The Sims Resources Online Forum is the official Sims site which gives a medium to Sims fans to interact and share their creativity. Created in August 1999 the TRS (as it is known) is the largest Sims supporting site.
The site offers its members help to create the various items and share them in the Sims online community. To gauge the popularity of their creations , members can view the number of download counts .Apart from this there is something called as ‘guestbook ‘and ‘thank you’ to see the feedback given for their works. To provide encouragement to budding designers TRS offers free downloads of someone else’s creations. This is a great way of making users to keep on adding new works and expanding the Sims further.
The TRS also has lots of talented designers in their team. TRS provide rating to their designers and also showcase their designs. This gives flexibility to its members to choose from the wide range of choices with both professional designs and first timer designs on display. Since the site offers lots of content the members are sure to find something interesting to download.
To keep everyone happy, Sims Resource offers both free and paid memberships. Free members can have their own profile page and create their own creations. Free membership offers about 500,000 free downloads (out of total 600000) across various categories. These free downloads keeps changing, so free members can get a wide number of choices overall.
Paid members can use the exclusive Install wizard provided to them. With the help of this wizard, installing items of member's choice becomes a simple one click job.
For all its members (free and paid) site offers tips, strategy, cheats and other information related to the game. They can also take part in the well moderated community discussion by way of forums or live chats. These forums and chats provide Sims fans a great interacting medium for exchange of information with each other.
Paid members will also not see any advertising banners which is a major irritant otherwise. The site also offers a powerful search engine which offers lots of filtering for the search we are doing.
TSR provides official news about new patches and expansion packs on its sites and also by monthly newsletters which are available for both free and paid accounts. This helps in keeping up to date with all the latest happenings related to the game.
Gaia is a Japanese animation based (called anime) social Networking site. Staring off as an anime link list it went through few changes in format to finally become a popular social gaming site. Its popularity can be gauged by the fact that it gets over a million forum posts each day.
Account creation in Gaia is simple and it is followed by a guided tour of the site explaining most of Gaia’s community features. Gaia provides ample opportunities to earn what is known as Gaia gold. User can start by simply verifying their email address and taking the online tour of the various Gaia communities. Participating in forum posts is also encouraged by rewarding gold. Apart from Gaia gold there is Gaia cash also which is bought by actual cash.
Gaia is a great interactive teen hangout with very less moderators and restrictions. Users can form guilds and have their own friend's list. Parents should take a guided tour of the game first before allowing their kids to the site, as the discussions in Gaia boards range from sex, abuses and other adult materials. To Gaia's merit, it does offers the option of reporting violation by clicking the button located in each thread or post .If the content is found in violation to the terms and condition of the site it is removed. Users, if found guilty, are also blocked from the site if they for writing inappropriate material. But mostly the monitoring by moderators themselves is of very limited nature.
Gaia offers a varied community with over twenty sub forums with hundreds of different topics in each. These forums give a forum to teenagers to discuss issues which they cannot discuss openly elsewhere. Users can get creative by writing long stories and drawing their characters. There is also assistance given for honing their skills. There are lots of options for customizing the avatars by buying clothes, accessories and numerous other items by Gaia gold. These avatars can roam in the Gaian towns which consist of virtual homes and users can visit each other's homes, interact with each other and collect items and gold along the way. These virtual homes can be decorated by buying furniture from Furniture stores, can be expanded and even can be moved from one place to another. There are 11 flash games to keep users hooked like Jigsaw, Word Bump, Rally, Slots, Cards and Pinball.
Gaia market also offers range of activities from shopping for avatars, homes etc to trading of things. Users can also sell their items or buy high end items using Gaia Cash. These engaging shopping activities provide a lesson in how the money works in actual world.