Unless you've been living under a rock for the last three years, you're well aware of the phenomenon that is The Sims.

And, shortly after Maxis and Electronic Arts found out that Will Wright's brilliantly simple (and simply brilliant) idea was a smash hit, they immediately began working on an online version of the game.

Friends would be real. Kiss someone too soon after meeting them and maybe they'd slap you, or maybe they wouldn't.

Watch your sim make money instead of sending him off to that invisible job.

The idea was fabulous and The Sims fans all over the world drooled with anticipation.

Once in the game, you'll see a screen to let you create or select a sim.

You can have up to three sims at a time, but they can't exist in the same world -- you can only have one sim per server.

In The Sims, in addition to selecting a head, body, and skin color, you would also assign points to several personality traits.

Now your sim has whatever personality you deem it to have, so those traits are gone. After giving your sim a name, you're all done.

You're given ten-thousand simoleans (the currency in the game) to start.

Now you can decide whether to purchase a lot, find a place to be a roommate, or just hang around other lots.

You could get by with never living in a house pretty easily just by visiting different lots.

The initial ten thousand is just enough to buy a lot and make a small one-room house filled with the basics, at which point you'll be broke then and have to earn money.

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