"logion;c-17898890" wrote:
"texxx78;c-17898753" wrote:
"logion;c-17898592" wrote:
"simgirl1010;c-17898540" wrote:
"SimmerGeorge;c-17898522" wrote:
Well I counted and unless I counted wrong it is like this.
Sims 4 Vampires has 130 new build and buy mode items, I didn't count CAS but it was big as well since it included the teeth and facial features as well as clothes and hair, it had the new occult, the new world, new aspirations, the strengths and weaknesses system, several new animations including fighting and probably more
Sims 4 Home Renovator has 135 new build and buy mode items. So only 5 more than vampires. The other features include the renovation likes and dislikes, the gig system which has been done in previous packs while the actual gig itself consists of you playing in buy mode which is in the base game and the reveal which is a social event like a party in which your clients do some facial expression and then you get a slideshow of the before and after pictures. The build and buy has some more new tools for building so I'll give them that.
IMO, in comparison I don't see the renovator pack having so much more build and buy mode items for the amount of other features it's lacking.
Should the difficulty/cost in creating those objects factor in in some way? I don't know anything about video game design but some objects require more of the design budget than others. Modular furniture and kitchen sets for example.
I feel that the pack price should be designed for what it offers to the customer. We don't know how much development that goes into these packs so even if a fair bit of development probably went into making the career with build mode integration and the modular furniture that's their problem and they should plan so that the pack quality and the amount of content in their packs doesn't suffer because of it. EA should cover the costs, not cut corners in order to make a profit at the expense of people buying and playing their packs.
Some packs will cost more than others, that's just how it is, we should not be the ones that pay for it.
Exactly! I'm a customer, a regular player with no knowledge of programming, as the majority of people are. I don't care if modular furniture is hard to make... what i know is that they're offering me modular furniture + as much other furniture as other packs + one career so badly made that you have to pretend that you're renovating a specific room when requested, cause the game itself won't recognize if you're doing it right or not...
Is that worth a game pack price tag?
If modular furniture is so hard to do that it makes them offer us so few for so much, then they should have taken more reasonable decisions...
A modular furniture kit would sell very well for example... but they shouldn't have used a gamepack budget for that...
Yeah, it's their job to plan and design the pack so that it's worth the price tag to the customer. I would assume that they have built their teams so they are able to actually make game packs and expansion packs with a fair amount of content and so that people can work with their specific roles, like having people that work specifically on world building for example. Same with artists, when they are done with a pack they go to the next one so that they can work on that one They don't get told "sorry, we ran out of budget, you have to sit still and do nothing for this pack". That would just be a waste of money and resources.
Its the use of the term "budget" that confuses me. Aren't these people hired full time to work for EA regardless of what they are doing all day.... whether it be 8 hours working on swatches, or 8 hours working on modular furniture?
And what happens to them after the pack is created? Are they fired? Told to go home and watch TV without pay until the next GP is needed?
I mean seriously, are these people full time workers or not? If they are, then a 40 hour work week is a 40 hour work week regardless of what they are doing on their work computers.
The only argument I can see out of all this is the time it takes to create 1 piece of coding in comparison to another. But even that is a weak argument being that these people are programmers. It's what they do for a living. Either they can do it, or they can't. I don't think they are all sitting in the board room every day working together on a code puzzle hoping to be the first one to put it all together and snag a prize. They likely talk about the best ways to implement each new code in relation to the code they already have, but once they decide on their ideas I don't think "time" plays much of a factor in getting the code together and implemented.
And being that they are all going to be payed for a 40 hour week anyway regardless, I can't see budget being a major factor either. Unless of course they all work part time... on call when needed.