Do Cars Matter?

"crocobaura;c-18321850" wrote:
I don't want open world driving, TS2 style loading screen kind of driving is fine and preferable, but no driving at all is just weird.

@crocobaura I agree with you about open world driving being an underwhelming feature. For driving into a loading screen, I just don't see the appeal. Now I was playing Sims 2 back in olden times when the loading screens lasted 20 minutes, so I'm a lot more chill about Sims 4 loading screens than some other players are. I'm still not eager to add even more time to the process by tacking a repetitive animation to the beginning of it. Not only that, but it would take up Sim time, not just player time.

About the non-driving cars. I can see this making sense in the context of, let's say, a DIY pack. I got this idea from @LeGardePourpre 's "Man Pack" thread. Don't like the idea of branding DIY/mechanical hobbies that way, but the actual game play ideas sounded fun. This pack could expand on the things you can do with the handiness skill, perhaps introduce some minor DIY hobby skills like kite making. It could introduce a freelance Handy career similar to the Paranormal Investigator career. It could also introduce a number of buildable objects, sort of like the tree house. One such buildable item could be a vintage car. Let's say, from the 60s or earlier. Not sure how old a car has to be to be vintage, my father's a lot more fluent on this topic than I am, but you could have things like a a Deusy, a Roadster, a 1940s Rolls Royce, a Thunderbird. Once you've tinkered with it and polished it up, you could use it for parked car interactions, but it wouldn't be safe to ride on the street.

@DaWaterRat suggested the non-driving cars could be used for transportation in a way similar to City Living elevators. When you click on them one of the options is "Travel" which transports you to the world map. It's more efficient than looking through your phone. It would be convenient if you could do this from a non-apartment lot by clicking on a car.

"Eleri;c-18322100" wrote:

"crocobaura;c-18321850" wrote:
I don't want open world driving, TS2 style loading screen kind of driving is fine and preferable, but no driving at all is just weird.

@crocobaura I agree with you about open world driving be an underwhelming feature, especially if you don't even have open world. For driving into a loading screen, I just don't see the appeal. Now I was playing Sims 2 back in olden times when the loading screens lasted 20 minutes, so I'm a lot more chill about Sims 4 loading screens than some other players are. I'm still not eager to add even more time to the process by tacking a repetitive animation to the beginning of it. Not only that, but it would take up Sim time, not just player time.

Well, since there will be loading screens regardless of whether you are on foot or in a car, then this issue is not really an issue. As for adding extra time, it's not different to riding a bike or a horse. People who enjoy that can have them in their game, those who don't can continue walking to lots. Drivable cars could be used to drive on large lots, teens could practice their parking skill and such. If they add a racetrack to the neighbourhood, sims could even possibly participate in a car race or maybe drifting. Also, it would be nice if sims could open a garage and have sims bring their cars in to be fixed, cleaned or upgraded. For this you would need drivable cars and it would offer so much more gameplay than a static object that you just admire once you've finished the one time restoration.

I just don't care about cars.

I'm just going to say this once. We had cars in Sims2 that had parked interactions. In Sims3 we could drive them. Now, they zoom by and through our Sims on the roads in front of our lots but our Sims can't drive 'em and they don't have parked interactions, either. Bicycles are a mess, sometimes going through the lot. I'm nearly afraid to get cars, but I would enjoy them. Would also be great if our Teens could work on one, as they could in the past. I currently have two Teen boys in my save. A third son, the eldest is just now a YA. He would most likely help his younger brothers work on the rambling wreck that would sit in the garage. I can also imagine him wishing to take his best girl out on a date in his own nice, shiny, fully drivable vehicle. The kid is of some high fame magnitude. A sports car comes to mind.

@GalacticGal I just don't feel that a comparison with Sims 3 is apt. In Sims 3 there were large open worlds with plenty of places to drive to. Depending on how far away you were going, a drivable car could be a major time saver. In that game play context, a car is definitely valuable, arguably essential. Sims 4 is different. We have neighborhoods, which are much smaller. There are very few neighborhoods that give you any place to go far enough for it to make sense to drive a car there.

I would like to have the buildable car from Sims 2 back, with all the interactions you could do in it. I don't see the point of them driving, but it could be a teleport location to use in addition to your phone.

At this point nothing matters more than cars they bring so much to the game in both realism and game play.

I would love to have drivable and interactive cars, but it's not a must have. I support those who really want them though.

The reason I don't feel they're a must have is the way the worlds are constructed. The worlds and their individual neighborhoods feel tiny and close together. I have to imagine them being big. In comparison TS3's worlds were much larger, they felt big without the need to imagine them being big, and cars or mass transit felt like a necessity. Time passed when you traveled across, say Bridgeport, and you needed a car or mass transit to get anywhere quickly. That's how I remember it. I haven't been able to play TS3 since 2020 when I bought this computer so my recollections may be off.

For me it's very much a "nice to have" but definitely not a must. If we get them, cool, if not, I'll be just fine. What I do hope for is the parking interaction, fixing a car up, and being able to drive out and into the driveway instead of sims just disappearing off lot (for this I hope that if we do get cars, the carpool, school bus and taxi also return). I don't need to be able to drive around the neighborhood, but it would be nice.

That cars weren't in the base game was already ridiculous since it was one of many things that where in Sims 3's base game.

Just as weird that after all these expansions we still don't have pool tables, elevators, spiral stairs, sims with different personalities and at least one full expansion with a more fantastical theme.

And they just keep throwing in stuff that no one asked for, that seems to be the Sims 4 theme considering how highly unpopular some full expansions are. (Eco life.)

Heck, instead of eco life they could have given us a full expansion filled with all those widely requested things that we got very used to having in at least sims 2 and 3, sometimes even sims 1 as well. Even sims 1 had pool tables in the base game.