I want open neighborhoods so badly

Open neighborhood has to be built into the game from the ground up - in the engine and base game. It cannot be patched in later unless they take the entire game and strip it completely - then reprogram the entire thing as if it was a brand new game. In an open world the entire game loads when the game starts up and every household and lot in that game is loaded - every sim, every venue. You can not just flip a switch to make that happen.

I can not think of any studio that would ever do that. It would also require every pack to be remade as the packs are not made for open worlds - they are made for the present design of Sims 4. Oh and then don't forget none of what you already own would work so you would have to re-buy everything - full price - tell me is that really what you want?

I love open world too - but sometimes when you know what that actually entails - you come to your senses and get over it. When I really have to have some open world Sims I just go play my Sims 3, also on this pc, for a few days.

I played Sims 3 this afternoon, adventuring in China. Not ugly at all, rather stunningly beautiful. And open, very open. In the end, a couple of hours before she had to travel home again, my sim managed to buy her own vacation home and we chose the Thyme House, overlooking the world, and I made her walk to the railing at the top of the stairs and we just stood there for a while, her and me, just looking around for a bit.

Let’s proceed, this topic is about open neighborhoods for Sims 4 possible or not.

I still think it's possible--it's just unlikely because of how much code needs to be rewritten. I'd gladly give up an expansion so they'd rework it and pay $40 for it.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's what I need to really enjoy ts4's neighborhoods to the max.

"DreamaDove;c-16790097" wrote:
I still think it's possible--it's just unlikely because of how much code needs to be rewritten. I'd gladly give up an expansion so they'd rework it and pay $40 for it.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's what I need to really enjoy ts4's neighborhoods to the max.

I need that and Create-a-Style, can't see either happening. Or the ability to edit the neighborhoods.

"Movotti;c-16790354" wrote:

"nickibitsward;c-16790120" wrote:

"DreamaDove;c-16790097" wrote:
I still think it's possible--it's just unlikely because of how much code needs to be rewritten. I'd gladly give up an expansion so they'd rework it and pay $40 for it.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's what I need to really enjoy ts4's neighborhoods to the max.

I need that and Create-a-Style, can't see either happening. Or the ability to edit the neighborhoods.

There is an alternative to in-game create a style. They could add a program like bodyshop (from ts2), and add create a style to it. They could also make it so we could use it to recolour all clothing items, furnishing items and wallpapers.

That's basically Sims 4 Studio--though theirs is probably better than what the team would make.

It's kinda troublesome to keep doing that in a separate program. I like the colorwheel since you can test things right then and there and only make 1 swatch when you need it.

"littlemissgogo;c-16790422" wrote:
I believe the devs have commented before that open world and open neighborhood are essentially the same thing so open neighborhood isn't actually some kind of middle ground between what TS4 has and what TS3 has. probably one of the tweets in the guru tweets thread by simgirl1010.

Yes they have - it cannot be anymore open than it is. Grant said open neighborhoods and open world is the same thing - you either load all the lots and areas or do what they did is open the area and 1 lot. There is no in between way to do it apparently.

Sims 4 will never be open world. Simply put, once you're outside the active neighborhood area, you quickly go from impressive facades that still ultimately do nothing, to things that are obviously facades if you tab out and move over to them. Trying to fill out that section of world and have it connect to the other neighborhoods would be a massive undertaking, on the level of making a whole new game.

"Open neighborhoods" would be trickier, but doable. One important element of TS3 was that everything there was dependent on items, to the point where they had to make up clever workarounds to make certain types of area possible. TS4 lots are identified by lot type, so you have to juggle that information for all lots in an area and that sounds like a lot of extra computing for no real benefit.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a few things added. Some vague memory of what sort of lot a place is and who might be there, so I can see my neighbors leave their homes while the bar down the street sees a fair number of people head in and out. (Which can be done without too much extra computing power, since the game would only care about who was inside and would gloss over what they were doing.) More information about each lot could be preloaded when the neighborhood loads, so instead of a full load screen you could switch gears with a shorter load pause.

And I wouldn't know about the technical feasibility of doing this, but it'd be nice if outdoors areas were treated as public and you needed to go indoors to load the full lot. (And as such, only proloaded the lot if you approached the door.) Mostly because it feels strange to need any sort of load, not to mention putting the main lot on background mode, in order to walk across an empty lot. Technically exploitable, but nothing now stops me from putting a bunch of expensive items out in the lot next door and then going there through the normal load screen.

If Sims 5 is ever to be made, and I really hope it will be, then my custom will be guaranteed by offering either create a style or a colour wheel with separate colouring for wood and fabric, an open world or at least open neighbourhoods with the possibility of adding lots (as in Edit Town) in Sims 4. If all these appeared in a new Sims game, I would definitely purchase every expansion, game pack and anything else that comes with it.

I live in hope!

"nickibitsward;c-16790120" wrote:

"DreamaDove;c-16790097" wrote:
I still think it's possible--it's just unlikely because of how much code needs to be rewritten. I'd gladly give up an expansion so they'd rework it and pay $40 for it.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's what I need to really enjoy ts4's neighborhoods to the max.

I need that and Create-a-Style, can't see either happening. Or the ability to edit the neighborhoods.

I'd settle for having a color wheel for eyes/skin/hair. They're all solid color (except for the hairs with accessories) so they wouldn't need to have separate channels for colors. I just want to be able to edit hue/brightness/saturation of the texture file in the game. The swatches provided are not enough.

I get them not doing the create a style, but I don't get the absence of the color wheel. It's just such a step-backwards from ts3. Even ts2 was more advanced in that area since they let you select a different wood/comforter colors etc.

"nickibitsward;c-16790120" wrote:

"DreamaDove;c-16790097" wrote:
I still think it's possible--it's just unlikely because of how much code needs to be rewritten. I'd gladly give up an expansion so they'd rework it and pay $40 for it.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's what I need to really enjoy ts4's neighborhoods to the max.

I need that and Create-a-Style, can't see either happening. Or the ability to edit the neighborhoods.

There is an alternative to in-game create a style. They could add a program like bodyshop (from ts2), and add create a style to it. They could also make it so we could use it to recolour all clothing items, furnishing items and wallpapers.