Events of FreeSO

**FreeSO** is an open source project aimed at reverse engineering The Sims Online. It shares code from it's predecessors, Project Dollhouse and TSOR. IRL Tomas had been involved with all of them since TSOR, putting TPaw and other projects on hiatus.

## Background

### TSOR

Conflicts between IRL Tomas and the TSOR leader arouse very early on starting with the very concept of TSOR being open source. The group itself faired no better and one eventually left. TSOR was forced shutdown due to a possible C&D that happened to occur the same time as they were asking for donations, leaving to many to speculate if it was a scam.

### Project Dollhouse

Project Dollhouse was the open source fork of TSOR, lead by Afr0, who wrote the server. The project would later gain a second developer, Rhys, who worked on the majority on the client. Conflicts between certain members and the team were reoccurring and common.

IRL Tomas was banned from the forums for arguing that he could be just as good as Rhys. Rhys his attitude frustrated IRL Tomas and lead to series of back and forth argument that eventually lead to his ban. Other members who created similar Project Dollhouse-inspired often faced ridicule and eventually be banned.

### Rise of FreeSO

Afr0 got into a similar argument that IRL Tomas did with Rhys. The two worked on separate branches within the repository, making it easy to compare the progress. Darren, the person behind the forums, compared the two progress and picked Rhys. He moved the forums over to his domain, FreeSO, and was permanently banned, leaving Project Dollhouse without any support or a community. Rhys finished the project on his own, accepting pull requests instead.

## FreeSO Alpha

### FreeSO Discord

Blindsided by FreeSO, IRL Tomas wanted to redeem and created the Blue Rose, a small but functional FreeSO launcher and updater for FreeSO. He would later go on to the FreeSO Discord, formally New Sims Online, when Skype proved to be a handful for Rhys. IRL Tomas invested a lot of time into FreeSO Discord since none of the moderators would support him. He also it as a chance to provide support for Blue Rose.

He handed the Discord to Rhys when he caught him sharing disgust for meeting someone else who shared a similar views as him. As a consequence, the Discord was labeled as official. Rhys' justification was because IRL Tomas was never a staff member.

### My Simulation

My Simulation was a attempt to start his own community inspired by a defunct Sims 2 roleplaying forum of the same name. He created a Discord where he shared the link on his profile. A mixture of formally banned members and a few members of FreeSO.ml, the longest running FreeSO server, joined.

IRL Tomas freely shared his frustration with FreeSO. He shared a "fuck you" blog post that was aimed at Rhys but not meant for Rhys to see immediately. Even though Rhys was never on his server, he got him banned from the forums, anyway, with little warning until his next visit to the forums. This quickly lead to paranoia that someone was sending information back to FreeSO but he didn't know who.

### Private Beta

Tensions reached their peek when IRL Tomas shared a small amount of screenshots to My Simulation, since most of the members were never going to be able to play the game, anyway, or were already in the server. Despite this impression, he was banned from private beta without warning but the person who sent the information back to Rhys did come clean.

Before the opening of private beta opened to the public, IRL Tomas and his friend were able to login and sign up, respectfully, into the private beta server. He was amazed he wasn't banned on the server while his friend was quick to point out the oversight. The moderator who convinced Rhys to send the invite to IRL Tomas was to angry at him. He tried to apologize while his friend and him kept trying to warn of the oversight.

On the eve of going public, Rhys quickly implanted IP banning. The two were banned at the same FreeSO saw an influx in registrations from people eager to sign up. The overload in sign ups caused his server to crash. FreeSO used the crash as an opportunity to paint IRL Tomas as a stupid villain.

## FreeSO Beta

### Backup server

Tensions boiled over when IRL Tomas started a backup server when first attempt at going beta lead to them going back into private in order to flesh out a new API. IRL Tomas opened his own server as backup. He also criticized FreeSO's unwillingness to let the public test the new API since the whole point was to prevent what happened the first time.

Despite his efforts and asking for help, members of FreeSO shamed My Simulation and also criticize Tomas for even asking for people to document the project and past criticisms. The members were labeled as Nazis. A moderator for FreeSO used IRL Tomas to speak to the My Simulation.

The server migrated to a dedicated hardware with the help of a international community. However, they were forced to shut down to what was claimed to be technical issues, while FreeSO argued they were violating the C&D they got, implying it somehow applied to everyone else too. At the same time, IRL Tomas snapped at the moderator for always giving him orders and told him to do it themselves. In response, the moderator blocked him.

### MyLand

Rhys took everyone by surprise with his update to FreeSO, known as MyLand, as a April Fools prank. That stereotyping IRL Tomas as a selfish person with a Mary sue fursona who wanted to claim his code. IRL Tomas was shocked the more he thought about the amount of effort went into the prank for a single person at a time when his project was gaining more users.

## Withdrawal from The Sims Online

IRL Tomas eventually got fed up looking at FreeSO's code and the convoluted way he expected people to understand how it all worked. He started the TPaw Tales visual novels, feeling he was better off staying simple and telling a story. He felt that, while visual novels are nothing to degree of The Sims, at least it's original.

The lack of activity due to the events of FreeSO made it felt like extra baggage when he had already brought the one active member over to his community. He decided to delete it without any former warning. Then put all of his resources into building TPaw Tales.