Can we once and for all retire the "I want my teen Sims to look 12 years old" thing?

"Beardedgeek;d-988878" wrote:
I personally find it so weird that Sims players (and in other media as well) consider 11 - 13 "teens" and everything above that as non-existent until they are 21. Because that's what we are talking about here. The height difference and look people WANT in Sims 4 is of 11-13 year olds IRL. But teens IRL spend most of their teens being as tall as an adult (15-19).

Some of this is modern media and culture shaped. At least in the USA for the past 20 years no one under the age of 77 has been allowed to walk outside and just 'hangout' without parental supervision... ;)

I remember being 5 and taking city buses to cross the bridge into different cities and go to a park and nobody thinking anything of it... but I'm a child of the 70s. When I was a kid your parents tossed you out the front door soon as the sun was up and you didn't dare step foot back in the house until it was down. Go figure your own mess out. My very generation, soon as they became parents - locked their kids away in Fort Knox even though it's safer out there now than it was when we were kids.

So that's society - many people just haven't seen teenagers much anymore.

Then you have media. Flip on any TV show about high school and the actors are all in their 20s and 30s... last year I sat down and watched all of the 'Vampire Diaries' TV show - which is set in high school for the first few seasons, and has a sequel now called Legacies. In both shows there's at least one "teenager" in the main cast who was 30+ in 'real life'. Look through the cast info on a number of shows - for the age of the actors during filming, and that's no unusual.

So... popular culture has "erased" anyone over 13 and under 21... so it's not too surprising that a lot of people want that in their game - unless they have teenagers in their life they may have forgotten what teens actually look like...

"ravynwolvf;c-17858973" wrote:
If I remember right, the reason they are the way they are is if they were a different height from adults, they would need an entirely separate set of animations for every animation in the game. Not saying it's a valid excuse, but animations are the most time consuming and considering we hardly ever get brand new animated objects and interactions these days as it is, it would probably be even worse if teens needed their own. So I can live with it.

This is also why kids can't do things like ride bikes. Which is NO excuse to me, and just plain stupid.

Honestly, it strikes me as a failure of Maxis to consider technology they've already invented.

Spore was built on a procedural animation system. That Maxis didn't utilize that for Sims feels like a huge oversight on their part.

I don't think it should be done now, so long into the game's life. I would worry about my saved teens being changed to suit the latest requirements. I had enough trouble when some of my adults changed sex when the gender changes came out. Same names that didn't suit their sex. I like my saved Sims and use them with a few of my own changes from Save to new Save game.

It's difficult to deal with things like this when you have well over 200 families or Sims count since 2014.

I'm not concerned about height, but gameplay. I wish teens had more exclusive gameplay options.

"Beardedgeek;d-988878" wrote:
If you look like what teens actually look like IRL, the Sims 4 teens are far more realistic than earlier versions. The "always a head shorter until they are 21 years and one 1 day old" is such a tired trope.

Most 15 or 16 year old boys IRL are as tall as their fathers. Same in Sims 4. Oh and if you ACTUALLY pay attention you can easily spot teens from adults in t he Sims. Their body shape is different, their faces look younger... it's just that they are the same height, which again, is how it actually is IRL.

I personally find it so weird that Sims players (and in other media as well) consider 11 - 13 "teens" and everything above that as non-existent until they are 21. Because that's what we are talking about here. The height difference and look people WANT in Sims 4 is of 11-13 year olds IRL. But teens IRL spend most of their teens being as tall as an adult (15-19).

I think we should have more options/toggles to make a teen look how we'd like because not all teens come in the same shapes and sizes. Some are shorter than most and some are taller than most. Some develop later as some soon so I think it would be fair to make things optional to fit the teens we want in our stories.

"Sara1010P;c-17858966" wrote:
I don't care about the height, I am short enough that all my nieces and their friends towered over me in their teens. I think for me the problem is there isn't enough teen and child specific things to make those ages interesting to play. By specific I mean restricted to those ages actually. I miss when children could play stuff like cops and robbers or tag with their friends. More afterschool activities for teens, something like prom. Just something to make those ages more fun.

I agree with this. I think there should be more activities for age groups that have seemingly been neglected. Kids did get a stuff pack which added some things (I do miss the different activities from TS2 though), however, I still think more can be added and I think more age-specific things need to be added for teens as well as elders.