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4 years ago
"TS1299;c-17948631" wrote:Spoiler"Schantal;c-17948477" wrote:"Icewolf;c-17947279" wrote:
I used to love watching his Sims reviews. His old videos seemed more balanced back then and he had both postive and negative feedback that felt valid. Now his videos are just kind of obnoxious to me. I don't understand why he keeps doing them since he hates The Sims 4 that much. He used to be so fun and interesting and now it's just "Uuugh another Sims 4 pack. Why do they keep making packs for The Sims 4." and so on.
Why does he keep doing this to himself? His videos only seem to entertain everyone who hates The Sims 4. There were so many things in Cottage Living he didn't seem to mention and go in depth with.
I haven't watched it yet, BUT I own cottage living and I have to say, its 100% a Gamepack, which most people agree with. It also broke so many things and there were some beyond lazy decisions....like why are the overgrown crops not coded with the ability to graft and cut? If you notice they don't even have an Evolve feature. You also can only use fertilizer that came with this pack on them and they didn't code that fertilizer to be used with any old plants....it was supposed to be a major "feature" and its shallow as with most of the stuff in sims 4. Also, not being able to spread the jam on bread or any baked goods....really....another "major" feature....pretty much useless. Picnic baskets you cant sit on the ground with....just lazy coding and decisions.... None of that matters though because gardening is still broken for many people with crops resetting, dying, not blooming, etc.....
Also, look at nifty knitting, the paranormal stuff packs, etc....those are STUFF packs for 10 bucks and the paranormal one came with a freaking career, build/buy, cas, this awesome lot type, seances, etc etc.... so many things....for 10 bucks. Same with nifty knitting. Then you have gamepacks like Jungle Adventures, which came with a giant world, tombs, tons of skills, a new dance, one of the largest if not the largest build/buy of any gamepack, cas items, and so much more....all for 20 dollars. The sims 4 content just isn't balanced. Some packs seem packed with things and others....not so much. Im enjoying the pack for what it is, BUT thats because I have other packs to compliment it.....on its own, this pack def shouldn't be $40.....also, there are so many bugs that make many of the features downright frustrating to play with such as chickens, cow, llama, etc.....
The thing is the problem when measuring what type a pack is for the developers a ferature is depends on how difficult the features are to implement since they change the game/engine that they need engineers for it. Many of Gameplay engineers of TS4 work on EP, that is why we have weather simulation, pets, and even open water swimming.
For example Island Living. That expansion pack has no new gameplay systems at all. Gameplay objects? a lot of but system like clubs, holidays, retail, veterinary or apartments? Nope. The only reason that pack was an expansion pack to begin with was because the game engine did not support open waters/oceans as SimGuruDaniel mention it. (the engine part not the pack part). In order to achieve that a gamepack budget would not fit them since it develops shorter and the investment in return is not that big. So instead they went to EP, changed the engine foundation to support ocean swimming and then added features around it. That is why it was an expansion pack. Oh and It wasn't ocean swimming that they need the engine to do for that expansion pack. The lots on the beach have different terrain meaning they have to implement a terrain tool to make it possible for lots to be on different heights. With the toddlers blog they confirmed that they have pulled devs from different teams (EP, GP etc.) in order to make toddlers possible. I would not be surprised if it was done too during the development of Island Living for the Terrain Tools.
Now we have cottage living. The reason why it was an EP is not because of the strong feature it has... but rather by the difficulty to implement it on the technical side. Cats and Dogs is already a challenge for them. How about Rabbits, Chickens, Cows and Llamas in one pack then? creating model alone and making sure that they won''t play sim animations and stay on animals are difficult already. Not to mention The Sims 4 never reuse animations from previous games. It was one of the reason why Horses in TS3 is possible as animations for cats and dogs are simply carried over since they use the same engine. In TS4 for those animals, from walking, to sitting, to breathing everything needed to be animated along with sims interacting them. What did technical problem they needed it to be an EP to make it work. That is probably why the cows and llama are locked into their cage, they probably didn't implement a running animation. Not being tied into objects means aside from animating, and modeling these two big animals, they also need to have a set of behaviors autonomously like cats and dogs. If that happens just like cats and dogs, they will need emotions, personalities and etc. since they are major animals and not minor pets...doing that would mean to cut the rest of the animals from the pack, even the festivals. That reminds me that is probably why we don't have any festivals in the Brindleton Bay.
So In short, the reason why an EP is an EP is not just by the amount of content but primarily because of how difficult the feature to implement is. The lesser the difficulty in technical side a major feature is, the bigger gameplay we receive. Get To work only needed retail and active careers, mostly it was just travel to lot and change UI. That is why that pack is huge. This is also why there are inconsistencies in the amount of content than an EP have.
I'm sorry for spoiler tagging most of your post, as it's interesting and should be read, but I wanted to address your summation. Most of these issues, from a player point of view, fall under "not the consumer's problem." The developers made the choice of which engine to use. This was not dictated by EA -- it was Maxis' choice. EA has insisted other devs use Frostbite, whether it's a good fit for the studio or not. A choice made because they thought they were going to make a different type of game until SimCity2013 tanked, but one they continued to soldier on with. They knew the limitations of it. That it's now being used as a reason for providing less content (the old, "too difficult, too expensive" reason they used to trot out, but with more words) is insulting.
Let me be clear -- I have no doubt that implementing features on a sub-par engine where they can't reuse animations from past games is probably quite cost and labor intensive. But they're not losing money. They wouldn't be losing money with more content in the packs. They'd still be raking in millions, if not billions, on the Sims 4. And that's the real crux of the matter -- they can spend a bit more, have better content, or they can not bother, and provide less than they did in previous iterations, and either way, they keep earning $$ because they have no competition in this genre.
Sims 2 and Sims 3 are both broken games. Games that, oddly enough, don't have to be broken. With Sims 3, as serious, game-breaking bugs started showing up, modders fixed them. EA/Maxis were aware of the bugs and the fixes. In fact, customer support would direct people to these websites. When worlds came out in Sims 3 that were completely broken, a modder took it on to fix them all in her free time. And within the past few weeks, the last game-breaking bug, which is more of a design decision, has been fixed.
My point in bringing that up is it is obvious that Maxis/EA are not choosing customer good will and providing stable content. They try to provide as little as possible from actual content to QA. Sims 2 players absolutely hated the corners that Sims 3 cut, but at least Sims 3 brought something new to the table. Sims 4 really does not. If it were a $60 game with a $30 season pass, I'd understand. But when you charge almost as much for an expansion pack as you do for a game, you should be providing a game's worth of content given that you have a lot less cost associated with making an EP than you do a full game.
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