"ScarletSimEater;c-16776768" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16776665" wrote:
The point here is that they said they couldn’t do it or that it was a deliberate choice to not do it. Now it turns out to be possible after all and they present what they explained away earlier with enthousiasm. And that enthousiasm should convince me it’s perfectly fine Sims 4 needs so many years, when the earlier games managed to deliver the very same thing right away. I’m not saying others shouldn’t be convinced by that, it’s just that I’m not. Quite the contrary.
Very few things are literally impossible when it comes to computing. More things are difficult, possibly more difficult to implement than is worthwhile. I'm not going to argue that employees of a company showing enthusiasm about a new tool proves anything, but I will also say that making terrain editing work and getting it to work properly are things that would understandably take a lot of time to get right. And when it comes to meaningful terrain manipulation (public space around lots, and the unreachable backdrops around that), you raise even more problems and I understand not wanting to muck with those too hard. Both on the programming side, and on the balancing side. (How much should I be allowed to mess with hidden lot portals, collectible spawn points, and dropping powerful objects before completely throw off those activities?)
I don’t understand the question you’re asking me, sorry..? I don’t find Sims 4’s tools versatile at all, I find the tools we got in the earlier games much more versatile. I find Sims 4 very limited and restricted, forcing me to play the game the way the creators want me to play it. While I play Sims 3 completely the way I want to and I take it the same goes for Sims 2 fans. I don’t see what tools Sims 4 gives you to fine tune your game, maybe you can give me an example. I can give tools that do that in turn: CASt, the ability to adjust worlds, 11 EP’s stuffed with gameplay I can use in multiple ways (like a roommate system that enables me to create an apartment building). All I can think of for Sims 4 in this respect is the club system, but at the end of the day that system will always have the same result: sims doing something autonomously you set them up to do and you sit back and watch it. It’s not a system I miss in Sims 3, I’m fine with the setting up a party system where I can invite sims who will come over and behave according to their skills, traits and feelings towards other sims (flirting with them, talking to them or insulting/start fights with them). Add some music and everything I need from a party is there. They can even dance together.
Clubs. Holidays. Vampires being a memorable case where even people who don't like TS4 tend to agree that they're the best implementation.
Personalities are less robust in TS4, no disagreement there. I really do hope that tech monkeys are working on bringing that segment of the game up to date, so they can enthuse about the improvements later.
But to take a TS3 vs. TS4 comparison, TS3 holidays are more detailed than TS4 ones, but also a lot more locked in while TS4 traditions are much more modular, easily added to, and easily mixed in a make-your-own sort of deal. Neither is objectively better or worse. But I do think that comparing "toys" (the TS3 style, where there's a lot more discrete stuff) to the "tools" (TS4, with a smaller number of things but a stronger emphasis on adding your own twist) could be a better point to start from. Because while there are many individual toys that I might not care much for - cars would still be a nightmare to add to TS4, for instance - I still think it's better to look at the overall philosophy vs. focusing on specific elements from past games.
Concerning “I'm not going to argue that employees of a company showing enthusiasm about a new tool proves anything”, it’s not so much about proving anything for me. Not sure what it would or would not prove, that they’re still enthousiastic about the game? I praise the dev who gave us back that tool, I think it proves someone up there at least understands what simmers actually want (I think Sims 4’s initial basegame was a token of absolutely
misunderstanding that). But I feel like it will all be putting a sticking plaster on a wooden leg. It’s just fixing things that shouldn’t have been necessary to fix in the first place. I think the franchise will be better off with a brand new chance (from my perspective obviously).
Clubs I adressed. It’s indeed an innovative system and one will like it, the other (me) won’t. Because it basically comes down to giving the game an instruction and then watch it play itself. That’s just not what simming is about for me (and there are never any consequences, it’s just watching a series of animations, like sims cooking together or making homework together). Holidays? Sims in the other games can have holidays too? In Sims 3 I can even give my sims a couple of days off and organize a holiday in their own world. Create a campsite near the sea and make it work. Others have, I haven’t yet but it’s one of the things I’m still planning to do (I hope that by making it a basecamp it will also attract other sims). Vampires indeed are great (in fact they pulled me back into playing and enjoying the game) but they’re not a tool, you mentioned tools ;) As for personalities: what worries me about that one, is that the reason personalities are less robust (as in, not there at all, I play two sisters now, one nice and friendly, the other evil, and they behave exactly the same way, there is no difference at all between them, I constantly have to imagine that) is that what hinders them is the actual core of the game: the emotions. They are meant to not have personalities, because the emotions will always come first. That’s a choice they made when they started to develop this game and the only way to solve that will be getting rid of that system. Will they? If there’s one thing that would highly please me: that ;)
I don’t quite follow your theory about toys and tools. To me it seems it’s Sims 4 that has the toys (a lot of stuff packs) and Sims 3 that has the tools. Like I said, I can use those tools to create new storylines. It’s Sims 4 where I feel I can only play it one way, the way they designed it. Like, when I take my sim to GF, what are the different options? Or to Selvadorada? What twist can you give it? When I take my sim to China on holiday I can make her explore tombs (following an adventure path or not), I can make her work on skilling martial arts, I can focus on the townies and make her meet people (in their own houses). When I send her to France I can do the adventuring thing (also there, same goes for Egypt), I can focus on the people who live there, I can have a very romantic honeymoon there, I can teach her how to make nectar. When I take her to Egypt (apart from the adventuring again) I can focus on the basecamp, adding all kind of stuff there I got in other packs like a bonfire and different tents and games they can play etc etc, and other sims will start using all that too. Can I do all that when I take my sims to GF and Selvadorada? I’d love to hear how because I have JA and after a couple of hours of fun, it sort of collapsed for me. There’s the market where they can buy stuff, there’s the bar where they can dance and learn local habits and there’s the one temple that I know after visiting it once, even when I get seven different (but completely similar) templates to do the same thing (compare that to WA’s numerous and complex tombs). Finding my way through that jungle for me was the highlight of JA, but that didn’t take me more than a couple of hours and then what.
