Looking Forward To the End Of TS4
Let's look at a few reasons why. Unlike TS2 or TS3, TS4 has been built on such a small scale, with limited gameplay, I will be happy the day it has ended and TS5 possibly revealed. Or maybe I won't...
Forum Discussion
I hope whoever is in charge of The Sims franchise learns from the past failures when they develop TS5.
TS3 may have been too ambitious for what the game engine was capable of. But it feels like we’ve taken 10 steps backwards here with TS4. This is the only game in the series in which I have been repeatedly disappointed. For a while I gave up on it completely. If Seasons hadn’t come back, I would not be playing.
Before Island Living, I was more understanding about how things had gone in this series. I saw the POTENTIAL more than the omissions. I thought Strangerville was taking it in a different direction that was less sandboxy, but I wasn’t mad about it, I figured it would be known if that’s not what most Sims players are after, and they’d learn from that. The fact that it’s a choice to follow the story makes it reasonable, I thought.
But when I had played a few days of Island Living, I felt like the Sims team doesn’t know me at all. It’s mostly just eye candy. Is that all they think I care about? We used to get so many new social interactions with each expansion pack, I didn’t wonder if it was enough. That’s why small packs were called “stuff” packs - they didn’t have any new gameplay in them, just stuff. Now we have expansion packs, game packs and stuff packs, and some of the game packs have more to do than the expansions, and some stuff packs like Movie Hangout Stuff has a lot of social stuff mixed in with the stuff, so I don’t know what’s what anymore. We get some worlds for free, but that’s the main feature of Island Living, the world. It’s inconsistent and in the end, I want more gameplay so I will take what I can get, but as a rule now it will be when it’s on sale, because I have learned better. I’m glad I got a lot of TS4 packs on sale.
I look forward to TS5 only if they learn from the past, start the game off with a great foundation with room to grow, and improve the AI which is always too predictable.
If someone swoops in with a competing game, I will 100% buy it, on principle. That could be incredible to see what happens from there.
TS3 may have been too ambitious for what the game engine was capable of. But it feels like we’ve taken 10 steps backwards here with TS4. This is the only game in the series in which I have been repeatedly disappointed. For a while I gave up on it completely. If Seasons hadn’t come back, I would not be playing.
Before Island Living, I was more understanding about how things had gone in this series. I saw the POTENTIAL more than the omissions. I thought Strangerville was taking it in a different direction that was less sandboxy, but I wasn’t mad about it, I figured it would be known if that’s not what most Sims players are after, and they’d learn from that. The fact that it’s a choice to follow the story makes it reasonable, I thought.
But when I had played a few days of Island Living, I felt like the Sims team doesn’t know me at all. It’s mostly just eye candy. Is that all they think I care about? We used to get so many new social interactions with each expansion pack, I didn’t wonder if it was enough. That’s why small packs were called “stuff” packs - they didn’t have any new gameplay in them, just stuff. Now we have expansion packs, game packs and stuff packs, and some of the game packs have more to do than the expansions, and some stuff packs like Movie Hangout Stuff has a lot of social stuff mixed in with the stuff, so I don’t know what’s what anymore. We get some worlds for free, but that’s the main feature of Island Living, the world. It’s inconsistent and in the end, I want more gameplay so I will take what I can get, but as a rule now it will be when it’s on sale, because I have learned better. I’m glad I got a lot of TS4 packs on sale.
I look forward to TS5 only if they learn from the past, start the game off with a great foundation with room to grow, and improve the AI which is always too predictable.
If someone swoops in with a competing game, I will 100% buy it, on principle. That could be incredible to see what happens from there.
