5 years ago

Did you know that expanding and adding more neighborhoods to existing worlds is possible?

The Sims 4 Producer Grant Rodiek said on The Sims Official Forums, around the time SIms 4 was released, that expanding Neighborhoods and adding more of them in a single World is a possible thing!

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Larryad: Is it possible to at least open up the neighborhoods, so that you don’t have to incur a loading screen every time you enter a building within the neighborhood? I know that this has been stated before, but the worlds do need to be bigger. They’re tiny. Overall a great job on the Sims themselves though. I’d also like to see a Sim be able to flop down on a couch, the way they did in Sims 2. Also body hair for men please.

SimGuruGrant: We can potentially make the individual neighborhoods larger. We can also potentially add more neighborhoods to each world. The loading at this point is a fundamental part of our architecture and is unlikely to change.

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How this could improve the game and why we should be asking for this?

- If you own Get To Work: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a shopping district with their own editable police station, science lab and hospital + lots with stores/empty for you to build stores. Example: Most simmers don't use Magnolia Promenade due to its size and lack of uniqueness. It feels like it should be either part of Willow Creek or Oasis Springs. Willow Creek would have Magnolia Promenade on its map, while all the others would have a whole new shopping district added to them.
- If you own City Living: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a neighborhood with apartments and/or penthouses. Example: Those decorative skyscrapers from Newcrest could be a visual reference to an actual neighborhood filled with apartments for you to live.
- If you own Island Living: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have swimmable water (lakes, rivers, oceans) or have a whole new neighborhood with such thing. Example: The beach with pier in Del Sol Valley could be an actuall neighborhood with beach houses and swimmable beach.
- If you own Discover University: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have its own matching university neighborhood.
- If you own Vampires/Realm of Magic: New packs with occult creatures would expand those worlds with new neighborhoods matching the scenery and the new occult.
- If you own Jungle Adventures: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a new neighborhood with explorable tombs. Example: Ancient castle ruins in Windenburg, haunted celebrity mansion in Del Sol Valley, and so on and so forth...

What are your thoughts on that?

Source: https://simscommunity.info/2014/09/07/sims-4-expanding-adding-neighborhoods-possible/

feedback

26 Replies

karon_shiruba
5 years ago
If they were actually doing that, the community probably wouldn't have been so mad with Del Smoll Valley when Get Famous was released.
Scobren
Legend
5 years ago
I would love to be able to put our own lot sizes and placed them. I really loved when they started doing that with the Sims 2. So it has been a tough adjustment to say the least to go back to Sims 1 isolated worlds again.
simmyfroggy
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I do like your ideas.

However, I'd like to point out that Grant only talks about lots/neighborhoods within a world. And that was back before specific functionality within worlds (university buildings, apartment buildings, etc) was in the game. cross-pack compatibility tends to complicate things when it comes to coding.
It's one thing to take a world, add a neighborhood or a few extra lots to it, change the map accordingly and be done. It's a whole different thing to make those changes conditional on a player owning a specific DLC or more.

I would absolutely love if they added new lots and neighborhoods to the worlds though. Especially DSV or Magnolia Promenade.
logionX
Legend
5 years ago
I would really like if they could do that, but I can understand why they have not done it.

1. That does not really go well with their current business model with separate packs, separate worlds, and that the game can run with any different number of packs.
2. That requires you to go back into older packs and change the coding, and I also assume that the amount of lots are decided based on how many they think the game can handle or that they had time to make with their budget. Those money and those people are no longer working on that, so people would have to go back and change things that they made a couple of years ago.

I would really like if that could be possible though. I'm not sure what that would fit in...a free update or an expansion pack? I don't think many packs have required them to change all the worlds except seasons.
DaWaterRat
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
"Karon;d-975442" wrote:

- If you own Island Living: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have swimmable water (lakes, rivers, oceans) or have a whole new neighborhood with such thing. Example: The beach with pier in Del Sol Valley could be an actuall neighborhood with beach houses and swimmable beach.

I was still new to all this when Island Living went down, so I doubt I could find it, but I seem to remember reading something about how that was the plan - that all water would be swimmable - but adding deep water swimming (as opposed to just wading) to the other worlds broke existing saves, which is why they didn't include it even though they wanted to.

Also it's possible that they discovered back when they were working on Get To Work and intending to add Magnolia Promenade to Willow Creek - only to find it also broke existing saves. Which is why it's a tiny separate lot and the area where the police station and the Hospital is looks like it could house another lot, and why the police station, hospital, and Lab aren't casually visit-able, despite apparently being set up for it.

If I'm following the Sims 4 timeline correctly, then Grant's statement in that quote may well have been before they realized that while, yes, adding new neighborhoods for new saves was possible, it broke existing ones. Assuming, of course, that such is the case, for which I only have some educated speculation.
crocobaura
Legend
5 years ago
"Karon;d-975442" wrote:

How this could improve the game and why we should be asking for this?

- If you own Get To Work: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a shopping district with their own editable police station, science lab and hospital + lots with stores/empty for you to build stores. Example: Most simmers don't use Magnolia Promenade due to its size and lack of uniqueness. It feels like it should be either part of Willow Creek or Oasis Springs. Willow Creek would have Magnolia Promenade on its map, while all the others would have a whole new shopping district added to them.
- If you own City Living: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a neighborhood with apartments and/or penthouses. Example: Those decorative skyscrapers from Newcrest could be a visual reference to an actual neighborhood filled with apartments for you to live.
- If you own Island Living: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have swimmable water (lakes, rivers, oceans) or have a whole new neighborhood with such thing. Example: The beach with pier in Del Sol Valley could be an actuall neighborhood with beach houses and swimmable beach.
- If you own Discover University: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have its own matching university neighborhood.
- If you own Vampires/Realm of Magic: New packs with occult creatures would expand those worlds with new neighborhoods matching the scenery and the new occult.
- If you own Jungle Adventures: Every world (or most of them), including DLC worlds, would be updated to have a new neighborhood with explorable tombs. Example: Ancient castle ruins in Windenburg, haunted celebrity mansion in Del Sol Valley, and so on and so forth...

What are your thoughts on that?

Source: https://simscommunity.info/2014/09/07/sims-4-expanding-adding-neighborhoods-possible/

I would love shopping districts and a downtown sort of area for all neighbourhoods. Windenburg has a sort of downtown but it's very modern unlike the rest of the neighbourhood. There is generally a lack of space for community lots, a space where you can add restaurants or shops, bars and cafes, specific to the area. Sulani would do great with a seafood restaurant, a Tiki bar, a spa, a swimsuit shop and a souvenir store but there's no place to fit them unless you scatter them all over the map. Would be nice to have areas that are more compact and with suitably sized lots for such venues.
For City Living would have been nice to have TS2 style apartments, so we could build our own apartment unites wherever we pleased. I don't want penthouses everywhere because they don't fit with the style of all the neighbourhoods.
Swimmable water should have been available in all neighbourhoods where sufficiently deep bodies of water are present.
I don't want more University campuses, as sims could live in their whatever neighbourhood, but maybe they could add more to the curriculum, more classes, more degrees, more activities, etc.
I don't want explorable tombs in all neighbourhoods, I think Jungle Adventure is fine as it is. Would have liked for it to add maybe new pets like parakeets, budgies, snakes, turtles, etc.
Simmingal
Hero
5 years ago
Other than for additional open water (which would be absolutely awesome and I am all for it everywhere especially islands)

I don't really think they'd need to expand every single world with shopping areas or campus areas or such

what i'd have interest in is giving more lots in neighborhoods that have frustrating amount of shells
such as del sol starter area or sulani village (definition being there is way more shells than actual lots)

or even just toggles to simply turn on/off viewing the house shells in neighborhoods like newcrest ones
so they just kinda disappear and you just see some mmm green lawn/trees and stuff there like good old ts2

like there is plenty good lots there but i absolutely hate the house shells in that world so i never use it
ArcherDK
5 years ago
That would be great, really. The Hollow and Del Sol definitely could use more lots and/or neighborhoods.
akaniki
Rising Ace
5 years ago
I would love this, especially if we could choose the size and placement.
Loanet
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I wish that most of the houses in the neighbourhoods weren't there for decor but could be real lots. There are some absolutely HUGE spaces in Worlds like StrangerVille, just sitting there and doing nothing. Even if they're only small and medium-size Lots.

I suppose if it's possible, they'll get to it. The reason it'll take a while is because it means going back to old Worlds, potentially damaging people's saves, like Swimmable Water might have. At least half of all players would have to be okay with losing saves (but not their galleries).

So if we want bigger former lots, we need to step up and tell the Gurus that we really want bigger worlds.