Carl's Guide: A History of the Sims 4

The current Sims 4 fits my play style so well, I don't even notice I'm making up dollhouse stories. I think I always did this?

Sims 1: I had my international House of roommates. Peter, in the kilt was my main character. He was social and helped his roommates get enough friends to scale up their careers.

Sims 2: I made an internal orphanage, with a child from each continent with a different life ambition. When two of the daughters became enemies I was heart broken.

Sims 3: It was too big. I did had a ghost Hunter girl who did all the world adventures, but you weren't able to travel between home worlds which was a major pain.

Sims 4: I have my legacy family, playing in the fourth generation with aging off, and they are spread out over 13 households. I love it! I can finally explore every single career, and every single thing do it in the game. I never got there with any of the others, way too much of a time suck.

I guess others might think I'm just screwing around with CAS/BB, but I'm not. Making clubs, raising kids, going to university, and playing active-from-hone careers is super fun.

I didn't watch the video, and I can already tell you why it isn't going to get any better---TS4 sells, and sells well. Where is the incentive for improvement when they make a small fortune off of every pack they release? For every 1 critic, there are 9 players that are ready and willing to buy whatever they put out

I love Carl's channel. I must say I do agree. I don't know if I would call myself a castaway.

Funnily enough the "whinny" Youtubers actually make good, valid points and have arguements and constructive criticism. I guess some people hate them so much because their perpective is always backed-up by their arguements and they feel like they need to find other ways to insult them.
Seems like to the community everyone who has something critical to say is selling-out or accused in other ways. And then they say this community isn't biased...

"logion;c-17837262" wrote:

"eternalrainn;c-17837224" wrote:

"SimmerGeorge;c-17837160" wrote:

"PreCiious;c-17837006" wrote:



I think its sad, that this game is about the players and not so much about the sims themselfs

But then when you tell people you want to play an actual game and not make everything up like its a dollhouse they say "It's your fault you find it boring, you are not creative enough".
Since when do we have to make such a huge effort to enjoy a game?

What would you all want? Honest question, because I liked the fact StrangerVille gave you a goal and actually something to do besides go to work or a date, but everybody seemed to hate it. Or Jungle Adventure gave you a goal to explore the jungle and try to survive it, and there's a real chance your sim won't make it unless you have the right stuff. Is this stuff you all would want expanded more on? Or something totally different.

I would want the game to direct me to different ways to play the game. That's what I have always thought the pre-made households, npc's, events and aspirations are supposed to do.

Right now the sims4 treats you as a god, not a player which makes you leave everything up to your own imagination and it doesn't do a very good job of encouraging you to create or try new things. I often think about this when I see their trailers, you could recreate what you see in the trailers, but the game doesn't really make it easy for you to do so with the way everything is limited and all packs are stretched thin.

People that design games often adds different things to encourage the player but with the sims4 it feels like they don't do that for the sake of it being a sandbox game and also because they just focus on making stuff, not expand or improve the game.

The game has turned into a dollhouse, not a life simulator.

I think even as a dollhouse it does a shallow job at it too. I mean even seeing the Gurus do DnD with their Extra Life streams they actually provide more interesting storylines than what the Sims 4 offers. I find majority of Let's Plays repetitive and lacking imagination and creativity actually. DrGluon and his team was actually one of the few that provided original storylines and thus why they won the Spark'd challenge while the rest of the stories I heard just stole ideas from existing sitcoms, thus why they lost. So even for the most avid Simmer, storytelling the game provides isn't enough. I mean the lore stinks, has no reference to past games, gamechangers said prior lore wasn't used because Gurus didn't want to take the effort to do it, and there are no personal bios and the memory system is super buggy as well. Honestly feel like Sims 4 is nothing more than a mirage, looks pretty from afar, but looking it it close it ends up being something it is not. I do feel like it is a bit too late to even save the dollhouse aspect of it like too late in development and they just end up concentrating on CAS only products for the remaining lifetime thus why the kits are working to phase the game out.

"eternalrainn;c-17837224" wrote:

"SimmerGeorge;c-17837160" wrote:

"PreCiious;c-17837006" wrote:



I think its sad, that this game is about the players and not so much about the sims themselfs

But then when you tell people you want to play an actual game and not make everything up like its a dollhouse they say "It's your fault you find it boring, you are not creative enough".
Since when do we have to make such a huge effort to enjoy a game?

What would you all want? Honest question, because I liked the fact StrangerVille gave you a goal and actually something to do besides go to work or a date, but everybody seemed to hate it. Or Jungle Adventure gave you a goal to explore the jungle and try to survive it, and there's a real chance your sim won't make it unless you have the right stuff. Is this stuff you all would want expanded more on? Or something totally different.

Somewhat agree...
But to be honest Strangerville was a nice attempt but playing that pack felt like i was in the tutorial section before the game even starts for the whole time. It had no backround storie or challenge what so ever... So does it feel like you achieved a goal that you had to work on?

There was an attempt there, but when you make everything so freaking easy then its a failure.


I want what they advertised from the beginning. Smarter, Sims Deep Emotions. Doesnt sit well with me how they brushed that under the rug.
I find it very hard to play with autonomy on, because these sims act like maniacs in my game. I would not even wonder if they disable autonomy from the game like they disabled the whims at this point. Sometimes when a NPC visits and stands in front of the doorsteps they move so awkward its quiet crazy looking.

Would love to see more attributes to the traits. Favourite food. More types of TV Channels. Then you can also define what he likes to watch. Etc- In the Sims3 your book lover Sim would love watching the history Channel. Idk small things like that. But it feels like, i am asking for the world at this point, when the Sims4 sells so well, and thats also something carl mentioned.

Emotions. I mean at least make it so recent events and the moodlets that come with it are at the top front and define a mood for the moment. Make it that certain moods go away quicker and dont always reacurre. Yes Jimmy we know you like that painting, now get over yourself. I dont have to be reminded about that all the effing time. I would actually love if i can switch what moodlet is at the front tier. Because you can be happy but when something scary happens you are gonna be scared for a damn minute.

I enjoy the Sims 4 a lot. I haven’t watched the video yet cause I need to sleep. I will get to it later. The biggest issue I have with the Sims 4 is the sheer lack of neglect it suffers from and the very obvious lack of testing that each new pack is released with. The amount of bugs and glitches the game has currently really brings the game down and I think it’s such a shame because the game in my opinion is actually great. When it works well I enjoy it more than any of the previous sims games.

I really just wish they would focus more on fixing the bugs and also do it in a timely fashion. We shouldn’t have to wait months for broken content that we paid for to be fixed. It’s just not right and we shouldn’t have to rely on mod creators to make our games playable. It’s honestly just so frustrating to see the game being treated this way by the people that created it. This is just my opinion, I’m sure some of you will disagree and that’s fine.

I am a Castaway. I gave it a fair shot from the very beginning. I’ve praised it for the things I enjoy (even when it seemed like many people disagreed, Snowy Escape for example) and I’ve complained when I’ve been disappointed. To each their own, but to deny there is a problem is unreasonable given the number of people who have become fed up with this game. Carl knows the Sims series better than anyone, in my opinion. He’s catalogued every detail. He’s been patient, too. Many of us are out of patience and out of hope.

"Ellupelluellu;c-17837352" wrote:
I did not watch it. Carl is now the whiny "wannabe LGR".. anyhow I am sure he makes great amount of money at his patreon at these days. Good for him :)

I think it's good that we have people like Carl, the sims community don't have many youtubers left with a large amount of subscribers that focus on constructive criticism. We do see the occasional video with that from other larger youtubers like James Turner and Plumbella but Carl have a good way to analyze these things more in detail which I think is a good thing.

While I do love the Sims 4, there are many aspects that are still lacking. Unique sims, hobbies, activities, socials - I could go on. I do love that Sims 4 is a bit more "relaxed" mode than the rest of the series, but I do miss having some negative events and spontaneity. Doesn't have to be to a Sims 2 level, just something. Just take it up a notch, but keep it relaxed. Add some depth, connect the dots, and for all the gods sakes, give us more to actually do that means something!