"JoAnne65;c-16412951" wrote:
"comicsforlife;c-16412749" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-16410807" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16410762" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-16410647" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16410587" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-16410524" wrote:
Well personally - just like I liked the Sims 3 store -as an option - I like even stuff packs for eps as much as stuff packs for the base game and all builds in between. They are simply options. If you like the option you buy it. If you don't - then don't buy it but don't say they should not make that content because you believe - it belonged in the ep - disregarding any possible reasoning the devs give as to why these kind of additions were not in the ep.
I personally think the sp was made by the sp team to fill in the void that simmers complained were not in the ep. The sp came out 4 months after the ep - not at the same time. If they had made the sp a year later - some of you say that would have been okay. I don't get that. It would have still been an sp for an ep.
The difference is that it was clearly planned this way and that is what concerns people. You keep focusing on that SP but the concern is about the two of them together, clearly created to be released (and charged) together. “If we develop an EP with just cats and dogs, we can put small pets in an additional pack, put some suits in there too. And this furniture set, we could split that in two. You know what they’re like, collectors, they’ll buy.” People are concerned (also because there just might follow other pets, like horses and birds and reptiles). EP’s for Sims 4 haven’t been exactly impressive for many players to begin with (your observation simmers felt a void in fact supports the concern, it doesn’t contradict is as you seem to assume), they favour the quality of SP’s and GP’s. And now this. That is the issue and nothing else, people being concerned.
WHY? Again as much as I know you don't like to hear it - I must repeat - you don't like something for what ever reason you have to dislike it - do not buy it.
Fact is when people get outraged - it makes people like devs at Maxis that make our content sit up and notice and suddenly not want to do more of the same. It does not just affect that small pets pack but it also affects any plan they might have had to deliver more pets in an sp in the future. Then it affect me - and denies my choice of getting the option for more small pets. I have to say that does not make me happy. I like options and when the option start getting affected by former complaints - I get concerned for my own enjoyment of the game.
I mean I am sure it was outrage and complaints as to why we no longer get supernaturals in each ep. It was that very thing - complaints that got my only supernatural from an ep turned down - when that was not my choice. So do not tell me complaints will not affect my own game when I could no longer experience alien abductions thanks to complaints. Now I worry we won't see anymore sps for packs at all even if in my opinion the sps improves my Pets experience - the chance of getting more most likely now will not happen. People who objected simply should not have made a purchase. I also do not believe any of that content was pulled from the ep - it is simple for the artists that make that content to make more of that content for another ep, sp, or gp. The design is already there, they simply need to tweak. Sims has done that forever. We even used to have a tool where we could take a design and change it completely to look like some other piece of furniture right from the game in Sims 2 if you downloaded the tool. In fact I would fathom to guess Maxis match furniture has been around since Sims 1 - CC creators do it all the time. It is not a big deal and they surely did not pull it out of somewhere else - they made it from the designs that already existed in the game.
In fact some of the ep furniture actually looks much like it was taken from a base game set, just like some of the content that came with the free toddler patch also has the same style. It's nothing new - even Will Wright did the same thing in Sims 1 EP packs. He designed the game for heavens sake.
So what, the sp devs made furniture using the same base game blocks that would match the furniture in the ep that also used the base game blocks design. So for 18 years it was okay - but now because it was an sp for an ep it's not. Nope - no matter how it is presented - I will never get that or let it concern me. I think complaints of missing content is a good thing - it gets us the content. But complaining of getting content or about existing content to make it not relevant in a pack (alien abductions) is not a good thing. Not for me or anyone like me who likes that stuff - like also small pets and more C&D content. Why object to me being able to have the option to buy this content? In my eyes that is wrong.
The problem isn’t that people don’t like it, it’s the opposite. They do like it. They wanted rodents (and horses and birds) in their game. They just got cats and dogs. And then rodents. They wanted those rodents, I really don’t understand how you can misinterprete that, that is the concern. The concern is that EA knows what people want, so they don’t put it in one pack (€40), but in two so far and it’s still less than what people got in the past in one pack. Thát is the concern.
And yes, indeed, they have done this reskinning before and it’s always annoyed me big time. Ah, look at that, a barbecue, how great. I only had five of those already but who cares. I’ve said it before and I say it again: it’s not brand new, this copying and trying to diddle players (playpen-Aurora Skies). But delivering an incomplete EP in order to complement it later in a seperate pack, that is new. And it may not concern you, but it does concern others. There’s nothing to be afraid of, the people concerned aren’t saying “don’t give us this stuff.” All they’re saying is “give us the stuff but put it in one pack, just like you guys used to do before.” Nobody is trying to take anything away from you.
Wait a minute - that is not what I said. I said that when a pack was produced with the content people WANTED - but it was true other simmers got mad it was not in the ep - even though the ep team stated they HAD to make a choice. People got mad over getting what they asked for when it cost them 10 bucks because they did not care the ep team was not allowed to do both.in my view these people neither cared or believed the devs explanation.
We have to not compare - over 19 years rules change prices change. In the year 2000 - 22 dollars then, in todays money is equal to over 45 dollar in value now (here in the USA anyway). I know because I looked it up. The number of items made in a video game for the same 22 dollar the pack cost then would actually cost almost 80 dollars at todays standards. So of course there are less objects probably even from Sims 3 - cost to make it has drastically changed so for the price of the pack to be the same - there would have to be less items. It is economy and business. Not even EA can change that.
It apparently does not matter the parent company said they have a limit and cannot exceed that - So putting it all into one pack no longer is possible. Fussying about it will make them not make the additional pack and then it very well will affect me.
don't worry @Writin_Reg at the end of the day its what sells that counts I heard it was a number four top seller
Funny how this reassurance totally supports and backs up the concerns in the OP (if you’re referring to this particular pack);) I wonder by the way if what’s described here goes for all gaming companies? I’ve heard gamers (of other games) declare they are baffled by what simmers are willing to accept (and have accepted for years where it comes to costs). My defence: simmers have nowhere else to go. Apparently it isn’t common business in other franchises?
Game companies are different. EA is owned by mainly insurance companies and banks and was started by a businessman who mainly just wanted to earn money by publishing games made by other companies. The opposite type of game company is a small game company which was started and owned by a game developer who only wanted to be his own boss to be able to make the games he liked and believed in instead of just being told from bosses which games to make and how.
We can’t do anything about the way TS4 is made because EA’s decisions are still just based on sales numbers and considerations about reducing costs and increasing profit. SPs are extremely cheap to make and seem to sell best anyway and especially since EA chose to add just a little gameplay to them too.
The only thing that still makes me curious is how EA will make TS5. It should be obvious now that EA wants every big Sims game to be as different from its predecessors as possible such that the earlier games still can sell as well as possible too. But exactly this makes me very curious about how EA will make TS5 very different from both TS4 and TS3?
