Sims 2 Development insight

"Sk8rblaze;c-17846043" wrote:

"Mstybl95;c-17846024" wrote:

"Sk8rblaze;c-17845980" wrote:
Thanks for sharing! Halfway through reading, and I can already feel just how different the dev culture was then compared to now. It just feels that they were full of hardworking people trying really hard to push the barrier, whereas every time I read behind the scenes for TS4, it’s about rushing the product out and salvaging whatever they could from their flop online idea for EA’s wallet.

But to be fair, he did say that the EP cycle is insane and even he burnt out of it.

Still not mad at the TS4 devs because they did what they could with that mess. But I am critical of them for putting basic stuff on the back burner. It's clear they no longer have a staff of programmers or QA on staff.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I think it’s actually VERY impressive what The Sims 4’s developers were able to do in such a short time considering where the project started, EA’s poor management, and the insanely short amount of time they had. It’s just disappointing because I think the game could’ve been huge and so well-received upon release if circumstances were different.

I definitely get the feeling that there aren’t as many programmers or QA on the team as The Sims 2 though. When you start seeing repurposed features that function the same exact way as existing ones, nothing but fluff and new animations, and broken features, it becomes very clear programming isn’t too strong. As for QA, even looking at the latest cleaning kit pack, they’re pushing out these huge gameplay balance changes to it already. Did nobody think to play with the pack for a week to see how it would impact daily gameplay? I often get the impression packs aren’t played with enough before release. That’s why live mode lacks so much.

I just wish that EA Would give full creative control on The Sims. They Gave Bioware creative control in Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem (both are lackluster) which failed because the leaders at Bioware who replaced the old leaders have no vision for the game. Meanwhile the leaders at Maxis feels that they had a vision on what they wanted to do in the game it is just that they are limited on what they can do because instead of not having Stuff Packs and Kits for EA they can use those resources for Quality of Life Improvements.

Let's be real. I HIGHLY Doubt that it was SimGuruLyndsy (Head of The Sims) or any of the development team would want to create Kits that contain like 4-10 items to be sold for $5. More likely scenario is that EA noticed how packs are doing well and was tasked by EA to create another "Monetizable" content.

If They can give DICE and even Respawn full creative Control in their projects then they should have also given it to The Sims Studio. Yes the studio creates packs based on what they wanted to create and surveys and etc. But you can definitely know if a feature or pack is something that is done by the studio out of whims (First pet Stuff) or something that is forced by EA.

EA Should have been strict at Bioware and not Maxis.