:
1. It can be an MMO game where there is an online game server which everybody is connected to.
2. It can be multiplayer in the same way that was used in the old days - often in clubs where everybody brought their own computer and connected them with cables. Some games only had support for two connected games while other games could allow up to 8 computers to be connected.
3. There is nothing in the way for using the internet to allow people to connect only to a couple of friends in the same way as they did in the old days by using cables. If this was done for a game like TS4 then maybe only two players could play with eachother via the internet. An advantage for EA by doing it that way would be that the game could be multiplayer without needing EA to set up a gameserver.
We don't know which way EA maybe can have considered before dropping the multiplayer idea completely.
What game past 2009 has "local multiplayer" honestly? That's just so ridic.
Not many because almost all multiplayer games are now free-to-play MMO games. But that wouldn't make sense for a game like TS4 which is mostly about selling a huge number of GPs, EPs and mainly SPs too. To simplify TS4 such that it could be a free MMO game like the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile is something that I don't think that EA ever would do.
But adding a multiplayer option to TS4 just like EA once did for TS2 for consoles would actually be quite easy and could be done without simplifying the whole game if it was restricted such that only two simmers could connect their games at the same time and visit eachother. It could maybe require them to be connected to the same wifi box or it could be made possible also through the internet such that they didn't even need to be near eachother. Therefore this way would make much more sense for a game like TS4. But the problem is if it actually would be something that could increase the sales numbers at all? I don't really disagree with EA if they dropped the idea because they didn't think that many simmers would use such an option anyway.
have you never heard of co-op lol. sims 4 was meant to be online, probably with a lobby or something like it where you meet up with people to play your neighborhood with. also MMO's have expansions and dlc's I know I was an Everquest nut for years.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
There are several ways that a game can be multiplayer:
1. It can be an MMO game where there is an online game server which everybody is connected to.
2. It can be multiplayer in the same way that was used in the old days - often in clubs where everybody brought their own computer and connected them with cables. Some games only had support for two connected games while other games could allow up to 8 computers to be connected.
3. There is nothing in the way for using the internet to allow people to connect only to a couple of friends in the same way as they did in the old days by using cables. If this was done for a game like TS4 then maybe only two players could play with eachother via the internet. An advantage for EA by doing it that way would be that the game could be multiplayer without needing EA to set up a gameserver.
We don't know which way EA maybe can have considered before dropping the multiplayer idea completely.
Given that the code discovered in the game references online connectivity for the mutliplayer aspects, it's a sure fire bet they didn't go with a local multiplayer.
It's a ridiculous idea to even ponder on; local multiplayer makes absolutely no sense in a PC Sims game, or any modern game that isn't player vs player in an offline setting.
I feel like Olympus is recent, maybe just a distraction, maybe they want you to be into the new "mobile" game obvious reason being clothing I doubt team would have made clothes for the app first and then for TS4 it just doesn't seem right to me, but I don't think TS4 team could have spent countless hours ignoring us for this App, if that was the fact then I guess The team killed a pig but nobody wanted bacon.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
There are several ways that a game can be multiplayer:
1. It can be an MMO game where there is an online game server which everybody is connected to.
2. It can be multiplayer in the same way that was used in the old days - often in clubs where everybody brought their own computer and connected them with cables. Some games only had support for two connected games while other games could allow up to 8 computers to be connected.
3. There is nothing in the way for using the internet to allow people to connect only to a couple of friends in the same way as they did in the old days by using cables. If this was done for a game like TS4 then maybe only two players could play with eachother via the internet. An advantage for EA by doing it that way would be that the game could be multiplayer without needing EA to set up a gameserver.
We don't know which way EA maybe can have considered before dropping the multiplayer idea completely.
Given that the code discovered in the game references online connectivity for the mutliplayer aspects, it's a sure fire bet they didn't go with a local multiplayer.
It's a ridiculous idea to even ponder on; local multiplayer makes absolutely no sense in a PC Sims game, or any modern game that isn't player vs player in an offline setting.
I agree that EA can't have considered to let the multiplayer idea to require a connection between our computers with cables because that is a completely outdated technology.
But if it was about making a MMO game then it can't have been about TS4 at all because EA cant sell a huge number of expansions for a MMO game where all updates and even the basegame usually are free.
So this still leaves us with only one realistic opportunity: EA can have considered to make TS4 as a game which could be played both as singleplayer but also had a limited option for multiplayer where you could connect your game to your friend's game in some way via Bluetooth, wifi or the internet.
We know from Patrick Kelly that Olympus was some project which had to do with the UI for an unannounced game that he worked on in about 2011 to 2012. He assumed that it was TS4. But even he didn't know. Then the project was either dropped or changed by EA. So speculations don't really have any purpose because we will never get any answers.
have you never heard of co-op lol. sims 4 was meant to be online, probably with a lobby or something like it where you meet up with people to play your neighborhood with. also MMO's have expansions and dlc's I know I was an Everquest nut for years.
Yes I know that paid online games became quite popular in the late 1990s and there were several popular paid online games until about 10 to 12 years ago when the number of active players for those games suddenly went down. The reason was likely the free-to-play MMO games and only WoW has survived. All the other games (even Eve Online) are now free to play if they even exist anymore. No game company would ever now attempt to make a huge paid game like TS4 as a paid online game when all experience show that such games have to be free and just live from adds and voluntary purchases from a small minority of their users.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
There are several ways that a game can be multiplayer:
1. It can be an MMO game where there is an online game server which everybody is connected to.
2. It can be multiplayer in the same way that was used in the old days - often in clubs where everybody brought their own computer and connected them with cables. Some games only had support for two connected games while other games could allow up to 8 computers to be connected.
3. There is nothing in the way for using the internet to allow people to connect only to a couple of friends in the same way as they did in the old days by using cables. If this was done for a game like TS4 then maybe only two players could play with eachother via the internet. An advantage for EA by doing it that way would be that the game could be multiplayer without needing EA to set up a gameserver.
We don't know which way EA maybe can have considered before dropping the multiplayer idea completely.
What game past 2009 has "local multiplayer" honestly? That's just so ridic.
I mean Co-Op lmao. I messed up my terminology.
Co-Op meaning choosing who you play with, rather than MMO which is an "everyone's online at once" kind of game.
have you never heard of co-op lol. sims 4 was meant to be online, probably with a lobby or something like it where you meet up with people to play your neighborhood with. also MMO's have expansions and dlc's I know I was an Everquest nut for years.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
You are probably right that they considered to make TS4 into a game where you locally could play with your friend.
Olympus was just a project (like Ikarus) and not even a game. We still don't know for sure if those projects even existed and if they did what they were about. But there have been many guesses
True, like Mario 128 was Mario Galaxy pretty much, but it was a project before hand.
@jackjack_k - I'm more likely to believe a modder that's under no obligation to the company versus former or current employees...they can only tell us so much! @TwistedMexican has just given it to us straight after having seen the code. No fluff, no room for speculation...as @Cinebar said:
Weren't you constantly preaching Olympus was dead/fake?
Anyway, I saw surveys of a mobile Sims game posted in TS3's forum back in 2014, so I'd say it started around then.
Not fake, but a separate project entirely to The Sims 4, in which this game seems pretty much confirmation.
That IS interesting, though. Pretty much says to me that they shelved Olympus in 2012 (apparently) to finish the Sims 4, and got straight back to work.
It's not Olympus, I've looked at the code and it does rely heavily on TS4 assets, though modified, and there are design elements that were present in Olympus, but it's a completely different engine, borrowing game controllers from firemonkey studios, EA's mobile sector. Also if you watch the concept video, it's very clear Olympus was not being developed with mobile in mind.
Also TS4 was most certainly the end result of Olympus. This is for multiple reasons:
The UI in TS4 has Olympus code laced almost entirely throughout. For all intents and purposes, the TS4 UI is Olympus.
The game's code uses Google Protocol Buffers to talk between Python and C++. The only logical reason for designing a game like this is as a netcode (client to server and vice versa). I believe the mod-friendly python code we got was a result of needing a local client/server connection without modifying the core code. I can't say for certain, but it's very likely this crosstalk is why the game can't seem to keep up with simulations at higher speeds.
CASt wouldn't have been in the works either because of the amount of data transfer that would be needed to sync customized textures to all players, so that is a valid explanation for the lack of CASt in what we have today.
As a side note, we need to remember at the time Olympus was discovered and TS4 was announced with emphesis on "single-player offline experience", SimCity was crashing hard in response to it's online and restrictive gameplay. After years of working with the TS4 engine, I say all signs point to a sudden shift from a SimCity style engine to what we received today.
thank you if they can't take your word I don't know who they will believe.
@jackjack_k - I'm more likely to believe a modder that's under no obligation to the company versus former or current employees...they can only tell us so much! @TwistedMexican has just given it to us straight after having seen the code. No fluff, no room for speculation...as @Cinebar said:
Weren't you constantly preaching Olympus was dead/fake?
Anyway, I saw surveys of a mobile Sims game posted in TS3's forum back in 2014, so I'd say it started around then.
Not fake, but a separate project entirely to The Sims 4, in which this game seems pretty much confirmation.
That IS interesting, though. Pretty much says to me that they shelved Olympus in 2012 (apparently) to finish the Sims 4, and got straight back to work.
It's not Olympus, I've looked at the code and it does rely heavily on TS4 assets, though modified, and there are design elements that were present in Olympus, but it's a completely different engine, borrowing game controllers from firemonkey studios, EA's mobile sector. Also if you watch the concept video, it's very clear Olympus was not being developed with mobile in mind.
Also TS4 was most certainly the end result of Olympus. This is for multiple reasons:
The UI in TS4 has Olympus code laced almost entirely throughout. For all intents and purposes, the TS4 UI is Olympus.
The game's code uses Google Protocol Buffers to talk between Python and C++. The only logical reason for designing a game like this is as a netcode (client to server and vice versa). I believe the mod-friendly python code we got was a result of needing a local client/server connection without modifying the core code. I can't say for certain, but it's very likely this crosstalk is why the game can't seem to keep up with simulations at higher speeds.
CASt wouldn't have been in the works either because of the amount of data transfer that would be needed to sync customized textures to all players, so that is a valid explanation for the lack of CASt in what we have today.
As a side note, we need to remember at the time Olympus was discovered and TS4 was announced with emphesis on "single-player offline experience", SimCity was crashing hard in response to it's online and restrictive gameplay. After years of working with the TS4 engine, I say all signs point to a sudden shift from a SimCity style engine to what we received today.
thank you if they can't take your word I don't know who they will believe.
I'm surprised this game uses Python, I thought that was a very old thing from way back in '95/ '98. (at least that's the way I remember it about floppy discs games from way back).
As a modder, no disrespect, but all they can know is how the game is configured ") @TwistedMexican is actually speculating based on the code. Not from what's been said internally.
Olympus was an MMO had an online aspect confirmed, and we've already had confirmation The Sims 4 was had an online aspect, but was not an MMO.
So of course, in a game with online gameplay, that would be in the code.
HOWEVER, Olympus was an MMO. Chi Chan said there was an offline game as well, with a Story Mode and Freeplay mode. Which is not an MMO.
So, again no disrespect, we've had a Guru even confirm Chi Chan's comments, so;
Fan Speculation =/= Actual Confirmation.
Olympus doesn't mean "Online", Olympus was a code name for an MMO.
An MMO is an online game."Massive Multiplayer Online". Please stop contradicting yourself.
I meant Co-Op.
So for example, it seems the even The Sims Mobile is a co-op game. You can add players to your game by usernames and play with them in one game.
vs an MMO like The Sims Online, which was a case of every player existing in the one game, and you could talk to complete strangers.
The game Patrick Kelly spoke of was an MMO. The game Chi Chan talks about (which was The Sims 4) speaks of playing "with friends" like Co-Op.
The Sims 4 Multiplayer Mod, which is used from leftover modding, also shows The Sims 4 was a co-op game, not an MMO.
Modders have already found the coding, and made it work. @TwistedMexican discovering online coding doesn't add anything to what we already know.
People must have forgotten that EA was advertising that blue plumbob up until the last minute in TS4 until it suddenly diappeared.
Nah, The Sims 4 and the other game both had Online elements. The Sims 4 was local multiplayer, the Olympus game was an MMO.
Well if Sims 4 had "local multiplayer" than no, it wouldn't have had online elements. It would be a self contained multiplayer game that multiple people would have to play on the same machine; like how multiplayer worked on old console Sims games. That is local multiplayer functionality, offline player vs player.
The code referencing multiplayer functionality in an online world says you are entirely wrong with your analysis of the game. We're at the point where you are either incapable of understanding what is right in front of you, or you are choosing to not believe it for whatever odd reason. As always, if you have legitimate proof you should share it. Making claims that have absolutely no basis, and contradict code from the actual game isn't a productive way to spend time.
I meant Co-Op which is still online.
The coding that TwistedMexican used is NOT new information
They've already found a way to make The Sims 4 online.
Answer me this, does this look like an MMO to you? Or online Co-Op?
Just to add, an MMO doesn't run locally, most of the information is in the server, and all players see the exact same thing in real time.
The Sims 4's multiplayer coding, seems to be that "interactions" are online and are sent through to each others game so that the same thing "happens" but how it happens is local to the game itself, which is not how an MMO works.
Also, the worlds in The Sims 4 doesn't support an MMO at all, considering The Sims online had millions of lots that players could have, The Sims 4 world pics show that the game is still having the same size worlds.
Just to add, an MMO doesn't run locally, most of the information is in the server, and all players see the exact same thing in real time.
This isn't true for the Sims Freeplay where we all have our own world to play in. Even though those worlds in principle are identical this isn't true in each of our games because we have to build all the houses ourself and we can modify them. We can visit eachother's cities. But only with one sim at the time and it is actually only a copy of our friend's city which we visit. But a lot of quests and events are global such that we all have them at the same time.
The Sims 4's multiplayer coding, seems to be that "interactions" are online and are sent through to each others game so that the same thing "happens" but how it happens is local to the game itself, which is not how an MMO works.
Also, the worlds in The Sims 4 doesn't support an MMO at all, considering The Sims online had millions of lots that players could have, The Sims 4 world pics show that the game is still having the same size worlds.
There are several way to make MMO games. But they all depend on the maintenance of a huge gameserver and such games can't usually be played offline. Usually they are still much more limited than offline singleplayer games and as mentioned they have all (with WoW as the only exception) been free to play in recent years. Therefore a game like TS4 can't be MMO. But it still can have limited multiplayer options if they don't require the game having updated copies of everything to an online server. Savegames for TS4 are way too big for EA to have updated copies of all savegames for millions of players on an online server. But EA would of course like the game to be online anyway such that EA could give us adds all the time. But the simmers are likely not to accept it and it could cost EA a lot of customers if the game required a constant connection to the internet.
Just to add, an MMO doesn't run locally, most of the information is in the server, and all players see the exact same thing in real time.
This isn't true for the Sims Freeplay where we all have our own world to play in. Even though those worlds in principle are identical this isn't true in each of our games because we have to build all the houses ourself and we can modify them. We can visit eachother's cities. But only with one sim at the time and it is actually only a copy of our friend's city which we visit. But a lot of quests and events are global such that we all have them at the same time.
The Sims 4's multiplayer coding, seems to be that "interactions" are online and are sent through to each others game so that the same thing "happens" but how it happens is local to the game itself, which is not how an MMO works.
Also, the worlds in The Sims 4 doesn't support an MMO at all, considering The Sims online had millions of lots that players could have, The Sims 4 world pics show that the game is still having the same size worlds.
There are several way to make MMO games. But they all depend on the maintenance of a huge gameserver and such games can't usually be played offline. Usually they are still much more limited than offline singleplayer games and as mentioned they have all (with WoW as the only exception) been free to play in recent years. Therefore a game like TS4 can't be MMO. But it still can have limited multiplayer options if they don't require the game having updated copies of everything to an online server. Savegames for TS4 are way too big for EA to have updated copies of all savegames for millions of players on an online server. But EA would of course like the game to be online anyway such that EA could give us adds all the time. But the simmers are likely not to accept it and it could cost EA a lot of customers if the game required a constant connection to the internet.
Freeplay was originally a single player game though, pretty sure having friends within in the game was not there at launch.
Just to add, an MMO doesn't run locally, most of the information is in the server, and all players see the exact same thing in real time.
This isn't true for the Sims Freeplay where we all have our own world to play in. Even though those worlds in principle are identical this isn't true in each of our games because we have to build all the houses ourself and we can modify them. We can visit eachother's cities. But only with one sim at the time and it is actually only a copy of our friend's city which we visit. But a lot of quests and events are global such that we all have them at the same time.
The Sims 4's multiplayer coding, seems to be that "interactions" are online and are sent through to each others game so that the same thing "happens" but how it happens is local to the game itself, which is not how an MMO works.
Also, the worlds in The Sims 4 doesn't support an MMO at all, considering The Sims online had millions of lots that players could have, The Sims 4 world pics show that the game is still having the same size worlds.
There are several way to make MMO games. But they all depend on the maintenance of a huge gameserver and such games can't usually be played offline. Usually they are still much more limited than offline singleplayer games and as mentioned they have all (with WoW as the only exception) been free to play in recent years. Therefore a game like TS4 can't be MMO. But it still can have limited multiplayer options if they don't require the game having updated copies of everything to an online server. Savegames for TS4 are way too big for EA to have updated copies of all savegames for millions of players on an online server. But EA would of course like the game to be online anyway such that EA could give us adds all the time. But the simmers are likely not to accept it and it could cost EA a lot of customers if the game required a constant connection to the internet.
Freeplay was originally a single player game though, pretty sure having friends within in the game was not there at launch.
Freeplay was multiplayer already in 2012 though where you also then could connect to friends through the party boat. I haven't been able to see if it was multiplayer even before that.
But if you look at other MMO games like Boom Beach or Clash of Clans then you also only see your own base city. The other cities you only can see while you attack them (or consider to attack them). The same is true for many other similar games. So the method from the Sims Online (which is what you described) isn't used very much.
Comments
What game past 2009 has "local multiplayer" honestly? That's just so ridic.
But adding a multiplayer option to TS4 just like EA once did for TS2 for consoles would actually be quite easy and could be done without simplifying the whole game if it was restricted such that only two simmers could connect their games at the same time and visit eachother. It could maybe require them to be connected to the same wifi box or it could be made possible also through the internet such that they didn't even need to be near eachother. Therefore this way would make much more sense for a game like TS4. But the problem is if it actually would be something that could increase the sales numbers at all? I don't really disagree with EA if they dropped the idea because they didn't think that many simmers would use such an option anyway.
Given that the code discovered in the game references online connectivity for the mutliplayer aspects, it's a sure fire bet they didn't go with a local multiplayer.
It's a ridiculous idea to even ponder on; local multiplayer makes absolutely no sense in a PC Sims game, or any modern game that isn't player vs player in an offline setting.
But if it was about making a MMO game then it can't have been about TS4 at all because EA cant sell a huge number of expansions for a MMO game where all updates and even the basegame usually are free.
So this still leaves us with only one realistic opportunity: EA can have considered to make TS4 as a game which could be played both as singleplayer but also had a limited option for multiplayer where you could connect your game to your friend's game in some way via Bluetooth, wifi or the internet.
We know from Patrick Kelly that Olympus was some project which had to do with the UI for an unannounced game that he worked on in about 2011 to 2012. He assumed that it was TS4. But even he didn't know. Then the project was either dropped or changed by EA. So speculations don't really have any purpose because we will never get any answers.
I mean Co-Op lmao. I messed up my terminology.
Co-Op meaning choosing who you play with, rather than MMO which is an "everyone's online at once" kind of game.
Yeah, this is what I meant
True, like Mario 128 was Mario Galaxy pretty much, but it was a project before hand.
I meant Co-Op.
So for example, it seems the even The Sims Mobile is a co-op game. You can add players to your game by usernames and play with them in one game.
vs an MMO like The Sims Online, which was a case of every player existing in the one game, and you could talk to complete strangers.
The game Patrick Kelly spoke of was an MMO. The game Chi Chan talks about (which was The Sims 4) speaks of playing "with friends" like Co-Op.
The Sims 4 Multiplayer Mod, which is used from leftover modding, also shows The Sims 4 was a co-op game, not an MMO.
Modders have already found the coding, and made it work. @TwistedMexican discovering online coding doesn't add anything to what we already know.
I meant Co-Op which is still online.
The coding that TwistedMexican used is NOT new information
They've already found a way to make The Sims 4 online.
Answer me this, does this look like an MMO to you? Or online Co-Op?
Insta: https://instagram.com/jkarajs?igshid=oef2ymrand3g
The Sims 4's multiplayer coding, seems to be that "interactions" are online and are sent through to each others game so that the same thing "happens" but how it happens is local to the game itself, which is not how an MMO works.
Also, the worlds in The Sims 4 doesn't support an MMO at all, considering The Sims online had millions of lots that players could have, The Sims 4 world pics show that the game is still having the same size worlds.
Insta: https://instagram.com/jkarajs?igshid=oef2ymrand3g
There are several way to make MMO games. But they all depend on the maintenance of a huge gameserver and such games can't usually be played offline. Usually they are still much more limited than offline singleplayer games and as mentioned they have all (with WoW as the only exception) been free to play in recent years. Therefore a game like TS4 can't be MMO. But it still can have limited multiplayer options if they don't require the game having updated copies of everything to an online server. Savegames for TS4 are way too big for EA to have updated copies of all savegames for millions of players on an online server. But EA would of course like the game to be online anyway such that EA could give us adds all the time. But the simmers are likely not to accept it and it could cost EA a lot of customers if the game required a constant connection to the internet.
Freeplay was originally a single player game though, pretty sure having friends within in the game was not there at launch.
Insta: https://instagram.com/jkarajs?igshid=oef2ymrand3g
But if you look at other MMO games like Boom Beach or Clash of Clans then you also only see your own base city. The other cities you only can see while you attack them (or consider to attack them). The same is true for many other similar games. So the method from the Sims Online (which is what you described) isn't used very much.