Behind the Name

My Simulation began as a short-lived RPG forum, created by a friend named Gaby. It featured elements from Sims 2's Create-A-Sim (CAS) to allow users to craft customizable avatars, drawing inspiration from platforms like Gaia Online. Following a financial downturn, the project was handed over to me, Tony Bark. At the time, I was just 18 and faced my own financial challenges, which ultimately led to the forum's closure. Despite this, I have preserved some of the original assets and screenshots from the site. Today, My Simulation is reborn, paying tribute to the original forum through a reimplementation of The Sims Online. This new incarnation is written in Zig, integrating NioTSO's C code and leveraging FreeSO's API server for backend functionality.

Addressing MyLand

The My Simulation legacy is intertwined with "MyLand," a name used by certain FreeSO-compatible servers. This term originated from FreeSO's 2017 April Fools update, which was a satirical nod to an earlier iteration of My Simulation that I had developed. The joke portrayed a character, JMD "Thomas Edison" Montana—a caricature of my former alias, Tomis CW—as overly protective of copyright and antagonistic towards FreeSO. This misrepresentation couldn't be further from my true stance; I am quite permissive with my work. My libraries are shared under MIT or BSD-style licenses, and while some desktop or client software is GPL-licensed, my preference is for more permissive licensing. The stringent copyleft license is a protective measure to prevent misuse due to the lengthy duration of copyright.

I hold no animosity towards FreeSO. The Sims Online was an integral part of my childhood, and FreeSO was a project that meant a great deal to me. My critiques stemmed from their management style, which seemed at odds with the open-source ethos, especially when individuals were banned for sharing their own builds of the looming beta. This contradicted the open-source MPL license under which FreeSO operates, which requires core assets that are not their property.

The MyLand April Fools' joke was rooted in the fact that I launched my own FreeSO server named after My Simulation after I was banned from the FreeSO community for sharing a screenshot of an internal beta with my smaller community, including individuals who had been banned. I believed this wouldn't be an issue, but it led to my banishment, despite FreeSO having no jurisdiction over my community.