Instead of sims 5, double sims 4’s life span
Sims 4 has amazing graphics. They will look great even after multiple years, but the clunky game needs to be rewritten (yes, from scratch pretty much), if it wants to be remembered as the best Sims ga...
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I wish I shared your enthusiasm. The developers have also confirmed that they intend to double this iteration's lifespan (Grant revealed that he sees at least another 3 years for The Sims 4 - sadly in my opinion).
The developers are not going to be able to rewrite the code. They can make small fixes and slightly larger additions as they release more packs and updates but they're not going to be able to change what The Sims 4 is at its core. EA will also continue to give The Sims 4 smaller budgets than previous iterations. The Sims 4 base game obviously launched with a bunch of missing features and while some of the biggest ones have been added back, there are still a great number missing and some that are never coming back (Create A Style and Open World, confirmed by the developers).
Every expansion pack has also had limited features compared to previous comparable ones. EA / Maxis have tried to distract away from this by introducing one big new feature so the missing content is less obvious. Get to Work has elements of Open for Business and Ambitions but lacks Open for Business's restaurants, home businesses and ticket machines while also only including 3 professions as opposed to the 7 (plus self-employed careers) that were added for Ambitions. They distracted people by bringing back businesses after their absence from The Sims 3 while also combining it with active professions but the active professions essentially recycled the system used for group outings, parties and dates.
Get Together added the very welcome and nicely customisable clubs but barely added anything extra barring a café, DJ set and a few basic bar games. Compare that to the bowling alleys, hot tubs, celebrity systems, cars, pool tables and various instruments that were released in similar themed packs.
City Living gave us a greater number of outfits to showcase diversity, which was great, but with more limited festivals than The Sims 3: Seasons and basically a bunch of nice aesthetics. Apartments were more limited than they've ever been than any previous Sims game confined to one world and elevators are not functional items that we're able to use in Build Mode anymore for the first time since elevators were introduced in the series.
Cats and Dogs again tried to distract us with its aesthetically pleasing looking pets and great number of breeds and more accessible pet customisation but cut horses, the ability for kids to walk dogs, the ability to control or even view your pets' needs, the ability for pets to sleep on beds and couldn't even bring back pet houses for the My First Pet's Stuff because they wanted to focus their resources on creating cheaper content by re-skinning existing objects in the game. Not to mention the complete lack of small pets, which we probably won't get any beyond fish and rodents now (all previous iterations have always had birds and reptiles). This is due to the whole release fiasco with My First Pet Stuff.
And while people are delighted that Seasons is bringing much need atmosphere into the game, there are still cut corners here with them being unable to use the resources to include hail, sunburn, tanning or snow-depth, things which have been included in every other seasons pack from before (sun-tanning and sunburn was introduced in The Sims 2: Seasons and was also available in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage). We won't see these return but they'll try to distract us by including custom holidays (a great much appreciated feature by the way but one which uses a similar system to the club system and tries to distract us from the cut corners in other parts of the game).
I believe that The Sims 4 is a very limited game, given a much lower budget by EA than previous games in the franchise because EA knows that there's no other game in the vein of The Sims in the market and the fans feel compelled to buy and defend it, as they have no other choice. This is why they can release a lower budget game and release content in a piecemeal way. The developers will try to fix what they can, defend their inability to fix or introduce certain features by momentarily distracting the fans with a shiny new feature until the next one comes along.
I'm not saying people are lying if they enjoy the game and The Sims 4 has introduced some very nice features, that I hope will see carried forward. It's certainly the most intuitive when it comes to customising characters, building and online features (but one of the least intuitive in terms of actual gameplay - by a long shot - in my opinion).
I can only hope that EA are seeing the more negative reception to The Sims 4 and are prepared to put the resources back into Maxis so they can release a proper triple AA game and not repeat the same mistakes they made with this game and Sim City. A longer lifespan will allow those who enjoy The Sims 4 to invest more time in a game they've poured so much time into buying content for while those of us who are bitterly disappointed with The Sims 4 can hope the extra development time for The Sims 5 will bring some spark back to the series.
The developers are not going to be able to rewrite the code. They can make small fixes and slightly larger additions as they release more packs and updates but they're not going to be able to change what The Sims 4 is at its core. EA will also continue to give The Sims 4 smaller budgets than previous iterations. The Sims 4 base game obviously launched with a bunch of missing features and while some of the biggest ones have been added back, there are still a great number missing and some that are never coming back (Create A Style and Open World, confirmed by the developers).
Every expansion pack has also had limited features compared to previous comparable ones. EA / Maxis have tried to distract away from this by introducing one big new feature so the missing content is less obvious. Get to Work has elements of Open for Business and Ambitions but lacks Open for Business's restaurants, home businesses and ticket machines while also only including 3 professions as opposed to the 7 (plus self-employed careers) that were added for Ambitions. They distracted people by bringing back businesses after their absence from The Sims 3 while also combining it with active professions but the active professions essentially recycled the system used for group outings, parties and dates.
Get Together added the very welcome and nicely customisable clubs but barely added anything extra barring a café, DJ set and a few basic bar games. Compare that to the bowling alleys, hot tubs, celebrity systems, cars, pool tables and various instruments that were released in similar themed packs.
City Living gave us a greater number of outfits to showcase diversity, which was great, but with more limited festivals than The Sims 3: Seasons and basically a bunch of nice aesthetics. Apartments were more limited than they've ever been than any previous Sims game confined to one world and elevators are not functional items that we're able to use in Build Mode anymore for the first time since elevators were introduced in the series.
Cats and Dogs again tried to distract us with its aesthetically pleasing looking pets and great number of breeds and more accessible pet customisation but cut horses, the ability for kids to walk dogs, the ability to control or even view your pets' needs, the ability for pets to sleep on beds and couldn't even bring back pet houses for the My First Pet's Stuff because they wanted to focus their resources on creating cheaper content by re-skinning existing objects in the game. Not to mention the complete lack of small pets, which we probably won't get any beyond fish and rodents now (all previous iterations have always had birds and reptiles). This is due to the whole release fiasco with My First Pet Stuff.
And while people are delighted that Seasons is bringing much need atmosphere into the game, there are still cut corners here with them being unable to use the resources to include hail, sunburn, tanning or snow-depth, things which have been included in every other seasons pack from before (sun-tanning and sunburn was introduced in The Sims 2: Seasons and was also available in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage). We won't see these return but they'll try to distract us by including custom holidays (a great much appreciated feature by the way but one which uses a similar system to the club system and tries to distract us from the cut corners in other parts of the game).
I believe that The Sims 4 is a very limited game, given a much lower budget by EA than previous games in the franchise because EA knows that there's no other game in the vein of The Sims in the market and the fans feel compelled to buy and defend it, as they have no other choice. This is why they can release a lower budget game and release content in a piecemeal way. The developers will try to fix what they can, defend their inability to fix or introduce certain features by momentarily distracting the fans with a shiny new feature until the next one comes along.
I'm not saying people are lying if they enjoy the game and The Sims 4 has introduced some very nice features, that I hope will see carried forward. It's certainly the most intuitive when it comes to customising characters, building and online features (but one of the least intuitive in terms of actual gameplay - by a long shot - in my opinion).
I can only hope that EA are seeing the more negative reception to The Sims 4 and are prepared to put the resources back into Maxis so they can release a proper triple AA game and not repeat the same mistakes they made with this game and Sim City. A longer lifespan will allow those who enjoy The Sims 4 to invest more time in a game they've poured so much time into buying content for while those of us who are bitterly disappointed with The Sims 4 can hope the extra development time for The Sims 5 will bring some spark back to the series.
