The Sims Online update

Electronic Arts has revealed more information about The Sims Online, its upcoming massively multiplayer online version of the incredibly popular virtual-life game The Sims. Like its single-player counterpart, the game will let players create and control virtual people, or sims, in a neighborhood, but in The Sims Online, the neighborhood will be populated by other players' virtual people.

When creating their virtual person, players will have access to almost all the hairstyles, faces, and clothing from the original game and its expansion packs. Players will also be able to create up to three different virtual people, each living in a different city. They will be able to edit the appearance of their sims frequently to ensure that they are dressed appropriately for different situations.

In the game, players will be able to pursue a wide variety of different careers in order to make money. Sims with the appropriate skills can also work for other players as a cook, entertainer, handyman, or housekeeper, among other things. Players can also start their own business alone, or they can build a company with other players. Some of the possibilities include managing a casino, owning a thrift shop, building and selling houses, and running a dating service.

The game will also include various job-related objects that will help sims make money. The job-related objects will all have several different workstations that relate to different skills, and the better a player's sim is at a particular skill, the more money he or she will receive for completing a job. The developers unveiled the Concessione DiPizza job object, which lets four sims work together running a pizza delivery business. Players will have to work together to ensure that they successfully create their pizzas. If any of the four sims makes a mistake in the pizza-making process, the whole team will have to start over.

We've posted some new screenshots in the gallery above that show off some of the game's environments and features, including the Concessione DiPizza job object in action. The Sims Online is in development at Maxis, the studio that created the original game, and it is scheduled for release this fall. To learn more about the game, take a look at our previous coverage . We'll post more information about The Sims Online from the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles later this month.