Feeling Positive for TS4's Future
Disclaimer: I wanted to focus on positives here because I feel there has been a lot of negativity recently surrounding the rebrand, which is totally valid, but I have been feeling overall positive abo...
Forum Discussion
I lot of us knew that from the beginning as it was like a big conspiracy theory for a while.
To me, the game is limping through its life cycle because of this.
The life cycle will be extended due to so many missing base game features.
This is great for people who absolutely love the series and want it to go on forever.
I am concerned that traits will be forever weak in this game and sims will never project the uniqueness of their traits, only the sameness of their emotions. This makes the sims themselves not so interesting to play. Nothing interesting happens on its own through the interaction of different personalities. You have to force things to happen. It's the heart and soul of the game to me and all the packs just a game play refresher. If EA address that, then my optimism for this game as a series will flip.
I loved what they did with Toddlers and Parenthood. I loved Spa Day and the Dine Out dining experience. I love the depth of Vampires. I love the size and variety of locations of Windenburg and the clubs mechanic has brought life to my sims since I can make social groups and choose where they hang out and what they do. Get famous brought some neat stuff. I had this cosplayer hobby going on in my game since City Living, because of GeekCon. Get Famous made that explode to new heights with all the content it provided.
But with the great stuff comes some disappointments:
With new content remaining to be created and fixing bugs,
I don't believe Maxis will have the time, staff, or budget to address the shortcomings and bugs of so many packs, let alone address all the work that would have to be done to make sims and their personalities stand out more. I don't believe they will overhaul traits and make them matter more, but I hope they at least give us a TS3-like bloom that gives us access to all their trait related socials instead of having to dig around for them.
This will help with bring out their personality instead of burying it.
It still doesn't bring out autonomous trait behaviors, but it helps in expressing their traits.
Just talking about the things I do like about the series raises my optimism,
but as you can see, I remain mixed. :D
To me, the game is limping through its life cycle because of this.
The life cycle will be extended due to so many missing base game features.
This is great for people who absolutely love the series and want it to go on forever.
I am concerned that traits will be forever weak in this game and sims will never project the uniqueness of their traits, only the sameness of their emotions. This makes the sims themselves not so interesting to play. Nothing interesting happens on its own through the interaction of different personalities. You have to force things to happen. It's the heart and soul of the game to me and all the packs just a game play refresher. If EA address that, then my optimism for this game as a series will flip.
I loved what they did with Toddlers and Parenthood. I loved Spa Day and the Dine Out dining experience. I love the depth of Vampires. I love the size and variety of locations of Windenburg and the clubs mechanic has brought life to my sims since I can make social groups and choose where they hang out and what they do. Get famous brought some neat stuff. I had this cosplayer hobby going on in my game since City Living, because of GeekCon. Get Famous made that explode to new heights with all the content it provided.
But with the great stuff comes some disappointments:
Spoiler
Cats and Dogs brought a cool town, but I don't have my sims live there because of so many dirty and sick pets walking around.
It's a gross place to live. There were also all the dirty and rotten leave piles, but I heard that has been fixed. I still saw a bunch of leave piles in Windenburg, but at least they weren't rotting.
City Living is alright, but it doesn't allow me to make custom apartments and I can't have apartments in other worlds at all.
I don't believe many of my sims will live there. Probably just University students fresh out of Uni. Or going to University. I tend to have several sims from different household attend University together. If it's like TS3 instead of TS2, I will have to move them into the same household. I will use an apartment if this is the case. San Myshuno will be more of a place to visit for my other sims.
Get To Work is a cool idea, but I only enjoy the science career.
The hospital has very weak support staff and isn't all the fun to play for me, and I wish my other sims could go there for treatment instead of ordering a bottle of instant medicine. I don't play the detective career much after issues with identifying suspects. I haven't played it in a while though. Maybe things have been fixed. Owning a business is a bit underwhelming. Open for Business did it so much better in TS2, but considering the three active careers, that could be forgiven, but it's not that great for simmers who wanted a more Open for Business focused pack.
I like Get Famous, but I feel it is missing at least two more active careers.
Modeling, singing, bands? I think we are going to need another expansion or game packs to make up for that.
Also, the world is too small. And I feel all the worlds from here on out will feel too small.
Seasons brought what I needed: the immersion factor of seasonal weather.
I don't like that there isn't any depth to snow. It's just a flat texture.
Holidays were cool, but I tend to ignore them now and some are annoying.
Island Living is nice and relaxing and it's good for simmers who want to live in all destinations.
But I don't want my sims to live there. I want them to vacation there. You would think EA would make a small concession to simmers who want to play this way by allowing some lots to be bought as a vacation home. I had to create a work around by turning a Get To Work retail feature into a vacation home. Vacation homes are doable in Sulani, but it's not true vacation game play. Sulani culture could have used more depth and the should have been given their own dance. I wish mermaids were at least half as detail as vampires. They could use a few more powers.
It's a gross place to live. There were also all the dirty and rotten leave piles, but I heard that has been fixed. I still saw a bunch of leave piles in Windenburg, but at least they weren't rotting.
City Living is alright, but it doesn't allow me to make custom apartments and I can't have apartments in other worlds at all.
I don't believe many of my sims will live there. Probably just University students fresh out of Uni. Or going to University. I tend to have several sims from different household attend University together. If it's like TS3 instead of TS2, I will have to move them into the same household. I will use an apartment if this is the case. San Myshuno will be more of a place to visit for my other sims.
Get To Work is a cool idea, but I only enjoy the science career.
The hospital has very weak support staff and isn't all the fun to play for me, and I wish my other sims could go there for treatment instead of ordering a bottle of instant medicine. I don't play the detective career much after issues with identifying suspects. I haven't played it in a while though. Maybe things have been fixed. Owning a business is a bit underwhelming. Open for Business did it so much better in TS2, but considering the three active careers, that could be forgiven, but it's not that great for simmers who wanted a more Open for Business focused pack.
I like Get Famous, but I feel it is missing at least two more active careers.
Modeling, singing, bands? I think we are going to need another expansion or game packs to make up for that.
Also, the world is too small. And I feel all the worlds from here on out will feel too small.
Seasons brought what I needed: the immersion factor of seasonal weather.
I don't like that there isn't any depth to snow. It's just a flat texture.
Holidays were cool, but I tend to ignore them now and some are annoying.
Island Living is nice and relaxing and it's good for simmers who want to live in all destinations.
But I don't want my sims to live there. I want them to vacation there. You would think EA would make a small concession to simmers who want to play this way by allowing some lots to be bought as a vacation home. I had to create a work around by turning a Get To Work retail feature into a vacation home. Vacation homes are doable in Sulani, but it's not true vacation game play. Sulani culture could have used more depth and the should have been given their own dance. I wish mermaids were at least half as detail as vampires. They could use a few more powers.
With new content remaining to be created and fixing bugs,
I don't believe Maxis will have the time, staff, or budget to address the shortcomings and bugs of so many packs, let alone address all the work that would have to be done to make sims and their personalities stand out more. I don't believe they will overhaul traits and make them matter more, but I hope they at least give us a TS3-like bloom that gives us access to all their trait related socials instead of having to dig around for them.
This will help with bring out their personality instead of burying it.
It still doesn't bring out autonomous trait behaviors, but it helps in expressing their traits.
Just talking about the things I do like about the series raises my optimism,
but as you can see, I remain mixed. :D
