Sims 3 is probably the last Sims game for me.

"katrinasforest;c-17299345" wrote:
Also, the poll simply asks if people prefer cartoony or realistic. There's no mention (in the poll itself, at least) of people wanting it to be "even more cartoony" than Sims 4. Just between cartoony and realistic as general choices, people who decided to vote in that poll seem to prefer the former.

Yeah, and I was the one who brought up Toy Story. I exaggerated a bit. Sorry. :lol: But that came to mind when people wanted more of the cartoony style, while I, on the other hand, want sims that take into the account the progress in computer technology since 2000. And as said earlier, the examples the creator of the poll posted aren't the best.

Is that TS4 horror in the OP supposed to be a zombie? Because it if it, it doesn't look like one. I made a sim once that had eyes just like that thing when it was conversing with people.

Now, please don't stone me, but just so that I could be aware of what I was talking about, since so many TS4 people apparently believe you can't form an opinion by just looking at LP's or screenies ( unless its a positive opinion /eyeroll ) I downloaded and tried TS4 when it was free. And I had a sim that went to a bar and was "interacting" with other sims and it had a face exactly like that picture, with the over-exaggerated expressions and movements. It truly is the singularly most awful sims game I've ever seen.

I actually posted my thoughts on the game on another forum, I'll just quote myself here.

"On May 23 Pary - on another site" wrote:
I paid exactly what TS4 is worth - nothing.
Since it's worth nothing, and being offered for nothing, I actually downloaded it. To be honest, I was prepared to eat crow, and that it would not be as bad as I had always thought.

However, it was WORSE than I actually thought. People tout CAS as the "best thing ever!!11oneone"
Well it's rubbish and the push pull system is utterly appalling. Taking a step back to swatches instead of at least a colour wheel feels archaic, and the sims are SO BLOODY UGLY.

Nonetheless, I made a stepford smiling ugly sim and took off for the desert town, whatever its silly name is. I picked a boring, prefab house with its oversized furniture and sent my sim off to some cactus bar to meet people.
This is where it got really ugly. Literally. A bunch of sims rolled up and sat next to my sim, engaging in socialisation stuff. After after five minutes of watching my sim "over act" waving her hands around, and exaggerate every movement, what finally finished me off was another two minutes of watching her talking to this man while her eyes were almost literally bulging out of her head like some psychopathic serial killer on PcP. She looked like one of those black goldfish.

I quit in horror and immediately uninstalled it, and endured a boatload of ribbing from my kids for the rest of the day ( week ) for even installing it in the first place.

I will never be the same again.

Edit to add - My sons were watching while I played it, and when I first loaded the town map they were disgusted, and even more so when one of them said "Scroll over to the other half Mum."

His face when I told him that was all there was, was priceless. He looked so shocked.

@Pary I jokingly told my son I would try TS4 for free and he pretty much told me he would disown me :D

It isn't worth the download. Half the time that Sim I had that was supposedly "interacting" with people in this bar, it wasn't even looking at them. At one point, for some reason, it was trying to talk to someone behind it, and there was a moment where I thought I was watching the Exorcist! Its head swiveled almost entirely around.
It's a truly horrid game, and while my "seven minutes of play" is just a bit of an understatement, and I had every intention of giving it a really good go ( as I wrote, I WAS prepared to eat crow and perhaps actually like it a little ) I probably played just over an hour or something, to test out interactions, with objects and other sims, but I was so repulsed by it, I just couldn't go any further.

I think it was @Nikkei_Simmer that said on his blog ( ? ) it is very difficult to form any attachment to these overly cartoony TS4 sims. I couldn't, to the point where I don't even refer to the one I made as a female most of the time. It is just an "It" to me.
Everyone knows that I get heavily involved with my sims / characters, and they all have backstories, and their own little personalities, but this one was just... a thing. I felt like I couldn't relate at all, and the art style just made everything feel worse. I've never been a fan of that style, I can't stand it.

On topic, the overly cartoony style really was an awful turn off. It's just terrible, and it made me so happy that I am still able to play TS2 and 3 and not have to limit myself to what really does feel like being in a Toy story movie.

I truly hope that they ditch this style if they ever make a TS5. It feels like such a disconnect to me, like not playing a real sims game. It just felt wrong. I would probably feel just the same about hyper realism as well.

I can see my son saved me some grief, then! He's a gamer, or at least I assume he is given the thousands of dollars I have put in his Steam wallet over the last three years, ;) and although he doesn't sim he does "research" lots of games he doesn't play and pretty much wrote TS4 off as a joke long ago.

I have to admit that the cartoony style is one of the reasons I have never been tempted.

@Pary I didn't download that test version myself, but now I almost wish I did. It would have helped me improve my english vocabulary a lot. And yours too, maybe, since I would have invented a couple of new words as well. :lol:

"Damienf519;c-17299248" wrote:
The truth of the matter is that the Sims series was always meant to be somewhat cartoonish. Hyper realistic isn't necessarily the best style for them go for, especially when it comes to certain occult creatures like vampires. Not to mention a fully realistic cow plant would be nightmare fuel! The Truth of the matter is, when it comes to games like the sims, I'm more concerned with game play than art style anyway.

The aesthetic has always been a balance between realism and cartoony but I now prefer more realism and more maturity. A sandbox life simulator being hyper realistic isn't necessary to enjoy the game if done well, that's true. However, the best style depends on where the majority resides on the matter because they are the ones who would support the game the most. Besides, at the other end of the spectrum is TS4 that factually destroys this balance to go for all out cartoony look. This is a first and one of the most disliked graphics and aesthetics in the whole franchise compared to facts of TS2 sale numbers at launch and then TS3 sale numbers overachieving TS2 and in less time. But TS4 there is not any factual statistics because the truth is the majority looked at TS4 and either quit the franchise altogether or mostly just stuck with TS3/TS2/TS. The majority of TS4 supporters are probably die-hard fans and newbies.
https://i.postimg.cc/fySxX2dy/20020214-vacation-5.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/5jc8mB53/291748-screenshot_5_big.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/m220C7p4/Screenshot-260_(2).jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/Twwj2YYr/1088-1.jpg

By more realism, I don't mean that the Sims and the environment should be hyper realistic though I don't think I would mind it. I mean, I play all kinds of games with realistic looking characters and environments so that wouldn't bother me as long as everything fits well visually. However, I would love to have a whole lot more realism those areas besides the A.I. itself.

I'm fine with how my Sims look with custom skin and eyes since there won't be anymore improvements and advancements. But there isn't much diversity in terms of nuances with skin such as acne, blemishes, dimples, etc.
https://i.postimg.cc/d3tXSgHh/Screenshot-67.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/xTR56vtR/Screenshot-147.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/G2sX9h86/Screenshot-36.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/CLgqLJhD/Screenshot-326.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/4Ntzb8TQ/Screenshot-493.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/YqFnWwp2/Screenshot-626.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/m2C78t7H/Screenshot-337.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/wTLCCtKM/502_cropped.jpg

Overall the graphics, aesthetics and gameplay mechanics should be improved and advanced and I really hope someday there will be a brand new sandbox life simulator that gets inspiration from TS3 but also the in-depth gameplay from TS2 and TS. I also hope it would be rated M for Mature and their target audience are adults.

But you know what, I wouldn't mind a style similar but more refined than EVE Online character creator. I really don't like the texture/shine of the hair, I don't like how the hair looks...it looks so bad to me. But mostly everything else looks a lot better than TS3. The skin has nuances instead of flawlessly smooth like a porcelain doll and I like that. This reminds me though, I wonder what Cyberpunk 2077 character creation will be like in more detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkvx5KguErM

I prefer the more cartoony style if these are my only choices, but I'd like a mixture of the two. I prefer it because it matches the interactions, even TS3 has outlandish animations. So I get pictures like this one:

https://i.imgur.com/UxMwrYv.png

In TS4 it looks like it fits, which makes it feel more stylized. But I'll be real, base sims, no matter which version of the game, are fugly. I think this is a better comparison of the art styles. Not in love with any version.

https://i.imgur.com/HHgX7qt.png

But I'm ok with it because I know that with mods, I can make any game look the way I want it to. And to illustrate that, here's pictures of TS4...retextured.

https://i.imgur.com/KODSZgm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Juwf7Ii.png

And here are both CC sims from TS3 and TS4:

https://i.imgur.com/V85NHQ3.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/EliqWOc.png

Anyone not afraid of modding knows what can be done with the game.

It's true that talking majorities and minorities is kind of pointless given the small sampling of the simming population that is actually represented here on the forums. Even from such a small sampling, I have seen many different play styles and aesthetic tastes that are so different to what I want from the game that I doubt you could ever get a true indication of what the "majority" of simmers want.

See the example shown there by @Mstybl95 of the TS4 sims with the skin overlay is something I would have used to illustrate my point of TS4 sims looking like they don't belong after you slap ts3-like stuff on them.
He's looking all kind of semi realistic with the overlay and everything, which is fine until you see he's sporting lego plastic hair, even though it seems an effort has been made to retexturing it. And nothing in TS4 ever seems to be able to disguise those eyes... they always look weird. I think it's the lack of lashes?

That kind of thing just doesn't work for me. Everyone likes different things of course, but that's just one of my personal peeves.
I must say, those retextures of Ts4 scenery look much improved ! But again, I can't see the overly cartoony sims fitting into it. It's just me and my preferences though.