All This Beautiful Landscaping...

"celipoesias;c-16480493" wrote:
As I recall, it took about 3.5 years for the Sims to touch their feet in the ocean water and swim in it on The Sims 3, as those features only came up in the pre-Sims 3 Seasons update. And using boats, and a few other things, took 4 years as they are features that only came with Island Paradise.

Without judging anyone, and disregarding the fact that The Sims 4 already has good years of road, I still find it interesting how some people talk about certain features of The Sims 3 as if they had been present in the game since its launch.

I find it interesting that they add details to the worlds, like boats, even if they are only for decoration. It's better than having nothing. The worlds of The Sims 3 barely used objects in their composition, were very few times that they did it in the past generation, in general, it was just modification of terrain, ocean, trees and streets. Not that I'm defending The Sims 4, but well ... if you can make an even more believable environment, why not? I still think that the worlds ambiance of The Sims 4 are much more detailed than in The Sims 3, precisely by the use of compositing objects.

I understand that the open world is a resource that many people miss, but some people talk about it as if it were possible to do a series of itinerant and unique activities in the public areas of the open world, when in reality this is not far behind we can do in The Sims 4, which is: collect collectibles, plants, or make a barbecue. Apart from that, the only exclusiveness of the open world is that you could walk freely among all areas of the world, but again, there was not much to do in public areas.

I particularly do not bother because well ... what could I do differently in the public areas? There are not many options.

In The Sims 2, the concept of world-edition was much easier because in reality there was not exactly "one world." The Sims could only access lots, and the areas that went beyond the lots in terms of detail and setting were extremely poor, since the game was not made with the external scenario in mind. What we saw in the neighborhood was basically a great decorative concept, and that was incidentally added in the vision in lot of the game with the Nightlife expansion to give the least immersion.

=)

I couldn't disagree more.

In the Sims 3 (as well as TS2) you were able to modify the world in lots of ways. You could make a world as detailed or as simple as you want, because that function was baked into the game from the start. We didn't have to wait four years for that.

You say that you couldn't modify public areas in TS3? Sure you could. Players could plop a lot down on almost any piece of land and create whatever they wanted in that area. A park, a club, a museum, a bar, a cafe. Whatever you wanted, there was room in the worlds to add it.

In TS3, the only EA world that I really used a lot was Lucky Palms. It had a lot of empty open space. But because the game was so flexible, I could make use of it. On the lone highway, way out of town, away from everything, I set down an abandoned diner with a Vampire club hidden in the basement. Further along that same road, near a mine shaft in the mountain, I built an abandoned miner's shack. Underneath, there was a shelter for my survivalist Sims. Behind the mountains, on a very secluded patch of land on a ledge, I built a campsite, overlooking the river below.

In Twinbrook, I built a huge junkyard, off road, out in the boonies. I added a house and I surrounded it with trees to make it look as if it were hidden in the woods.

In another EA world (I forget which one now), once again, I built a little church away from the road, up on a hill. Behind it, I built a cemetery surrounded by broken and burned trees and shrouded in fog.

In a custom world created by Awesims, I moved my Sim into a fixer upper house that overlooked the beach. The house was built on a pond full of koi and to get to it, the Sims had to cross a foot bridge.

In another custom world (Rflong7's, I think), there was a huge mountain with a road running all the way up to the top. There was nothing there. I built a picnic area with a table and picnic blanket. There was also a telescope so that the Sims could look up at the stars or down to the ocean below.

In a custom world by Coasterboi, there were cliffside houses. IIRC, they had stairs that could take you down the cliffs right to the beach. And the beach was real, it could be used. You could set down a lot and build a cabana or a boathouse, or set down a bonfire for the teens to dance around after dark.

I challenge anyone to do something similar in TS4. But it's not possible.

You can't follow a road around a mountain to the other side and create a campsite, because the mountain doesn't exist. It's the equivalent of a cardboard set in a 3rd grade play. You can't build a lot off road unless EA already set the lot there for you. In TS4, you can't create your own copse of woods, unless it's on a lot. In TS4, you can't create a pond and you certainly can't build a bridge to ford it.

Oh, and when it comes to collections, in TS3, you find different things throughout the world. Collection items can be found all over. They're not sitting in a box or a log, in the same place every single day, week after week. You don't need to look for a sign in order to be able to fish. Herbs and flowers can pop up anywhere, not in the same designated place every time. The only surprises with collecting in TS4 is how many visits it will take before the plant you need finally becomes harvestable.

Beauty is nice, but it's not everything. Game play is everything. Functionality is everything. The freedom to be creative is everything. The simulation of life within the game is everything. However, TS4 took the shallow route. It's pretty, but it's vapid and empty and it saddens me to no end to see the series take this turn. EA didn't just lose the plot, they gave it away when they decided to use "Oooh, shiny!" as the focus of the game.

When you start a game and you can't even bypass CAS, there's a problem. It's obvious where EA's focus is this time around. It's on looks, not substance.