Proto:The Sims Online/TSO Pre-Alpha
This is a sub-page of Proto:The Sims Online.
Recently, a beta version of The Sims Online surfaced on archive.org. In it, there is countless amounts of content that was altered or otherwise deleted from the game prior to its release.
Research into this version of the game is facilitated using nio2so to emulate the original Pre-Alpha servers and protocols with an original Pre-Alpha game client.
Contents
Login Screen
Logging into TSO Pre-Alpha demonstrates the game's more primitive state. Error messages and dialogs are more casually worded and vague.
Session Timeout Error Message
Patch Available for Download Message
Generic Login Error Message
Generic Login Error
This error is shown when the Authentication Server (www.ea.com/AuthLogin) returns a Bad result (Not Code 200)
TSO will first ensure the Authentication Server is actually online. If it is not reachable, it will display the error codes INV-300 or INV-301 (EA.com is not reachable right now. Please try again later.)
If it is reachable, it will:
- If the HTTP response code is 200 (Ok) and the server reports an error reason, it will display that as an error message.
- If the HTTP response code is not 200 (Ok) this message will be shown as it is seemingly an edge-case for the TSO protocol at this stage of development.
This is because the Authentication Server will always respond with Ok even if there is an error and will instead bake the error description into the body of the response.
Patch Available Message
This message is shown when the CitySelector server responds with the Patch-Result structure.
Clicking OK will invoke buddy.exe
This would allow developers connecting to a test server to synchronize their came client with the one the server expects. This patching solution would go on to be shipped with TSO with a new user interface.
Session Timeout!!! Error
This is used when the game client receives an Error-Message result with error-code 132.
The game will boot the user back to the Login Prompt.
Select-A-Sim & Create-A-Sim
The Select a Sim screen went through a few notable changes from Pre-Alpha to Release.
Select-A-Sim
Select-A-Sim with no Avatars
Select-A-Sim with an Avatar named "Bloaty"
No Avatar previews seem to appear in this version, nor does the game appear to attempt to download the data until after the Avatar has been selected.
Avatar IDs also appear in parenthesis after the Avatar's name. This is not present in the final version.
The button at the bottom will show which City the Avatar lives in when hovered over. The only City available in Pre-Alpha would be "Blazing Falls".
Each Sim Card has a "Popularity" indicator and a Simoleans indicator. Both of these shows how much each has changed. The timestep for this change is unknown.
Shard (City) Selector Dialog
Present in the Pre-Alpha version is the ability for the user to select a "shard" to play on (City).
This dialog will display any city name you like, for exemplary purposes this is shown to be "Blazing Falls"
Create-A-Sim (Edit-A-Sim)
In Pre-Alpha, Create-A-Sim originally had a personality page where you could input your Avatar's supposed personality. It is unknown how this would have impacted normal gameplay.
The icon backgrounds in this version are grey instead of dark blue, and there is subtext indicating how many Heads / Body Skins there are loaded.
Since this screen would also serve as Edit-A-Sim, an idea later scrapped, the City and Property link buttons are still present at the bottom of the page.
The "OK" button for this page will take the user back to Select-A-Sim instead of taking them to the City like in the release version.
Map View (World View)
In the Pre-Alpha version, the Map View only had one city available, Blazing Falls. The textures are different, and the resolution of the terrain is noticably lower than in the release version(s).
In the bottom right, your Avatar can be seen with a subtle rotation effect.
Person Page
The person page is shown whenever you wish to view another player's Avatar. You can also view your own profile, too.
It encompasses a/an:
- Name of the Avatar (with their AvatarID in parenthesis)
- Description set by the player
- Web of Friendships & enemies of this player
- Summary of their personality
- Summary of their skills
- "Top 100 Lists" that are currently unknown
- Blank, unimplemented pages for Clubs, Interests, etc.
Bookmarks Menu
The Bookmarks menu in this version appears to only allow you to bookmark other player's Avatars.
Double-clicking will open the Person Page for the selected Avatar.
Developer Tools & Dialogs
Embedded into the assemblies shipped with this version of the game, are dialogs that the developers used to create many aspects of the gameplay experience that would go on to power the final game.
HitLab (HitLabServiceD.dll)
HitLab is a tool used to test and manipulate the system that creates sound in the game.
The homepage for HitLab
Viewing a segment in HitLab
TSOProductionDatabaseUI.dll
This assembly was likely used to interact with databases Maxis maintained for objects, interactions, cities, etc.
Below you can see examples of the dialogs stored in this assembly.
Database Transfer Window (Objects)
Database Compare Changes Dialog (Interactions)
Data Integrity Dialog
Database Transfer Windows
This window appears to be used to transfer content stored in the Database to the Game, and vice-versa. It is unknown what usage this may have had in development at this time.
There are multiple versions of this dialog that serve similar purposes:
- Dialog 107 is for transferring Objects to the Database/Game.
- Dialog 108 is for transferring IFF files to the Database/Game.
- Dialog 111 is for transferring Object Types to the Database/Game.
Database Compare Dialogs
This dialog looks like it compares data-items stored in the Database and the Game with each other.
It gives the user the following options:
- DB -> Game
- Game -> DB
- Add to DB
- Delete from DB
- Save contents
- Show Unsync'ed Data Only
With a box at the bottom to show more information about the selected data shown above.
There are these variations of this dialog found in this assembly:
- Dialog 109 Interactions Comparison
- Dialog 112 Tuning Set Comparison
- Dialog 113 Tuning Set Constants Comparison
- Dialog 115 An early variant of this with only a Save Changes button visible. (The Window Border says "Dialog" as opposed to an official name)
- Dialog 116 Sound Events Comparison
Data Integrity Dialog
This dialog appears to allow the developer to run various tasks on the database including:
- Invoking the Objects Database Comparison Window
- Invoking the Interactions Database Comparison Window
- Invoking the Tuning Sets Database Comparison Window
- Invoking the Tuning Constants Database Comparison Window
- Invoking the Sound Events Database Comparison Window
- Set IFF Names (?)
- Test Memory (?)
