Bon Voyage is being split in 3 GPs?

"SimTrippy;c-16353768" wrote:

"alanmichael1;c-16353760" wrote:
@SimTrippy I largely agree with your predictions, but I think that Seasons is the only EP still to come while they put University in a GP and the magic topics in one or two SPs. I may be wrong if they hurry up and release 2 EPs this year.

Aw wouldn't it be great if they did release 2 this year :D But yeah, don't think so either.

You know what I do think looking at Selvadorada though? And also a tiny bit when looking at certain parts of San Myshuno? That if and when there's a TS5, a semi-open world is actually very probable. First cause I don't see them doing a second entirely closed-world system and second because ... they're clearly toying with ways to have open neighborhoods without open worlds. Just speculating, really, but it sure looks like they're already testing the waters there xD

And yes, I also think Uni will be a GP. And it fits the format just fine. If they can do a JA GP this big, they can do university (and I hope they will cause I have a lot more faith in them than I do in the EP team, despite actually liking the EPs). But .. I really hope we'll get farming too (although yeah, we'll see, they've never done it before either :'( )

They've never done GPs (cross between EPs and SPs) either, and they've been pretty much successful. Maybe farming comes in 2019 and ties in with Seasons (though Seasons wouldn't be required) with growing periods and dormant plants (unless you build a greenhouse since we can already grow plants inside). When you look at all the build tools we got in JA, it should be simple to add in greenhouse pieces to build your own greenhouse or add on a conservatory room for your plants, and a sprinkler system (indoor/outdoor).

A semi-open world (open neighborhoods, loading screens between neighborhoods/worlds) would be a good compromise if it can be done. I don't mind the backdrops, and I don't miss the rabbit hole buildings taking up space either. If they coul enlarge the neighborhoods just a little bit (6-7 usable lots rather than just 4-5) that could give us a bit more room for expansion. Maybe a way to limit the number of "walkbys" from outside the world -- if I'm by the Goth House in Willow Creek, I wouldn't mind seeing Eliza Pancakes jogging by, but not Nina Caliente from Oasis Springs or Mila Munch from Windenberg. Sims from Not in World population I don't mind too much because I just figure they're house hunting; some of them I do put into houses using freerealestate if my Sims have met them and they've got a good enough relationship or if both households have kids.

"alanmichael1;c-16353734" wrote:

"Madachan88;c-16353136" wrote:

"alanmichael1;c-16352904" wrote:
I'm sure there will be no more vacation packs because they announce TS5 in summer and we still need some kind of school/university pack first.

They're won't announce Sims 5 because it will probably not come out this soon. And the release pattern changed.

Announcing TS5 doesn't mean it will come out soon. If I remember correctly, TS4 was announced 13 months (!) in advance and they released a plethora of TS3 packs, worlds and store sets in the meantime. So don't worry that TS4 will end abruptly.

But a videogame is not a digital museum and we must face the fact that after 4 years TS4 is slowly outdated - not only technically (closed worlds), but also esthetically. I'm for example convinced that the Windows-8-ish "flat design" that dominates this game (look at the monochrome green and white surfaces of this forum) is very soon coming to an end and will be perceived as ugly as a 1970s flower wallpaper in brown and orange.

But TS3 was finished even before the annuncement (Im sure when they started work at TS4 no released more content for TS3)

"brackencat31;c-16351817" wrote:
Love witches and magic, can’t stand werewolves though.

I hope the devs hear this out because splitting supernaturals into individual GPs seems to work, splitting vacation worlds does not.

GPs geared towards supernaturals allow them to actually increase the depth of a singular life state and focus on fleshing them out. I think it worked with Vampires because 1) That honestly felt like the first time Sims 4 upgraded anything from the former titles, and 2) Vampire powers are really just an extension of a Sim's personality and abilities. Being able to give your bodybuilder Sim the strength powers for example is a nice touch, as is giving your evil sim the weaknesses that make people hate him. Life states can provide quality even if all the devs do for a GP is focus on creating a list of powers and weaknesses for them. (though with Witches I'd absolutely expect alchemy too)

The same does not seem to translate well with vacation destinations. It just leads to rather limited ones with less content. This is probably because vacation destinations DEMAND a world be built and be fleshed out, they still need a goal and something to do, and in the case of World Adventures, those were hand-crafted dungeons where someone sat down and planned puzzles out for the players. Such projects are demanding both on resources and on time. We need to view this in the sense of "do Selvadora and Outdoor Retreat combined compete with China and Egypt from World Adventures," and I think the answer is a clear no.

Do the same where you imagine if we have Witches about as detailed as Vampires are, and do Witches + Vampires compete with Fairies + Vampires + Witches + Werewolves....? Yes, potentially. We've lost half the lifestates, but the ones we got got twice as much detail.

Lately, I feel the big takeaway is that packs need to be a method of further customizing our Sims and fleshing them out. Give us new ways to customize their behavior? The stories will write themselves. Give us stories we're supposed to act out without any long-term effects on the Sims? Some won't like the story planned for us by default, and after one playthrough it'll get dull with no long-term ramnifications for our Sims. Vampires and Parenthood succeeded because they did this, and I feel boredom watching Jungle Adventure streams (and would feel the same watching Outdoor retreat) because much of it is just repeating the same actions, waiting for your Sim to finish doing a thing, and at the end of the journey there's ZERO long-term benefit. The reward thus far seems to just be fat stacks of cash, which is incredibly boring. World Adventures for me was both fun to play and had long-term benefits via the skills it provided (photography, martial arts, nectar-making) and the vacation homes. Martial arts in particular added additional things your Sim could do, such as meditation to freeze needs, teleportation, a new method of space rock collecting/gem collecting, and better skill at fighting. Outdoor Retreat and Jungle Adventures don't really have that, and I struggle to see any motivation to use their skills outside of the context of their worlds.

I really hope they not only produce a Witches GP, but also follow up with other supernatural GPs, whether they be werewolves, fairies, swamp monsters or mermaids. It doesn't matter, what matters is that the concept of customizing your sims further via their personality, powers and abilities has proven popular thusfar and should be embraced. If they do a University pack, they should take a similar approach to Parenthood too and try to provide new traits or abilities your Sim can unlock for doing certain majors. The vacation worlds though...? Thusfar they seem unimpressive, and no I don't want vacation world #3 just so I can be reminded it's more expensive than WA for half the content.

"alanmichael1;c-16353734" wrote:

"Madachan88;c-16353136" wrote:

"alanmichael1;c-16352904" wrote:
I'm sure there will be no more vacation packs because they announce TS5 in summer and we still need some kind of school/university pack first.

They're won't announce Sims 5 because it will probably not come out this soon. And the release pattern changed.

Announcing TS5 doesn't mean it will come out soon. If I remember correctly, TS4 was announced 13 months (!) in advance and they released a plethora of TS3 packs, worlds and store sets in the meantime. So don't worry that TS4 will end abruptly.

But a videogame is not a digital museum and we must face the fact that after 4 years TS4 is slowly outdated - not only technically (closed worlds), but also esthetically. I'm for example convinced that the Windows-8-ish "flat design" that dominates this game (look at the monochrome green and white surfaces of this forum) is very soon coming to an end and will be perceived as ugly as a 1970s flower wallpaper in brown and orange.

Actually EA could release an update to the graphics instead of a whole new game. This is the way it is done in MMO games where the game companies don’t want to switch to a new game because people wouldn’t accept it if the old game server was closed down. So a new version of MMO games would mean that the game companies would have to keep the old game server online too and then the game companies would have to do maintenance and make updates for both the new and the old game.

But TS4 isn’t such a game. Instead it is a game where the important thing for EA is to keep the sales numbers for all the many new packs as high as possible. This isn’t done by just releasing updates to the graphics as it is for MMO games because the problem is that new simmers always will prefer to just buy old discounted packs instead of of the new one when so many earlier packs still are available. So instead of making updates to the graphics EA will always prefer to make a new basegame instead. How often this is done is a compromise though because it takes years to develop a new basegame that is sufficiently different from the old one to make old customers (who already own the old basegame with all its packs) buying the new basegame too.

"DeservedCriticism;c-16357135" wrote:

I hope the devs hear this out because splitting supernaturals into individual GPs seems to work, splitting vacation worlds does not.

Many would argue though that making an expansion focusing solely on vacation worlds doesn't work either, and I think World Adventures proved this. Why would the developers spend an entire EP budget on such a niche theme? They wouldn't because they would be losing out in the end.

"DeservedCriticism;c-16357135" wrote:

The same does not seem to translate well with vacation destinations. It just leads to rather limited ones with less content. This is probably because vacation destinations DEMAND a world be built and be fleshed out, they still need a goal and something to do, and in the case of World Adventures, those were hand-crafted dungeons where someone sat down and planned puzzles out for the players. Such projects are demanding both on resources and on time. We need to view this in the sense of "do Selvadora and Outdoor Retreat combined compete with China and Egypt from World Adventures," and I think the answer is a clear no.

Of course the answer is no. Outdoor Retreat and Jungle Adventures are two completely different packs oriented around a different theme with different tasks especially comparing them to World Adventures. Besides, compare China and Egypt from world adventures and you'll quickly realise that both are the same concept with different coats of paint, the gameplay between the two is almost identical, throw France in there too and the likeness across the pack is definitely apparent. I don't understand why you're praising World Adventures all of a sudden.

"DeservedCriticism;c-16357135" wrote:

Vampires and Parenthood succeeded because they did this, and I feel boredom watching Jungle Adventure streams (and would feel the same watching Outdoor retreat) because much of it is just repeating the same actions, waiting for your Sim to finish doing a thing, and at the end of the journey there's ZERO long-term benefit. The reward thus far seems to just be fat stacks of cash, which is incredibly boring. World Adventures for me was both fun to play and had long-term benefits via the skills it provided (photography, martial arts, nectar-making) and the vacation homes.

So your argument as to why Outdoor retreat and Jungle Adventures aren't good enough packs is because they don't further develop your sims, but then you go on to praise World Adventures because they develop your sims through skills? You do realise that Outdoor Retreat and Jungle Adventure both added new skills right? And the value of those skills and how they develop a players sim is up to the player, not to you. Either way, if you take a look at the Herbalism skill from Outdoor Retreat and see what it offers, there's clearly benefits that can come to your sims through the skill, whether that be alleviating negative emotions, to gardening benefits, pranks for mischievous sims, or even an increased chance of twins/triplets, benefits that are clearly beyond the typical benefits that are catered towards the pack and the new world.

"DeservedCriticism;c-16357135" wrote:

Martial arts in particular added additional things your Sim could do, such as meditation to freeze needs, teleportation, a new method of space rock collecting/gem collecting, and better skill at fighting.

By this logic of yours you should be praising Spa Day as the skill added in that pack essentially develops your sim to a whole other level. On top of being able to freeze needs through meditation and teleport, your sims will gain new socials through the skill, socials that will even enhance others Wellness skill, again be able to alleviate negative emotions, influence other emotions, and even learn new recipes, plus gain the ability to give others massages. Just a thought.

I do agree that the best packs are the packs that focus on developing your sims character, but gameplay is also a fun thing to get once in a while, and Jungle Adventure offers just that, new gameplay, gameplay whose value is up to the individual player, not to you. You speak about this pack as if you speak on behalf of everyone, which you don't.

What make me think we'll surely get more vacation gp's is that the new skill in JA was called salvadorian culture skill and not just culture skill. It would make sense to have another culture skill with the next vacation gp's.

"leo3487;c-16357115" wrote:

"alanmichael1;c-16353734" wrote:

"Madachan88;c-16353136" wrote:

"alanmichael1;c-16352904" wrote:
I'm sure there will be no more vacation packs because they announce TS5 in summer and we still need some kind of school/university pack first.

They're won't announce Sims 5 because it will probably not come out this soon. And the release pattern changed.

Announcing TS5 doesn't mean it will come out soon. If I remember correctly, TS4 was announced 13 months (!) in advance and they released a plethora of TS3 packs, worlds and store sets in the meantime. So don't worry that TS4 will end abruptly.

But a videogame is not a digital museum and we must face the fact that after 4 years TS4 is slowly outdated - not only technically (closed worlds), but also esthetically. I'm for example convinced that the Windows-8-ish "flat design" that dominates this game (look at the monochrome green and white surfaces of this forum) is very soon coming to an end and will be perceived as ugly as a 1970s flower wallpaper in brown and orange.

But TS3 was finished even before the annuncement (Im sure when they started work at TS4 no released more content for TS3)

Gee this seems to be a persistent one around here ;) This is the third time in a few days time I have to refute that. Sims 4 was announced in May 2013. After that IP and ITF were released (EP’s), Movie Stuff (SP), Midnight Hollow and Roaring Heights (worlds) and some major Store sets in the first half of 2014.

@filipomel Speak for yourself, if World Adventures proves anything it’s DeservedCriticism’s point. What exactly isn’t working according to you? I really like JA (especially finding my way through the jungle) but must confess my initial enthousiasm has tempered a little once I had reached the temple. I’ve visited it a second time today and indeed, the layout was different, but not really really ;) For me it doesn’t hold a candle to WA, a pack I first played in 2010 and still play, 8 years later. Not least because the three worlds are so completely different, with a different atmosphere and different aspects (China has martial arts and the tournaments, France has nectar making and Egypt has the whole mechanism around the mummy curse). And even within the worlds each tomb you are sent to has its own unique feel to it, is its own experience, with hours and hours of gameplay.

Doesn’t matter, JA is a GP and it’s beautifully made and has great features and gameplay attached to it, but when you start comparing.... I just wouldn’t if I were you. OR’s and JA’s gameplay could easily fit in one TS2/3 EP.

"JoAnne65;c-16357960" wrote:
@filipomel Speak for yourself, if World Adventures proves anything it’s DeservedCriticism’s point. What exactly isn’t working according to you? I really like JA (especially finding my way through the jungle) but must confess my initial enthousiasm has tempered a little once I had reached the temple. I’ve visited it a second time today and indeed, the layout was different, but not really really ;) For me it doesn’t hold a candle to WA, a pack I first played in 2010 and still play, 8 years later. Not least because the three worlds are so completely different, with a different atmosphere and different aspects (China has martial arts and the tournaments, France has nectar making and Egypt has the whole mechanism around the mummy curse). And even within the worlds each tomb you are sent to has its own unique feel to it, is its own experience, with hours and hours of gameplay.

Doesn’t matter, JA is a GP and it’s beautifully made and has great features and gameplay attached to it, but when you start comparing.... I just wouldn’t if I were you. OR’s and JA’s gameplay could easily fit in one TS2/3 EP.

When I said that many may argue about making an EP solely about vacation worlds not working, I meant specifically with the range of people the pack appeals to, and in the sims franchise I don't think it's that many since when World Adventures first came out it was 'controversial' in a way? Because it was such a niche idea, and I'm guessing that's why they took that niche idea and turned it into a game pack. I never said that World Adventures was bad, ever, in fact I really enjoy that pack, it's probably one of my favourite packs from Sims 3. Also I wasn't the one comparing Jungle Adventures to World Adventures, I was responding against the comparisons DeservedCriticism made because of the fact that World Adventures and Jungle Adventure/Outdoor Retreat (although inspired) are all completely different packs with a focus on different gameplay.

"filipomel;c-16357692" wrote:

By this logic of yours you should be praising Spa Day as the skill added in that pack essentially develops your sim to a whole other level. On top of being able to freeze needs through meditation and teleport, your sims will gain new socials through the skill, socials that will even enhance others Wellness skill, again be able to alleviate negative emotions, influence other emotions, and even learn new recipes, plus gain the ability to give others massages. Just a thought.

I do agree that the best packs are the packs that focus on developing your sims character, but gameplay is also a fun thing to get once in a while, and Jungle Adventure offers just that, new gameplay, gameplay whose value is up to the individual player, not to you. You speak about this pack as if you speak on behalf of everyone, which you don't.

One very big problem: open world.

Teleportation in Sims 3 was a really nice power that did a lot to save on time when collecting or traveling around town, but the same cannot be said for Sims 4. Usually teleporting would take as long as just walking. With meditation, they also tanked that by making it both require that chair (can't be used everywhere) and by simply providing superior alternatives. (need fixers, Vampire hibernation)

The same powers and abilities won't neccesarily translate well across games. For example I loved summoning meteors as aliens in Sims 3 and I'd love to see the power return, but even that's a logistical problem since now we only ever have one lot active at a time. It probably wouldn't work or would prove far more annoying and impractical.