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SimsLovinLycan's avatar
SimsLovinLycan
6 years ago

"Clear Worlds" Options When Starting A New Save

Well, while I'm enjoying the gameplay and new stuff added in "Realm of Magic", there is one little big thing that is bugging me here and has been since the game came out: The fact that pre-made houses and pre-made sims always dominate the biggest and best lots in every area when you boot up a new save.

I mean, I get it, the developers love the lots and sims they made and want to show them off...but for players like me, who prefer starting off in a fresh, empty world in previous incarnations of the series and/or enjoy building on larger lots because they give more room for expansion and development as our sims progress (as well as the freedom to just motherlode in a fortune and start our sims out in a mansion if we so choose), the pre-made domination in the worlds is really, really annoying. Playing around it using either the free realestate cheat (which I can never get to work properly) or plunking your sim down on a temp spot then going to Manage Worlds and prepping your preferred spot with evictions and bulldozing is really clunky and kind of a hassle.

What I propose is an option when starting a save where we can choose to have all of the pre-made lots and sims already plunked down, have a totally blank slate save where there are no pre-made buildings (except for certain sites with special properties like apartments, the chateau in Windenburg, and the lab in Strangerville) and the pre-made sims are in the Manage Households but haven't been placed on a lot, have a save with only pre-made community lots, or a save where the pre-made buildings are there but the pre-made sims aren't moved in. That way, players who want a quick-start can start a save with everything intact like it's done now, those who want a fresh-start and don't mind building or gallery shopping their way to their perfect version of their worlds can have our way, and everyone who wants something in between can have that too.

Again, I get that the devs want to show off the lots and sims they made, and I also get that there are a lot of players who prefer to play with pre-made sims and builds (just look at the overwhelming love for long-standing characters like the Goths and Don Lothario), but for those of us who play for our own sims, builds, and stories, the situation is just plain out of hand. Having to manually go through every world to evict the pre-made sims and demolish the pre-built buildings to create a blank slate save to start off of every time I want to strike up a new save is kind of annoying (yes, I'm one of those people who has a bunch of different saves for different storylines, challenges, and experiments), and I'd much rather click a check box or pick something from a drop-down to set up the starting conditions of a save how I'd like them to fit whatever I'm planning on doing.

...Yeah, plus, it's incredibly annoying for there to be so few large lots, and every time to see most of them taken up by pre-made builds and pre-made sims when big lots are my personal favorites to build on and we get precious few of them in every world...Just saying...
  • bubbajoe62's avatar
    bubbajoe62
    6 years ago
    I really like this post. The word "choice" is not a real priority at EA. Maybe they've decided that the target demographic is easily frustrated or prone to messing things up or maybe it's just the ongoing weakness of the game engine. I would def go for a clean world option. I would like to be able to turn weather on/off, not just disable some of the effects. I would like to set if my sims can go to CAS and get stuff out of buy mode or if they have an economic system where they must go to shops and have ingredients for the food they cook. I would like to be able to set if my sims preference for the same/opposite sex is fixed or fluid and also whether it is chosen or random. In short, I have a real desire for a giant control panel and for this to be an actual simulation game where I can create a world instead of just playing fancy paper dolls. TL:DR I know, but every so often I have to rant on this subject.

    Your idea is the best because I think it would be easiest to implement and be enjoyed by the most people.
  • SimsLovinLycan's avatar
    SimsLovinLycan
    6 years ago
    "Chazzzy;c-17252143" wrote:
    Why not just delete whatever/whomever you want to delete and then save the game. Then if you’re ready to start a new save game, all you have to do is load up the first save? So make it a template basically.

    Also, there are save game files other people have uploaded to their websites you can download that either have all people removed, all lots bulldozed, or some combination.

    Have you considered doing either of those options? I figure it’s better than having to delete stuff every single time you want to start a new save.


    I've actually tried the reserve save thing, but it was too time consuming and tedious. Every time I get a new pack with a new world, there I go needing to evict and bulldoze again. It's pretty annoying. Plus, it's too easy to accidentally save over your blank save if you're rushing to save because you're up really late or you're rushing to save because of an unexpected interruption (the latter happens a lot when you live with other people who don't respect your "me time").

    As for downloading other people's saves, I'm not too keen on that either. Firstly, if the person's save hasn't been updated with the latest pack, yeah, more tedium updating it. Secondly, there's the fact that I'd have to go into my saves folder and alter save file numbers...and that's a real hassle.

    So, yeah, it would just be easier on the player side if there was just an option to start with the save at the level of clarity or clutter that the player would prefer than to go through those clunky work-arounds. I'm already working around some of the game's worst-executed systems with MC Command Center, trying to manually work around the developers' misguided decision to clutter up the worlds with too much pre-made junk is just too much. In the absence of Create-A-World, we NEED a built-in option for starting world fullness. After RoM's insulting split of large lots going to the pre-mades and tiny lots left for the players, it's time to fix this madness already!
  • Cinebar's avatar
    Cinebar
    6 years ago
    I really hoped by now we would have gotten the options to save and share worlds. I get we can get rid of everything then save it to be played later. But I never tried that since I would not be able to remember what save that would be ten years from now. And since the game saves a picture of a household instead of a world, I wondered how that works since you have to have a Sim in the world to save it. Well, or at least to see the picture of a Sim so it could jog the memory.

    My vote is for options to save worlds. Like New Crest is empty but if you spend time fillling it, then come back two years later, would you remember which save that is? I didn't, and my vote is for a save and share world templates. And no Sim needed in the world as a placeholder, either.

    Or, if not possible the code and tools to delete all houses, all trees, all Sims and no more requiring a Sim to be created first before we can even enter a world. Please also, put back the bulldozer into world panel view like in 2014 so I don't have to enter lots before I bulldoze. It used to be next to the build feature at the bottom.
  • TomasGrizly's avatar
    TomasGrizly
    6 years ago
    I really hoped RoM would have at least one large lot (by which I mean 50x50 or more) that'd be either empty (pre-built without inhabitants) or unbuilt. What we got is a set of 30x20s which are barely enough for gardening and an occupied 30x40 which isn't much either.

    If they at least made another empty world in a patch with 3-4 zones and a bunch of 50x50 and bigger lots, that'd be nice.
  • sobenewbie's avatar
    sobenewbie
    New Spectator
    6 years ago
    I've seen saves on Mod the Sims or Tumblr that were blank.
    Yeah, here is one.
    http://modthesims.info/d/629606/world-of-wips-all-neighbourhoods-bulldozed.html
  • SimsLovinLycan's avatar
    SimsLovinLycan
    6 years ago
    "sunblond;c-17253924" wrote:
    I've seen saves on Mod the Sims or Tumblr that were blank.
    Yeah, here is one.
    http://modthesims.info/d/629606/world-of-wips-all-neighbourhoods-bulldozed.html


    Again, the point is that I shouldn't need to either make or download and maintain a blank reserve save (which, if downloaded, will require additional work to install so that the save number doesn't conflict with my existing game saves). There should be options to decide how full or empty my game is when I start out...or, as @Cinebar said, at least bring the bulldoze button back to the lot menu in "Manage Worlds" so cleaning up unwanted pre-made builds isn't so tedious.

    With the sizes of newer worlds shrinking and larger lots being both rarer and more likely to end up pre-built and pre-occupied, the problem of pre-made clutter is just becoming more and more pronounced. Having no Create-A-World and worlds with fixed lot sizes and placements has actually done more to make TS4 feel claustrophobic than the lack of open world ever did, because not only are your stuck playing in a world that someone else already built and populated, but you can't even add more lots to it of your preferred size like you can with the pre-built worlds in TS2 and TS3. It puts world creators like me in a "cursed if you do, cursed if you don't" situation where a reserve save ends up being too high maintenance (every time you get a new pack with a world, it's time for evictions and bulldozing again...which is tedious...plus, again, the extra mindful saving and the save file renaming you have to do for installing someone else's save from the internet), but starting a new save normally leaves you with the same horrible tiny lots to start out with and the trouble of plopping your sims on a blank/cheap lot and cheat coding/delete and bulldozing your way onto a good lot because the devs hog all the good spots with their pre-made content. Newcrest is the exception, but it's one world, one environment type, the only one that comes clean...

    Really, is wanting to start my game with clean worlds at the touch of a button instead of having to do extra manual save manipulation and maintenance so wrong? So unreasonable?

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