This is something I've noticed and it's been bothering me a lot recently. In one of the neighborhoods in Windenburg there's a total of 8 lots in that one neighborhood, that's double the amount that's in pretty much every other neighborhood. (Usually they have 4 or 5) https://tokutaiwan.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/windenburg_part1.jpg?w=768(not my screenshot, but this is the neighborhood)The game runs perfectly fine in this neighborhood with 8 lots even on my low end PC so why don't they make bigger neighborhoods in general? We know it works fine within the games framework and all of the neighborhoods are seperate instances so there's no reason why they can't put this many lots in other neighborhoods. It would be completely viable for them to put 8 lots in each neighborhood, stretch the playable area a bit, add a few rabbit holes and a fake park and it would heavily improve the playability of the game and make it feel less closed off. It would work fine within the game as we've seen through the Windenburg neighborhood which plays fine with 8 lots and other neighborhoods which have a large playable area work fine. So why don't they? It would make a huge difference if they did this in all of the worlds rather than sticking to 4 lots.

I completely agree. I also prefer neighbourhoods with more lots. I hope future packs will have neighbourhoods with a decent amount of playable lots.

LOL @Onverser , if you think these lots are small, you are right, every other sims game had double the size, sometimes triple the size. There were major loading issues back on 2, but they smoothed that out with 3 and still gave some big neighborhoods. I love the fast loading time with 3 and 4, but yeah the neighborhoods always felt really small if you've been playing sims since the original. Like I wouldn't expect all lots to be filled, that's what making your own or browsing other people's stuff is for, but I use the 'gallery' a little less due to there not being enough map room quite honestly, even though there's lots of expansions but really not as much on the map if you compare it to older games (so it's like there isn't as much incentive to fill in empty spot because usually if you find 2 or 3 empties per map you are doing good to find even that). My favorite is probably 3 because it hammered out what 2 had problems with (even though the content for 2 was great but those loading times were terrible), but now we get back to issues like the world feels a bit smaller even though we've accomplished faster loading times. It's hard to find a good medium. Realistically, we probably won't see much improvement there, since we are several expansions in. The neighborhoods did not feel quite as full as some of the previous games, even though letting characters go cross worlds was a big step in the right direction.

@Ligea The loading for the Sims 2 was sometimes long but a lot of times it depended on your rig. Yeah we need less fake lots in the neighborhoods.

@SimmerGeorge I never found that to be largely true of 2, think I had it on at least 2 machines and I remember saying well I'm loading a downtown lot, better make me a sandwich. LOL, I laugh about it now but it was a little frustrating back then. The graphics were so good, but if lots had too many items on it you were just over-taxing it.lol. I admit I still (item hoard, I don't like my sims getting bored lol) or is it just me lol. Fake lots, any lots in particular you feel are that way? You didn't name one so I wasn't sure which ones you meant.

Make Neighborhoods Bigger! | EA Forums

karon_shiruba
5 years ago
I agree with you, and I know it IS possible for them to expand existing worlds. Here's the proof: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17503943#Comment_17503943

I guess we only need to make too much noise for them to hear us. Anyway, they say that the worlds are smaller cuz it would lag our games, so why don't they give us an add/remove feature so that we can manage how many worlds we have in each save, which worlds we have in each save, have multiple copies of the same worlds, etc... Maybe they could even add a way to share our modified world to the gallery (kinda like a custom save file). It would work exactly like the Recommended Sim Count, that warns us when we have TOO many sims and the issues it could cause.
My laptop is low end as well, and I've never had any problems with worlds because of their size. My only problem was in Brindleton Bay, in the biggest lot, and probably cuz they did something worng in the coding, cuz all the other big lots run perfectly smooth to me.
shorty943p
New Traveler
5 years ago
I'd rather see a Create a World like we had in a previous incarnation of the series.
I do think however the game engine lacks the strength to work with anything else.
Sthenastia
New Spectator
5 years ago
I think that neighborhoods can be bigger and open. Sometimes in areas you have parks and if you are playing on lot next to them you have all textures loaded but your sims can not visit this parks without loading screens.
Onverser
5 years ago
"Sthenastia;c-17574319" wrote:
I think that neighborhoods can be bigger and open. Sometimes in areas you have parks and if you are playing on lot next to them you have all textures loaded but your sims can not visit this parks without loading screens.

Yeah that always really bothers me, you can see every single item in the park, they're all rendered out and loaded but you can't access any of them! :s
Sthenastia
New Spectator
5 years ago
This is the best one

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/8/87/Ward_Park.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20191031083806

Honestly Del Sol Valley has all of the worst things of The Sims 4 worlds:

1. Small world
2. Only 12 lots
3. Lots in Mirage park are too big
4. Too many fake houses
5. Mirage park starter lot is too expensive and has 3 driveways
6. Community lots are to small
7. I can not feel celebrity touch in city center
8. Premade lots are so ugly, bugged and has no toilets
9. Tiny park in city center has loading screen but you can see all items from any another lot.
10. And finally there is still not any update to that
squirreltail15
5 years ago
I don't know, really. I love bigger areas, but too many lots crammed into one neighbourhood could kinda restrict the diversity of the world. But yes, overall I'd say I want this.
Sthenastia
New Spectator
5 years ago
I've found a good example that make worlds bigger is possible. Do you remember what maxis did when they realised The Sims Unleashed? They expanded existing world (in 2002). It means that in 2020 it is possible too especially that in The Sims 4 we also have no possibility to add our own lots in the world.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/d/d8/Neighborhood_1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100121081730

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/6/67/Old_Town.png/revision/latest?cb=20140721071053
Keats_san
5 years ago
"Chazzzy;c-17579018" wrote:
Bigger neighborhoods don’t matter to me if our Sims can’t ride through the neighborhood and visit residences or places without a loading screen. The only difference would be aesthetic and that is not reason enough for me. I’m perfectly fine with them continuing to add more neighborhoods.

I agree, I used to think we needed bigger neighborhoods, but aside from vampires and witches, it would take most sims too long to get around.
I would be really happy if they made neighborhoods open. If they think its too hard on potato computers, then dont add the feature to legacy version of Sims 4?

I could be wrong but I think among gamers 16gb+ of ram and like 4-6+ core processors is common, when they say it would be too much to run, as an excuse for anything, I just roll my eyes and remember how under par the whole Sims 4 experience has been.

People said dont compare 4 to previous games until it gets more content, well its been out longer than Sims 3 by the time ITF came out and still has half the content of 3 or 2.
Lonewolf1044
Seasoned Spectator
5 years ago
The only turn off in Sims 2 was the loading scene every where you went and they were not too short neither even on systems I owned back in the day. Sims 3 has only one loading screen and the time varied but I was patient as I hardly encountered any further loading screens but now in Sims 4 back to the future loaded with loading screens and that can break the immersion.
JanChristi
5 years ago
I think they try to prolong games lifecycle. If it works with one big neighbourhood it doesn't mean it will work with multiple -- they are not really separate instances they belong to the one save file. Plus keeping players constantly in lack of something seems to be their marketing strategy this time around :#
I agree with previous comment -- I'd rather have CaW than any more neighbourhoods from them. Sadly, it won't happen.