@Karon world building is done from “scratch” for every world they make. That means every single piece has to be modeled, textured, positioned, etc. Sims 3 had an automated base for this that meant the terrain, textures, water, sky, etc was all built-in and could be manipulated in real time (this is what CAW was adapted from) which meant worlds could be made a lot faster and easier.
Worlds are more decorated in 4, that’s more to do with the condensed nature of each little district. Sims 3 had areas of high detail like that, but a much larger map so obviously it’s not going to be packed with decorations at every step.
As for staff, I’m not saying they don’t have employees. I’m saying they don’t have employees to make worlds. Maxis has an abundance of producers, and VFX artists. A concept artist vented on Twitter before release about the first one, and Graham (a producer) told players about the second one on MTS. Reading that tweet by Grant, I could probably come up with several ways to explain how that’s true but also how it’s being shared in a misleading way. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how many people they have on payroll, they aren’t doing a fantastic job with who they have.
