San Francisco  - The fans have spoken and the creators of the Sims have heard. It's time for the Sims to get out of the house.

Electronic Arts, which produces the Sims, has had its staff hard at work creating Sims 3, the next instalment of the wildly popular computer game that lets players run the lives of digital people they design and shepherd through a computerized existence. The new version of the game, due in 2009, will make it easier for the Sims to get out of their house, explore their neighbourhood and make friends.

EA recently gave a sneak peek of the new game. Of course, EA took the chance to tout the game. Nancy Smith, the general manager of the Sims label, took time during the presentation to talk about the 100 million copies of the game already sold, the fascination fans have with their characters' virtual lives, and the game's popularity among female gamers, a segment that has been overlooked by most game publishers to date.

"People are comfortable in the world of the Sims because they can play their own life, or a life they have dreamed about," she said.

But that doesn't mean fans have no complaints. "I'd like to be able to make some individualized changes without having to take a college 3-D design course," noted student Nadja Beierle in a Sims Internet forum.

Developers seem familiar with such comments. "We've really focused on the wishes of the community," said producer Ben Bell. "We spent a long time working with Editor and now it's possible to make your Sim look the way you envision it."

The result is a "Create a Sim" tool. Moving a controller back and forth, Bell manipulates a character, changing its hair and skin colour and alternately making it fatter or thinner. On top of that, characters can be given up to five specific character traits, which means it's now possible to create a grandmother who is curious, ill- tempered and a kleptomaniac.

"It all looks great, but graphics grow stale fast," notes Daniel Matschijewsky, editor of Gamestar, a Munich-based magazine. He says he expects the game to build upon its foundations. "It makes no sense to completely redo the Sims, since the game has worked so well for so many years."

But there will be one big change. "The problem, so far, was that characters lived in the microcosm of their house," says Bell. Players could not really participate in their characters' lives as so many of important moments such as making social contacts happened so abruptly.

"Now we have an open world, to which the house belongs," says Bell, noting that there is now an entire city waiting for the Sims. Characters can now meet friends to go on shopping trips or meet for lunch. They'll also have the opportunity to visit relatives or spy on their neighbours, if that's what they want to do.

"The open world is the best new addition in the Sims 3," says Matschijewsky.

True, the Sims could leave their house in earlier versions of the game, but their movements were limited to small sections of the neighbourhood.

"Notwithstanding the amount of time it took to load the neighbourhoods, going there always ripped you out of the game, which hurt the atmosphere."

However, one of the game's central elements remains: decorating your Sims home with your choice of floors, tapestries of plush sofas.

That's also responding to player demands. "Sims could quickly become a chore," says Beierle. Players have to make sure their characters eat regularly and stay on some sort of career path. "I play to set up a house and redo my character's style. The rest can get on your nerves."

That means Beierle should be particularly pleased with one new feature of the Sims 3 - characters can now go to the bathroom without being told to do so. (dpa)