How many more years of TS4?

"jackjack_k;c-16221358" wrote:

"@drake_mccarty;c-16221219" wrote:

"Zeldaboy180;c-16213145" wrote:

"drake_mccarty;c-16211507" wrote:

"Zeldaboy180;c-16211305" wrote:

"Ashcarr;c-16195440" wrote:
S4 would have been perfect in my eyes if they hadn't reverted to putting us back into boxes. You can't do something like S3 did and give us open worlds and then just do away with it. I love S4. It's the first time I adored the artistic style. I absolutely love emotions and multi-tasking and how it creates sims who don't feel like robots. However, when you give a player tools like Create-a-Style and terrain editing found in 3 and then leave it out for the sequel, that doesn't feel intuitive.

For these reasons, I'm really hesitant when it comes to how long I want S4 to last. I like it, but it has major faults that I'd want to see corrected in S5 sooner rather than later, but if they do a half baked job and strip out emotions and multi-tasking, then I'd rather just keep playing S4 and hope it goes on for many more years.

I never liked the open world. I just felt there was more to look at rather than do. Only really thing you could do was collect stuff, most of the lots were rabbit holes and just for show.

San Myshuno and Bridleton Bay have both been adding unique things like festivals, food stands, merchants, lighthouses, musicians, performers etc and that's the kind of thing I hope becomes standard for the worlds. I actually really like that.

San Myshuno is literally the definition of “more to look at than do.

I hope they ditch the whole ‘built in’ world specific gameplay thing they’ve been doing. Players can’t manipulate any of it. They’d be better off focusing their gameplay on lots, and not in the space around the world that can’t be edited.

I disagree.. Like I said, there are food stands, festivals, performers, musicians, firework shows, protests etc.

San Myshuno feels the closest to an actual world than any other sims game for me.

Just because it has a lot of back drops and places you can't go doesn't mean anything, and that's not what I'm talking about.

I disliked sims 3, because there were vasts open worlds, but lots of empty spaces in those worlds. And the things you could do were all repetitive, the same old bar with a juicer where you made your own drinks, the same old rabbit hold restauraunts movie theater etcs.

I like the closed world approach of sims 4, opening up the lots in a single district would be nice, but impossible for this iteration.



Completely disagree with the focus on lots. The area around the world is what makes the world unique, they NEED to be unique. It was annoying in sims 3 because you couldn't travel from world to world. Dive lots were only in Isla Paradiso unless you did a very complicated and barely working work around, or lived in a custom built world. Lots of things were world specific, which was bad because you couldn't just travel.

Sims 4 worlds are different. I am not missing out on anything if one world has something the other doesn't, because I can visit that world in a matter of seconds. The worlds need their own flare.

And I am loving what they've done with San Myshuno and Bridleton bay. I dislike the base game worlds. Windenburg is absolutely stunning, but it's just always empty for me, which was my complaint with sims 3 worlds.

The worlds are unique by the nature of their decoration. The city is totally different (visually) from any other world, Willow Creek is different (visually) from Oasis Springs, Windenburg, Forgotten Hollow, etc. They are already unique. If it takes locking gameplay, content, and game features to any specific world to make it ‘unique’ then they have no reason to spend so much time on the decoration.

The difference with Sims 3 is that you could utilize the map. You could place your own lots, and put whatever you wanted on those lots. I didn’t need Maxis locking penthouses to Bridgeport to make it ‘unique’ - it was unique on it’s own, even if I cut out every high rise. Still totally unique from Sunset Valley, or any other world. Had way less static decoration too. Still unique. Maybe open your mind a little bit to the idea that forcing players to play a game a specific way is counter to the fundamental principals of The Sims. Even Sims 4 used to say ‘You Rule!’ - even though that has became a fallacy with regards to what they are producing.

So you enjoy the world due to the aesthetic is what I gather from your post. There’s more to look at in SM than there is to do; don’t just list off what’s in the world because that only proves my point. Food stands, at a maximum you click on it and it pops up a UI box. No different than buying books from the bookshelf. Festivals, well those are primarily assembled using content that was released with the base game, or other DLC. They repurposed things that were already there and stuck it in the middle of the world. How exciting. Performers and musicians, are there for you to look at. The gold people are especially pointless, as are the weirdly dressed people. Firework shows, again just there for you to look at. Your sims will watch it, but it’s nothing more than a visual effect. Sims 2, and 3 both had fireworks. Protesting is exactly just something to look at. What does protesting do? Doesn’t get rid of the horrid weirdly dressed wrestler people walking around. Doesn’t actually do anything, it’s just there.

So no, none of those world exclusive things are game changing by any means. They either use things that the game already had, or they are there to look interesting for the player. Like the world for what it is, but there’s nothing about worlds in Sims 4 that makes them any different than before. Forcing restrictions and stifling creativity in the name of being ‘unique’ is flat out sad, and again counter to what made The Sims as popular as it is.

I love how people say “City Living added nothing” while Late Night added much less.

City Living got incredible reviews.
We have 6 new semi-active career branches that add gameplay around the world.
We got festivals. We got the ability to sell items on the street. We got heaps of new gameplay items. Apartment gameplay is twice as extensive than 3.

What did Late Night add? It took base game venues and added a bartender and a bouncer, that’s it. We got a butler that’s buggier than TS4 one. It added 2 semi-active career branches instead of 6. And a celebrity system that provides almost no gameplay. And Vampires that were so pointless EA had to revisit them later and had to offer them for a second time, because the

Bands however, were a great addition.

Bridgeport should have been a Store World, and everything else should have been added into Showtime. Showtime was also a small EP, that didn’t really make sense to be on its own.

I also think Generations and Seasons should have been combined too.

It’s so weird though, because we have Packs like WA, INF, University, Supernatural etc that add SO MUCH and then packs like Generations, Seasons, Late Night, Showtime that felt so small.

Idk. To me, City Living is the biggest EP so far in terms of “things to do” however I do feel that “City Life” is way to broad and it shows.

Late Night though, just feels like a store world turned EP. And no one has ever been able to easily explain how Late Night is bigger than CL.

They just say “we can place Apartments in other worlds” like that counterpoints anything.

Or that “San Myshuno is fake” while Bridgeport is 90% fake city too. Same with Roaring Heights.

The Urbz is the closest we have to a real city

To me your post proves the importance of open world and the value of being free as a player to do what you want to do. I played a homeless sim in Bridgeport, hardly doing any other stuff than what came with LN (though the seasons were important as well). I played this sim for months and months (real months, not Sims months) and it was an amazing experience. Do you see yourself playing in CL for months and months in a row, doing nothing else?

P.s., sorry, the question: I think Sims 4 will at least run another four, five years. It’s so easy for them to just keep adding small things to this game and people will buy anyway. Why bother by putting money and effort in developing an entirely new game. I just don’t see it happening any time soon.