Forum Discussion
5 years ago
hi Conor, its so lovely to have you here and to actually have the dev team asking the advice of game players, in particular those of us who do knit, on the technical aspects of the gameplay. It makes me feel like the pack has the potential to be really good and indepth. So i will do my best to answer your questions as best i can.
Q1: Crosspack! I’m planning on making Knitting compatible with things like Get to Work Retail Lots (including Mannequins!), Get Together’s Club Rules, and City LIving’s Yard Sale Table. What else would provide fun crosspack functionality? For example, should knitting provide Fame in some way?
No i dont think knitting as a skill itself should be a fame item, BUT i do think think that being able to blog, vlog and simstagram your knitting projects is a realistic way to turn knitting in to fame related content. It sounds stupid but i am quite heavilt involved with the uk knitting community, particularly online. i get recognised at uk knitting shows and know a lot of the big names in the uk yarn community. there is a real instagram community out there as well as a lot of use of websites like facebook and ravelry.com to share knitting knowledge and projects that people have made, designs they have written etc. Podcasts and knitting vlogs are becoming increasingly popular too. so that would be a good thing to incorporate. I definitely want to be able to have a knitting club and i would be happy selling my knitted wares in a retail store or on a yard sale table, but id LOVE it if we went a step further and had a craftables sales table and perhaps a weekly craft market, perhaps at the park in willow creek? a place where a sim can go to sell their hand makes- woodworking, flower aranging, knitted projects etc etc. I would love for my cats and kittens to be able to play with a ball of yarn. I wonder if we could add some spice to the game by having an occassional buff/pop up where doing laundry with laundry day stuff pack results in one of your hand knits being shrunk and felted and lost.... it happens in real life, right when you least expect it and its bloody gutting! realistic gameplay and all that lol.
Q2: If some “Crochet-Like” objects became craftable through Knitting, how would you personally feel? Happy? Enraged? Strong sense of ennui? We can’t guarantee unique animations for crocheting, but I’d like to still potentially provide them as a craftable object for players.
Im gonna rock the boat here. I am a knitter and a knitting snob and oh so particular in pointing out when someone links me to some gorgeous "knitting" that is actually crochet. For the purposes of this pack and satisfying game play i would actually be ok with making a compromise and having crocheted items labelled as knitted. When time and resources are limited i would rather the budget be spent on a greater range of gameplay options and craftable items than wasted on animating everything a second time to distinguish between knitted and crocheted items. If it was a game pack i might feel differently but this is only a stuff pack and time is money etc etc.
Q3: There’s a cool crafty desk floating around in concept art that you guys may have seen (49 - 52 in the object vote). What would knitting at one of these desks mean to you, if anything? Asking around the office, nobody knits at a desk, but I’m curious if anyone would find value if the new crafting desk tied in with knitting somehow.
A crafting desk would mean storage to me, a place to store my knitting patterns, my needles and notions and to some extent my stash. Nope no-one knits at a desk, but you might plan projects, look at patterns, organise your stash and even design knew knits at a desk. Mostly though my craft room covers multiple crafts and my craft table is well used and covered in crafty bits and bobs, is an essential part of my knitting space, but ultimately isnt part of the knitting process. So i think it would be more of a decorative object to me. HOWEVER, if you are including quite a few home decor items as craftables- table lamps, wall canvases etc, these require construction after the main knitting is complete. A jumper or garment needs to be blocked and sewn up. these are things that could be done at a crafting table. I have mentionned above the concept of a crafting sales table- i guess in part i would rather dev time was used to make a craft sales table with game play elements and left the crafting desk as a deco object without gameplay. However i could see the crafting desk being a good place to house a user interface for picking and designing new knitting projects. I wrote about this concept in another post which i will go find in a minute and link here as i think it would be a really cool way to manage crafting projects as a whole and realistic to real life too.
Q4: I’d like Knitting to actually take some time to craft, something Sims can save for later and come back to. In your experience, how long have some of your knitting projects taken? I’ll try not to make it feel too grindy, but definitely longer than it takes to paint in our game.
Im a knitter of socks as my main favourite thing to produce. you are looking at 20 hours knitting time on average to knit a pair of socks in 4ply (thin yarn). around 100 hours minimum to knit a bedspread in a chunky yarn. I really feel that this is one of the most essential things to get right in this pack- that knitting garments should not be fast, that they should take x number of knitting sessions/blocks to complete a project over time. not sit down to knit in the morning and you have a jumper ready by tea time. it needs to vary with garment size, complexity, and thickness of yarn. I have said before that i would be happy to work with the team to give realistic time spans for different knitted objects- you really want knitting to be a skill that unlocks different level projects over time, so that fast simple knits in chunky yarns using basic techniques are available at the beginning and then as skill improves new patterns are unlocked (perhaps through purchasing and/or reading pattern books) so that more complex patterns are achieveable over time. For example- level one knitters can knit a simple single coloured scarf. level 2 a hat with block colour striping. level 3 a plain knit jumper. level 4 a cushion with cable detail. level 5 an advanced jumper with 6 colour fairisle patterning. For me it would totally spoil the pack if i can cast on a fairisle jumper at level one and produce something of quality. i want my initial knits to be poor quality and then as my skill and experience increases so does my quality and complexity of my work. Level 10 should be matching novelty fair isle jumpers for all the family.
Q5: If your Sim wanted to knit something, but they couldn't find a place to sit, would you be okay with them standing up and knitting? Asking for a friend...
Totally acceptable, as others have pointed out there is a history to knitting on foot. However if there is a way to set a preference to seated knitting where possible i would include that.
Q6: Along with the Mentor interaction, I’d like to include a proper “Teach to Knit” interaction. I’d love to have that moment where the Knitting Master granny teaches their grandchild how to knit. For those of you who experienced similar things, what was that experience like for you? I’m curious what people think this should look like - both animation and story wise.
Hmmm interesting concept. I like the idea of master knitter teaches to knit, but it doesnt have to be a granny. i think from halfway onwards in the skill progression you should be able to teach another sim to knit. For sims that dont know how to knit perhaps they can learn from simtube or a book or even go to a knitting class on the university campus, but one to one tutorials should defintiely come with a bonus on speed of learning. one to one knitting tutorial is always more effective than other methods. I think there should be a chance in the early stages of a sim getting frustrated and falling out with their mentor, throwing their needles down in defeat- akin to city living and sims needing to perservere with eating spicey foods and using chopsticks! But i wouldnt want it to completely hinder mentoring to the point of it becoming impossible. i just like the idea of my sim giving up during their first attempt and me having to set them back to the task to try again later after they have calmed down. similar could happen with sims attempting a pattern that is above their skill level.
Q7: I’d like to have some Etsy store-like gameplay, as well as donation gameplay with Knitting. For those of you who may have gone down those paths in real life, what were some interesting takeaways or stories you’d like to see represented?
Yes donating to charity is a big part of knitting so i think that would be a good feature. honestly, selling knitting on etsy is not at all profitable or easy and if you as any crafter they will tell you that it is really really difficult to make any kind of living from knitting. however i do still want to be able to make a living from selling crafted items in the game for the sake of rags to riches purposes, self sufficient sims living off the grid etc etc, but it shouldnt be a lucrative easy option. For me again id rather have a craftables sales table than selling items on etsy and i honestly think that certain items should be more profitable to sell than others, as is the way with the real world. certain patterns that are cute and catch people's attentions, are fast to knit and use cheaper materials are the way to make money, but you cant for example, sell knitted 4ply socks for anywhere near a living wage/cost of materials. you have to be selling the right thing to the right people. Taking on comissions as a level 10 knitter who is highly skilled and willing to spend an extended amount of time knitting a fair isle jumper or an hierloom family blanket, an intricate baby shawl etc- people will pay hundreds for items like that which have been crafted by highly skilled knitters, but will only pay a few pounds for a simple knitted hat that is cheap and fast to produce, but essentially much cheaper to buy a mass produced machine made version in shops. reflecting this often misunderstood aspect of crafting in the pack would be absolutely brilliant and would bring a whole new dimension to the pack. can your sim find the right combinations to make knitting pay and launch their career as a high end knitwear designer and social media star, or are you doomed to an eternity of unwanted mishapen itchy teacosy hats from grandma for winterfest each year?
Q8: Lets say a Sim is wearing an awful, itchy sweater that they’re wearing only because somebody gifted it for them. What kind of things would you like to see happen to them?
i would like to see some discomfort buffs, some wardrobe malfunctions where low quality knits disintegrate, a sense of obligation to wear said item being communicated through the game. but in the same breath sims who are wearing a decent quality knit that has been gifted to them by a friend or loved one should be happy and getting positive buffs from knowing that they are wearing a woolly hug and are wrapped up in love.
Q9: I need your best Knitting puns. Feed them to me.
i like big balls and a i cannot lie. totes amazeballs. winter is coming, knit faster. i knit so i dont stab people with pointy things. oh the knitty puns are endless, i will try and find some stuff to link you to. lots of woolly and ewe related jokes usually. ewenique etc etc
Q10: This is my biggest question, so I saved it for last. Should the “Teach to Knit” interaction mentioned above be autonomous? While this might sound trivial, I feel this is very important for gameplay. I’m interested how people would feel about their level 10 knitter trying to spread their knitting knowledge on others. Let's say you have someone in your family who is a level 10 knitter, if this interaction is autonomous the entire house is going to get a real deep dive into knitting, perhaps constantly.
What are your thoughts on potentially “story intrusive” interactions like this, would you be okay to find your family one day all high-level knitters through natural autonomy? Or should this only be user-directed, meaning on you have the ability to choose who gets schooled on knitting. I’d love to hear your thoughts about these sorts of things.
Im going to land on the side of NO. i think knitting is best kept self contained and only shared by sims in appropriate situations. i think it could become really annoying if every bloody sim in the world takes up knitting like happened with every single townie in the game turning up in the magic realm. I think its best if you leave it for players to decide who gets to knit in game. there is nothing to stop us using cheats or MCCC to add the knitting skill to other sims if we want them to be knitters for storytelling purposes.
thanks again for coming to us with these questions. its really lovely to meet a member of staff who is clearly passionate about getting the game mechanics right for this pack. whilst i LOVE knitting and want desperately for this pack to represent the world of knitting as i know it, as a 30 something who has worked in a knitting shop so knows both the traditional granny end of the market as well as the contemporary young knitting movements, i have been really worried that the pack could be a complete let down or dissapointment because of lack of research and effort on the pack development side. the kind of questions you are asking excites me and makes me hope that the game play elements may well be more developed than i feared. thank you!!!
If you have any technical questions at all i would be more than happy to help the team with information :)
Anna
Q1: Crosspack! I’m planning on making Knitting compatible with things like Get to Work Retail Lots (including Mannequins!), Get Together’s Club Rules, and City LIving’s Yard Sale Table. What else would provide fun crosspack functionality? For example, should knitting provide Fame in some way?
No i dont think knitting as a skill itself should be a fame item, BUT i do think think that being able to blog, vlog and simstagram your knitting projects is a realistic way to turn knitting in to fame related content. It sounds stupid but i am quite heavilt involved with the uk knitting community, particularly online. i get recognised at uk knitting shows and know a lot of the big names in the uk yarn community. there is a real instagram community out there as well as a lot of use of websites like facebook and ravelry.com to share knitting knowledge and projects that people have made, designs they have written etc. Podcasts and knitting vlogs are becoming increasingly popular too. so that would be a good thing to incorporate. I definitely want to be able to have a knitting club and i would be happy selling my knitted wares in a retail store or on a yard sale table, but id LOVE it if we went a step further and had a craftables sales table and perhaps a weekly craft market, perhaps at the park in willow creek? a place where a sim can go to sell their hand makes- woodworking, flower aranging, knitted projects etc etc. I would love for my cats and kittens to be able to play with a ball of yarn. I wonder if we could add some spice to the game by having an occassional buff/pop up where doing laundry with laundry day stuff pack results in one of your hand knits being shrunk and felted and lost.... it happens in real life, right when you least expect it and its bloody gutting! realistic gameplay and all that lol.
Q2: If some “Crochet-Like” objects became craftable through Knitting, how would you personally feel? Happy? Enraged? Strong sense of ennui? We can’t guarantee unique animations for crocheting, but I’d like to still potentially provide them as a craftable object for players.
Im gonna rock the boat here. I am a knitter and a knitting snob and oh so particular in pointing out when someone links me to some gorgeous "knitting" that is actually crochet. For the purposes of this pack and satisfying game play i would actually be ok with making a compromise and having crocheted items labelled as knitted. When time and resources are limited i would rather the budget be spent on a greater range of gameplay options and craftable items than wasted on animating everything a second time to distinguish between knitted and crocheted items. If it was a game pack i might feel differently but this is only a stuff pack and time is money etc etc.
Q3: There’s a cool crafty desk floating around in concept art that you guys may have seen (49 - 52 in the object vote). What would knitting at one of these desks mean to you, if anything? Asking around the office, nobody knits at a desk, but I’m curious if anyone would find value if the new crafting desk tied in with knitting somehow.
A crafting desk would mean storage to me, a place to store my knitting patterns, my needles and notions and to some extent my stash. Nope no-one knits at a desk, but you might plan projects, look at patterns, organise your stash and even design knew knits at a desk. Mostly though my craft room covers multiple crafts and my craft table is well used and covered in crafty bits and bobs, is an essential part of my knitting space, but ultimately isnt part of the knitting process. So i think it would be more of a decorative object to me. HOWEVER, if you are including quite a few home decor items as craftables- table lamps, wall canvases etc, these require construction after the main knitting is complete. A jumper or garment needs to be blocked and sewn up. these are things that could be done at a crafting table. I have mentionned above the concept of a crafting sales table- i guess in part i would rather dev time was used to make a craft sales table with game play elements and left the crafting desk as a deco object without gameplay. However i could see the crafting desk being a good place to house a user interface for picking and designing new knitting projects. I wrote about this concept in another post which i will go find in a minute and link here as i think it would be a really cool way to manage crafting projects as a whole and realistic to real life too.
Q4: I’d like Knitting to actually take some time to craft, something Sims can save for later and come back to. In your experience, how long have some of your knitting projects taken? I’ll try not to make it feel too grindy, but definitely longer than it takes to paint in our game.
Im a knitter of socks as my main favourite thing to produce. you are looking at 20 hours knitting time on average to knit a pair of socks in 4ply (thin yarn). around 100 hours minimum to knit a bedspread in a chunky yarn. I really feel that this is one of the most essential things to get right in this pack- that knitting garments should not be fast, that they should take x number of knitting sessions/blocks to complete a project over time. not sit down to knit in the morning and you have a jumper ready by tea time. it needs to vary with garment size, complexity, and thickness of yarn. I have said before that i would be happy to work with the team to give realistic time spans for different knitted objects- you really want knitting to be a skill that unlocks different level projects over time, so that fast simple knits in chunky yarns using basic techniques are available at the beginning and then as skill improves new patterns are unlocked (perhaps through purchasing and/or reading pattern books) so that more complex patterns are achieveable over time. For example- level one knitters can knit a simple single coloured scarf. level 2 a hat with block colour striping. level 3 a plain knit jumper. level 4 a cushion with cable detail. level 5 an advanced jumper with 6 colour fairisle patterning. For me it would totally spoil the pack if i can cast on a fairisle jumper at level one and produce something of quality. i want my initial knits to be poor quality and then as my skill and experience increases so does my quality and complexity of my work. Level 10 should be matching novelty fair isle jumpers for all the family.
Q5: If your Sim wanted to knit something, but they couldn't find a place to sit, would you be okay with them standing up and knitting? Asking for a friend...
Totally acceptable, as others have pointed out there is a history to knitting on foot. However if there is a way to set a preference to seated knitting where possible i would include that.
Q6: Along with the Mentor interaction, I’d like to include a proper “Teach to Knit” interaction. I’d love to have that moment where the Knitting Master granny teaches their grandchild how to knit. For those of you who experienced similar things, what was that experience like for you? I’m curious what people think this should look like - both animation and story wise.
Hmmm interesting concept. I like the idea of master knitter teaches to knit, but it doesnt have to be a granny. i think from halfway onwards in the skill progression you should be able to teach another sim to knit. For sims that dont know how to knit perhaps they can learn from simtube or a book or even go to a knitting class on the university campus, but one to one tutorials should defintiely come with a bonus on speed of learning. one to one knitting tutorial is always more effective than other methods. I think there should be a chance in the early stages of a sim getting frustrated and falling out with their mentor, throwing their needles down in defeat- akin to city living and sims needing to perservere with eating spicey foods and using chopsticks! But i wouldnt want it to completely hinder mentoring to the point of it becoming impossible. i just like the idea of my sim giving up during their first attempt and me having to set them back to the task to try again later after they have calmed down. similar could happen with sims attempting a pattern that is above their skill level.
Q7: I’d like to have some Etsy store-like gameplay, as well as donation gameplay with Knitting. For those of you who may have gone down those paths in real life, what were some interesting takeaways or stories you’d like to see represented?
Yes donating to charity is a big part of knitting so i think that would be a good feature. honestly, selling knitting on etsy is not at all profitable or easy and if you as any crafter they will tell you that it is really really difficult to make any kind of living from knitting. however i do still want to be able to make a living from selling crafted items in the game for the sake of rags to riches purposes, self sufficient sims living off the grid etc etc, but it shouldnt be a lucrative easy option. For me again id rather have a craftables sales table than selling items on etsy and i honestly think that certain items should be more profitable to sell than others, as is the way with the real world. certain patterns that are cute and catch people's attentions, are fast to knit and use cheaper materials are the way to make money, but you cant for example, sell knitted 4ply socks for anywhere near a living wage/cost of materials. you have to be selling the right thing to the right people. Taking on comissions as a level 10 knitter who is highly skilled and willing to spend an extended amount of time knitting a fair isle jumper or an hierloom family blanket, an intricate baby shawl etc- people will pay hundreds for items like that which have been crafted by highly skilled knitters, but will only pay a few pounds for a simple knitted hat that is cheap and fast to produce, but essentially much cheaper to buy a mass produced machine made version in shops. reflecting this often misunderstood aspect of crafting in the pack would be absolutely brilliant and would bring a whole new dimension to the pack. can your sim find the right combinations to make knitting pay and launch their career as a high end knitwear designer and social media star, or are you doomed to an eternity of unwanted mishapen itchy teacosy hats from grandma for winterfest each year?
Q8: Lets say a Sim is wearing an awful, itchy sweater that they’re wearing only because somebody gifted it for them. What kind of things would you like to see happen to them?
i would like to see some discomfort buffs, some wardrobe malfunctions where low quality knits disintegrate, a sense of obligation to wear said item being communicated through the game. but in the same breath sims who are wearing a decent quality knit that has been gifted to them by a friend or loved one should be happy and getting positive buffs from knowing that they are wearing a woolly hug and are wrapped up in love.
Q9: I need your best Knitting puns. Feed them to me.
i like big balls and a i cannot lie. totes amazeballs. winter is coming, knit faster. i knit so i dont stab people with pointy things. oh the knitty puns are endless, i will try and find some stuff to link you to. lots of woolly and ewe related jokes usually. ewenique etc etc
Q10: This is my biggest question, so I saved it for last. Should the “Teach to Knit” interaction mentioned above be autonomous? While this might sound trivial, I feel this is very important for gameplay. I’m interested how people would feel about their level 10 knitter trying to spread their knitting knowledge on others. Let's say you have someone in your family who is a level 10 knitter, if this interaction is autonomous the entire house is going to get a real deep dive into knitting, perhaps constantly.
What are your thoughts on potentially “story intrusive” interactions like this, would you be okay to find your family one day all high-level knitters through natural autonomy? Or should this only be user-directed, meaning on you have the ability to choose who gets schooled on knitting. I’d love to hear your thoughts about these sorts of things.
Im going to land on the side of NO. i think knitting is best kept self contained and only shared by sims in appropriate situations. i think it could become really annoying if every bloody sim in the world takes up knitting like happened with every single townie in the game turning up in the magic realm. I think its best if you leave it for players to decide who gets to knit in game. there is nothing to stop us using cheats or MCCC to add the knitting skill to other sims if we want them to be knitters for storytelling purposes.
thanks again for coming to us with these questions. its really lovely to meet a member of staff who is clearly passionate about getting the game mechanics right for this pack. whilst i LOVE knitting and want desperately for this pack to represent the world of knitting as i know it, as a 30 something who has worked in a knitting shop so knows both the traditional granny end of the market as well as the contemporary young knitting movements, i have been really worried that the pack could be a complete let down or dissapointment because of lack of research and effort on the pack development side. the kind of questions you are asking excites me and makes me hope that the game play elements may well be more developed than i feared. thank you!!!
If you have any technical questions at all i would be more than happy to help the team with information :)
Anna
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