"@Sakia90;c-17568234" wrote:
I'm just gonna say, they didn't "remove" those features in Sims 4. Sims 4 was supposed to be an online game, not a main Sims game, hence why it has instanced lots and had no color wheels, open worlds, etc, and had no toddlers, pools, etc. at launch. They didn't "remove" the features because it was a failure, "Sims 4" was supposed to be an online game.
Just no lol.
First, open world and color wheels have absolutely nothing to do with whether a game is online or not. There are many, many online games that are open world and/or have color wheels. Pools and toddlers also have nothing to with the game being online, especially since the decision to not include pools and toddlers were made well after the game was announced as a single player game only. For example SimGuruGrant said in an interview in September 2013 that the base game was going to have toddlers. Clearly the decision to not include toddlers was made well after that.
Second, being an online game is one of the concepts they explored during TS4's pre-production, and the idea was killed before the game went into full production, effectively meaning that it had no effects on the game at the end. If you're not sure what pre-production/full production means, I've explained it in a different thread.
"elelunicy;c-17561697" wrote:
Game development is largely divided into two phases:
Pre-Production: This stage is when a small team of producers, designers, and artists create the initial designs and looks of the game. This is a very lengthy process as they will explore many different options, such as different looks and different gameplay mechanics. There will be many debates over what direction the game will take. The plans will be constantly reworked and refined as the higher-ups approve/reject them. Games can spend years in pre-production. For example, EA's Anthem spent over 5 years in pre-production, and TS4 spent over 3 years in pre-production.
Full production: This is when the game has been designed and approved. The whole team will start working following the design documents wrote by designers: engineers will start coding, animators will start animating, artists start creating art assets, etc. This stage of development is very expensive as the entire team is working on the game, so generally it will only last like 12-18 months.
Why does it work this way? Because the full production is very expensive and they cannot change the direction of game in the middle of full production. You simply cannot have engineers coding for 6 months straight, and then ask them to scrap everything they wrote and start over. That'd be a huge waste of money. This is why they need to have everything planned out & approved during the pre-production so that by the time the game enters full production, they know for sure what kind of game they are going to make.
TS4 did not enter full production until early 2013 and the idea of being an online was already killed by the time it entered full production. None of the TS4's shortcomings have anything to do with the online game concept. The online concept only existed in mock-up videos and have never made into an actual game.
"@Sakia90;c-17568234" wrote:
It's also why the sims themselves feel more hollow (which they're supposedly going to fix). YOU were supposed to be the avatar.
Both TS2 and TS3 Sims are far hollower, despite the fact that TS2/TS3 were never online games.