Open Neighborhood Rather than Open World

When I send my sims to the park in The Sims 4, there are a lots of sims. If I send my sims to the park in The Sims 3, I find about 2-4 sims there.
One thing I also hated about The Sims 3 was that even though the free will was turned on, sims at home were lousy at taking care of themselves. So when I send someone out while a vampire stays home, then at one moment camera goes back home to show that the vampire has died by thirst. It was very hard to play The Sims 3 rotationally and in some cases if I did, The Sims 3 lagged more than The Sims 4, giving my sims the title "The Stone Statue of the Year". What was more annoying was the crying baby and these sims just stand around doing nothing despite of telling them to cook and take care of the baby.
Oh, and the fact that it is a open world didn't mean that I can see what does neighbors do. Even though I built a backyard, I never see them there unless my sim visits them. When my sims visits others, the first thing I see is that they are standing inside near the front door doing nothing. In The Sims 4, I had my sim visit their neighbors, who tried to cook some food but caused some fire. All of them ran outside. If The Sims 4 would have open neighborhood, then I would hear and see the neighbors die. All the time I spent creating them would have gone to waste. Don't think there would be gravestones then...

"EgonVM;c-16021957" wrote:
When I send my sims to the park in The Sims 4, there are a lots of sims. If I send my sims to the park in The Sims 3, I find about 2-4 sims there.
One thing I also hated about The Sims 3 was that even though the free will was turned on, sims at home were lousy at taking care of themselves. So when I send someone out while a vampire stays home, then at one moment camera goes back home to show that the vampire has died by thirst. It was very hard to play The Sims 3 rotationally and in some cases if I did, The Sims 3 lagged more than The Sims 4, giving my sims the title "The Stone Statue of the Year". What was more annoying was the crying baby and these sims just stand around doing nothing despite of telling them to cook and take care of the baby.
Oh, and the fact that it is a open world didn't mean that I can see what does neighbors do. Even though I built a backyard, I never see them there unless my sim visits them. When my sims visits others, the first thing I see is that they are standing inside near the front door doing nothing. In The Sims 4, I had my sim visit their neighbors, who tried to cook some food but caused some fire. All of them ran outside. If The Sims 4 would have open neighborhood, then I would hear and see the neighbors die. All the time I spent creating them would have gone to waste. Don't think there would be gravestones then...

Putting preferences aside, I truely hate it when people spread total rubbish about a game I probably know better than a lot of people here. So here I go again: when you've got free will enabled, nobody at home will die of hunger or thirst. Even when they catch fire they won't necessarily die because the camera will immediately swoosh to the victim (or any fire for that matter), allowing you to do something about it. In fact it's Sims 4's system where sims at home do nothing at all (no homework, no eating, no going to bed, no nothing).

(the rest of your complaints clearly attest to a computer processor that could have been better; I can see how that would be annoying)

I don't like open world. I like to leave Sims and go play a different Sim, and not 'worry' about them, true TS3 Sims take care of themselves and if you told them to skill etc. they are still doing that when you get back (sometimes) but sometimes I get sick of the whole bunch and just want to go off with one, and explore their life, one at a time without the other running back home etc.

What I do like is open neighborhood, in smaller sections, but then the neighbors would probably never be home, lol, I doubt it would work the way I wanted it to work so all the games have their pros and cons and why modders improve them one way or the other.

"Cinebar;c-16021999" wrote:
I don't like open world. I like to leave Sims and go play a different Sim, and not 'worry' about them, true TS3 Sims take care of themselves and if you told them to skill etc. they are still doing that when you get back (sometimes) but sometimes I get sick of the whole bunch and just want to go off with one, and explore their life, one at a time without the other running back home etc.

What I do like is open neighborhood, in smaller sections, but then the neighbors would probably never be home, lol, I doubt it would work the way I wanted it to work so all the games have their pros and cons and why modders improve them one way or the other.

Then stop worrying about them, they really don't need you. Focus on that one sim and leave the rest. Sims 3's open world may have its flaws but that aspect they took care of properly.

"JoAnne65;c-16022015" wrote:

"Cinebar;c-16021999" wrote:
I don't like open world. I like to leave Sims and go play a different Sim, and not 'worry' about them, true TS3 Sims take care of themselves and if you told them to skill etc. they are still doing that when you get back (sometimes) but sometimes I get sick of the whole bunch and just want to go off with one, and explore their life, one at a time without the other running back home etc.

What I do like is open neighborhood, in smaller sections, but then the neighbors would probably never be home, lol, I doubt it would work the way I wanted it to work so all the games have their pros and cons and why modders improve them one way or the other.

Then stop worrying about them, they really don't need you. Focus on that one sim and leave the rest. Sims 3's open world may have its flaws but that aspect they took care of properly.

I'm a micromanager, I can't help it. If I see a red icon I have to check it out. I had Sims run back home (their motives were just fine) when I took several to places to enjoy. I have little patience with Sims, I have killed them for a lot less. ;) It's just a personal choice. Open world and Story Progression were a huge turn off to me, after about six months, when TS3 was first released. We didn't have any toggles back then to turn it off etc. It did get better over the years, and I don't like completely closed world anymore, but I play four to eight Sims for years in these games so sometimes I need some of them out of my hair...away. They all have their pluses and minuses though, I like them all for different reasons.

I'm a terrible sim God, I leave households in the sims 3 and go out wandering with one or two sims. I never check on them. As long as their portraits are green I figure they are fine. If a fire broke out I would get a notification.

That's the one thing I do like about 3. I find it harder to do that with 4 when I can see the sims at home need bars are tanked. Sometimes they fix them themselves but always when I get back to the hole lot, if it's late at night every sim, elder, adult, child or toddler or teen will be out of bed. So you have to do the whole putting them to bed routine.

What would be hilariously annoying if TS4 had complete open world. Think about these monkies, they are like herding cats, in an open world, omg, I would have to kill more than half of them..musical chairs all over an open world..running from one end to the other. And still no 'run here' option. :D

"@JoAnne65;c-16020001" wrote:

"cactusjuice;c-16019689" wrote:
I agree with Joanne65 open world all the way for 5- no loading screens, no rabbit holes, no disappearing into the void. A proper Sims game.

I don't mind rabbitholes as such actually :mrgreen: I do mind them when they are used out of 'laziness', standing in the way of potential awesome gameplay (prom, restaurant, shop and ridingschool come to mind). So I'd love a Skyrim kind of system. Open world galore, but for certain lots - visible from the outside though - a loading screen (the purely functional lots like city hall, school and some of the careers can stay rabbithole afaic).

A lot of those are actually because Open World limits how lots vary. When they explained the Rugs for the Savvy Seller Collection, they explained because the lots don't load separately, all lots are coded the same. So they had to use rugs which served as coding for the objects above to be have differently. I imagine it literally wouldn't be possible for them to have packs like Get To Work, Dine Out etc. that change the way the game plays.

Because you couldn't seamlessly switch from running a Restaurant to not and then back again. The game would have to change modes which would need to change how the whole game performs, which I'm guessing would require a loading screen.

I think Rabbit Holes weren't really laziness, but more a case of EA running into limitations of how these lots would work, because they can't code the lot any differently, all gameplay was based on object coding and attraction.

"Cinebar;c-16022046" wrote:
What would be hilariously annoying if TS4 had complete open world. Think about these monkies, they are like herding cats, in an open world, omg, I would have to kill more than half of them..musical chairs all over an open world..running from one end to the other. And still no 'run here' option. :D

Sims washing dishes in their neighbours house!

I don't understand the hate for backdrops. Every good game should have them.

Open World games have them too (Skyrim & GTA V both have them).
It's embarrassing and poor design when a world suddenly comes to a halt because the no one bothered to make backdrops. Your world literally stops as soon as you reach the playable area border.

The Sims 3 would have looked a lot better had their been backdrops surrounding the explorable area. The size difference wouldn't have changed. All they had to do was make the worlds bigger but keep the routable area the same.

It's grating to see a City like Bridgeport literally be an island the size of a small town. Had there been a city that continued around Bridgeport it would have looked a lot better.


The Sims 3 on Xbox/PS have backdrops in it's worlds alongside the normal world and it looks great. Not just distant terrain, but houses, objects, decorative pieces. Not just endless Ocean.

It was nice to play a Sims 3 world that wasn't a town on a random island.